| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Pathfinder is not a catch-all for fantasy settings. From a game balance perspective, it's built around a certain assumption of power via magic. Changing the relative power of magic has downstream impacts on many other system elements. Additionally, in other fantasy settings, it's frequently the case that magic isn't weaker, but rather that it's more rare.
That's pretty much it.
| 14 people marked this as a favorite. |
Pathfinder is not a catch-all for fantasy settings. From a game balance perspective, it's built around a certain assumption of power via magic. Changing the relative power of magic has downstream impacts on many other system elements. Additionally, in other fantasy settings, it's frequently the case that magic isn't weaker, but rather that it's more rare.
I just want to take this and run with it a little further, because it's one of the big issues with fantasy game design generally.
When you're writing a fantasy novel (or film), it's usually about an ordinary, relatively mundane person who accomplishes great deeds. Think, of course, of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, but also about Luke Skywalker. The wizard is usually either the wise advisor who disappears about halfway through the book (before they enter Mirkwood, dying in Moria, or getting cut down by Vader on the Death Star) or is an active villain who must be defeated.
This trope, by the way, goes WAY back. Think of Merlin, who got trapped in his crystal cave by a ticked-off girlfriend, leaving Arthur in the lurch,... and of course of Morgan Le Fa, the enchantress. But the actual heroes were Arthur, Lancelot, Galahad, and a whole bunch of "regular guys" who just happened to like wearing metal jumpsuits.
By contrast, when you design a fantasy game, most people want to be able to play a wizard and want to be able to do all the awesome things that wizards do in fantasy. Even in your example, you admit that the magic is generally extremely powerful. It's just mostly plot-unimportant because the writer wants to focus elsewhere.
This is a problem. If you have
* PCs that have access to magic
* that is powerful enough to be impressive
* and capable of solving plot-relevant problems
... the PCs will use it to solve problems. No player wants to be told "oh, you're a wizard, so you will be relegated to background scenery for 80% of the story," but at the same time, if all you can do as a wizard is card tricks, what's the point?
So it's a design problem to which, in my opinion, few satisfactory solutions exist.
Original D&D dealt with that issue by making magic difficult to cast, but the result wasn't satisfactory at the table. They also dealt with that issue by giving all classes except wizards the capacity for leadership, so Sir Loin of Beef could solve problems by throwing henchmen at them. Neither solution really worked.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Because getting punished for doing well sucks?
^This.
I would not play at a table with such restrictions and I assume many others share the feeling
But the actual heroes were Arthur, Lancelot, Galahad, and a whole bunch of "regular guys" who just happened to like wearing metal jumpsuits.
Arthur, Lancelot, & Galahad were by no means "regular guys". Sometime they could heal with their hands, and they had some other supernatural abilities.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
... really, that's it.
The exact details of how the limiting occurs is irrelevant for the question. The question is one of why there is such an immediate reaction to limiting spellcasters in the first place.
So... wassupwitdat?
What exactly do you want to limit? And where is the resistance? ???
There's a whole game "Iron heroes" which is D20, and has very little magic- we enjoyed it a lot.
Try it. Yes, the heroes are bit more..'more" (their rogue gets 10 skill points, for example) but it's a lot of fun, and does what I THINK you want.
We have also had luck by limiting spellcasters as follows:
1. No full spellcasters (but you need some extra healing)
or
2. Everyone starts with a level of a NPC class (not Adept).
Or
Non spellcasters: 30 pts
4 level spellcasters:25 pts
Limited spellcasters (bard): 20
Full: 15.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Non spellcasters: 30 pts
4 level spellcasters:25 pts
Limited spellcasters (bard): 20
Full: 15.
This is point buy I'm assuming? This cracks me up. Take a level of Monk lv1 and have awesome stats then go into wizard and be a wizard with awesome stats.
Building towards Dragon Disciple? Take a dip into a barb which is pretty great for the build anyways, and make off with double the point buy, had you done sorcerer first, and then dipped, crappy stats for you.| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Because what you have OP is an opinion and a desire to play the game is a certain way, that is all.
Many, including myself, quite like how spellcasters work and have no issues at all with how paizo made wizards and such.
It is fine to want a change, but you clearly forgot your opinion on how RAW should be isnt the only one out there. The "resistance" comes from the simple fact the game wasnt made to directly serve you and how you think it should be or not.
If you want to 'limit' magic without making players feel like they are being punished, I would suggest using the Spheres of Power 3rd party magics ruleset. It keeps the power of magic from getting out of hand, but makes using it so much more intuitive and customizable that most players won't care.
Non spellcasters: 30 pts
4 level spellcasters:25 pts
Limited spellcasters (bard): 20
Full: 15.
This is point buy I'm assuming? This cracks me up. Take a level of Monk lv1 and have awesome stats then go into wizard and be a wizard with awesome stats.
Building towards Dragon Disciple? Take a dip into a barb which is pretty great for the build anyways, and make off with double the point buy, had you done sorcerer first, and then dipped, crappy stats for you.
This is similar to a point buy system from a Brilliantgameologist.com thread several years ago. Of course you could ONLY MULTI CLASS WITHIN YOUR TIER. It works really well if that is the sort of thing you are looking for. I ran a 3.5 game using this system from level 1-17 or 18.
Spellcasters are already horribly vulnerable as it is. For all those Fighter vs Wizard threads if the Fighter was next to the Wizard, other than the casting of a spell that provokes a full attack from a fighter with his no doubt sweet weapon he spent all his money on would kill a wizard in a single turn very likely depending on the luck of the rolls.
At a certain point, weakening the spellcasters even more would simply result in the wizard sitting in his tower and never leaving being an even more prevalent trope. They're already pretty much half the hitpoints of a fighter with will over reflex and fort saves, they're entire premise is prediction, preparation and countering- it's how they are so potent.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Raise the floor, don't lower the ceiling.
If you want a gritty realistic low-magic ruleset, don't play Pathfinder
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Non spellcasters: 30 pts
4 level spellcasters:25 pts
Limited spellcasters (bard): 20
Full: 15.
This is point buy I'm assuming? This cracks me up. Take a level of Monk lv1 and have awesome stats then go into wizard and be a wizard with awesome stats.
Building towards Dragon Disciple? Take a dip into a barb which is pretty great for the build anyways, and make off with double the point buy, had you done sorcerer first, and then dipped, crappy stats for you.
Well, only if the DM, who set those numbers, allows such finagling- which he didnt.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Raise the floor, don't lower the ceiling.
If you want a gritty realistic low-magic ruleset, don't play Pathfinder
Nonsense. Iron Heroes was low-magic and it is basically compatible with Pathfinder.
The Advanced Gamemaster Guide by Green Ronin had some nice suggestions on how to change the magic level of your setting. Such as only allowing casters to put 1/2 of their levels into a casting class. So a 8th level character could be 4wizard/4fighter for example.
Raise the floor, don't lower the ceiling.
If you want a gritty realistic low-magic ruleset, don't play Pathfinder
Nonsense. Iron Heroes was low-magic and it is basically compatible with Pathfinder.
The Advanced Gamemaster Guide by Green Ronin had some nice suggestions on how to change the magic level of your setting. Such as only allowing casters to put 1/2 of their levels into a casting class. So a 8th level character could be 4wizard/4fighter for example.
Or, instead of putting in the effort to finagle the rules to do something they weren't designed to do, you could just play a different game more suitable to what you're trying to do.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Or, instead of putting in the effort to finagle the rules to do something they weren't designed to do, you could just play a different game more suitable to what you're trying to do.Raise the floor, don't lower the ceiling.
If you want a gritty realistic low-magic ruleset, don't play Pathfinder
Nonsense. Iron Heroes was low-magic and it is basically compatible with Pathfinder.
The Advanced Gamemaster Guide by Green Ronin had some nice suggestions on how to change the magic level of your setting. Such as only allowing casters to put 1/2 of their levels into a casting class. So a 8th level character could be 4wizard/4fighter for example.
You really never hack games? Why not? It is easy to do and can make the game much more fun for your group.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You really never hack games? Why not? It is easy to do and can make the game much more fun for your group.Or, instead of putting in the effort to finagle the rules to do something they weren't designed to do, you could just play a different game more suitable to what you're trying to do.Raise the floor, don't lower the ceiling.
If you want a gritty realistic low-magic ruleset, don't play Pathfinder
Nonsense. Iron Heroes was low-magic and it is basically compatible with Pathfinder.
The Advanced Gamemaster Guide by Green Ronin had some nice suggestions on how to change the magic level of your setting. Such as only allowing casters to put 1/2 of their levels into a casting class. So a 8th level character could be 4wizard/4fighter for example.
I have a 60 pg document that disassembles Pathfinder to play Dark Souls.
I'd still rather use a system other than Pathfinder, but because I play on Paizo it is immensely more difficult to find groups for games other than Pathfinder.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Or, instead of putting in the effort to finagle the rules to do something they weren't designed to do, you could just play a different game more suitable to what you're trying to do.Raise the floor, don't lower the ceiling.
If you want a gritty realistic low-magic ruleset, don't play Pathfinder
Nonsense. Iron Heroes was low-magic and it is basically compatible with Pathfinder.
a
Or play Iron Heroes , which is a set of rules designed for super low magic. No finagling needed.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Because the way the game system is designed most limits people come up with just makes the classes unfun to play.
Without doing a full re-write of the magic system (like Spheres of Power), most of peoples' "solutions" are just ways of soft-banning casters by making them so tedious to play or hamstrung that nobody would want to play them.
Or play Iron Heroes , which is a set of rules designed for super low magic. No finagling needed.Or, instead of putting in the effort to finagle the rules to do something they weren't designed to do, you could just play a different game more suitable to what you're trying to do.Raise the floor, don't lower the ceiling.
If you want a gritty realistic low-magic ruleset, don't play Pathfinder
Nonsense. Iron Heroes was low-magic and it is basically compatible with Pathfinder.
a
Indeed.
However, Iron Heroes is for the d20 system, not Pathfinder, so in order to make it PF compatible one would need to finagle.
OK,
Yes, there is huge disagreement on the issue.
If you are playing canned adventures, or going by Pathfinder's playstyle recommendations, such as encounter frequency and the like, casters have an advantage. Minor changes in playstyle can have huge changes in balance, in either direction.
Why come up with elaborate rules changes when adjusting encounter make-up and frequency can do the job better. Of course this will mean that the optimizer will have to have to change up their game, which will likely lead to as much or more resistance as the rules mods.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Limiting spellcasters: I've previously suggested raising casting times to one round per level, or one round per two levels. But nobody likes such a harsh limitation.
Maybe the best way to attack the problem is with the philosophy "with great power comes great responsibility". Sure, spellcasters have narrative power that is head and shoulders above what a simple swordswinger can accomplish. But that's why we expect so much more of them. A heavy burder rides on their shoulders.
OTOH, I outright reject the calls for "using a different game" to accomplish a lower magic setting. Nothing prevents you from playing Pathfinder in a "rare magic" mode, with few magic items, few magic spells and few spellcasters. It's not hard for the DM to adjust challenges to compensate for "rare magic", and things like rare healing or rare status penalty removal simply become additional hurdles and obstacles to be overcome. It might well feel like a different game, but it would still be Pathfinder.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Limiting spellcasters: I've previously suggested raising casting times to one round per level, or one round per two levels. But nobody likes such a harsh limitation.
Maybe the best way to attack the problem is with the philosophy "with great power comes great responsibility". Sure, spellcasters have narrative power that is head and shoulders above what a simple swordswinger can accomplish. But that's why we expect so much more of them. A heavy burder rides on their shoulders.
OTOH, I outright reject the calls for "using a different game" to accomplish a lower magic setting. Nothing prevents you from playing Pathfinder in a "rare magic" mode, with few magic items, few magic spells and few spellcasters. It's not hard for the DM to adjust challenges to compensate for "rare magic", and things like rare healing or rare status penalty removal simply become additional hurdles and obstacles to be overcome. It might well feel like a different game, but it would still be Pathfinder.
*sigh* It is a different game if you remove an entire type of class from the game, in this case full casters. And if that is not what you are doing, than all your "low magic" setting has done is punish martial classes and ensure that if your players have even a vague sense of optimization they will all be playing full casters. And of course if your npcs don't have magic items at the expected progression rate, a full casting party will curb stomp even encounters beyond 5 CR above them. If you try and change the underlying structure of the game, don't be surprised when it collapses.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Limiting spellcasters: I've previously suggested raising casting times to one round per level, or one round per two levels. But nobody likes such a harsh limitation.
One of the more common examples of what I was talking about earlier, here.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Are the Unchained limitations insufficient?
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/unchained/magic/spellAlterations.html
This is point buy I'm assuming? This cracks me up. Take a level of Monk lv1 and have awesome stats then go into wizard and be a wizard with awesome stats.Non spellcasters: 30 pts
4 level spellcasters:25 pts
Limited spellcasters (bard): 20
Full: 15.
Is the 30 point buy really going to be worth missing a level of casting?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
*sigh* It is a different game if you remove an entire type of class from the game, in this case full casters. And if that is not what you are doing, than all your "low magic" setting has done is punish martial classes and ensure that if your players have even a vague sense of optimization they will all be playing full casters.
Presumably, if you were to play a "low-magic" or "rare-magic" PF campaign, there would be some restriction on playing spellcasters. Sure, it would "play differently" if the PCs had little access to magic spells and items. Especially if the only real spellcasters were the horrible adversaries that the PCs had to face. But nothing prevents a DM from running such a campaign, and you can just as easily use Pathfinder to play such a campaign as you can use it to play the default high-magic campaign with all its assumptions bsed on the "big six" and WBL.
Oddly, my last two and a half years were spent DMing a PF campaign where none of the players were spellcasters (well, one was an alchemist, so a partial spellcaster) through no special effort on my part. The guys just all chose to be martials. It's been great fun. I can't really pretend that it's been a "low magic" setting, since they are big potion users and all have the usual panoply of magic arms and armor. But this campaign has certainly had a different "flavor" from other campaigns with PC spellcasters.
Folks who complain that "it wouldn't be Pathfinder" without the big six or without the default high magic setting just don't seem to understand how versatile our favorite RPG is.
<shrug>
Spellcasters, especially wizards, have little else going for them. I'm not really interesting in limiting spellcasters, especially at low levels.
I'd rather see the OP spells (and there are a lot of them) getting fixed instead.
I agree that's really what the problem is. Some spells are just way too good. Couple that with there being a spell for everything, and you've got a problem class.
What I'd really like to see is the power of the spells scaled back, and spells being more at-will. Spheres of Magic did this okay, but you can still take what's given to you and just run with it.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Other games do low magic or weak magic better. Rather than work really hard to make Pathfinder work like "TV Fantasy", if I wanted to run a game like that I would just choose a different system.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
... really, that's it.
I've been playing around with varying houserules to try to recreate what I see from the big major genres in "television" fantasy (LotR, CotT, GoT). The general idea I've seen is that those are all "low level" settings. I would argue that the characters are actually closer to midlevel - spellcasting is simply not as powerful and it is a low magic world. So it's not that the characters in Game of Thrones are level six or so (umm... Melisandre casts Raise Dead and Summon Monster VI, while Ja'qen seems to be at least 10th level if not 12th between Assassinate and Master Disguise), but that magic isn't quite as powerful.
The exact details of how the limiting occurs is irrelevant for the question. The question is one of why there is such an immediate reaction to limiting spellcasters in the first place.
So... wassupwitdat?
Because basically when these things are presented they are done in knee jerk fashion without consideration for all the other aspects of the game. And they're frequently answers to problems that are not perceived to exist to the extent that the poster posits. The classes are not designed to be arena balanced to each other. They are designed to shine in their respective roles.
Also keep in mind that the shows you're looking to emulate have events which are not dependent on die rolls, or character creation rules... they are scripted stories, whereas what you are playing is a wargame.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Because basically when these things are presented they are done in knee jerk fashion without consideration for all the other aspects of the game.... really, that's it.
I've been playing around with varying houserules to try to recreate what I see from the big major genres in "television" fantasy (LotR, CotT, GoT). The general idea I've seen is that those are all "low level" settings. I would argue that the characters are actually closer to midlevel - spellcasting is simply not as powerful and it is a low magic world. So it's not that the characters in Game of Thrones are level six or so (umm... Melisandre casts Raise Dead and Summon Monster VI, while Ja'qen seems to be at least 10th level if not 12th between Assassinate and Master Disguise), but that magic isn't quite as powerful.
The exact details of how the limiting occurs is irrelevant for the question. The question is one of why there is such an immediate reaction to limiting spellcasters in the first place.
So... wassupwitdat?
Pretty much this. Pathfinder has a whole lot of base assumptions baked into the system, and when you start messing with those things can quickly get messy and/or un-fun unless everyone involved knows exactly what they're doing.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Limiting spellcasters basically has three aspects, depending on the setting assumptions:
1) Limiting low-level access to magic.
2) Limiting high-level magical power.
3) Imposing additional consequences/costs to magic.
Taking them in turn:
1) In some settings, even learning to cast spells at all is much rarer and more difficult than in D&D/Pathfinder. You can't "start" as a spellcaster at level 1, period; you need to "unlock" the potential in some fashion after you're already an adult and have "honed" your abilities. This can be simulated by requiring all PCs/NPCs to start in a non-caster class (possibly even those, like paladin and ranger, that don't gain spells until later; possibly alchemists/investigators with extracts as well, depending on the setting) at 1st level. Depending on how difficult/rare it is, requiring more than one non-caster level or even requiring the Eldritch Heritage feat to "unlock" spellcasting are options. In a lot of respects, this is closer to many "classic" fantasy settings (Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, The Lord of the Rings, etc.) than most of the ways that are used to limit magic in D&D/Pathfinder.
2) This can be done in several ways (either singly or by using more than one): Banning all 9-level casters; banning magic item creation feats (usually combined with banning the "magic mart" of allowing PCs to customize their magic gear); running an E6, E8, E10, etc. version of D&D/Pathfinder; removing higher level spells from lists; etc. This is often done in an effort to "balance" non-casting classes with casting classes; other than E6/E8/E10/etc., it often makes spells even more advantageous because they become the only magical resource that the PCs can control. E6/E8/E10/etc. also is very close to many "classic" fantasy settings in that the PCs are not overwhelmingly powerful compared to "normal" people in the world even without magic; they can still be challenged by large groups of "regular" city guards (level 1-5 warriors), etc.
3) This is usually done by making spellcasting cost more than spell slots and possibly some readily replaced material components: Using the kineticist burn mechanic for casting spells (take burn equal to the level of the spell; with resting removing 1 burn per hour, reductions to the burn as the character levels, etc.); casters take non-lethal damage each time they cast a spell (either 1 hp per spell level or even 1d4 hp per spell level); casting spells causes corruption or taint; casters must make a Will save or Spellcraft check to cast a spell or risk a primal surge ("wild magic"); etc. This can be used for settings where magic is risky, not well understood, and/or "not meant for [mortals]."
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Magic in LotR is only explicitly something angels (effectively) do... except that there's no real distinction between "made really well" and "magic items", so it's entirely possible lots of people are "really good at something" but in game terms it'd be "magic".
Well, Elves do things that can only be magic in our gaming experience. Elrond, Glorfindel, Galadriel, all could do thing we have to call "magic" even if they didnt. In The Silmarillion, elvish magic is made more clear- Lúthien and Finrod clearly cast spells, identified as spells.
And there were human magic users. The Necromancer was thought to be one, until revealed as Sauron "a human sorcerer could not summon such evil". Apparently the Witch King of Angmar was one too, before he became a Ringwraith. Beren could shape change thru spells, and he was Human. The Mouth of Sauron was noted to have had practiced "sorcery" under Sauron himself.
There's also plenty of petty magic in ME, such as pair of magic diamond studs that the Old Took had that fastened themselves and never came undone until ordered. One of the trolls had a purse that yelled when being picked.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think one of the challenges is that we're translating a narrative medium into a game where the abilities of characters go from being vaguely defined and as useful as the narrative requires them to be to being defined in terms of utility and power and at the beck and call of the player rather than presented to the reader. That's an enormous leap to make cleanly and trade offs must occur. If we preserve the narrative power of magic, characters capable of using it have a lot of power to control the narrative, make shortcuts through or around problems, and so on. If we nerf it back too much in favor of balancing better with non-magical character, we lose a lot of magic's character.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Many houserule schemes to limit casters end up making full casters weaker but still viable, while effectively making 4 and 6 level casters nonviable. Since those are arguably the best balanced and most interesting classes in PF this is a poor outcome.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
If you design a game on the basis of "classes aren't intended to be balanced, the GM should balance things out through tailoring encounters to the group" then you shouldn't publish adventures with preset encounters - especially not if you're encouraging PFS-style "the GM can't change anything" organized play.
(But I'm pretty sure Pathfinder classes aren't intentionally unbalanced.)
(But I'm pretty sure Pathfinder classes aren't intentionally unbalanced.)
Didn't SKR say sorcerers were innately designed to be weaker than wizards because they wanted to accommodate the fact it takes more work to play a wizard?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
People are resistant to it because they like being effective magic users.
The point buy nerf doesn't fix the problem your suggesting it just makes 9th level casters basically irrelevant to the party in the early game but a 30pt barb will just smash through the game so lol who cares.
Then when you hit the mid levels the game is still broken, greater invisbilty, overland flight, teleport and paneshift don't care that you had to dump STR and CHA/INT
Most of the other ones makes the class unplayable like making casting a 3rd level spell take 3 rounds, good luck buffing the party at the start of the fight. Chances are the spell you picked 3 rounds ago is completely inappropriate now if you somehow managed to not get interrupted by a stray arrow in that time.
This idea that it should work like in fantasy where wizards very rarely cast a spell but when they do it matters doesn't translate well into pathfinder because it equates to, the wizard is allowed to cast in one out of three encounters and in the other ones what are they meant to do?
Just wave a sword around whilst the fighter makes you look dumb? If you want that game play a game that doesn't balance the entire of arcane caster classes around the assumption they are allowed to cast spells every encounter.