| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What strikes me in this thread is the will some have, to turn the Pathfinder heroic-fantasy battlefield into a modern-day zone-of-war skirmish.
The value of a level 3-5 PC Class character is huge on the battlefield. It also costs a ton of money. As per the rules, a trained hireling costs 3 silver a day. Since they're expendable, you can kit them out with cheap equipment : a shortspear, a buckler, leather armor and maybe a light crossbow. This will come out as let's say a 50 gold value for a low AC, low damage soldier : we're looking at AC 12 or 13, around ten hit points, and a +2 or +3 1d8-damage attack.
Now what amount of coin would a fully kitted-out level 3 character cost ? If you have trained them, you don't want to lose them, which means you kit them out with the best gear around : breastplate (or even more), a costy weapon, maybe even a shield. Don't forget the spellbook if he's a prepared spellcaster. You're getting in the 500 golds for a single fighter who will be outnumbered 10 to 1. He may be able to take out one or two footsoldiers, but you just don't get enough bang for your buck. And let's not even get to scrolls, potions and wands. I'll gladly field 100 militiamen against 10 of your level 3 powerhouses, even if they can get webbed 10 times (which actually will provide me with cover), provided they fail their Reflex saves.
Magis is useful in skirmishes, which is most of the combat we usually do when we play Pathfinder. 3 spells a day just doesn't cut it if the battle lasts for more than 3 minutes. Heck, even 10 minutes of battle is a hundred rounds, which will outlast most of the buffs or debuffs "magic soldiers" will be able to throw.
And if you want a character to be a full BAB fighter with enough spellslots to last an hour of fighting, either you need extremely high level characters (which will be extremely costy), or you need a class that's just going to be straight up better than anything else. Magus and Bloodragers already do magic fighting. Fireball is a 3rd level spell too, so we're looking at (at minima) 5th level characters. Just how expensive is this army supposed to be ? If they get outnumbered 30 to 1, I don't see the point in that "elite" force which will be forced to have a glaring weakness somewhere to balance it out. Since they already have full spellcasting and seemingly all armors and weapons as well as max BAB, I trust this class will have a weak point somewhere. A d2 hitdice maybe ?
Lastly, if I know the enemy is nothing but spellcaster, rest assured that I will throw suicide squads against their encampment to prevent them to rest. Remember, anything else but resting for 8 hours interrupts rest, by the rules. RAW, even talking prevents you from regaining your spells. Having an entire army of spellcasters just doesn't give you enough for the price you pay.
If you really want to up your game on the battlefield, consider kitting out your soldiers with alchemical items. A thunderstone costs 30 gold, and having your frontline throw those in the fray can give you a pretty good "concussion grenade" kind of attack. It is easy to use, and even the dumbest militian can use it. And if your soldiers get killed before using them, the rest of your army can certainly salvage the thunderstones and use them. A dead spellcaster is a waste of spellslots.