We interrupt this regularly scheduled thread for an off-topic on-topic observation:

most of the time make good game design. If you read books like Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals from Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen, or The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lens by Jesse Schell

Ahhh, so *that* explains what's been going on in the unfolding trends in gaming over the last generation or so.

Let me guess: these books use quantitative psychometrics to help game designers see what keeps people clicking for the pellet like a grandmother spending down her fortune at the slot machine.

The same design principle behind those ftp games with microtransactions and rng enhancing that gets people to plunk down time and or money trying to get the pellet. It *does* work (and none of those games are loathed or if they are it's never for any good reason, and certainly no one who plays those games have feelings of frustration that they then take out via in-game aggression in likewise carefully designed contexts).

I don't mean to knock these - I'm sure they're invaluable for game developers, from the pov of a game developer. But I'm not sure these are the sort of game design principles behind the success of the hobby Gary & Dave launched. It comes from a orthogonal perspective.

If the game was made based on the sort outlook I'm sure it will make the devs a fortune (by tabletop RPG standards). Okay, just one more since I'm hooked...like a good gamer.

As for crafting, in 3x wizards were not technically the only ones who could take the crafting feats and do crafting either. It's just for a variety of reasons, they were more likely to.

Unicore points out a reason why it will possibly (we'll see) be still a wizard's niche in PF2. But it wasn't "by rule" a wizard's niche in PF1 either.

The area that did change is that now non-casters can do it, too. Whether one likes that or not is one of those ymmv. One of the reasons I'm done with any iteration of 3E, including PF, is the whole Discount Larry's Crazy Low Low Prices WBL Appliance Mart attitude towards magic items that it fostered - you can get all the key big 5 items you want at low-low prices! Discount Larry has you covered!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTKRoBjjyeI

I'm not sure yet how much 2EPF has moved away from that - and I like cool magic items as well as anyone - so I don't need to move them too far. It has generally de-emphasized reliance on magic items.

Anyhow, the point is wizards might still find that being their thing here too even if by rule it's not an exclusive prerogative of wizards - but it wasn't in the previous edition, either. It just ended up that way due to how incentives played out. Crafting is int based still and wizards will be the int guy. People with int as their dump stat will be able to repair their armor and weapons but probably not be doing the enchanting.

The skies would be crowded in some of Toril's areas.

Fly The Crowded Skies.

tbf, setting the books aside, the impression given by FR is one of crowded skies in some areas (griffon-mounted watch & other peeps in Waterdeep). They're not *more* crowded with Wizards than they would otherwise be because of all the gates (currently: teleport circles) that are reputed to be there.

Admittedly the novels follow a more narrative structure where Ed backed off of some of the things that were obviously in his magic system (ever read Seven Sisters? Or any of the other Greenwood-written accessories focusing on his favorite pNPCs? the kind of magic-at-the-fingertips he clearly used in his own campaigns was one of the contributing factors to braking 3E since a lot of the magic and spells in that were inspired by what he had written up for 1E/2E products. Whew, lads! Ed is one of the greats of the game, but, like Gary and *his* wizard pNPCs, they were the ur-creators of the idea that wizards should be quadratic and at higher levels overshadow everyone else. FR is a great example of that but...)....

And my own once-favorite setting of Mystara: whew, lads, when it comes to air stuff.

but...see also Golarion, where even an unpstart usurper in a backwater burg like Pitax had 100+ wyverns to mount an air cavalry on in canon.

Here in this comment I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong that all these ease-of-travel and airfarce stuff should be curtailed. But it's wrong to say it hasn't been present. So it is a noteworthy nerf.

*here "pNPC" stands for PC-NPC. A character that is sort of in the grey area between an NPC and someone's PC-insert. See also Tricksy of Kintargo/Ravounel.

The article takes the standard assumption that a PF2 combat lasts ~4 rounds.
It correctly says that a mid-to-upper level wizard will have about 7 spells of approximately the impact as a fighter's strike (not necessarily doing damage).

It then calculates that on a given round, the spellcaster will be competitive with an equivalent martial character.

For that round.

But the article assumes 7 or so encounters/day. With the caster using one of those "Big Gun" spells each encounter.

However, with 7 encounters/day, that's not 7 rounds of combat. It's 35.

Each round the martial character is the Energizer Bunny - they just keep going and going and going, with approximately the same effectiveness.

However, the tacit assumption of the article is that, other than the 7 highlighted rounds, the caster is doing - significantly less effective things? Because it is counting 7 "big gun" spells that are competitive with what a martial can do on that same round.

So each other round, the caster is - less impactful. (Again, I use "impactful" rather than "damage" - of course spells do other things. But martial characters also have other abilities, and many of not most of these are also energizer-bunny abilities. Of course, these abilities are not spells. But we're running with the assumption that other than the "big gun" spells, the caster's spells taper off in impact after that).

The article also highlights that casters have some major situations - the ones where all party members need to be most efficient and effective - where they are probably better off, given opportunity costs, doing - what? 20% chance of a hit vs a barb's 40% (but it gets better! Casters rising to the heights of 25% soon after, vs the barb's 40%. And the barb was chosen because they have a lower chance to hit than, say, the fighter). So during those levels, the caster is supposed to do...what? Offer sage advice? Which yes is valuable. But they're best bet would seem to be to hide somewhere so they wouldn't be reduced to a fine spray.

From what I can tell, the article highlights that during those situations (critical encounters at several key levels) the caster is being carried by the martials.

Correct me where I am wrong. I probably am. As I said in another thread, I'm far from an expert at the rules. Though the article does its best with adjectives and flavor text to minimize the underperformance of casters, the numbers spell disaster for casters at SACRIFICE

(Yes yes, I know: it's because fighters are genetic freaks and they're not normal So casters only have an 8.333333333% chance of contributing at SACRIFICE while the fighter has a 141% chance of contributin, and as others pointed out in that other thread, it's a cooperative team game, not a solo game, so the caster should be happy the team has a 141% chance of winnin at SACRIFICE because Scott Steiner is in the same party they're in, holding his cape as his valet I guess).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFoC3TR5rzI

The last several exchanges remind me of something a wise sage once said about another game:

"ninety percent of this game is half mental. The other half is physical." - Yogi Berra.

I can't help but think that if we still had Yogi and the designers had relied on his sage advice, these issues would have been fixed.

Not sure about other activities but RAW you can perform the Refocus activity while doing something else appropriate to your spell source.

Sorcerers get the best deal on this since they don't have to do anything in particular to regain focus.

That's good because I do not want to know what sorcerers are doing while refocusing. It's usually something inappropriate!

I don't intend to single out Unicore here who has been far more active on these boards than I and groks both PF1 and PF2 at a deeper level than I do but to this

What does the arcane transmuter need to live up to past expectations for the build, that will not step on the toes of Dragon/Aberration sorcerers or Druids?

NemoNoName wrote:

There is simply nothing relevant Wizard does that another class couldn't do. And that other class would be doing even more things, or doing the same things better.

I think that's true for every class. There's nothing that another class can do that you can't except that class can do even more things.

In 3x/PF1 wizards could step on the toes of other classes (except CoD, which simply squashed them under its Gojira-sized feet). So the design reaction that I think the Unicore quote aptly reflects was to insure wizards did not step on the toes of other classes this time around - but it seems to have been fine for those classes to overlap quite a lot with the wizard's toes (thus the oholoko quotation).

It's perhaps why people are finding wizard underwhelming even if the mechanics are working as intended. Perhaps a way - and the underlying rationale for - the pendulum swinging *too* far.

As an earlier poster said, they thought of a number of ways to bring wizards (and casters in general) down a peg - and then used most of them as a kitchen-sink approach, and then "gave back" only a bit.

That said opinion is obviously still "mixed at best" and I still don't have enough time with the new rules to put my feet down in any one camp but my *impression* is that wizards are now whelmed. Not overwhelming, not entirely underwhelming, but whelmed, by many other classes (not just fighter though that one got invoked as the comparison a lot during the portion of the thread that focused on who DPR's best over the course of one round of one combat, and the consensus seemed to form that if the wizard had pre-buffed enough and the party had de-buffed the targets enough, the evoker-wizard could nova with their top spells at that level just fine for that one round when compared to the regular attacks for fighter of the same level, with pretty standard feats for the level).

One of my favorite examples of "Quadratic Wizard / Linear Fighter" that shows why it's simply not fun to have a party with a high level Wizard in 3.5 / PF1 is a video on YouTube called "Angel Summoner and the BMX Bandit" feel free to look it up if you're interested.

tbf those BMX-related skills were pretty pro I mean just like martials there wasn't anything broken about things at all....

That said, I think too often this thread shifted from the original theme: were casters nerfed too hard. Which is different from going around and around in circles over whether the caster-martial disparity was real or not.

I don't know the new rules enough to know whether overall they were nerfed too hard. But my initial reaction is that there were a number of things that, when I played a wizard or a cleric or whatnot, I could do that are not really worth an action to do anymore.

Could casters do them too well under the previous edition? Yes.

Now you can get (or give) a small bonus (or penalty) for a very short time. OtoH the martials can always use their best ability inexhaustibly. Not just their damage attacks, but their skills and many feats (most that are not Focus-related). Sure, as a caster "you can have skills, too." But that's not a class-related distinction then and most of your "iconic" skills will lay elsewhere. In Treantmonk's old guide to the PF Wizard he described roles, one of which was "The Gimp," which was a role you did not want to end up in. Many caster options seem like they're slotted in for that role, now. Again tho this is just an impression. Again also I still like much of 2E more than I thought I was going to now that I have spent some time exploring it. No bully.

As things stand now, as others pointed out, "gishing" from martial to caster has a "feel" that is far more rewarding than "gishing" from caster to martial (I am having trouble making a build where it would ever make sense for my caster who multiclassed into a martial would ever use his or her martial weapon. OtoH, they're still limited in their casting potential. So what I'm really having a difficult time doing is making someone where their few spells get used and they can still be a meaningful contributor. Cantrips, one says - and cantrips are okay but despite their scaling, still don't really "keep up." They're an area where they are better than 1e [except for Arcane Tricksters, who were better with cantrips], but you are now in the shadow of the martials.*)

But I am probably overlooking things. In any case one seems to get far more "bang for the buck" by multiclassing into a caster than from a caster into a martial. {Of course arguably in 1E it was the same since except for a few builds, multiclassing out of caster was a fool's errand. But it would be one way to make up for what I see as a current discrepancy).

Casters shouldn't be the Angel Summoner to the Martial's BMX bandit. But that's not the original theme of the thread, though it became that. It's whether they got hit *too* hard. Whether the current "meta" pinches too much. Even a couple months after the initial release I don't think I know enough to say if this is the case but it does "feel" this way as I am kicking 2E's tires. That said, I like much of the new "chassis" as people have called it more than the old 3x chassis (which I also liked for years but am personally finished with. I would rather go back to AD&D 2E, tbqh, than any 3e version including PF1).

*This is not a claim that you should be able to outshine them. But instead you are holding their coat, it looks like. Or, at your top spell-level, do something with a limited resource - and not just damage - that equals what they can do without exhausting a resource.

PF Bucklers I sort of imagined as more akin to a cataphract's buckler than to a duelist's buckler.

A cataphract would strap their buckler to their wrist because they needed to be able to keep it on while also being able to use a bow (and switch to lance at the charge).

A dueling buckler is held out more in front and that does use the hand more than the wrist. But since PF bucklers keep the hand free, well, like I said: I saw it more akin to the cataphract's version.

The usual negative of WBL is that's it's not an end all be all in actual play, its used as a guideline when planning characters. The other negative associated with it is that crafters in the previous edition could easily get things at 1/2 price and effectively double the amount of magic items you could have.

Another problem with the Discount Larry's Crazy Low-Low Prices WBL Item Appliance Mart* is that it fostered an attitude towards magic items as == appliances to be acquired off-the-shelf with WBL. ("Teh Science" - only not really that, but an engineering product).

Back on topic:

Also yes PF2 does have WBL but it's based on party gold not individual. So everyone has a lot less money then they previously had.

It'll be interesting to see how that works in practice over time. Not every player makes every session or (more significantly, since you can always NPC an absent-player's character) can continue throughout a campaign. I'm sure there are (or in the GMG will be) guidelines how to handle turnover.

*(the chain's full name, and not to be confused with Crazy Character Emporiums, which are contributions to the community IMO. I love character emporiums, they generate useful NPCs and demonstrate creative possibilities, if nothing else).

It's still a great and flavorful game. I started with Basic (blue book) and followed quickly with AD&D1E. THe most memorable games I had were in AD&D (and BECMI). People in the "system theorycraft" threads do have a point when they say with a good DM and good players flaws don't matter much.* Which is why we could all play this still today (or the Rules Cyclopedia of BECMI - just one book to carry with you!), and adjudicate anything not covered on the fly & houserule.

We used to sandbox tons, interspersed with the occasional modified module.

Current rules are strictly better, as rules. But one can have as much fun playing old-school. Plus, tons of buried treasure in those books.

Plus as disorganized as they were I have a soft spot for Gygax's writing style in those books. I learned tons of vocabulary and sought out tons of fiction, mythology, history, and the like because of some offhand remark or reference (Apendix N!) he made. Heck there's still stuff on my "to read before I die" list from that.

Hello, Armchair Theorists. How's that chair rockin' tonight?

Not too bad, trollbag with teeth. I just got my oil changed and a weapons UPGRAYEDD. Plus my favorite mechanic lubed my chassis if you know what I mean. ^_+

How are you doing?

Any chance we could stop arguing the RAW minutia of a spell and get back on the topic of making martials better?

None. Many have tried, all have failed.

This thread is why we can't have nice things.

*Nails a sign up over the thread saying "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate"*

Porphyrogenitus wrote:

Monks are meant to be part of "two great tastes that taste great together" as one half of many gestalt builds.

Except that Pathfinder has no gestalt in RAW.

Except that all the cool kids seem to be talking about it anyhow without you saying "That's not RAW!"

So do go over there and tell them they're doing it wrong. I won't mind. *shrugs*

They are both plenty powerful, so I don't feel a need to 'win' that endless debate.

But. . .but. . .this is the internet. *worried face*

You got your chocolate in my peanut butter!

Invasion of the Spambots!

SHOCK!

HORROR!

FEEL THE TERROR IN LIVE 3D!

(Children under 12 not admitted).

GHAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh

*cascading failure causes engine parts to loose from the out-of-control thread, as steam erupts from its carriage. Bolts and other random parts fly about with a whiz and a pop-zip-bang. The crew continues to bicker, grasping the steering mechanism, no longer attached to the thread, back and forth between themselves, as the world tumbles by*

*the wheels of the thread pop off again and tumble and rage in all directions, while the thread itself, rudderless, careens violently out of control, as the crew struggles and squabbles among themselves over the now loosed steering mechanism*

I love how this thread is still running strong when, despite RD's greatest attempts, "What do YOU think MY character looks like?" died a while ago.

That's too bad.

His thread was a good idea, marred by the sole flaw of being entirely uncontroversial, and thus lacking the potential of becoming a self-licking ice cream cone.

4E got rid of Vancian magic. ^_^

Kirth Gersen wrote:

You don't have to convince me, Gustavo amigo -- we're on the same page!

I knoe. Your post was just a convenient quote to express my point. :)

The problem isn't even totally Gygax. I mean, the man is dead. Have pity.

The problem is the mindset of a lot of people who play the game (and at least some of the people who design the game) today; when it comes to monsters with magical powers, or spellcasters, they think "fantastic."

When it comes to non-casters, they their mindset - for whatever level - is "what could a IRL peasant do, if you shoved a sword in his hand and asked him to keep watch? Could he do fantastic things? Hells no! And a higher level peon is still a peon. They shouldn't be able to do anything you or I couldn't do if we went to the weight room and bulked up (gotta bulk up)." The reference is completely changed, from fantasy to "realism" (gotta maintain "realism" with non-casters in the fantasy world, no matter how bogus that "realism" ends up being in the end).

A small - albeit small - example of this popped up in a thread completely unrelated to this, so it makes a useful analogy: the recent Crossbow thread. Now, people who use "regular" bows, long or short, composite or not, can take Feats that allow them to do. . .quite exceptional things. I guess Longbows are the Katana of the West. But one of the designers decided to help out in that thread by pointing out that it wouldn't be realistic to do X, Y, or Z with a Crossbow. When really one could design a Crossbow that did exceptional single-attack sniper damage, if one wanted to, and point to, say, the fate of Richard Cour de Leon as "a IRL example of how even powerful doods can get oneshotted with Crossbows." But, nope.

Note here I don't mean to be one of the people who slag on the Devs, Comic-book-guy-style. The Devs here are great, they do a wonderful job. But a phenomenon is a phenomenon. Irrespective of whether it's in the mindset of players or developers.

High level people should be capable of exceptional feats, simply because they are high level. They are presumed by these very same rules to have the same CR at the same level. Does that mean they should all be flipping around unreasonably, or all have the same powers? No, but it does mean that, as Kirth has pointed out, at a given level a given character (in a PC class) should be able to affect the world on roughly the same scale.

(Recognizing, again, the caveat that perfect balance isn't a reasonable expectation, and so on, and also the caveat that PF is a significant improvement on 3.5, which itself was a significant improvement on 3.0 - and only a few alterations were needed to accomplish both of these improvements, not an overturning of the entire game engine. The game is good, the people involved in it are good and work hard to put out good stuff, and everyone posting here has goodwill).

Removed a bunch of personal sniping, responses, and commentary on the sniping. If you feel a post is inappropriate, please flag it and move on.

But...my T-shirts. . .

I was going to get rich off of royalties on those and get an U.P.G.R.A.Y.D.D. to Hedonismbot.

*sadface*

The alternative is to remove the spell (simulacrum) entirely. I don't want that, but I also don't know how they redesign it.

It's not that hard.

First, they can't remove the spell entirely, or people will re-import it back in (claiming "backwards compatibility").

Simply: Simulacrum creates a visual copy with all the knowledge of the original, if and only if the caster could be assumed to reasonably know that information (thus this is no longer a way to get free & easy interrogation of enemies). That is, they can create a copy of themselves or a close associate/friend, with a reasonable versimilitued of what that person's knowledge, but not a copy that knows anything that is unknown to the caster (thus all secrets are preserved, none are revealed by casting this spell and then commanding the simulacrum to tell you everything the target knows).

The simulacrum appears like the original, but has no Supernatural, Spell-like, or spellcasting abilities, and is limited (similar to the various Polymorph/Form spells) in the type of EX abilities it retains (that is, a list similar to that of the Polymorph/Form spells, thus radically curbing the amount of abilities one can generate by using this spell. Keep anything off the list that does not fit thematically with the intent of Simulacrum - thus, for example, Regeneration & Fast Healing might be excluded from the list of possible abilities).

Yes, this might also nerf the amount of "storytime" utility Simulacrum has in the hands of NPCs, but I care less about this (writers can always come up with some other nonsense explanation for BBEG's body-double).

Note the above would also nerf a lot of the uses I like Simulacrum for, but it would be good for the game. The resulting spell might likewise be lower level. But you have to keep a spell with this name in the game, simply to keep people from re-importing the original.

Fixing Simulacrum doesn't require a book-length, or even a page-length description of what the spell can or cannot do. Just the usual length for a complex spell.

TriOmegaZero wrote:

ciretose wrote:

TOZ wrote:

ciretose wrote:

Well...and the poor Pathfinder Society folks...

I never asked for your pity.

I suspect the Toz the Great and terrible can pick his group :)

What do you mean? Doesn't everyone?

Not according to the horror stories people tell on here about the tables they are "trapped" at...

I was once shackled to a gaming table and given nothing but weak broth and wormy bread. I was flogged for impertinence when I asked to be allowed to roll my own dice.

Naturally, we were playing "Skull & Shackles" and the DM was a "storyteller" DM who demanded verisimilitude in all his games.

gustavo iglesias wrote:

what about my build?

I must have missed it in the clutter, sorry. Can you repost or link to it?

I just reposted it for him! Gah! Droids have to do everything around here!

*falls over and undersized feet kick at the air pathetically*

what about my build?

It was very nice.

Trolls came and ate it.

It was very tasty.

I think having an honest dialog about the flaws of the 3.5 is something that can happen now, but back then they were trying to make the case that you should stay with a 3.5 variant in the face of a new, non-compatible, 3PP unfriendly DnD version.

Well 1) it was a variant that did fix/address some known issues. Of course it wasn't perfect (I also agree that making the perfect the enemy of the good is a bad idea). Plus, if it's true that this is how the playtesting was handled, and if it's true that now there could be an honest dialogue, then they ought to stop saying things like "X is only pushed by people with agendas"

Again, though, as said in another thread: it is technically true that these things are "pushed by people with agendas," only that agenda is an improved game. Now, pointing that out here I am not taking a stance on the specific merits - perhaps it does turn out, for example, that the "Martial-Caster Disparity" is a myth. But an ad hominem dismissal of people who sincerely believe it is a problem and that it would be nice if the game addressed it so people didn't have to houserule around it, gentleman's-agreement around it, or whatnot, doesn't advance things. It just inflames people by furthering a mindset that their concerns are not being taken seriously.

IMO whatever the situation was at the time (and editions are quite often designed in an atmosphere of crisis), it would be better all around if the people who think there are flaws in an otherwise very good and enjoyable game were at least given credit for being sincere in believing these flaws exist, and just wanting improvements, rather than dismissed out of hand as cranks with some sort of underhanded agenda.

Again, while also recognizing that does not mean every critic is correct on the merits. People do err.

37. Horrifically torturing someone the PCs care about deeply (comic version: torturing someone who gets off on it deeply, Addams Family-style).

13a. (comic version: reading the Evil Overlord List).

17. Chewing out underlings (comic version: being chewed out by underlings).
18. Scrying on the PCs (comic version: scrying on the PCs). (immature comic version: scrying on the PCs, with lewd camera angles).
19. Bickering with associates (comic version/demogorgon version: bickering with s/h/itself).

06. Biological break in the middens.
07. Sleeping (comic version: clutching favorite plush-doll, preferably of one of the adventurers).
08. "Sleeping" with someone (comic version: their familiar).

The things I don't know exist,
Are things I cannot list,
Since these are things
I don't know exist
Burma Shave.

I wish him well and I'm sure he'll keep turning up.

Maybe he'll even write some stuff for PF. ^_^

Gestalt is a good suggestion for small groups; I would have recommended that, too, if Umbral hadn't.

However two people still can be overwhelmed, and they'll still only have two actions.

Since they plan on setting up an organization anyhow, though, you can introduce allies, henchmen, and this is also a good campaign for the Leadership feat.

For example: If they each had one ally, they'd have a four-person party.

WBL is a guideline not a rule.

Following WBL can be dis-balancing for classes like the rogue who should/need more money than the rest of the party.

Your post makes the WBL Fairy sad.

The WBL Fairy knows who has been naughty (people who convert their loot into permanent gear, so she gives them only coal in their next encounters) and who has been nice (people who convert their loot into consumables, and consume them. The WBL fairy puts extra presents in their next encounters).

The WBL Fairy is 4 realz!

So if a fighter want to be good a climbing he have to wait until level 8 and be forced to take a combat feat he might not want?

They've transitioned to trying to shove too much into Feat-form.

Fighter has a decent amount of Feats, but not enough to do that and continue to keep up with other Martial classes in combat. Siphoning off the Feats instead of giving a class ability is useless. Probably it is just generating a new multiplicity of Feats that won't be taken because there's something more necessary.

Or create a new Fighter Template, "Schrodinger's Fighter," the Fighter who has just the right feat at every specific moment he needs to have it (and swaps them out the way Schrodinger's Wizard swaps out spells, so he always has the right spell selection for any given encounter, no more and no less).

Or give Fighters a bonus feat every level, instead of every other level, but with the new 10 being ones that can only be spent on these type of Feats.

Sorry, I haven't had the chance to read through all the posts from the beginning. Could someone summarize for me - what have you guys figured out over the last 2500 posts?

I see what you did there.

Back in the day there were "Sharpness" weapons (I.E. "Sword of Sharpness") which did that for limbs, but they haven't existed for awhile for the same reason PF doesn't have crit charts for specific locations.

So answer is: I don't think they exist in Paizo products, but there are probably equivalents in third-party products.

edit: Ninja'd by a mindflayer! Oh the humanity!

Maybe give him skill packages? But at that point you may as well just give him the extra skill points right?

Yes but after hearing the same person mention 3 times per page for 50 pages he doesn't like the idea of giving them more skill points, and having people try to persuade him in multiple posts per page for 50 pages, I tried to come up with something that might satisfy both sides of that debate without tinkering with the number of skill points they get, since that seems to be an impassibly touchy issue, like it's hard-coded into the physical laws of the multiverse or something.

IIRC there are more than three skills tied to the physical attributes (STR, DEX, CON) (some of which the fighter arguably shouldn't be good at, but adding half his level doesn't make him good at *those* - they tend to require higher ranks - just baseline competent at them, so I don't think it would cause huge headaches).

Another idea would be to give Fighters a bonus of half their level to, for example, Perception and Intimidation.

Or, since you are correct that choosing the type of character you play is important, an ability that allows Fighters to choose two (or three?) skills of their choice and add half their level to those.

Or...

Here's another idea then, inspired by "Bardic Knowledge"

Fighter ability: Physical Prowess - Fighter adds half his level (minimum 1) to all skill checks for skills tied to physical attributes, and makes all such checks as if he were trained.

IMO that would solve the skill thing without requiring more skill points. Fighters would still have their piddling amount of skill points available to distribute into other things or to enhance their physical skills.

That still leaves some of the other areas, such as the world-affecting ability Kirth's ideas have been addressing, and which is arguably more important anyhow.

But at least this is an elegant solution, it doesn't alter skill points, and it emulates without replicating an ability another class has.

Simulacrum, planar binding, gate are the main offenders

I bet they'll remove Simulacrum from the game next edition.

Or rewrite it so radically that it's effectively a different spell, with the same name. Just so people can't put Simulacrum back in the game.

I love simulacrums, but the cheese factor pings at 11.

I'll miss them when they're gone.

What about a fighter level x pre-req feat that lets them x/day scaling use a pounce on a charge, or even just whenever pounce. Also what if at a certain level feats worked BETTER for fighters than anyone else, supporting the elite combatant theme

How about if fighters got the ability to make intimidate checks to recruit temporary allies that remain for one day. The idea is not that you scare them into doing your bidding exactly, but you impress them into wanting to help you. This way, you don't have "overpowered" cohorts and don't know everything about your new allies, but can have an even more versatile set of fame because no matter where you are, your cohorts are adapted to the landscape. To avoid getting killed in your sleep, make the feature say that you always start as friendly against those NPC's and someone controlling them has to make a secret opposed control check vs. your intimidate check (made secretly by GM).

Another idea worth giving thoughtful consideration to that got lost in the chaff, however then I also do really think Fighters need more skill points (to which one frequent poster has a huge problem with, as if 2 additional skill points/level will totally demolish the fun, and conversely Kirth says 2 skill points or 200 makes no difference after Level 5 because most skills get obsoleted by spells. However, then the solution is to make skills more useful to non-casters. Thus the below idea).

But IMO this idea, combined with potentially giving Martials (who should be quite intimidating) a scaling reduction in the time it takes for them to use Intimidate (similar to how Bardic Performance takes less and less time to initiate as Bards level) might be very interesting.

For example, at X level, Fighters (and perhaps other Martials) can intimidate as a move action. At Y level, they can intimidate as a Swift, at N, as an Immediate (potentially causing a foe who is about to strike to break it off), and at Z level as a free action (simply showing up is enough to cause foes to quake in their boots).

But by the bar I set earlier, it's not an alternate to Leadership because it still fails to give the fighter any influence on any part of the world outside of his immediate presence. When your caster friends can talk to people across the country, summon reinforcements, and teleport them to where they're needed -- at that point, if you can't influence things half a kingdom away, your narrative power is totally eclipsed by theirs.

Yes; this is the reason for those leaderly-abilities.

Enabling Fighters to be able to influence the world outside of combat as their levels scale.

Now, as for the correct caviate that in past editions they had to clear a territory, well in this iteration of the game, by default characters don't have to jump through hoops to get their class abilities, though there are any number them for which, in a perfect campaign, I think it would be appropriate for the DM to say "well I have no objection to X ability but we should RP through how exactly you came to get it, just so it makes sense in the context of the campaign."

I'm not aware of any archetypes that have built-in leadership and improve upon its effects, but then again I haven't really scoured fighter archetypes. It'd be pretty interesting, I bet.

Adding the "improve upon its effects" undercuts, because the point is to get better.

OtoH, a Cleric with the Nobility domain gets Leadership at 8th level, and as a Cleric can Call Planar Ally, eventually Call Greater Planar Ally, and gets domain spells that enable the Cleric to impose his will on others.

A Wizard with Truename can get an 18HD critter who probably has more abilities than any Cohort will ever have. Of course he probably needs to keep said critter happy with gifts, and it's subject to DM whim, but anyone with a Cohort has to keep the Cohort's equipment up to snuff, and Cohorts are as subject to DM whim as Truenamed or Called critters.

Now, I'm not saying a Fighter should be able to do exactly those things. But neither is it unreasonable for a Fighter to scale his followers, his ability to influence soldiery, etc (just as other classes with abilities that influence NPCs have those abilities scale as they level).

Kirth's ideas may not be perfect - IMO they probably aren't, they're a intriguing, flavorful starting point (consistent with the game's history) that probably need refinement (as I think he would agree to), but simply rejecting them, scorning them, repeatedly saying they are problematic - that does nothing to improve on the initial idea whatsoever.

Thoughtful consideration of how to refine them or what alternatives to them that Archetypes might get would contribute more to the thread than arguing in circles against them.

ujjjjjjjjjj wrote:

Your rule is a meta construct. By Desert settings and Horror settings I meant that its supposed to make you feel ISOLATED.

ALL rules are meta-constructs. And totally uninhabited desert and horror settings are extremely niche;

Can I just add the following to what Kirth said? That even in Dark Sun the one thing Fighters could get (while everyone else was transforming into some megacritter) was a near-endless stream of followers?

So that can work in a desert setting, too, if you want it to. (And, of course, not, if you're determined to reject it. Which btw means you have other reasons to reject it, and "what about desert settings" is empty).

One thing I've noticed in all my years gaming and hanging out in forums is that people can come up with rationales to support anything, if they want to, and oppose anything, if they want to. It's one reason I tend to reject "realism"-type arguments, in-and-of-themselves (they must be combined with some other factor to be at all relevant/persuasive).

The one thing I agree with is that some people won't want to manage all that. Well some people don't like various classes, for whatever reason. In any case, as I mentioned earlier in response to Kirth's idea, there can be archetypes that trade these out for other interesting abilities.

Someone didn't grab the traits and feats and skills needed to use UMD did they?

Yup, with all the spare skill points Fighters have, since they have absolutely no other Skill demands, it's amazing that anyone playing a Fighter wouldn't devote themselves to UMD so they wouldn't not just be a second-rate martial, but a third-rate wanna-be caster, too.

UMD is a great skill and anyone with enough skill points should grab it, but sorry, but it's getting tiresome to keep hearing that all the problems with Fighters could be easily fixed by devoting resources they do not have to spare to make themselves into a third-rate wanna-be-caster.

You can't see it, but you're effectively saying "it's your fault you suck, you should have rolled a caster. Since you didn't, the least-worst thing you can do is take UMD so you can be a make-believe caster."

Which is actually supporting, rather than contradicting, the arguments people are making that in-and-of-itself, Fighters as a class need a boost, because they don't cut it as designed.

I agree that perfect balance can prove boring, but the impression I get from this thread is a lot of people feel that Fighters don't gain enough advantages to make them viable. These are not my words, just that a lot of people say that, and giving underpowered characters some of the perks that the well-powered characters have ( fame, positions of authority, etc. ) would help out these characters. I'm not saying *perfectly* balanced, just certain perks as the character gets higher in level.

What you said.

That's why I said "more balance," not "perfect balance. I don't believe in making the perfect the enemy of the good (which is why I like PF - but would like to see some improvements).

Just showing some imagination in how to make fighters more distinctive out of hitting things (and yes - I know this can be role played, I know it can be house ruled, I know DMs and players can work together to provide distinctive in-campaign flavor. Just as they can with all PCs. But the designers have no trouble thinking of a constant stream of distinctive - and mechanically useful - new advantages for other classes, and particularly caster classes).

And yes I also realize that the Fighter is not alone - and frankly I think it's lame if one of the designers said, in effect, that "well, the reason a class designed to excel at unarmed combat is because unarmed combat is supposed to be inferior" - maybe it should be for all other classes. But the fact that other classes (including Fighters!) can exceed the Monk in its distinctive role, well that's a bad, not a good. And the Monk should be able to make unarmed combat effective, for himself (or be eliminated as a class. Yes, I have a bit of Marx in me).

There never will be perfect balance, but there can be better balance. As people pointed out a few pages ago, Fighters didn't always lag as far behind as they do now (which didn't mean the classes were equal even then - nor does it mean the old game engine, as a whole was superior to the current engine).

IMO, and just IMO, not nearly as much design-imagination has been put into non-casters, and Fighters in particular, over the last quarter century. Iterated year by year, edition by edition, it really shows.

That said, some martials are effective: Barbs and Rangers for example. Rangers don't even have to take ineffective pre-requisites to get to "the good stuff," which means the Fighter "Feat Total Advantage" is more-than-entirely negated. And Rangers are flavorful out-of-combat (if far from perfect).

This is a very concise summation of the commonly perceived problems with caster/martial disparity. That said, various posts and quotes from developers on these forums ('there is no caster/martial disparity', and some of the things SKR has said during the monk threads) lead me to believe that, in their opinion, a lot of us are Doin' It Wrong, somehow.

SKR is correct, though: the whole "caster/martial disparity" thing is pushed by people with agendas.

That agenda, of course, is wanting the game to have more balance between classes. Certainly a nefarious enough plot.