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There's another of those 'how do we make martials not suck' threads over on the Advice forum, and it got me thinking. I understand the theory and arguments for caster/martial disparity, but to be honest it's not really something that's reared its ugly head in any of my games. Sometimes I've witnessed low-level casters getting themselves in trouble whilst the martials cut a bloody swath through all the enemies, but nothing to the extent of 'OMG I need to change my character'. Likewise I've seen high-level casters solving practically everything with magic, but again not to the extent that the martials end up bemoaning their character choices. Admittedly, I normally GM games, and usually run them from level 1 up, and my GMing style may be mitigating the issue... I'm not sure.
So I was wondering if people would like to share their experiences of when this has become a real issue for a group (not just a theoretical issue), if possible including the rough level it started to happen and the circumstances that caused it? I think it'd be interesting if there was a pattern to causes or a certain 'tipping point' level or whether it's all just circumstantial and all over the place.
Thanks in advance all! :)
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I've had encounters from level 1 or 2 trivialized through simply casting a single spell or two and enemies failing their saves.
I was allowed a non-Paizo 1st level spell that decimated a group of flying enemies into much more manageable numbers, and I could cast this spell multiple times, ending the fight after 2 uses.
A fellow Wizard player used Color Spray and turned Goblins into free EXP meat sacks, and also had illusion spells to control what the enemies did.
Even in higher levels, we were only able to accomplish certain tasks through the Illusions, simply because mundane tasks were too difficult to do relying on basic skill checks.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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There is a huge playstyle element to it. My groups tend to not have much problem with it - we are all fairly mature people, no one is trying to ruin anyone's fun, and we respect other player's builds and niches. So in our games, we've had fun with 17th-20th level wizards and chained rogues in the same party, and no one felt overshadowed or lesser due to their class choices. If your group works like that, great, you have a good group and you should appreciate them.
The issue is, if you have less cooperative players, that 20th level wizard can, if the player desires, make the other players wonder why they showed up.
Heck, to add to Darksol's examples, just last week in the first session of my wife's Mummy's Mask game I managed to one-shot an encounter with my first level arcanist. I didn't mean to, but max damage on a CL+1 burning hands is more than a lot of CR1/2 enemies can take.
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Generally speaking I have not experienced it as a player. But I think that is because the people I have played with have been mature and worked well as a team. Also, most groups I have played with have disbanded before reaching high lvls.
BUT! I have seen it to some extent. In a Carrion Crown campaign I was in (The only campaign I have been in that has made it to post lvl 10) the cleric and witch in the group were by far the most effective members, with a Paladin coming in behind them (Yes... a paladin in an evil undead heavy campaign was not the most effective member). This really showed at times we were able to use scry and fry tactics. Other players (myself included with my decently optimized archetyped monk) were still able to have fun and take part in the narrative, but I will admit we relied upon our spellcasters.
There have also been many moments lately as I have been DMing for a group of new players that picked martial classes where I have thought to myself, "Boy this would be easier if they had X casting class." At least they are developing their creative problem solving ;)
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I've seen it. The bit thing to remember is that the disparity is mostly out of fights. I've seen so many fighter types just standing around while the casty types are doing all the things to reach the next fight for them.
I've also seen fighter's get less excited for fights when the debuffs are good from casters. Like disliking the alchemist throwing nauseating bombs at enemies cause then they are just clean up work and not a fight. Similar with hungry pits and slumber and such things. When a wizard turns a mighty dragon to the threat of a large dog aka not going to kill anyone if it wanted to, the paladin just makes quick work of it and thinks about how basically anyone could be doing this job and not need to be a real combat paladin.
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I don't think my groups have been as dysfunctional as some other people are hinting. I think my fellow players were (and are) mature, don't try to spoil each other's fun, and work reasonably well as a team.
The best example of C/MD I can come up with from my own experience is from a Skull and Shackles campaign I was in. I was playing a third-party martial class with a heavy focus on skills and defending other party members.
He became the Captain, partly because he had the requisite skillset for it (not that he was the only one), partly because he was the biggest and strongest (which soon stopped mattering), but mostly because none of the other players (not characters) wanted to be in charge. As levels crept up towards 10, he was increasingly reliant on the party spellcasters for basic things:
- Need to send a message to a distant outpost? He could either send a messenger, which leaves him down one ship, would take days to arrive if he arrives, and who knows who he might blab to along the way? Or he could get someone to cast Sending.
- Need to get somewhere fast? Take days to sail there, encountering who knows what along the way, or just Teleport there, do what needs to be done, and Teleport back to the ship (the next day if need be).
- Need a party member or important NPC resurrected? He sure as hell ain't doing that with a Heal check.
- Scrolls of things like Water Breathing are useful in a nautical campaign. Party spellcasters could make them at-cost; if he had to buy them he could only do so in cities (maybe, if they're available) and pay retail like a sucker.
- One time we noticed some allied NPCs being attacked on a beach alongside us. The party members who could fly simply flew over in two rounds and started sorting things out. Those of us who couldn't spent the entire combat either swimming to shore, or taking the actions to a) Move to a boat and lower it into the water, b) Climb down into the boat (or jump down and take damage), c) Wait a full round for everyone to be in the boat before leaving, d) Row the boat to shore, and e) Get out of the boat and run to the battle which was over by then.
The pattern was increasingly clear: He could either do it the long, risky, and expensive way that was uncertain of success—or he could go to a spellcaster with his hat in his hand. Mundane logistics (up to and including having a crew to run the ship) could just be cut through with a spell. I don't know what the other players were thinking, but I kept asking myself "why is this guy still in charge, other than because no one else wants to be? Being good at talking to people and piloting the ship aren't unique to him."
Furthermore, his defend-the-party schtick didn't work all that well in practice because of overreliance on specific tactical positioning, which implied everyone clustered beside or behind him into a nice target for AOE spells. His high Perception never helped him against invisible enemies or hallucinatory terrain, nor did his high Will ever help him against fear or possession.
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The pattern was increasingly clear: Every time he needed something important done, he could either do it the long, risky, and expensive way that was uncertain of success—or he could go to a spellcaster with his hat in his hand. I don't know what the other players were thinking, but I kept asking myself "why is this guy still in charge, other than because no one else wants to be? Being good at talking to people and piloting the ship aren't unique to him."
It's exactly like you're saying, this martial didn't have anything that makes it better or more able to do the job. Had you been a commoner you'd have had all the skills needed to be this captain.
So your character was it cause he would spend the time running things, but your class could have been commoner and the story is the same. That's why having casting is good, then you can grab and cover situations too and be helpful providing resources rather than always a drain.
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As soon as Scry-and-Fry becomes an option, my group rarely, if ever, steps foot in any room of a dungeon other than the boss room. The only exception is if they have zero idea of who the end boss is.
The DM once tried having the fried boss get replaced by the next one up on the chain of command, to force us to clear the dungeon proper, but the group has been clear about not letting the tactic go.
The worst part is that we're a larger group than most, so until around level 15 or so, someone has to sit out of the encounter.
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I've played in campaigns where it is a problem and campaigns where it is not.
In my experience, it isn't anywhere near as much of a problem when the spell casters spells are, at least out of combat, essentially treated as a group resource. Sure, the teleport actually comes from the wizard but it was a group discussion that decided that the teleport was a good use of resources. The wizard player DOES get to roll the percentile dice, mind :-)
A cooperative gaming style is, as others have pointed out, all but essential. Spell casters buff the martials and don't make a big deal of it. They (consciously or unconsciously) choose to let other characters have areas where they'll shine.
A part of the above is that spell casters do NOT optimize themselves to be ahead of the group. They do NOT choose niches where they're just going to be better than the martials. In a normal campaign this is fairly simple, in PFS it is a bit harder and often comes from a character very deliberately holding back a lot.
A druid who routinely buffs his animal companion to be better than the fighter is a problem. A druid who lets his animal companion help but not at the level of the fighter isn't a problem.
Edit: In PFS I tend to build very versatile characters who can fill several roles. In most scenarios, as long as things are going well, they just fill the role the group needs. So, for example, my Arcane Trickster is essentially ONLY a wizard in one scenario, ONLY a rogue in another, even ONLY the knowledge guy in a third. I consciously hold back, ESPECIALLY if there is a lower level character covering one of my roles worse than I could (eg, a lower level rogue). If things start to go seriously south I will, of course, take the gloves off. But then pretty much everybody is HAPPY that I do so. Better to feel a little overshadowed than to be dead :-) :-)
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This is all good stuff, thanks again all!
Mostly it seems to mirror my experiences: the disparity is noticeable, but not a problem per se, as the group just rolls with it.
The out of combat utility is a great point, but I guess it's less obvious if the players and their characters are all contributing ideas and helping to move the plot forwards, and not worrying so much about which character actually pushes the button on the idea. The Captain asking the Wizard to cast a sending doesn't seem, on the face of it, any more of a problem than Kirk asking Uhura to call Starfleet... unless the 'cap in hand' thing was in a more literal sense - making your companions beg for your help isn't generally a good thing!
The flight-to-the-beach example (and leaving a party member behind when teleporting too) looks the closest to an actual in-game problem - anything that forces half the players to go into the other room to play video games for an hour is usually a bad thing. That partially comes down to encounter design: if that encounter had something important happening on the ship whilst some of the party were dealing with something important on the beach it sounds like it would have been fine. In my experience running simultaneous fights (for example) isn't much harder than running one big fight and can be a great way for less overt players to get their characters into the limelight a little, and for all involved to mix up their tactics and expectations.
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The best casters win without anyone knowing. It is hard to estimate how much a blinding, or staggering, dazing spell helps if there are still enemies running around.
Of you can make 1/2 the enemies useless but not fully incapacitated for a round or two you changed a hard fights into two easier ones without taking away any fun. I have had gms say "that was a tough fight for you guys" be use the fight was long. When in actual fact my caster still had everything under control it just happened to be a group that was a little slow doing damage.
Out of combat the caster player should challenge themselves to use magic to make each adventure different and intresting. Sometimes teleport other times invisibilty shpere, others yet a crazy illusions. Then they should try to make others the star of the show. Having narrative power means you can make your fellow adveturers the heroes of their own story.
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Once I played a slayer in a party of 4 other spellcasters. Two clerics (both travel, one a multiclass barbarian), a conjurer wizard and a skald. Now, leading up to the event I was already going to retire him since it was during a really good story point to do so, but this was a pretty sad end of my play of him. (I intend to bring him in as a cohort anyway, so he might reappear later)
During his last session, the party was challenged with having to get some workers holding a mine hostage, including their employers and various unlucky staff members and local indigenous folk, to either step down or keep them from hurting anyone. (they were unhappy with indigenous workers 'stealing their jobs', so we didn't feel so bad for stopping their terrible crap). We couldn't talk them down, so we went the direct way. To violence.
The building was three stories tall, with only the first and second story boarded up. so the group realized they only needed to reach the third floor to do anything. One cleric cast fly on herself, another lifted up by eagles (or maybe it was the wizards levitate), the wizard just conjured up some summons (probably the eagles, bit hazy), and the skald raging song'd and summoned more creatures up to the second floor.
Me? I had to slowly try to force the door open with a crowbar while a few of the hostage takers threw various objects at me from above. The door was so tightly sealed, and my rolls so crap, that even when the skald tried to briefly assist along with an NPC to get door open, it quickly became apparent that the encounter was going to end long before I could get to it. So I just gave up and let them resolve it without me. And they did with a great deal of success. I was, frankly, not needed. And this was after an adventuring days worth of events.
Now, to be fair, I did get to do some fun stuff just prior to this. My slayer got some cool trick shots off with his bow from a good hundred yards away onto some defending hostage takers at the gates of the mine just prior to reaching the main building. But that was because I couldn't close the distance as quickly as the other party members. And because in reality, given the opporunity to do damage, my slayer had a real knack of doing damage. A lot of it. But the failings often stick with you longer than the successes.
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The best casters win without anyone knowing. It is hard to estimate how much a blinding, or staggering, dazing spell helps if there are still enemies running around.
Of you can make 1/2 the enemies useless but not fully incapacitated for a round or two you changed a hard fights into two easier ones without taking away any fun. I have had gms say "that was a tough fight for you guys" be use the fight was long. When in actual fact my caster still had everything under control it just happened to be a group that was a little slow doing damage.
Out of combat the caster player should challenge themselves to use magic to make each adventure different and intresting. Sometimes teleport other times invisibilty shpere, others yet a crazy illusions. Then they should try to make others the star of the show. Having narrative power means you can make your fellow adveturers the heroes of their own story.
Sadly, a spellcaster I've brought with that power has had the opposite reaction. (only in 5e though)
Maybe because we had some serious damage dealers along with them which resulted in one-round victories after the control spells (see: grease) came out, which meant the GMs felt I was trivializing the encounters. I was, but I was letting the others do all the fun things and I just got to play the weirdo in the backline talking about their precognitive powers, centuries of knowledge and incredible leaps of logical deduction and perception.
One of my favorite characters, yet so horridly reviled.
Anyway, haven't played a spellcaster with that party since.
about 50% to 90% of the Martial / Caster disparity can be mitigated by the DM/GM judgement, granted, this is harder to do in PFS.
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I've always considered 'caster/martial disparity', '15 minute adventuring day', 'rogues suck', and various other accepted realities on this board different examples of what I would call 'poor GMing'... or perhaps 'enforced poor GMing' in the case of PFS.
None of these things should be an issue in a home game run by any half way competent GM. Setting up opportunities for each character to shine and/or be challenged is just part of the job... not even one of the more difficult parts.
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Thats a contradictory statement.
"Bad GMing" is partly when you make situations where there are few options in situations. Combat/skills/magic should be available in every challenge. Instead you have problems where certain characters shine and the rest are useless and the players bored.
Personally I like well rounded characters like the Investigator or Magus so the disparity is based on the GM making challenges ONLY a specialist can succeed at.
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I have broken more games with and had more games broken by martials than I have with casters.
It was a straight fighter that recently killed the Rappan Athuk campaign I was in. She was consistently one-rounding 2-3 encounters per night.
The final straw came when she killed the dragon the GM had spent hours building with her first attack (not full attack, single attack). The GM decided he did not have enough time to custom build every to the point where it would last past her first turn.
Personally I like well rounded characters like the Investigator or Magus so the dispaty is based on the GM making challenges ONLY a specialist can succeed at.
I was playing a skill monkey/utility focused magus in the same campaign.
He was the party scout, trapper, face, etc. Basically any problem outside combat he could solve. Generally without resorting to magic. In combat, he was all about buffs and battlefield control.
None of this broke the game, it just kept things moving along smoothly and made sure the party always had options.
Martial classes can be broken too. Early on most encounters are just one class or even one character doing most of the combat with high accuracy, damage, and going first with high Initiative.
It can keep going if you know certain abilities.
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I have broken more games with and had more games broken by martials than I have with casters.
It was a straight fighter that recently killed the Rappan Athuk campaign I was in. She was consistently one-rounding 2-3 encounters per night.
The final straw came when she killed the dragon the GM had spent hours building with her first attack (not full attack, single attack). The GM decided he did not have enough time to custom build every to the point where it would last past her first turn.
Personally I like well rounded characters like the Investigator or Magus so the dispaty is based on the GM making challenges ONLY a specialist can succeed at.I was playing a skill monkey/utility focused magus in the same campaign.
He was the party scout, trapper, face, etc. Basically any problem outside combat he could solve. Generally without resorting to magic. In combat, he was all about buffs and battlefield control.
None of this broke the game, it just kept things moving along smoothly and made sure the party always had options.
I think this was merely a result of a GM not able to handle a power gamer, and not a result of a Fighter breaking the game. A Blaster Wizard or Sorcerer can just as easily trivialize those encounters, if not more so with their added utility.
Luck also played a big factor because I doubt a one attack hit would kill unless it was a critical, since Dragons have D12 hit dice, and usually more hit dice than most other creatures.
I have broken more games with and had more games broken by martials than I have with casters.
It was a straight fighter that recently killed the Rappan Athuk campaign I was in. She was consistently one-rounding 2-3 encounters per night.
The final straw came when she killed the dragon the GM had spent hours building with her first attack (not full attack, single attack). The GM decided he did not have enough time to custom build every to the point where it would last past her first turn.
Personally I like well rounded characters like the Investigator or Magus so the dispaty is based on the GM making challenges ONLY a specialist can succeed at.I was playing a skill monkey/utility focused magus in the same campaign.
He was the party scout, trapper, face, etc. Basically any problem outside combat he could solve. Generally without resorting to magic. In combat, he was all about buffs and battlefield control.
None of this broke the game, it just kept things moving along smoothly and made sure the party always had options.
I think this was merely a result of a GM not able to handle a power gamer, and not a result of a Fighter breaking the game. A Blaster Wizard or Sorcerer can just as easily trivialize those encounters, if not more so with their added utility.
Luck also played a big factor because I doubt a one attack hit would kill unless it was a critical, since Dragons have D12 hit dice, and usually more hit dice than most other creatures.
and/or the fighter stacking stuff that shouldn't stack.
The people I play with tend to only play prepared 9-level casters begrudgingly for the most part, so it's not a thing I see a whole lot of. Sometimes it's honestly "whose turn is it to play the magic person". I think I'm going to have to do it soon, so I'll have to figure out something fun. Note that "fun" is not the same as "powerful."
In all honesty, the person who is able to maximize intensify his fireballs to the einght degree can also make archers who are as disruptive as the casters. But these people usually really enjoy that power fantasy and we let them. One of my friend does utterly hate him, but he knows not to make it personal.
It is more of a social thing than system thing. Kinda like when nobody has fun playing against your MTG deck, there are many ways the conflict resolves itself, in a good way or a bad way.
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In all honesty, the person who is able to maximize intensify his fireballs to the einght degree can also make archers who are as disruptive as the casters. But these people usually really enjoy that power fantasy and we let them. One of my friend does utterly hate him, but he knows not to make it personal.
It is more of a social thing than system thing. Kinda like when nobody has fun playing against your MTG deck, there are many ways the conflict resolves itself, in a good way or a bad way.
Until they make dazing arrows it's not quite the same.
Until they make dazing arrows it's not quite the same.
But does it actually matter?
There is element of show and tell here.Everyone tells how hard they can overkill the encounter, some more than others. But by the end of the day, the CR system does not really care if you killed the monster or killed AND made it dazed for seventeen turns. Tt is just a system after all. The people care.
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A GM can generally balance out the ultra-optimised archer by doubling the number of monsters.
With the 'dazing rod' sorcerer, doubling the number of monsters just means the party spends three turns slowly and tediously hacking helpless monsters to death, then fights whatever is left.
At this point you basically have to house-rule away Dazing, or kill off the sorcerer, or have the sorcerer intentionally not use his powers in order to put the group in unnecessary danger for purely metagaming reasons.
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Or you can have monsters with good saves nullify the obvious advantage of the Dazing spell.
Even then, most Blasters would end up killing things through raw damage and not because of LOLdazing.
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Dazing can target any save, so you either have to fiat in some bonuses, or choose very specific enemies.
Better to ban Dazing.
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There's also the issue where if you start throwing out things with good saves to counter the sorcerer's tactic, the player is likely to grumble about it, whereas the archer just intrinsically realizes that sometimes they're just going to have to (somehow) pincushion a skeleton.
Though you get more grumbling when it's like a "flesh to stone" or "suffication" specialist who has to fight a golem, I guess.
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I've always considered 'caster/martial disparity', '15 minute adventuring day', 'rogues suck', and various other accepted realities on this board different examples of what I would call 'poor GMing'... or perhaps 'enforced poor GMing' in the case of PFS.
None of these things should be an issue in a home game run by any half way competent GM. Setting up opportunities for each character to shine and/or be challenged is just part of the job... not even one of the more difficult parts.
Congrats on insulting many GMs that have been playing for many years!
Now let's look at a situation. You have an infiltration mission set up and you're expecting the rogue to have his moment to shine. But when the party looks at who to send we see this happen for this lv8 party.
Druid:"I can turn into a diminutive animal for +15 stealth over normal so a total of +17 and if seen I'm just another rat in the castle or an earth elemental for earth glide and if I get caught I can turn to an air elemental to fly or something"
Wizard:"I can use my arcane eye to search for us, or send my familiar, He has +8 to stealth and can be invisible for another +20 and have trapfinding for 8 minutes long enough to get in and get out. If he gets caught I can use my spell to pull him back to me, and if he dies he's just 1600 to replace, far cheaper than a raise dead or the likes"
Rogue:"I have max ranks, class skill and dex of 6 so that's a +17 total. And if I'm caught I'm just a person with no special way of escaping besides running. I feel safer having the one of the others go."
And so your nice GM play of setting up the Rogue to shine turned into one of the casters accidently being better at it and thus the rogue didn't get to shine.
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Yeah, I think one of the big C/MD issues is that the game allows you to invest a huge number of resources into something that a caster can manage with a single spell or class feature.
So like the level 20 fighter with max ranks in climb who is among the greatest climbers in the world is going to struggle to get up the sheet cliff face faster than the 3rd level Wizard who can cast Levitate. Unless you plan to spend a lot of time climbing inside of anti-magic fields, the preponderance of ways to fly makes putting more than 1 point in that skill largely a waste.
Similiarly the world's greatest swimmer can't hold a candle to the druid who can wild-shape into a fish. So what's the point of having Climb and Swim as skills anyway? It just serves to punish people without magic options. There doesn't need to be a skill for "open a stuck door- it's just a strength check.
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All that reminds me of another experience: Do not start the arms race.
The arms race sucks. It sucks for everybody.
Not only is it just voodoo science when you start doubling enemies, doubling AC, double HP and saves, you are just actively fighting against your players. Not just the ones doing good, but all of them.
So you make enemies harder. Now the guys who were playing "normally" feel weaker and/or more in danger to death. The archer/sorcerer feels targeted and frustrated because of it. The GM is forced to spend even more time preparing the sessions because he now suddenly needs to be an expert game designer to redesign the encounter system. On the freak chance you hit the right balance, now the game is ... better? experience for all, maybe? But there is the huge chance now you just make it less fun FOR EVERYONE AT THE TABLE.
Think about game on easy mode. Sure, it is trivial and kinda boring. Now you crank it up to some NIGHTMARE difficulty out of desperation. Now your players are in a gridlock and everyone hates playing the game.
Luck also played a big factor because I doubt a one attack hit would kill unless it was a critical, since Dragons have D12 hit dice, and usually more hit dice than most other creatures.
It was a build that could cleave everything within reach with improved vital strike and a x4 crit mod.
Reach could easily be 15'- 20'
The difference between the fighter and a blaster is spell resistance/saving throws. There are very few decent AoE spells that do not have both. The fighter, on the other hand, always hit everything within reach on a 2+.
All that reminds me of another experience: Do not start the arms race.
The arms race sucks. It sucks for everybody.
Not only is it just voodoo science when you start doubling enemies, doubling AC, double HP and saves, you are just actively fighting against your players. Not just the ones doing good, but all of them.So you make enemies harder. Now the guys who were playing "normally" feel weaker and/or more in danger to death. The archer/sorcerer feels targeted and frustrated because of it. The GM is forced to spend even more time preparing the sessions because he now suddenly needs to be an expert game designer to redesign the encounter system. On the freak chance you hit the right balance, now the game is ... better? experience for all, maybe? But there is the huge chance now you just make it less fun FOR EVERYONE AT THE TABLE.
Think about game on easy mode. Sure, it is trivial and kinda boring. Now you crank it up to some NIGHTMARE difficulty out of desperation. Now your players are in a gridlock and everyone hates playing the game.
This is how games usually break, be it caster or martial.
It takes a great deal of skill and time to rebalance encounters so that everyone still has fun without it becoming an ever-spiraling arms race that leaves everyone frustrated.
I wouldn't recommend an 'arms race', but sometimes it's worth asking the party if they'd be willing to try Hard Mode. If they've all been optimizing, then they might well have more fun fighting more enemies, or enemies with Advanced Template, or whatever.
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Or you can have monsters with good saves nullify the obvious advantage of the Dazing spell.
Even then, most Blasters would end up killing things through raw damage and not because of LOLdazing.
If you want to compare the three situations dazing, arrows and pure blasting and you want to use monster selection and the obvious defense that's fine.
It's as easy to find a monster with high AC, high Ref, or evasion as it is to find one with 3 saves strong enough against persistent. If you go max CR single target to get the best possible saves you kneecap yourself into a single monster fight that has to make 6 saves around against persistent ball lighting or some nonsense. If a blaster wants to get around a high save, elemental resistance/immunities, and SR you have a lot of work to do. Add piercing spell, elemental spell, and likely switch to non-aoe, non-ref for half spell like bartering blast adds to an already crowded build. The idea that the GM can nullify using monsters ability's applies equally to each situation. Except dazing can target each save and be applies to SR no spells.
If what you are trying to day is dazing is silly, OP and should not be a casters fall back for everything, I would say you're right.
The difference between dazing and caster damage is that to make dazing work well you take dazing metamagic feat and buy a persistent rod or get the feat. This is much less work that optimizing fireball or battering blast.
Sorcerer crossblooded (give up spells known), blood havoc, spell specialization, intensify, empower, maximize, 2 traits, and potentially elemental spell. If I remember correctly that gets you to ~200 damage as a seventh level spell which is great at level 13 but it still requires a lot of work. Base fireball damage at level 13 is 45.5 so a lot needs to be done.
Yeah, I think one of the big C/MD issues is that the game allows you to invest a huge number of resources into something that a caster can manage with a single spell or class feature.
So like the level 20 fighter with max ranks in climb who is among the greatest climbers in the world is going to struggle to get up the sheet cliff face faster than the 3rd level Wizard who can cast Levitate. Unless you plan to spend a lot of time climbing inside of anti-magic fields, the preponderance of ways to fly makes putting more than 1 point in that skill largely a waste.
Similiarly the world's greatest swimmer can't hold a candle to the druid who can wild-shape into a fish. So what's the point of having Climb and Swim as skills anyway? It just serves to punish people without magic options. There doesn't need to be a skill for "open a stuck door- it's just a strength check.
I believe that is supposed to be mitigated by the casters limited ability to maintain insta-success state per day. If you have to climb ten walls, then the fighter is in much better shape. Problem is adventure design rarely repeats a challenge in such a manner. There are clever ways to do this, but also the pitfall of it being repetitive and boring.
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This wasn't touched on much, but part of the problem is that the disparity is hard to notice in lower levels. And for very low levels, casters are often behind martials.
The big spells that can negate encounters are rarely used when you very first get them, because you have so few spells per day of that level. But when you reach further spell levels, those lower level spells which used to be so expensive to use become very cheap, while still retaining most of their power and versatility.
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Until they make dazing arrows it's not quite the same.But does it actually matter?
There is element of show and tell here.
Everyone tells how hard they can overkill the encounter, some more than others. But by the end of the day, the CR system does not really care if you killed the monster or killed AND made it dazed for seventeen turns. Tt is just a system after all. The people care.
It not a matter of CR. Somethings for better or worse require less optimization. Dazing happens to be one of them. Somethings have power disproportionate to their cost. Leadership, sacred geometry are clear examples of this. On can make the case rather convincingly that dazing is a really strong single feat.
This means that some builds can get to the "trivializing a combat" level of power faster, leaving them with more resources to mess up other parts of the game, or fill in offensive and defensive weaknesses.
If there was a single archery feat that gave rapid shot, manyshot, and deadly aim. I could use that feat as an example of single feat that let you jump power levels.
In my last campaign, I feel like my party didn't have any issues with the caster/martial disparity. It's a team game and if everyone is just focused on group success, it downplays the caster/martial disparity somewhat. With that being said, here are some notable observations from my Rise of the Runelords game:
Any single opponent encounter was almost always invalidated because I had a slumber witch. I just count my lucky stars that they hadn't optimized for it.
The party oracle was super optimized for healing. They approached me at level 7 to ask about having the Leadership feat so they could have another character because they had "fixed the getting hurt problem".
I mean, my martials did fine in combat otherwise. One was an archer and the other was a TWF fighter. Rise of the Runelords is pretty combat heavy, so most of the time there were no issues for the group. But on the whole, it was easier for the casters to invalidate encounters than it was for the martials. If there was a non-combat issue, it almost always fell on the casters to find the right spell, since most of the time the martials didn't have the appropriate skill.
Yeah, I think one of the big C/MD issues is that the game allows you to invest a huge number of resources into something that a caster can manage with a single spell or class feature.
So like the level 20 fighter with max ranks in climb who is among the greatest climbers in the world is going to struggle to get up the sheet cliff face faster than the 3rd level Wizard who can cast Levitate. Unless you plan to spend a lot of time climbing inside of anti-magic fields, the preponderance of ways to fly makes putting more than 1 point in that skill largely a waste.
Similiarly the world's greatest swimmer can't hold a candle to the druid who can wild-shape into a fish. So what's the point of having Climb and Swim as skills anyway? It just serves to punish people without magic options. There doesn't need to be a skill for "open a stuck door- it's just a strength check.
That same Fighter could fly 40 or 60 feet by 7th level with the Mutation Warrior archetype if he really wanted to. It's not as constant or readily available in the higher levels, but it does work in an Anti-magic Field, though an Anti-Magic Field serves problems much greater than "I can't fly at it."
As for swimming, it's pretty niche. Unless it's the only way to progress an adventure, or the adventure is mostly underwater, there are generally better ways around a "swimming" obstacle than...well...swimming. Such as the flight discussed above.
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Yeah, I think one of the big C/MD issues is that the game allows you to invest a huge number of resources into something that a caster can manage with a single spell or class feature.
So like the level 20 fighter with max ranks in climb who is among the greatest climbers in the world is going to struggle to get up the sheet cliff face faster than the 3rd level Wizard who can cast Levitate. Unless you plan to spend a lot of time climbing inside of anti-magic fields, the preponderance of ways to fly makes putting more than 1 point in that skill largely a waste.
Similiarly the world's greatest swimmer can't hold a candle to the druid who can wild-shape into a fish. So what's the point of having Climb and Swim as skills anyway? It just serves to punish people without magic options. There doesn't need to be a skill for "open a stuck door- it's just a strength check.
That same Fighter could fly 40 or 60 feet by 7th level with the Mutation Warrior archetype if he really wanted to. It's not as constant or readily available in the higher levels, but it does work in an Anti-magic Field, though an Anti-Magic Field serves problems much greater than "I can't fly at it."
As for swimming, it's pretty niche. Unless it's the only way to progress an adventure, or the adventure is mostly underwater, there are generally better ways around a "swimming" obstacle than...well...swimming. Such as the flight discussed above.
I think saying that 1 archetype solves an issue doesn't solve the actual problem. What if He was wanting to be a weapon's master or lore warden or something? Like just because 1 archetype allows for a good source of in class fly doesn't suddenly make the class a class with in class fly.
It not a matter of CR. Somethings for better or worse require less optimization. Dazing happens to be one of them. Somethings have power disproportionate to their cost. Leadership, sacred geometry are clear examples of this. On can make the case rather convincingly that dazing is a really strong single feat.This means that some builds can get to the "trivializing a combat" level of power faster, leaving them with more resources to mess up other parts of the game, or fill in offensive and defensive weaknesses.
If there was a single archery feat that gave rapid shot, manyshot, and deadly aim. I could use that feat as an example of single feat that let you jump power levels.
Well no, I don't like thinking like that because even leadership can turn out great when the GM and player are honest to each other what they want the cohort to be and in what kind of constraints. Like this cleric wanted another cleric cohort, just to pull double healing duty. So he got it, because the GM looked it over and found that he can trust him with it.
If the two sides are willing to negotiate, you can avoid most of the problems.
Some DM/GM will ban or restrict certain spells and/or feats in their home games.
I think saying that 1 archetype solves an issue doesn't solve the actual problem. What if He was wanting to be a weapon's master or lore warden or something? Like just because 1 archetype allows for a good source of in class fly doesn't suddenly make the class a class with in class fly.Yeah, I think one of the big C/MD issues is that the game allows you to invest a huge number of resources into something that a caster can manage with a single spell or class feature.
So like the level 20 fighter with max ranks in climb who is among the greatest climbers in the world is going to struggle to get up the sheet cliff face faster than the 3rd level Wizard who can cast Levitate. Unless you plan to spend a lot of time climbing inside of anti-magic fields, the preponderance of ways to fly makes putting more than 1 point in that skill largely a waste.
Similiarly the world's greatest swimmer can't hold a candle to the druid who can wild-shape into a fish. So what's the point of having Climb and Swim as skills anyway? It just serves to punish people without magic options. There doesn't need to be a skill for "open a stuck door- it's just a strength check.
That same Fighter could fly 40 or 60 feet by 7th level with the Mutation Warrior archetype if he really wanted to. It's not as constant or readily available in the higher levels, but it does work in an Anti-magic Field, though an Anti-Magic Field serves problems much greater than "I can't fly at it."
As for swimming, it's pretty niche. Unless it's the only way to progress an adventure, or the adventure is mostly underwater, there are generally better ways around a "swimming" obstacle than...well...swimming. Such as the flight discussed above.
That's not what is being disputed. (It's basically a strawman.) What's being disputed is that Fighters making bad choices, such as maximum Climb ranks, doesn't constitute classes suffering trivialization from a single spell. It's like saying Barbarians are better Martials because the Fighter thought the Vital Strike feat chain was a good idea.
Not to mention that the Mutation Warrior isn't the only archetype that grants flight. Heck, with appropriate feat and rank expenditure, most Fighters of any build are capable of flight.
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I've always considered 'caster/martial disparity', '15 minute adventuring day', 'rogues suck', and various other accepted realities on this board different examples of what I would call 'poor GMing'... or perhaps 'enforced poor GMing' in the case of PFS.
None of these things should be an issue in a home game run by any half way competent GM. Setting up opportunities for each character to shine and/or be challenged is just part of the job... not even one of the more difficult parts.
Congrats on insulting many GMs that have been playing for many years!
Now let's look at a situation. You have an infiltration mission set up and you're expecting the rogue to have his moment to shine. But when the party looks at who to send we see this happen for this lv8 party.
Druid:"I can turn into a diminutive animal for +15 stealth over normal so a total of +17 and if seen I'm just another rat in the castle or an earth elemental for earth glide and if I get caught I can turn to an air elemental to fly or something"
Wizard:"I can use my arcane eye to search for us, or send my familiar, He has +8 to stealth and can be invisible for another +20 and have trapfinding for 8 minutes long enough to get in and get out. If he gets caught I can use my spell to pull him back to me, and if he dies he's just 1600 to replace, far cheaper than a raise dead or the likes"
Rogue:"I have max ranks, class skill and dex of 6 so that's a +17 total. And if I'm caught I'm just a person with no special way of escaping besides running. I feel safer having the one of the others go."
And so your nice GM play of setting up the Rogue to shine turned into one of the casters accidently being better at it and thus the rogue didn't get to shine.
Or, you could have an effective rogue:
Rogue:"I have a +17 stealth, which if the wizard is willing to give me an invisibility jumps to +37, which is practically unseeable. If not, hey, I've got a wand for that. I also have skills in the teens for disguise and all the talking skills, so if I'm caught, I look like I belong there and can probably talk my way out of any trouble. Also I can actually pick locks and get into secure spaces if need be. Plus, if there's a real emergency, I've got a couple of 1-5 charge wands to use as a panic button. Also, I already did all the scouting last night while you all were sleeping to recover spells. Here's the adventure MacGuffin I stole from the BBEG without him noticing. Let's go get our reward."The last three sentences have actually happened to me in mid level play. I game with a very good rogue player.