Spells stealng Martial abilities

Ok, I am not talking about Summon Monsters or certain buff spells here. The thing I am having a problem with is, spells that straight up do things that are almost NOT magical in nature and pretty much rip away abilities that should have been combat feats or some such. Examples include the bladed dash spells and dance of 100/1000 cuts... I mean, bladed dash is pretty much a superior spring attack with no fear of AoO due to movement. There is nothing "magical" to it other tha saying "well magic let me do it." DDance is very much the same way..

So whats up??? Why are these spells even a thing and not combat feats? Im no asking WHAT spells should be feats (there is a thread already for that) but more discussing WHY these spells even exist...

Because there are hybrid classes like the magus, and these spells allow them to do what martials can do on a very limited basis (spells per day).

That may be the case... if there was similair combat feats. But as it stands, many of the spells are just so much better than what you can get from feats (like Greater Bladed Dash vs spring attack)

Paizo might not be able to print Improved/Greater Spring Attack anymore.

They originally wrote those feats for 3.5's Dragon Magazine... which makes them WotC property, and (I believe) not Open Content. So, they may have written themselves out of being able to make those feats.

A lot of the same applies to Combat Reflexes - imagine if the fortuitous weapon property were a feat.

...

Of course, that only addresses your point about bladed dash.

That's easy enough. Paizo should have overridden Spring Attack with a no-prerequisites Bladed Dash feat.

Then included Greater Bladed Dash as a follow-up in the feat chain, enabling attacks against everyone along the path.

EDIT: PS, Paizo- It's still not too late if you ever feel like releasing an 'Ultimate Martial' book to make up for the lackluster Ultimate Combat that was stuffed with spells.

And they are limited in use. A magus using bladed dash can use it what 2-3 times a day at best when they get it. Where as spring attack can be used every round of every encounter.

It being a little bit better as a limited resource isn't that big of a deal.

As for Greater Bladed Dash, you can't compare a 5th level spell to a feat you get at 4th level.

And they are limited in use.

Big flipping deal.

EDIT: to clarify- spells are limited use but a spellcaster gets to choose from many options when preparing/casting. Feats are far more limited in their availability.

Skylancer4 wrote:

And they are limited in use.

Big flipping deal.

EDIT: to clarify- spells are limited use but a spellcaster gets to choose from many options when preparing/casting. Feats are far more limited in their availability.

At the level it becomes available and several later, it is a big deal. Limited in availability isn't the only quantifier for "power", number of uses is too.

*waits for the inevitable martial caster disparity outpouring*

Remember that Magus can also return spent spells...

But again, the big issue, to me, is that not allowing martials to say... fly, you know kinda makes sense because no wings. And magic can levitate you via magic. A spell that makes something out of nothing? Sure again, kinda more breaking reality again. A spell that lets you do sword stuff better then a guy who TRAINS HIS WHOLE LIFE DOING SWORD STUFF... yeah... that kinda bugs me. If there were feat equivalents i wouldnt care as much since it kinda demonstates training vs cheating short cut. But as it stands... training means nothing.

There's no need for such an outpouring, you're proving it with your arguments right now.

Overvaluing 'limited use' and undervaluing 'limited choices' is a huge part of this problem.

Paizo might not be able to print Improved/Greater Spring Attack anymore.

They originally wrote those feats for 3.5's Dragon Magazine... which makes them WotC property, and (I believe) not Open Content. So, they may have written themselves out of being able to make those feats.

Damn if this is true I hate wizards even more!

There's no need for such an outpouring, you're proving it with your arguments right now.

Overvaluing 'limited use' and undervaluing 'limited choices' is a huge part of this problem.

I agree, and this is IF you have several encounters per day that are challenging.

while I really like the imagry of spells like Bladed Dash, I agree with the OP that it annoys me ass well and I'm concidering removing them from our home game. (no one is using said spell in our group at the moment, so it's not a problem for me yet)

kyrt-ryder wrote:

There's no need for such an outpouring, you're proving it with your arguments right now.

Overvaluing 'limited use' and undervaluing 'limited choices' is a huge part of this problem.

I agree, and this is IF you have several encounters per day that are challenging.

In my game we seldom dungeon crawl, and the pc's are quick to head to safety after any fight, so not counting random events (read: me being a dick :p ) they often have only one battle per day, this allows them all to "nova" often and stuff like "limited use per day" is in this scenario ... laughable at best.

while I really like the imagry of spells like Bladed Dash, I agree with the OP that it annoys me ass well and I'm concidering removing them from our home game. (no one is using said spell in our group at the moment, so it's not a problem for me yet)

The problem has frequently shown up in my games as well, and I typically put the party through 2-6 [averaging about 4] meaningful encounters per day.

kyrt-ryder wrote:

There's no need for such an outpouring, you're proving it with your arguments right now.

Overvaluing 'limited use' and undervaluing 'limited choices' is a huge part of this problem.

I agree, and this is IF you have several encounters per day that are challenging.

In my game we seldom dungeon crawl, and the pc's are quick to head to safety after any fight, so not counting random events (read: me being a dick :p ) they often have only one battle per day, this allows them all to "nova" often and stuff like "limited use per day" is in this scenario ... laughable at best.

while I really like the imagry of spells like Bladed Dash, I agree with the OP that it annoys me ass well and I'm concidering removing them from our home game. (no one is using said spell in our group at the moment, so it's not a problem for me yet)

The problem there is you don't put your players through enough encounters.

Or... For lack of a better term... You are literally doing it wrong.

That isn't me being a jerk either... Spellcasters in Pathfinder are balanced around a Resource Management Element. If you do not make them use the RME then they become overpowered.

A good rule of thumb is a number of encounters, per session, equal to 3+Number of PCs in the party.

So if you have 4 players, that means, on average, 7 encounters per day as a minimum. Spaced out over 20-30 minutes. This prevents "Nova" and brings casters down to acceptable power levels.

Or, to put it simply:

7 Encounters, each spaced 20-30 minutes apart, means 3.5 hours of adventuring. Your spellcasters will "nova" and then be useless. This is the formula for making a challenging adventure.

If you let them nova then the entire game's CR breaks.

Bladed Dash is one spell, HWalsh. Nobody is nova'ing here.

I know that I, as a martial player, don't want to continue when the majority of the party is drained of their effectiveness anyways. I've done that before, it's a good way for my martial character to die.

Kalindlara wrote:

Paizo might not be able to print Improved/Greater Spring Attack anymore.

They originally wrote those feats for 3.5's Dragon Magazine... which makes them WotC property, and (I believe) not Open Content. So, they may have written themselves out of being able to make those feats.

Damn if this is true I hate wizards even more!

Oh bloody hell, at the time, Paizo was hired help publishing Wizard's Dragon magazine. There was no indication that 3.X would ever end, and Wizard's isn't obligated to give free stuff to their main competition.

If you want Martials to have powers like this, I strongly suggest picking up Path of War. That is pretty much what it does.

I have no problem with spells duplicating the abilities of martial characters. They should be allowed to do so. Only they should have their level adjusted so that these spells only come online for the spellcaster well after the martials have been using those abilities. And they should never scale to the point that they are even equal to the martial character ability, much less surpass them.

rainzax wrote:

Kalindlara wrote:

Paizo might not be able to print Improved/Greater Spring Attack anymore.

They originally wrote those feats for 3.5's Dragon Magazine... which makes them WotC property, and (I believe) not Open Content. So, they may have written themselves out of being able to make those feats.

Damn if this is true I hate wizards even more!

Oh bloody hell, at the time, Paizo was hired help publishing Wizard's Dragon magazine. There was no indication that 3.X would ever end, and Wizard's isn't obligated to give free stuff to their main competition.

Don't you love how so many people on this forum seem to that that WotC should have based all their decisions from 15 years ago onward on giving a future competitor as much access to WotC-derived material as possible?

See i wouldnt mind these spells if martials could do the same or better. The idea that they can "pretend" as warriors who have actually trained, but are not able to actually best them I am fine with. It s thematic (the magus learns magic to help "cheat" and temporarily do what the warrior learned after much training but doesn't known the intricacies of the technique so he lacks to true ability to utilize its full potential. Cool and flavorful), but as it stands, martials dont even have the ability to PRETEND to do the same MARTIAL TECHNIQUES that a SPELLCASTER can. Like how is it that a spell caster actually gets bonuses to hit and AC and stuff by being mobile and a SUPPOSEDLY MOBILE WARRIOR (the swashy or monk or even a dex based fighter) is not (Dance of 100/1000 cuts).

My main gripe are spells like Trapfinder's Focus (Pathfinder Society Field Guide), and Find Traps.

But yes. My fiance and I have been griping about this kind of thing for years. Paizo almost seems like they're trying to kill the class system entirely, what with giving practically every other class the ability to do something that should be a particular class' niche. Archetype system is rife with examples (poor, poor rogue, we knew ye well). Spells were the next logical step.

And still, pure-martials get left in the proverbial dust. (when I say this, I'm referring to versatility outside of combat, just to be clear)

LuxuriantOak wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

There's no need for such an outpouring, you're proving it with your arguments right now.

Overvaluing 'limited use' and undervaluing 'limited choices' is a huge part of this problem.

I agree, and this is IF you have several encounters per day that are challenging.

In my game we seldom dungeon crawl, and the pc's are quick to head to safety after any fight, so not counting random events (read: me being a dick :p ) they often have only one battle per day, this allows them all to "nova" often and stuff like "limited use per day" is in this scenario ... laughable at best.

while I really like the imagry of spells like Bladed Dash, I agree with the OP that it annoys me ass well and I'm concidering removing them from our home game. (no one is using said spell in our group at the moment, so it's not a problem for me yet)

The problem there is you don't put your players through enough encounters.

Or... For lack of a better term... You are literally doing it wrong.

That isn't me being a jerk either... Spellcasters in Pathfinder are balanced around a Resource Management Element. If you do not make them use the RME then they become overpowered.

A good rule of thumb is a number of encounters, per session, equal to 3+Number of PCs in the party.

So if you have 4 players, that means, on average, 7 encounters per day as a minimum. Spaced out over 20-30 minutes. This prevents "Nova" and brings casters down to acceptable power levels.

Or, to put it simply:

7 Encounters, each spaced 20-30 minutes apart, means 3.5 hours of adventuring. Your spellcasters will "nova" and then be useless. This is the formula for making a challenging adventure.

If you let them nova then the entire game's CR breaks.

I know that, but I seem to have problems 'forcing' my plots into the structure you described.

I would be interested in thoughts on how to implement more fights without wasting too much time (they are lvl 11 now and fights are often either a walkover as in "why did we bother rolling dice at all?" or long, tactical, slugfests where every move takes forever)

they are currently doing this and I'm thinking the siege with the giants could be several fight interspaced so they don't get to rest much.
I also have a cursed mining village, the buried undecity of a metropolis, and a lost mythic city to the south in an evershifting desert planned for them.- these could all be good dungeon crawls. But untill they get to them they are Novaing every day-all the time.

Much of the main focus now is on kingdom building and making deals and alliances. If they get tasked with something it's often just a simple wandering monster that needs to be tracked and defeated..

What I'm trying to say is that not counting dungeon crawling , normal travelling is not filled with encounters unless I just throw random wandering monsters at them - and if I do they will call me out on it since I haven't been doing it before.
And the only way to stop them from resting after any strenous fight is to be a dick to them and 'punish them' each time they camp out in the wilderness ...

how would you do it?

Please, Oak, don't listen to Walsh. He is wrong.

There are a lot of things that from the flavour are THE thing for one or the other martial but in reality is done much better with magic:

- Mobile fighting
- finding stuff
- stealth
- tracking
- surviving in hostile weather (hot or cold)
- protection from mundane attacks
- lighting fire
- making light
- securing a campsite
- setting and finding traps

See i wouldnt mind these spells if martials could do the same or better. The idea that they can "pretend" as warriors who have actually trained, but are not able to actually best them I am fine with. It s thematic (the magus learns magic to help "cheat" and temporarily do what the warrior learned after much training but doesn't known the intricacies of the technique so he lacks to true ability to utilize its full potential. Cool and flavorful), but as it stands, martials dont even have the ability to PRETEND to do the same MARTIAL TECHNIQUES that a SPELLCASTER can. Like how is it that a spell caster actually gets bonuses to hit and AC and stuff by being mobile and a SUPPOSEDLY MOBILE WARRIOR (the swashy or monk or even a dex based fighter) is not (Dance of 100/1000 cuts).

I hear you.

Please, Oak, don't listen to Walsh. He is wrong.

While his view is one extreme I'm not looking to emulate I do think that I could have more encounters per day than what I'm having now, and it never hurts to ask for help and try out new styles.

There are a lot of things that from the flavour are THE thing for one or the other martial but in reality is done much better with magic:

- Mobile fighting
- finding stuff
- stealth
- tracking
- surviving in hostile weather (hot or cold)
- protection from mundane attacks
- lighting fire
- making light
- securing a campsite
- setting and finding traps

I've been thinking of removing a lot of those spells from my game, but the amount of revising and work involved means I so far haven't done more than ponder and exclaim "eureka, I've solved it, just remove all spells that ... well ... but ... and ... *grumbles* n'mind"

Please, Oak, don't listen to Walsh. He is wrong.

Unfortunately the way the CR system is based, he really isn't.

Letting the PCs control the pace of the adventure leads to the 15 min adventuring day. That never ends well.

If the challenges aren't causing the PCs to expend the resources they aren't appropriate challenges for the CR.

Ideally I would love if every 9th's spell usage was scrapped.

Something like:
Limit spells/day a lot. Like 1-2 spells/spell level.
And then give them meaningful abilities through feats/class abilities.
Like p.e:
X blast: pick an element. As a standard action fire a bolt of it doing 1d6/2cl damage.requires cl2
X ball: pick an element. You throw a 5ft radius aoe doing... Requires Cl 6
Enhance: you give +2 enhancement bonus to a creature's ability score for 1 round/2cl. At cl 8 this increases to +4, at cl 12 this increases to +6
Tranmute (req cl 8): change the size of a creature by 1 category. Insert REASONABLE amount (for an at will ability, so no fly and etc) of abilities you can give/ level
Summon x (obviously much more limited)

So the end effect would be spammable, reasonable abilities, and a much, MUCH, less actual game altering spells and flexibility.

Arachnofiend wrote:

Please, Oak, don't listen to Walsh. He is wrong.

While his view is one extreme I'm not looking to emulate I do think that I could have more encounters per day than what I'm having now, and it never hurts to ask for help and try out new styles.

Usually the most effective way to force the party to stop doing the 15 min adventuring day is to hit them while they rest. The casters being made to wake up in the middle of the night ruins their rest cycle and forces them to rest longer as well as prevents them from memorizing spells that's ere expended less than 8 hours previous. Multiple attacks of easy to kill enemies will keep them from resting and regaining spells.

Even non combat "encounters" could fill that role. People running for their life rush into the party camp site, waking everyone up. People traveling at night approach and try to parley with the party (everyone will want to be present for that right? So they will wake up).

After a few days of running on half tank, your party should get the idea that you are done letting them run the game.

As for the whole encounter issue, that is much less simple to fix. If the encounters are so short and opponents are ineffective, just start granting less XP. They obviously aren't a challenge, there is no reason to be giving the party the reward. After awhile the party will start looking for more difficult encounters (ones of appropriate challenge). Our main GM did this one campaign and it turned out to be rather fun. Originally he had set up quite a few encounters that should have been deadly to the party (meaning we should have run) but through dumb luck we plowed through them successfully. It ended up turning into us scouting areas and gathering information via roleplaying, then deciding where we were going to go. This allowed him time to give us the breadcrumbs to places be planned and gave him time in advance to set up for the next weeks encounter. We were steering the game in a way, and we had no one but ourselves to blame when we ran head first into ridiculously difficult encounters.

LuxuriantOak wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

Please, Oak, don't listen to Walsh. He is wrong.

While his view is one extreme I'm not looking to emulate I do think that I could have more encounters per day than what I'm having now, and it never hurts to ask for help and try out new styles.

Usually the most effective way to force the party to stop doing the 15 min adventuring day is to hit them while they rest. The casters being made to wake up in the middle of the night ruins their rest cycle and forces them to rest longer as well as prevents them from memorizing spells that's ere expended less than 8 hours previous. Multiple attacks of easy to kill enemies will keep them from resting and regaining spells.

Even non combat "encounters" could fill that role. People running for their life rush into the party camp site, waking everyone up. People traveling at night approach and try to parley with the party (everyone will want to be present for that right? So they will wake up).

After a few days of running on half tank, your party should get the idea that you are done letting them run the game.

As for the whole encounter issue, that is much less simple to fix. If the encounters are so short and opponents are ineffective, just start granting less XP. They obviously aren't a challenge, there is no reason to be giving the party the reward. After awhile the party will start looking for more difficult encounters (ones of appropriate challenge). Our main GM did this one campaign and it turned out to be rather fun. Originally he had set up quite a few encounters that should have been deadly to the party (meaning we should have run) but through dumb luck we plowed through them successfully. It ended up turning into us scouting areas and gathering information via roleplaying, then deciding where we were going to go. This allowed him time to give us the breadcrumbs to places be planned and gave him time in advance to set up for the next weeks encounter. We were steering the game in a way, and...

Sure. Sometimes you can. But doing so each and every night becomes tiresome for everyone.

Also the op's party is 11. Nothing stops them from teleporting to their home, get a good nights sleep and teleport back.

And yeah, dimensional locks, save people within time limit, race against time, etc scenarios help a bit, but you can't have every single adventure be one of those, it gets tiring, fast.

This tangent is a little off the topic but it seems a decent point to respond to.

Yes, at higher levels, PCs can always flee very, very effectively and hide. But unless they're really focusing on camping and anti-detection magic, CR-appropriate creatures ought to have a way to handle that and intrude on it. If the party wants to start creating an impenetrable fortress, then that can add to the game as well as create encounters. If they're creating dimensional pockets, perhaps an outsider is bothered by them.

If this is just happening with, like, random encounters, then yeah, the 15 minute day happens when you're just traveling around and scouting, because those aren't days where combat is the main challenge.

The main thing to keep in mind is that as the party becomes better at things, so should their enemies. And, in particular, they should become increasingly famous/infamous, which should cause more people to be hunting them in return. If it doesn't make sense exactly for other creatures, there are plenty of planes and deities playing their own games that the PCs may have upset. Demonic lawyers collecting on debts that can't be paid because you killed their debtee. Grievances and other consequences. By level 11, you're not just killing a cave system filled with goblins and rodents that nobody will miss.

Not all cr appropriate encounters fall within this category.

A common example could be "destroy a tribe of x giants because you are a murderhobo"

Let's say like 20 stone giants and as a king a stone giant barbarian 4(cr11) and his shaman, a stone giant adept 5(cr11)

The party van sludge through the first day when the giants don't expect them, and fight them either in pairs or triplets (cr 10-11 encounters).

Designed originally as 6 cr 11 encounters+ boss battle of cr 14 (3giants+shaman+king)

That would put a strain on the party (theoretically)

Now the casty-casty party stumbles there. The magi nova for a cakewalk run of the first 3 encounters, the wizard nova another 2 encounters and teleports the party out.

Out of the 23 giants, only 8 remain.

The party prepares the next day, but after a scry/clairvoyance (easily done since they know where to look for) the wizard sees that all remaining giants have grouped up plus the shaman called some favors bringing a devil alongside them. The sad part though is that there is no way to find the party, while the party keeps watch and as soon as half of them fall asleep, teleport->dd-> nova.

Even if they only manage to kill half of them, even if the shaman "lvls up" and starts animating his fallen comrades, the PCs still win at the end.

The above example could easily be replaced by any number of things.

Realistically speaking, someone can call only so much defenses within 1 day, while a teleporting party canove hundred of miles in seconds.

The underling problem is that in MOST scenarios the party is in the offensive. They know where they are striking and it is easy to scout/weaken the opponent's. On the other hand, they can teleport wherever they want, making tracking them immensely more difficult. Simply put, a tyrant could flee from them yes, but he would have to abandon his city, servants, army behind. The offensive party doesn't have that burden.

I don't think race against the clock should be all that rare. Unless your encounters are truly random, once you start attacking, things are going to change, reinforcements will be brought in, re fortification will occur, important items will be hidden or moved elsewhere ... Consequences for deciding to rest after every encounter. Eight hours, or even two Hours, is allot of time for things to happen.

you can't have ALL the chapters of an adventure be "race against the clock" though.

and while there might be a semblance of balance when you are indeed running against the clock, the "/day" crew have a clear advantage when said clock doesn't exist.

to add insult to injury, there are several cheap magic items designed solely to mitigrate this problem (pearls, inquisitor's sash etc) while the "other side of the fence" needs to spend quite a few bucks for equivalent power 1/day items.

compare p.e. a pearl lvl3, 9k, which allows ANY 3rd level spell to be replenished. similary, a martial can get for 10k a pair of boots of speed.

the item designed solely for one purpose, with a very strict limitation (only targets you) is more expensive than the item, that one of it's gazillion uses is an even stronger version of what the martial just used.

maybe one of the things needed to balance the spellcasters a bit would be lowering the /day abilities of them, lowering the "standard" bar of how many encouters a party expects to find, and in turn lowering the amount of spells/day a caster can prepare.

but i would prefer if instead we keep that the same, and raise the impact of unlimited/day abilities

Oops, seems that got derailed a little bit, sorry!
-guess more than me found that interesting (high lvl design is inherently more complicated to do than low level)

back to the OP's question:

So whats up??? Why are these spells even a thing and not combat feats? Im no asking WHAT spells should be feats (there is a thread already for that) but more discussing WHY these spells even exist...

My answer is, and don't start throwing stones yet, Bloat.

Of course, the core book also had some (many)spells that from my honest could please go die in a fire, so I guess it's an inherent flaw from it's predeccesor(s) as well.

I'm guessin, just guessing, that it is quite easy to make anew spell or two when you're writing a new book, probably easier than making something completely new. I mean, you already have a system in place for making new spells, piles of guidelines. -So they make 4 for that book, 3 for that one, 17 in that one, and slowly the amounts pile up until the other party members can't stand hearing the caster smugly mention that "there is a spell for that!" anymore.

I have the same opinion about feats btw.

IF I was king: all utility spells (stuff like 'Alarm' for example, all low level summoning spells (somwhere after 3rd maybe the summonings start appearing), all skill enhancers ('jump' or whatever it's called, 'spider climb' also), and all spells that do something martial ('bladed dash and 'true strike') would be cut out and thrown on the fire.
of course, some monsters have spell-like abilities and such based on these spells so their version would be kept.

end result:

• no outshining the others in their niche,
  
• more caster-martial DEPENDENCY,
  
• no using celstial badgers to trigger traps or similar silliness,
  
• vampires still walk on the ceiling, mages either fly or leave such things to the others - preferring to go around the obstacle,
  
• casters can throw around fireballs, scry, transform, become invisible - but they still need a horse to get around (unless they'r high enough lvl to cast teleport or DD), they still need someone to protect them when they sleep, and they still need things like food and air and HELP FROM OTHERS - like the other members of the party does.

... It might work, probably would change the whole 'Tier'-list that many obsess over. Might ruin some classes completely ... Haven't tried it, so it's all theory at this point.

LuxuriantOak wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

Please, Oak, don't listen to Walsh. He is wrong.

While his view is one extreme I'm not looking to emulate I do think that I could have more encounters per day than what I'm having now, and it never hurts to ask for help and try out new styles.

Usually the most effective way to force the party to stop doing the 15 min adventuring day is to hit them while they rest. The casters being made to wake up in the middle of the night ruins their rest cycle and forces them to rest longer as well as prevents them from memorizing spells that's ere expended less than 8 hours previous. Multiple attacks of easy to kill enemies will keep them from resting and regaining spells.

Even non combat "encounters" could fill that role. People running for their life rush into the party camp site, waking everyone up. People traveling at night approach and try to parley with the party (everyone will want to be present for that right? So they will wake up).

After a few days of running on half tank, your party should get the idea that you are done letting them run the game.

As for the whole encounter issue, that is much less simple to fix. If the encounters are so short and opponents are ineffective, just start granting less XP. They obviously aren't a challenge, there is no reason to be giving the party the reward. After awhile the party will start looking for more difficult encounters (ones of appropriate challenge). Our main GM did this one campaign and it turned out to be rather fun. Originally he had set up quite a few encounters that should have been deadly to the party (meaning we should have run) but through dumb luck we plowed through them successfully. It ended up turning into us scouting areas and gathering information via roleplaying, then deciding where we were going to go. This allowed him time to give us the breadcrumbs to places be planned and gave him time in advance to set up for the next weeks encounter. We were steering the game in a way, and...

ring of sustenance bumps it down to 2 hours. so if you're hitting the casters ever 1-1/2 hours then you're probably over doing it. also, i agree trying to force 4-6 encounters in a day when you're traveling is insane, it'll be 3-4 sessions before they make it to the nearest town.

not every story ends up with dungeons or castles.

Bandw2, you are just flat out incorrect. That doesn't bypass the "cannot memorize spells cast in the last 8 hours", nor be able to get spells more than once in a 24 hour period.

Rest

To prepare his daily spells, a wizard must first sleep for 8 hours. The wizard does not have to slumber for every minute of the time, but he must refrain from movement, combat, spellcasting, skill use, conversation, or any other fairly demanding physical or mental task during the rest period. If his rest is interrupted, each interruption adds 1 hour to the total amount of time he has to rest in order to clear his mind, and he must have at least 1 hour of uninterrupted rest immediately prior to preparing his spells. If the character does not need to sleep for some reason, he still must have 8 hours of restful calm before preparing any spells.

Recent Casting Limit/Rest Interruptions

If a wizard has cast spells recently, the drain on his resources reduces his capacity to prepare new spells. When he prepares spells for the coming day, all the spells he has cast within the last 8 hours count against his daily limit.

Interrupting the rest cycle causes them to need another hour, but the main point of doing it is to get the casters to spend the resources so they can't recoup them right away and are now down spell slots.

thoughts on how to implement more fights without wasting too much time (they are lvl 11 now and...

Well, the first thing is to remember that by level 11 the heroes are well known, or should be. They are movers and shakers. They aren't just Joe schmo the adventurer anymore.

If they are goodie-goodies then every real baddie is going to know who they are when they come to town. They show up and word gets around.

Suddenly you have bad juju as enemies start hiring OTHER adventurers to take the party down.

The party is going to teleport home? Good, good, an enemy party is waiting for them in their dwelling.

Enemy casters know how to deal with party casters. What happens when the enemy casters start countering your party's spells?

Random encounters?

Tugmug and his band of raiders have heard of you guys and Tugmug thinks he can get a lot of prestige if he takes the party down.

The party is in the area? Mess with them without firing a shot. Blasting horns that can be heard for 2 miles every 20 minutes through the night can make casters lose a lot of sleep.

Itching powder, poison oak, a chaffing rash... Those are all normal adventuring hazards.

Encounters also don't have to be Combat. What happens when a river has to be crossed? What about things like water moccasins or even just common leeches?

Also... Why do your players have all of this time to spend? Almost all fantasy stories have a timer in play.

You only have so many days to recover the magical item!

The wraiths of felorin are without number and are searching for the ring of talbat which must be cast into the pit of gelthanis which is hidden deep within the labyrinth of carthoom!

The forces of the Dark Lord March on the city of theorin and the only thing that can stop them is to find the heart of the entombed cursed king and stab it with a stake of living wood!

Never *ever* let your players control the pace.

Never *ever* let your players control the pace.

I would not want to play with a GM who does that. Not again, that is. I tried it and it wasn't fun.

HWalsh wrote:

Never *ever* let your players control the pace.

I would not want to play with a GM who does that. Not again, that is. I tried it and it wasn't fun.

It's a thing these days. The GM doesn't plan anything out. The game just starts and the GM is like, "So what do you want to do?"

Then the GM gets confused and wonders why their players are running over them. The PCs need direction and there needs to be a sense of urgency. There needs to be an underlying sense of epicness.

Even the APs largely shot clock players. Shot clocks are good. They keep casters in check. They build tension and drama. They make players fight smarter and conserve resources.

Just a Guess wrote:

HWalsh wrote:

Never *ever* let your players control the pace.

I would not want to play with a GM who does that. Not again, that is. I tried it and it wasn't fun.

It's a thing these days. The GM doesn't plan anything out. The game just starts and the GM is like, "So what do you want to do?"

Then the GM gets confused and wonders why their players are running over them. The PCs need direction and there needs to be a sense of urgency. There needs to be an underlying sense of epicness.

Even the APs largely shot clock players. Shot clocks are good. They keep casters in check. They build tension and drama. They make players fight smarter and conserve resources.

It all depends on the group, but yes: both the players and the GM need to have some idea of what they want to do.

I've noticed a tendency of some players to always keep their cards close to the chest, like thay don't trust me not to mess up their plans out of spite - makes me think they've had some bad GM's in the past.
I've had to sit them down and explain to them that if they don't give me a heads up on their brilliant ideas then I can't help them make them come true ... I often use the sentence "alright, spill it, what are you trying to acomplish here?" or some variation.

In my current group I am often flabbergasted that they seem to prefer more railroading than I thought I would ever have to do ... brings me out of my comfort zone sometimes when I realize that they're waiting for an NPO to tell them what to do.
oh well, I push them towards a more player driven plot and their own ideas, they push me towards clearer descriptions and story arcs with less grays and maybes ... it's a learning process for all of us.

Just a Guess wrote:

HWalsh wrote:

Never *ever* let your players control the pace.

I would not want to play with a GM who does that. Not again, that is. I tried it and it wasn't fun.

It's a thing these days. The GM doesn't plan anything out. The game just starts and the GM is like, "So what do you want to do?"

Then the GM gets confused and wonders why their players are running over them. The PCs need direction and there needs to be a sense of urgency. There needs to be an underlying sense of epicness.

Even the APs largely shot clock players. Shot clocks are good. They keep casters in check. They build tension and drama. They make players fight smarter and conserve resources.

"don't plan anything out" can also be said about gms who blindly follow their scripted adventure (ap module or their own, it doesnt matter)

i prefer players who create characters with individual goals and stuff they want to accomplish.
so instead of a:
fighter
rogue
necromancer
cleric

i would prefer a:
guy who wants to reunite the loose tribes under his banner and become king
the guy who wants to establise a continent wide network and thieves guild and run the world behind the scenes
the creepy fellow searching for immortality
the emissary that wants to build a monument 100ft tall to his god and have every single peasant chant his god's name

in order to accomondate such players i simply need to allow enough freedom in my players movement for them to pursue their goal.

in a written ap p.e. where the players run from place to place with barely a breath in between, how can one amass folowers? when will the wizard search for ancient documents on lichdom? how can a cleric spends weeks preaching to the poor?

some players prefer to play scripted railroad adventures, where the dm simply tells them what happens next and they effectivly play "against" the ap, trying to complete the goals set to them by a predifined plot.
others want to make their trully unique stories and become heroes the way they envisioned their own path
and a precious few, want to manage to fullfill their personal goals, while simultaneously doing an adventure they stumbled upon (dm content)

only the first category of players don't need free time and the dm can set the pace to whatever he wants.
the second category the pace is set solely by players
the third category the pace is set by a balance between dm and players, where the pendulum keeps swinging one way or another, at some point the gm may be running things, and then give the players the lead, and the back and forth keeps the pace at a very flux state.

some players prefer to play scripted railroad adventures, where the dm simply tells them what happens next and they effectivly play "against" the ap, trying to complete the goals set to them by a predifined plot.
others want to make their trully unique...

I use player goals as fodder for Adventures.

You want the secrets to become a lich? You need the book of the great wizard Necrios. Unfortunately it was lost, years ago. Rumor has it that the Wizard's apprentice stole it but died when he sought out an artifact of great power. The PC then finds out that he's not the only one looking to find it... (Shot clock enabled!)

The other guilds aren't willing to just listen to anyone. If you want the guild of Teranthius to join you then you'll need to prove you have what it takes. Prince Ali Abooboo is coming to the palace in two week's time. He brings with him the pearl of the desert. Steal it! Be quick though, he won't be here very long and if you kill his guards then you might cause more trouble than you can imagine!

Etc.

LuxuriantOak wrote:

thoughts on how to implement more fights without wasting too much time (they are lvl 11 now and...

Well, the first thing is to remember that by level 11 the heroes are well known, or should be. They are movers and shakers. They aren't just Joe schmo the adventurer anymore.

If they are goodie-goodies then every real baddie is going to know who they are when they come to town. They show up and word gets around.

Suddenly you have bad juju as enemies start hiring OTHER adventurers to take the party down.

The party is going to teleport home? Good, good, an enemy party is waiting for them in their dwelling.

Enemy casters know how to deal with party casters. What happens when the enemy casters start countering your party's spells?

Random encounters?

Tugmug and his band of raiders have heard of you guys and Tugmug thinks he can get a lot of prestige if he takes the party down.

The party is in the area? Mess with them without firing a shot. Blasting horns that can be heard for 2 miles every 20 minutes through the night can make casters lose a lot of sleep.

Itching powder, poison oak, a chaffing rash... Those are all normal adventuring hazards.

Encounters also don't have to be Combat. What happens when a river has to be crossed? What about things like water moccasins or even just common leeches?

Rather hard to see how getting rid of spells that mimic martial abilities helps with any of those situations. Rather hard to see how having more non-casters along helps with those, to be honest.

Bandw2, you are just flat out incorrect. That doesn't bypass the "cannot memorize spells cast in the last 8 hours", nor be able to get spells more than once in a 24 hour period.

Quote:

Rest

To prepare his daily spells, a wizard must first sleep for 8 hours. The wizard does not have to slumber for every minute of the time, but he must refrain from movement, combat, spellcasting, skill use, conversation, or any other fairly demanding physical or mental task during the rest period. If his rest is interrupted, each interruption adds 1 hour to the total amount of time he has to rest in order to clear his mind, and he must have at least 1 hour of uninterrupted rest immediately prior to preparing his spells. If the character does not need to sleep for some reason, he still must have 8 hours of restful calm before preparing any spells.

Recent Casting Limit/Rest Interruptions

If a wizard has cast spells recently, the drain on his resources reduces his capacity to prepare new spells. When he prepares spells for the coming day, all the spells he has cast within the last 8 hours count against his daily limit.

Interrupting the rest cycle causes them to need another hour, but the main point of doing it is to get the casters to spend the resources so they can't recoup them right away and are now down spell slots.

doesn't matter sleep for 2, wait 6 hours. :/ i was aware of that rule, but i no longer need to sleep 8 hours, only 2, then prepare them later, you can't interrupt sleep i already took.

the ring specifically says 2 hours of sleep counts as 8, this means it count's for the wizard's limit on rest. however it does not overrule his counting the last 8 hours against his casting limit.

his ring continually provides its wearer with life-sustaining nourishment. The ring also refreshes the body and mind; its wearer needs only sleep 2 hours per day to gain the benefit of 8 hours of sleep. This allows a spellcaster that requires rest to prepare spells to do so after only 2 hours, but this does not allow a spellcaster to prepare spells more than once per day. The ring must be worn for a full week before it begins to work. If it is removed, the owner must wear it for another week to reattune it to himself.

it simply denies enemies the ability to interrupt my sleep schedule.

Rather hard to see how getting rid of spells that mimic martial abilities helps with any of those situations. Rather hard to see how having more non-casters along helps with those, to be honest.

It helps because, unlike the Fighter, who can do his thing as many times as he wants, the caster has to decide if it's worth it to burn a spell slot on it.

In these situations the casters are forced to fall into restorative and preventative support or enhancement and artillery support.

It becomes a careful balancing act for them.

There is nothing, at all, wrong with magic mimicing martial abilities. The difference is that magic is expensive and VERY inefficient when used to mimic fighter abilities without a LOT of down time.

The key to balance is making sure that down time isn't readily available.

Bluenose wrote:

Rather hard to see how getting rid of spells that mimic martial abilities helps with any of those situations. Rather hard to see how having more non-casters along helps with those, to be honest.

It helps because, unlike the Fighter, who can do his thing as many times as he wants, the caster has to decide if it's worth it to burn a spell slot on it.

it doesn't matter if he can do something as many times as he wants if the caster can do 1 thing the fighter can never do, even once, while the opposite isn't true.

like has been said, i'd love a druid way more than a fighter on my team.

Bluenose wrote:

Rather hard to see how getting rid of spells that mimic martial abilities helps with any of those situations. Rather hard to see how having more non-casters along helps with those, to be honest.

It helps because, unlike the Fighter, who can do his thing as many times as he wants, the caster has to decide if it's worth it to burn a spell slot on it.

In these situations the casters are forced to fall into restorative and preventative support or enhancement and artillery support.

It becomes a careful balancing act for them.

There is nothing, at all, wrong with magic mimicing martial abilities. The difference is that magic is expensive and VERY inefficient when used to mimic fighter abilities without a LOT of down time.

The key to balance is making sure that down time isn't readily available.

Or he could have a few scrolls of the key utility spells, alongside things like leaving a slot open and etc

How many times in your average adventuring day you need those utility slots either way.

The whole "balanced around a few abilities/day" argument is way overused imo.

If you want to see a class that has limited utility abilities /day look at rogue's 1/day+1/5lvl abilities
When a lvl 7 caster, along with his pearls, has close to 22+ spells/day that's not really limited

Bluenose wrote:

Rather hard to see how getting rid of spells that mimic martial abilities helps with any of those situations. Rather hard to see how having more non-casters along helps with those, to be honest.

It helps because, unlike the Fighter, who can do his thing as many times as he wants, the caster has to decide if it's worth it to burn a spell slot on it.

And of course the Cleric, the Druid, and several other classes with good spell-casting are so terrible at fighting that they might as well not bother unless they expend some of their precious resources on increasing their ability, while no-one thinks the Fighter ever needs any buffs at all. And anyway the Fighter has such an amazing ability to heal and buff themselves, other classes just aren't needed when you have one.