Azraiel's page

I wish! Unfortunately people in my groups are obsessed with "diversifying", so I never get to play in a group with a uniting cause/theme/origin, or enjoy tackling any challenges brought up by a group that doesn't have all the bases covered. Not to suggest that they make boring characters, they don't, but I am considering clearing all my future characters with the DM in secret all the same.

All-paladin group (but of different deities)

I envy you.

Because Detect Magic is an at-will, unlimited use cantrip now, I simply turned it into a sense that all spell-casters simply have. Yes, they have to concentrate with the minor hassles that imposes, but otherwise they all can sense magic. In a world where this is so prevalent, the counter-measures are also commonly employed to obscure the aura when/if it is important to do so.

Creates some extra work for me, but I like the flavor and so it isn't a problem.

So characters with Detect Magic at will have octagons in their eyes as well as rods and cones? ;)

I have a couple of problems with that. First you have to counter a spell with another spell. Second it make things more convoluted that they should be. Third the whole planning that kind of stuff is annoying, it doesn't show how smart the GM is, it doesn't show how much the Gm know the system, it is just a burden to have to do this kind of things. And that is just a cantrip. But well, I suppose my rant is more about magic in PF in general.

Welcome to caster supremacy?

But in all seriousness, any undercover villain (or hero for that matter) that doesn't mask their true alignment and any suspicious magical auras they're carrying around isn't even trying to stay hidden. Magic and alignment detection have been omnipresent throughout D&D's history.

IF you want to address the 'problem' with martials, you MUST MUST MUST do ALL of the following.

All of them. Not SOME of them...

I agree with pretty much all of that, though I feel compelled to remind you that it's not just detractors of The Disparity that are uncomfortable with the idea of fighters walking on water, flying, out-wrestling dragons etc just because they need to for balance. What they need is cool ways to shut down those problematic abilities. Martials don't need to be able to wrestle a Dragon toe-to-toe so much as they ought to be able to scale the Dragon, distract, debilitate and generally make life painful for it, and if they so wish, beat it into submission and make it their mount.

One of my favourite examples of a Mythic ability done almost right is Dimensional Grappler, explained in the spoiler below for the uninitiated.

I say almost right because obviously any class that doesn't have strong will saves gets cheated out of a really, really cool ability. Paladins and Monks get to enjoy and fully utilise it, most other martials do not, and that's sad. But if Dimensional Grappler had been implemented properly as an (Ex) ability with a more universal mechanic, it would've been the gold standard of how martials should be able to counter cheap tricks, at least to me. The enemy casts fly or takes wing to harry you? You can shoot them down and finish it up close weather they like it or not. They're invisible? That's okay, you have situational awareness and blind-fighting; stab them if they try to sneak up on you, and counter-snipe them if they try something at range. The enemy tries to teleport? Grab them by the throat and shut that s~*! down, or better yet, hitch a ride to draw their WORST DAY EVER out a little longer. Martial counters ought to be simple, efficient, cool and require as little suspension of disbelief as possible.

Martials are never going to have as many fantastical abilities as casters, that's the whole point of casters. But martials deserve the ability to counter these magicks when they're being used against them, and to look good doing it. Mages are dangerous, geeking the mage first is just common sense, but that mage should be thinking to himself "Holy s+&! I need to geek this fighter somehow." too.

Azraiel wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Steve: I'll jump in, hit his central neck with a clothesline, bounce off the ropes and drive my knee into him while he's still down and finish him with a Stone Cold Stunner.

Ally: Or I could summon a horde of angels.

How did I miss this reference?!

I would give you more than one +1 if I could, kyrt-ryder.

That may be the best martial/caster disparity video ever. Thank you for linking that in.

Most welcome! One of my favorite skits (and comedic duos) ever, hence my incredulity at missing the reference at first.

If paladin commits ANY evil act, no matyer how small, they fall. Point blank period. THAT is why they fall.

I use the phrase "going to town" because it's sufficiently vague to not be nitpicky, but specific enough to imply a dramatically and contextually appropriate punishment, such as a classic revenge spree. Actually falling is not required to make this a terrifying threat, just a willingness to pay that price.

The real pitfall to playing a Paladin is figuring out (or hopefully just being able to hash out frankly) what the GM's interpretation of the Paladin code is. Lawful stupid GM's are a thing too, after all.

Paladin. Full Stop.

No, not lawful stupid, I-didn't-actually-read-the-code-on-induction-day Paladins; there's nothing in the code that says you have to be a chaste, stuck-up knight templar. If you actually read it, very little of it is much of a handicap at all.

A knight templar type might live in fear of falling, but real Paladins do not; their enemies do. Any evildoer with half a brain realises that if they piss a Paladin off enough, they will happily fall from grace once they're done going to town on you. I'm not even talking about the awesome old Powder Keg of Justice story. That one's dialled up to 11 in a good way, but Paladins are people, hopefully exceptional ones, but people have limits that they won't cross without the right nudge. You don't want to give them that nudge.

And that's just the "I have to be a jerk who's constantly fretting over my own moral cleanliness" misconception. Real paladins get to have fun and look damn good doing it. Partying and post-saving-the-whatever debauchery is AOK, and you can drink pretty much anybody under the table besides. Massive Fortitude Saves, Mercies and Immunity to Disease is an enviable combination for those who enjoy a spot of revelry.

Being arrested isn't automatic grounds for falling either. You can spend time in the slammer for breaking crappy laws*, break out of said slammer*, and then dust yourself off, pick up your sword, and go be a champion of justice and goodness with your adventuring company all over again.

No other class has that kind of awesome roleplaying fodder built in for free, and that's just my extreme example of a noble scoundrel type Paladin. There's plenty of other ways to portray them credibly.

(*remember, only legitimate authority needs to be respected.)

Steve: I'll jump in, hit his central neck with a clothesline, bounce off the ropes and drive my knee into him while he's still down and finish him with a Stone Cold Stunner.

Ally: Or I could summon a horde of angels.

How did I miss this reference?!

I would give you more than one +1 if I could, kyrt-ryder.

As for the Path of War, Let me first explain my stance on magic. Magic ? Magic is magic. Psionics are magic, SLA's are magic, Dragons ability to fly and other square/cube law funzies like giants? Also magic. Magic is any form of BS that allows someone or something to do the blatently impossible. Now some of this like most spell effects are big flashy i summon fire and rain doom upon my enemies and this is blatent BSing at its best. No one argues it's impossability and for caster types this is fine. For martials it's to much for me. Your milage might very you might like it I don't.

See, that explanation sheds some much needed light. You ascribe any capability that violates real world physics to magic, and that's totally okay, but the default assumption of Pathfinder's high fantasy world is that, while dragons may be chockers with awesome magic, those wings they have work. Their bodies don't collapse or tear themselves apart because gigantic sentient flying lizard wizards can exist "naturally" in Golarion.

Again, not hating on your interpretation, but I feel compelled to point out that it is yours, and that by cannon, the natural laws of Golarian accommodate things like Dragons and Giants and the Tarrasque.

The question asked by critics of the disparity, a question I see being sadly misrepresented way too often, seems to be "if all of these other things can exist without magic, why are fighters arbitrarily barred from tapping into the same natural/extraordinary/nonmagical goodness?" Or, to put it another way, "why are nice things only for non-humanoids and primary spellcasters?"

Why is a warrior who transcends real world limitations just a little bit via legendary prowess, less sucky skills, and little things like better climb/jump/run/swim rates so offensive? The Fighter can already start their day with a refreshing cup of liquid hot magma, outrun the fastest humans who ever lived, lift spine-snapping loads, then sleep off the damage from those lightly cooked internal organs and do it all again tomorrow. Why is patching in some far more reasonable extraordinary capabilities suddenly crossing a "must be magic" threshold?

So someone like Samurai Jack then?

You. I like you.

Cool holy sword? Check.
A whole bunch of useful skills at max? Check.
Awesome leader? Check.
Can fight a bunch of chumps and/or one big bad thing? Check.
Relies on magic to save the day exactly 0% of the time? Check.

Jack is definitely an example of a "just that badass" high fantasy character done right.

These may not be complete, but the unspoken rules seem to be as follows:

(1) Casters must never steal the spotlight. If you can end a combat with a spell combination, don't. Instead, cast most of your spells so that the martials look good -- even if it's not really necessary to have them along, you must always pretend it is. This means that you don't save up explosive runes traps, and you don't use armies of simulacra, and you don't send planar bound critters to do all the fighting -- because gentlemen just don't do those things.

(2) Follow the railroad. Artificial timelines and endless series of combat encounters are what make martials look good, and they're also the most easily avoided situations, once casters start really using their spells. So don't. Don't use divinations, don't bypass encounters, don't change the playing field. Ignore the temptation to solve problems through solutions other than combat.

(3) If casters forget the first two rules, the DM's job is to remind them. Arbitrarily add restrictions or drawbacks to spells, or threaten out-of-rules consequences for using them, or, in extreme cases, declare outright that every dungeon is in an antimagic field. Give the martials all kinds of narrative abilities through "role playing" that the rules don't actually give them, and minimize the same for the casters.

(4) Every episode needs a contrived underwater element to make Aquaman seem like a full member of the Justice League. It's the DM's job to contrive to make the martials look good, regardless of how much that damages suspension of disbelief.

(5) Ignore that the game is based on mechanical underpinnings. Play Magical Tea Party as much as possible. The DM should fudge dice rolls at will, or even ignore them outright. The DM should alter stats mid-encounter as needed, or alter monster tactics (usually choosing to make them do really dumb things like run up next to the fighter and stand there to get full-attacked). Above all, the DM should always ignore actual written rules in favor...

This. So many times over. Whenever a PC doesn't obey the Polite Code for Gentlemanly Magicians, the rest of the party becomes their sidekicks at best or their pawns at worst. It's not even malicious, full casters just naturally assert control over their surroundings.

Okay, what do you think is more fair? 60% don't have a problem with the disparity? 40%?

Why bandy about totally unverifiable percentages in the first place?

But if we're going with gut math, I don't know anybody who plays Pathfinder or D&D and thinks that the martial/caster disparity isn't a thing, so I'll see your 40% and go all in. I don't play with a representative sample of all Pathfinder players everywhere, so I don't pretend that my own subjective 100% is accurate, but in my experience, the more experience a player has, the more likely they are to realise that their beloved martial character isn't at the Wizard's right hand, or even eating at the same table.

They're the help.

Azraiel wrote:

The problem there doesn't seem to be that withdrawing is a thing, more that martial characters don't have a way to cut you down like a coward when you try to flee from them.

If you don't have withdraw, PCs will never leave combat, they don't flee enough as it is,

That's an oversimplification, I'm afraid. Martial characters need to be able to punish you for turning your back on them. Not every Tom, Dick and Harry, and certainly not your average dumb monster, just martially-trained sentients and appropriately swift or ferocious creatures.

There is a galaxy of difference between a dweeb wizard with a knife trying to block your egress and a trained warrior who will cut you down the moment you falter or take your eyes off them.

Do martial characters really need better things?

Ye gods, yes.