Wazat, the sort of buffs a fighter needs have nothing at all to do with damage and AC. Giving more enemies access to better story-defining abilities is a good thing, as it enables more kinds of plots.
Like what? Basic Character interaction? Or are you the kind of player who's constantly tripping over his own feet because there are no game mechanics for tying your shoes? Bluff, Diplomacy and Sense Motive modifiers aren't the foundation of roleplay.Outside of combat.. that's the thing called roleplaying and for the most part, it has very little to with character mechanics.If the things you do outside of combat actually matter then they absolutely should involve character mechanics. Feel free to jabber on about pop culture references in a fake accent for as long as you like though. Bold added for emphasis. Sure you can roleplay and interact all you please, but if you expect all of that to actually, say, change someone's mind about something? That means breaking out the dice. YOUR social skills aren't what matters when your character is the one actually talking.
Outside of combat.. that's the thing called roleplaying and for the most part, it has very little to with character mechanics. If the things you do outside of combat actually matter then they absolutely should involve character mechanics. Feel free to jabber on about pop culture references in a fake accent for as long as you like though.
Assuming I'm understanding right... At that point I think you're better off starting over with a 20-sided die, a list of skills to drive your system, and the Pathfinder book on the side as "inspiration". I freely admit I am basically calling for Pathfinder v2.0 not a simple patch job. However the system is fundamentally unbalanced in enough ways (caster/martial disparity, utterly broken high level play, skills are pointless, endless feat/spell bloat), most of them inherited from 3.X, that fixing it is harder than starting over. And assuming I ever stop being lazy myself, I will one day be trying to publish an entirely from scratch system. There are tons of games built around rolling d6s, d10s or a d20... but why isn't there one that uses a mix of d4s, d8s and d12s when they scale so very nicely? :)
Past about level 9 or so it becomes increasingly obvious that the casters are the adventurers actually solving problems and getting things done, while everyone else in the party are essentially just an entourage of equal level followers. Shimesen, you seem to be willfully missing the point that no matter how great your fighter is at fighting, a proper caster can completely upstage him by making the one thing he is good at moot. Even your hamfisted GM fiat ways to keep casters in check all revolve around applying more magic to the problem or giving noncasters a few wands so they can be halfassed casters when nobody is looking. All of this is blatant admission that nothing trumps magic, nothing.
What would have happened if Salazaar Slaan played with a party of Wizards and Clerics, like the messageboards seem to want everyone to do? Then in that situation he would have cast something different if he isn't a fool, right? Slow, perhaps. And he said they were all in a tight cooridor, perfect time to break off a lightning bolt or two. Or use stone shape to collapse the tunnel on them, maybe. Or just summon some stuff. Lots of ways to deal with random guards. A good GM makes sure that all of her players are engaged over the course of a given adventure. The GM's job is to facilitate fun and to move the story along first and foremost. I agree, and am glad the whole group had fun. That doesn't change the fact that they were there as fodder to give the melee guys something to do because otherwise they'd have just been playing fruit ninja. I find that the opposite is usually true. At higher levels creatures have better and better defenses against spellcasting in the form of Spell Resistance, energy immunities, and flat-out immunity to magic, and a talented GM will use a variety of creatures that cater to the strengths and weaknesses of her players. Sure, because a smart caster always makes sure to only cover one element, only target one save, and certainly never uses spells that don't have a save at all. Why, that would be rude! Or, failing all else, just skip around the encounter completely. Casters can do that sort of thing, while martials can only fight or run away.
The problem with PC death is that it tends over time to greatly unbalance parties in my experience. When things go wrong more often then not it is the melee guys who suffer because they don't have an out. This leads to them making new characters while the old guys dice for your gear. Yeah they tend to help the new dude get set up so they aren't useless in combat, but unless you make the same sort of character over and over again chances are a good portion of your old gear just isn't going to help. Alternatively the GM will the new guys the appropriate WBL to start, but the old group still has no reason to share the procedees of the last meat shield with the guy they just met at a bar and is more employee than partner. Thus the group gets taxed on the WBL payouts but the casters feel less sting. ...and that's not getting into the fact that the longer a game goes the bigger the power gap gets before gear even factors in.
Damage isn't the problem. Damage isn't the problem. Damage isn't the problem. ...has it sunk in yet?
Nerfing caster is a the kind of fix that ruins the game. Fixing broken spells is one thing, but what you suggest is wrong-bad-fun and describes a game system that I would not play. The game is broken NOW, and nerfing casters is part of fixing it. My suggestion would make casters more defined by their permenant choices the same way everyone else is, not able to change most of their defining traits every monrning. In most fantasy fiction spellcasters are specialists in a specific field with only limited ability in other areas. This is a good thing in any narrative, as it means people have to get creative with the limited abilities they have... something that casters at present largely don't have to deal with. Even spontaneous casters generally grab the most flexible spells in the game to compensate for their limited spell selections, don't they? I say pick a concept and embrace it, stop covering all the bases; that's what the rest of your party is for. Also, suggesting fighters should just get UMD and be crappy mages as the game progresses is not a solution and frankly I'm getting really tired of people acting like it is. Suggesting UMD is in fact an admission that noncasters start to suck as soon as the game gets past the 'local champions' stage.
Actually, here's an alternative way around the Fighter's skill problems that might make Marthkus happy, and would work very well in a world where feats scale as in that link: Skill Focus You are dedicated to the mastery of a chosen skill. Benefit: The chosen skill is considered to have ranks equal to your level. Any skill ranks you have invested in the affected skill prior to taking this feat can immediately be reinvested elsewhere. You may take this feat any number of times but its effects do not stack. In each instance it must apply to a different skill.
There seems to be a distressing amount of "let's see you do better" going on here. One does not necessarilly need to have the ability to do something in order to see someone else is doing it wrong. Nor does someone need to know exactly how to get to the desired goal to still have a valid concept of which direction to start walking in.
Fundamentally, because they don't need to exist. They should be archetypes for the existing classes, not entirely new things in themselves. Then again, I also think most of the core classes don't need to exist as separate entities either. Paladin should be a cleric archetype, for example. |
