Now, some of the effects from Will Saves are extreme but they really aren't anymore extreme than the effects of a failed fortitude save.
After all the weird spell means save or 10 hp per caster level damage, which is going to be in the realm of 200 hp damage. A fighter with a 16 Con, Toughness, and a Hero's Feast is going to have about 215 hp on average. It's still going to hose him if he fails that save (the wizard has on average 40 hp less than a fighter with the same Con and toughness so he's going to flat die on a failed save). A good poison is going to sink your Con or Str faster than a boat loaded with rocks and a hole in the side, if you fail your saves. Heck the one that does Con damage is even worse since if you fail you lose top HP and have less chance of making that next save!
It's the same end effect just by different means, but people aren't complaining about the fact that fort saves are 'too dangerous' or 'too swingy'.
In my opinion the real problem is the Reflex save is just too wimpy. Save or take half damage of 10d6? or even 20d6? OOh 70~140 HP damage... IF I fail my save. It could add up to be a problem but over all the effects of a failed Reflex save just don't compare to the effects of a failed fort or will save.
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Gods no! Not everything's all strengths. There are weaknesses.
Exactly. Will saves are the only things that can save the Wizard b*tt when charged by an angry Fighter or Barbarian. Save or Die ? Almost useless, Fort Save is sky-high. Damaging spell ? Useless, high hp. Wizard has to escape ? Well, it's a possibility (the only one if you pump up the Will saves of martial characters) - but it really depends on 'where'. A fly spell is useful only on open ground (and again, a simple Carpet of Flying erases the gap), Invisibility only delays the inevitable and so on...
Seriously, the game takes in consideration the fact that magic is a tool for the trade, like it or not. A high-level Fighter can go nowhere without a good magical equipment - or he has to stay in the 'kindergarten playground', fighting against NPCs Warriors for all time long. Want to fight a Great Wyrm without some good equipment ? Let me take your measures for the coffin...
(and boys, even if I played D&D BECMI a lot - I cannot speak of AD&D because I played only occasionally - , I seriously always thought that the Saves in that game were horrible broken on the side of characters - 2 or more to save against a spell ? Sure, why not !?!...)
The problem is again, people choosing to look at the low end fighter and compare him to the high end wizard. If you take a high end fighter then compare him the wizard's DCs come out much less favorable.
I can only agree with that. Look at the DC Saves of most Monster abilities - almost nothing is higher than 26-28 (for 9th-level spell-like abilities). The Blasphemy spell-like ability of a Pit Fiend (CR 20) has a DC of 25 (Will negates, with the new PFRPG rules).
A 18th-level Fighter (a reasonable level to start finding such creatures) has a Base Will of +6; add Iron Will (+2), Wisdom 14 (12 at start, plus 4000 gp for a mere +2), and a Cloak of Resistance +3 for only 9000 gp and we have already a +13. Such a Fighter has...
The thing is... that fighter *is* kind of optimized, because during all my 20+ years of D&D, I've only played one fighter with Wis 14, and only two 3E PCs who took Iron Will; *none* of the "melee" guys (a paladin, barbarian, fighter and rogue) in my own playtest campaign have Wis over 9 (see above what I wrote about that).
If we want to consider the "average" high-level rogue/fighter/barbarian, let's assume Wis 10 with point-buy, no Iron Will, and Cloak of Resistance +3 = +9 Will Save modifier at 20th level (barbarian gets this to +11 when raging). That would actually be pretty positive number for a NPC, and in my experience closer to the "truth" than assuming everyone picks X, Y, Z, and gets "buffs" Q, W and E from spellcaster buddies/potions/items. Against that 'Blasphemy' (Will DC 25) the fighter and the rogue would need to roll 16+ (giving them 25% chance to succeed), and the barbarian would need only 14+ if he's raging (giving hom 35% chance to succeed). Wow. Let's throw in +3 from various magical sources, and now it's 13+ and 11+, respectively.
How about against a high-level wizard or cleric? Let's assume an NPC spellcaster with primary ability score of 24, Spell Focus, and 8th level spell = DC 26. Now the fighter and the rogue need to roll 14+ and the barbarian succeeds on 12+ (when raging). The chance to succeed is 35% and 45%, respectively. A dwarf would improve those numbers by +3, which is still "swingy" by my standards.
The way I see it, the real question at the heart of it all is this: which number/percentage would be "good enough" in relation to the frequency of saving throws in general? In AD&D, a high-level character probably failed in one or two saving throws per session at most (i.e. your chance ranged from 75% to 95%, deoending on the save in question), but in 3E I've seen only clerics and paladins save on 2+. Usually the fighter fails on first or second round, if he acts as he's *supposed* to act, i.e. charges headlong into melee without drinking potions and/or waiting to be "buffed" by the spellcasters (assuming the group has them).
I don't know about you guys, but as a player I've grown tired of either having to "hold back" (until you have "boosted" your saves with items or spells) when playing the "melee" types, *or* being taken out of the game on the first round if I charge the spellcasting monsters or NPCs. As a DM I've grown likewise tired of always having to hold back with high-level spellcasting NPCs and monsters, because too many Will or Fort saves against DC 25+ in a session will eventually result in a TPK. Unless, of course, I make sure everyone "min-maxes" their PCs and give them all Cloak of Resistance +5 just to be sure.
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It's a "gamist" thing. Fighters (and ranger and paladins) in 1e had the best saves at high levels, nothing effected them more than 25% of the time (their worst save was a "6" vs. whatever spells didn't fit another category of saves, iirc). This "simulated" the Conan Effect: a powerful warrior who could shrug off a lot of wizardly effects so they could kill sorcerers easier. It was also a balance to the "save or die" spells, if higher level characters were rarely affected, the effect of a spell didn't need to be nerfed. The spells were designed to take out the "minions" (for want of a better word), not the heroes.
In 3x, the designers decided fighters should only be good at resisting directly physical things. Intelligent design? Debatable. Something that can be houseruled? Sure. A big deal? Not really.
I don't know about you guys, but as a player I've grown tired of either having to "hold back" (until you have "boosted" your saves with items or spells) when playing the "melee" types, *or* being taken out of the game on the first round if I charge the spellcasting monsters or NPCs. As a DM I've grown likewise tired of always having to hold back with high-level spellcasting NPCs and monsters, because too many Will or Fort saves against DC 25+ in a session will eventually result in a TPK. Unless, of course, I make sure everyone "min-maxes" their PCs and give them all Cloak of Resistance +5 just to be sure.
See I've never had the problems you are talking about either as a player or as a DM. The only time I've seen it happen where it could have been a big deal was at the end of Rise of The Runelords and then all our meleeist rolled 1 or 2's on their fortitude save against a death effect spell.
And you know what? That happens. Personally I've not held back against my players as a DM. Do I specifically target the fighter with a dominate person spell first? No, usually the villain has something more important to do that first round (and he's usually screened against a direct assault by the fighter too) including gauging what the party is capable of. After all the NPC's usually don't have Detect thoughts, Detect Class, Detect Magic Items, and Omnipresence up when the PC's attack. Several times the 'villain' doesn't nessecarily know that someone is attack (or even when he does, who that someone is). To assume he knows everything the DM knows is metagaming just as badly as the player that says, "The DM never puts traps on the treasure, and never hands out treasure until after all the bad guys are dead."
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I don't know about you guys, but as a player I've grown tired of either having to "hold back" (until you have "boosted" your saves with items or spells) when playing the "melee" types, *or* being taken out of the game on the first round if I charge the spellcasting monsters or NPCs. As a DM I've grown likewise tired of always having to hold back with high-level spellcasting NPCs and monsters, because too many Will or Fort saves against DC 25+ in a session will eventually result in a TPK. Unless, of course, I make sure everyone "min-maxes" their PCs and give them all Cloak of Resistance +5 just to be sure.
See I've never had the problems you are talking about either as a player or as a DM. The only time I've seen it happen where it could have been a big deal was at the end of Rise of The Runelords and then all our meleeist rolled 1 or 2's on their fortitude save against a death effect spell.
And you know what? That happens. Personally I've not held back against my players as a DM. Do I specifically target the fighter with a dominate person spell first? No, usually the villain has something more important to do that first round (and he's usually screened against a direct assault by the fighter too) including gauging what the party is capable of. After all the NPC's usually don't have Detect thoughts, Detect Class, Detect Magic Items, and Omnipresence up when the PC's attack. Several times the 'villain' doesn't nessecarily know that someone is attack (or even when he does, who that someone is). To assume he knows everything the DM knows is metagaming just as badly as the player that says, "The DM never puts traps on the treasure, and never hands out treasure until after all the bad guys are dead."
Your spellcasting villains don't scry on PCs invading their strongholds, or use 'Detect Thoughts' or 'Project Image' or 'Arcane Sight'? :O
And no, villains might not bother about fighters, unless they actually manage to engage them in melee... which is what the *melee* types should try to do, right? If they can't, well, what's their role in the game? Taking out "minions" and reatreating once they've fulfilled their job, while the spellcasters deal with the "real" challenge? And it's not just spellcasting NPCs... Demons, Devils, Beholders, Dragons and other creatures with magical and/or area attacks probably try to target the fighter along with other PCs -- especially if he's just charged into melee.
Seriously, maybe you and your players *are* good at "min-maxing", and create "melee" PCs according to the "baseline assumptions" thrown around here? Also, maybe your group sticks devotedly to the Wealth-by-Level tables, and magic items are more common as treasure and/or easily bought? I'm only speaking from my own experience, and I've gamed under five different DMs (and, naturally, run campaigns of my own) during the 3E era. I noticed this very painfully when we converted our 11th level PCs from AD&D to 3E, and the hurting *really* began whenever I was hit with SoS/SoD-effect (and we're still speaking about the fighter who has *both* Iron Will and Wis 14). Maybe "old skool" DMs in general have been pretty merciless with DCs, or based their tactics on the good ol' "He's got INT 24, so he can predict EVERYTHING they'll try" philosophy (i.e. high-Int villains should be able to look at every angle, which was discussed back in the day as being "the ONLY right way" to run them)? And it was not just this character; when you've got (at best) about 50-50 chance to save, there's a 25% chance that the spell takes out at least two PCs.
Let's consider the best possible scenario with a 20th level dwarven barbarian who has taken Iron Will, has Wis 20 (+6 from item), has Ring of Resistance +5, gets +2 from Rage, and, finally, +2 from Racial Abilities. All this sums up to 6 + 5 + 5 + 2 + 2 +2 = +22 total modifier. Let's pit him against a 9th level spell cast by a 20th level wizard (Universal) who has INT 30 and Greater Spell Focus and yet gets +2 on all DCs from Mastery of All Schools -- that's 10 + 9 + 10 + 2 + 2 = total DC 33. So, putting two extremes against each other, we see that it's 50-50 chance, if the barbarian is raging -- if we gave him, say, a generous +5 extra bonus from various magical sources, that gives him 75% chance to succeed, which is still *LESS* than he had back in 2E (when he was a fighter kit, of course).
Maybe not everyone faces this issues on a regular basis, but I've seen too many campaigns dissolve into "No, if you guys don't cast those three spells, I'm not going into melee with those beholders/dragons/bodaks/etcetera!"-type of discussions, when players desperately try to protect their characters. Usually when you're required to roll three or more saves per round, or a single save for three or more consecutive rounds, you're almost guaranteed to fail.
So, putting two extremes against each other, we see that it's 50-50 chance, if the barbarian is raging -- if we gave him, say, a generous +5 extra bonus from various magical sources, that gives him 75% chance to succeed, which is still *LESS* than he had back in 2E (when he was a fighter kit, of course).
The issue is you are trying to impose 1st Ed/2nd Ed baseline assumptions on the 3.x system. The 3.x system was simply designed around different baseline assumptions and core mechanics (just like 4e is designed around different baseline assumptions and core mechanics than 3.x).
In short, you are demanding something from 3.x that it wasn't designed for. Again, you may want to look at Iron Heroes instead (or just stick with 1st/2nd Ed AD&D and raid 3.x for ideas and house-rules).
It could add up to be a problem but over all the effects of a failed Reflex save just don't compare to the effects of a failed fort or will save.
This is true, but generally speaking a relfex save attack affects more than one target, so the overall power of the attack (and effects of the saves) are the same.
Of course, pretty much every class with a good relfex save gets improved evasion to help make their good save the one you might as well not target them with (since it turns all those 'halves' to 'negates').
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So, putting two extremes against each other, we see that it's 50-50 chance, if the barbarian is raging -- if we gave him, say, a generous +5 extra bonus from various magical sources, that gives him 75% chance to succeed, which is still *LESS* than he had back in 2E (when he was a fighter kit, of course).The issue is you are trying to impose 1st Ed/2nd Ed baseline assumptions on the 3.x system. The 3.x system was simply designed around different baseline assumptions and core mechanics (just like 4e is designed around different baseline assumptions and core mechanics than 3.x).
In short, you are demanding something from 3.x that it wasn't designed for. Again, you may want to look at Iron Heroes instead (or just stick with 1st/2nd Ed AD&D and raid 3.x for ideas and house-rules).
I don't think 3E was consciously designed to favor powergaming and "min-maxing" ; rather, the high-level play was not properly playtested, or maybe they just couldn't "patch" it in time (something like "If we tweak X and Y, the game mechanics lose some of the internal consistency, and we don't want that..."). As feats and prestige classes started piling in, it became apparent that it was easy to "break" the system, and yet some builds and multiclass-combinations ended up being, well, less than effective. So, I don't think it was actually an intentional shift in theme or mechanics like they did with 4E; I find it hard to believe the designers thought that the baseline assumption in 3E is that the "melee" types regularly fail their saving throws at high levels, or competely rely on their spellcasting friends and magic items. Ergo, it's not a feature -- it's a "bug" in the math underlying the mechanics.
Some stuff about how saves are boken because his players use WIS as a dump stat and don't take Iron Will or other precautions to compensate for their dump stat choiceSo you're saying will saves are a problem because of examples of characters built specifically to have really low ones? That's not a problem, that's a feature. If someone makes wisdom their dump stat, and takes no measures to cover their weakness, then they have to live with (and suffer through) their weakness. If we're talking 20th level characters, I don't see how taking iron will is burning a feat. They have tons of feats in PRPG. Multiple tons of feats if they're a fighter.
If you're not allowing 20th level characters to have access to +5 resistance items (which cost 25,000 only) then you're playing a game with vastly different assumptions than baseline D&D or PRPG. If that's the case, then you should come up with some alternative, but that doesn't mean that the base game is flawed.
I have to wholeheartedly agree with Joel here.
Melee classes have to know their weakness. They have to prepare to handle it.
They're adventurers for Iomede's sake! Start acting like it.
In my opinion, any player (except newbies who don't know any better) who chooses WIS as a dump stat (10 is not a dump stat) AND who don't take precautions to compensate is metagaming.
They're blatantly saying "I have a huge weakness, and rather than fix it, I will make it a bigger weakness. My DM won't even think about dominating me out of the fight, or stun-locking me, or constantly hitting me with WILL-based SOD or SOS spells because he knows it wouldn't be fair, so I will beat the system by ignoring, even flaunting, my weakness safe in the knowledge that my DM will protect me from it."
As a DM, if I see a player making a character this way, at level 1, I warn him about the weakness. I tell him up front that I will play my monsters and NPCs like they've never met him and that means their decisions will be based on what's best for the bad guys, not what's best for the PCs. I will strongly advise fixing their dump stat and revising their opinion of WILL saves. And I will help them along the way with the right items, luckily found in treasure hoards or that rare happenstance where the merchant in the bazaar only has for sale a wand of shocking grasp and a headband of wisdom that some other adventurers dumped on him last month.
Asgetrion, if your players are dumping thir WIS and ingoring their WILL, you have two choices. Let them beat the system and get away with it, or demonstrate the error of their ways. Me, I would make every bad guy from now until next year have WILL-based SOS effects. Holds, Sleeps, Stuns, Dances, Fears, etc. Those fighters/barbarians will have to watch their friends win every fight. Then when they start complaining, I would point out that it was their bad decision. They should do something about it. I would allow the PHBII concept of redesigning characters, allowing them to adjust their base WIS and their feat selection when they level up. I would make WILL save items available in town, for a steeeep price. And then I would reward them by still hitting them with SOS spells, but with low enough save DCs that they'll make most of their saves, so they'll feel like it was worth it.
But that's just me.
It's a "gamist" thing. Fighters (and ranger and paladins) in 1e had the best saves at high levels, nothing effected them more than 25% of the time (their worst save was a "6" vs. whatever spells didn't fit another category of saves, iirc). This "simulated" the Conan Effect: a powerful warrior who could shrug off a lot of wizardly effects so they could kill sorcerers easier...
In 3x, the designers decided fighters should only be good at resisting directly physical things. Intelligent design? Debatable. Something that can be houseruled? Sure.
Yup. If I were to stick with the class-based rules, I'd love to see fighters with all good saves. That and a bit of move-and-attack ability (and maybe easier spellcasting disruption), would go a long way towards making them viable, vibrant, and fun again at high levels.
I don't think 3E was consciously designed to favor powergaming and "min-maxing"...So, putting two extremes against each other, we see that it's 50-50 chance, if the barbarian is raging -- if we gave him, say, a generous +5 extra bonus from various magical sources, that gives him 75% chance to succeed, which is still *LESS* than he had back in 2E (when he was a fighter kit, of course).The issue is you are trying to impose 1st Ed/2nd Ed baseline assumptions on the 3.x system. The 3.x system was simply designed around different baseline assumptions and core mechanics (just like 4e is designed around different baseline assumptions and core mechanics than 3.x).
No, 3E wasn't designed for that. It was designed for scalability and flexibility, while retaining interesting differences.
I ran 1st edition for many years. You are 100% correct that saves for high level characters there were better than 3E in most cases. What you frankly are wrong about is the *extent* they were better.
In 1st edition, at high levels, characters virtually *never* failed a save on anything but a 1. Between a minor ring and cloak of protection (or one good one), or whatever else they happened to find, most characters (even with completely random treasure), simply could NOT BE AFFECTED, 95% of the time.
I loved it. I DM'd it. And I'm quite pleased to have the 3E alternative.
In 3E there is an "average" point - I don't call it a baseline, because that tends to mean a minimum - where actual chances to succeed at saves increases slowly. A 1st level fighter has about the same chance to flee from a Cause Fear spell, as an 18th level does from dragon fear.
From that "average" 3E has extreme flexibility. If your character was tormented by older siblings as a child and decides that he's not going to be afraid of anything ever again, he can take many many different steps to achieve that.
On the other hand, if your group decides as a whole that they are a lot of fools, run with it. I'm assuming they have at least *one* character in the party that has a decent Will save - I'm sure it will provide him much amusement to always save the day when the recurring enchantress weaves her wicked web of lies and sorcery on them.
If, on the third hand, your group decides they shouldn't have to deal with stuff like that at high levels, then A) invest the resources to overcome them, B) make a houserule to get around them (whether just ignore Will save effects, or give constant Slippery Mind abilities to the party), or C) yes, play another game.
There *can be* trouble when the player's have one play style, and the DM has another (i.e. characters are very generalist, DM NPC's are very specialist). For the system, its not a bug, it is a feature of the flexibility, to have characters who can make it on a 2 almost always, and characters who fail on a 19 almost always. Your choice.
To the OP: other than Heroes of Horror (which is a supplement designed for a very specific type of campaign), I still haven't seen any other effects mentioned where we would need a separate classification for fear effects based on magic vs. otherwise. In general I'd also say that the epic heroes like Conan, etc., being highly resistant to fear is what *distinguishes* them and makes them special. Not every fighter should be a Conan.
Yup. If I were to stick with the class-based rules, I'd love to see fighters with all good saves. That and a bit of move-and-attack ability (and maybe easier spellcasting disruption), would go a long way towards making them viable, vibrant, and fun again at high levels.It's a "gamist" thing. Fighters (and ranger and paladins) in 1e had the best saves at high levels, nothing effected them more than 25% of the time (their worst save was a "6" vs. whatever spells didn't fit another category of saves, iirc). This "simulated" the Conan Effect: a powerful warrior who could shrug off a lot of wizardly effects so they could kill sorcerers easier...
In 3x, the designers decided fighters should only be good at resisting directly physical things. Intelligent design? Debatable. Something that can be houseruled? Sure.
Leaping casually from the alley to the 3rd storey rooftops, flying over castle walls, hopping across the top of the bamboo forest.
Coming to game stores near you, Crouching Tiger Hidden Fighter.
Then, we allow fighters to shrug off any and all spell effects. In the first round of combat, they fly, even better, teleport, to the enemy mage and dismember him in a single full-round attack (yes, after moving). If they lose initiative, no worries, that mage can't cast anything on them that the fighter cannot shrug off, leap over, or burst through.
I hear they're going to implement this stuff, then change the game to "Pathfighter". It will only have one class since fighter will be hands-down better than the other 10 classes anyway.
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Class balance is not about making all classes equally immune to all other classes.
It's a rock-paper-scissors thing. Rogues can kill mages, mages can kill fighters, fighters can kill rogues.
Clerics can kill them all, but that's for another thread...
Because of this balance, a good group consists of some of every class. You bring rocks, in case you need to kill scissors. You bring paper in case you encounter rocks. And you bring scissors to deal with the nasty papers. And bring clerics to keep them all alive.
Boosting the invulnerabilites of one class, like fighters, or a category of classes like melee classes, breaks the rock-paper-scissors balance.
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Fighters are fine.
Sure, they have an achilles heel. But, if I recall, so did, uh, Achilles...
All these mages with all their SOS/SOD spells, they have their own achilles heels, have no doubts about it.
So, protect your achilles heels (Iron Will, headbands, cloaks, immunities, buffs, etc.) as much as possible. Heck, Achilles would probably be alive today if he had only worn a pair of bronze boots (iron boots in the middle ages, steel boots in the Renaissance, kevlar boots today).
If fighters take some basic precautions, their will saves are good enough to shrug off some spells, and they'll fall prey to other spells when they roll poorly.
If they don't take those precautions, or if their DMs love to munchkin the bad guys so their save DCs blow the fighters away, then that's just poor playing and/or poor DMing.
There is no need to ruin the game balance to fix something that isn't really broken.
Just wear your full-plate boots.
I'd like to remind folks that D&D is a game about teamwork. Conan might be the barbarian achetype, but he was also a literary protagonist and had to be able to win by himself.
Your D&D character can't be Superman, Batman, the Hulk, or any all-powerful solo hero, because they are expected to be in a PARTY. Instead, think of the Fantastic Four or the X-Men: groups of individuals who have their own singular strengths and weaknesses.
So...yeah...I'm sorry your Fighter can't shrug off mind control as well as they ignore damage and laugh at death spells. You're not Superman. You're the Thing.
Same for the Wizard who isn't actually all-powerful and who (literally) rolls over and dies to Finger of Death. You're not Doctor Strange, you're Mr. Fantastic.
Yup. If I were to stick with the class-based rules, I'd love to see fighters with all good saves. That and a bit of move-and-attack ability (and maybe easier spellcasting disruption), would go a long way towards making them viable, vibrant, and fun again at high levels.
A mobile, all-good-saves meleeist who eats Mages for breakfast? That's a Monk, not a Fighter. Seriously.
A mobile, all-good-saves meleeist who eats Mages for breakfast? That's a Monk, not a Fighter. Seriously.
No, it's a high-level 1st-edition fighter. The 3.5/PF monk is even more hapless at those levels than the 3.5 fighter, if anything. Seriously.
I hear they're going to implement this stuff, then change the game to "Pathfighter". It will only have one class since fighter will be hands-down better than the other 10 classes anyway. Class balance is not about making all classes equally immune to all other classes.
Allowing the fighter to, say, trade an iterative attack for an extra 10 ft. of movement is in no way comparable to allowing him to teleport at will. Allowing defensive casting to fail other than on a "1" is not comparable to making it fail automatically. Your arguments present a false dichotomy, and pretend that the middle ground I'm looking for can't exist.
It's a rock-paper-scissors thing. Rogues can kill mages, mages can kill fighters, fighters can kill rogues.
No; in 3.5/Pathfinder, at higher levels it's a full-caster vs. non-caster thing. Intelligently-played wizards and clerics can kill all non-wizards and clerics. Above 12th level or so, they're better than fighters in all ways, and there is very little "class balance". Your views to the contrary, it is possible to restore some balance without automatically overbalancing in the other direction. A difficult task to adjudicate and playest? Maybe. Impossible? Not by a long shot.
Yup. If I were to stick with the class-based rules, I'd love to see fighters with all good saves.
Not a chance.
Weaknesses, people. Weaknesses. They come hand in hand with strengths. I don't want a my little pony, hold-your-hands-and-pat-your-head game, where everybody is a winner.
Play a fighter if you want to be the guy who is a good fighter. Don't play a fighter if you want ot be the guy who has no weaknesses, can defeat every foe alone and shrug off everything the world throws at him.
In fact, don't play D&D if you want to be that guy because...
D&D is a game about teamwork.
Your D&D character can't be Superman, Batman, the Hulk, or any all-powerful solo hero, because they are expected to be in a PARTY.
Actually, I'd say Batman would have fighter levels. He has no superpowers, he's just a very good fighter and has cool gimmicks. Maybe some rogue and ranger thrown in, for the stealth stuff.
And see how he fared against the Scarecrow in that flat. He could trade blows with the best of them, but one will save, and he was flat out.
Batman's lucky there are no wizards in his universe.
But if there was, he could probably afford a wizard to cast mind blank on him.
The general principle stands: D&D is about a team working together, covering each other's backs. Everyone has strengths, everyone has weaknesses.
If you don't like that, then houserule it away. Or play another game. That's the options, because PF won't change one of the basic concepts of D&D.
And it's not as if the fighter was utterly powerless. There's plenty of things you can do:
Sure, some choices could be considered powergaming, and some choices mean that you can't start with 18 str 18 con or something like that, but you can't have everything.
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I have to wholeheartedly agree with Joel here.
Melee classes have to know their weakness. They have to prepare to handle it.
They're adventurers for Iomede's sake! Start acting like it.
In my opinion, any player (except newbies who don't know any better) who chooses WIS as a dump stat (10 is not a dump stat) AND who don't take precautions to compensate is metagaming.
They're blatantly saying "I have a huge weakness, and rather than fix it, I will make it a bigger weakness. My DM won't even think about dominating me out of the fight, or stun-locking me, or constantly hitting me with WILL-based SOD or SOS spells because he knows it wouldn't be fair, so I will beat the system by ignoring, even flaunting, my weakness safe in the knowledge that my DM will protect me from it."
As a DM, if I see a player making a character this way, at level 1, I warn him about the weakness. I tell him up front that I will play my monsters and NPCs like they've never met him and that means their decisions will be based on what's best for the bad guys, not what's best for the PCs. I will strongly advise fixing their dump stat and revising their opinion of WILL saves. And I will help them along the way with the right items, luckily found in treasure hoards or that rare happenstance where the merchant in the bazaar only has for sale a wand of shocking grasp and a headband of wisdom that some other adventurers dumped on him last month.
Asgetrion, if your players are dumping thir WIS and ingoring their WILL, you have two choices. Let them beat the system and get away with it, or demonstrate the error of their ways. Me, I would make every bad guy from now until next year have WILL-based SOS effects. Holds, Sleeps, Stuns, Dances, Fears, etc. Those fighters/barbarians will have to watch their friends win every fight. Then when they start complaining, I would point out that it was their bad decision. They should do something about it. I would allow the PHBII concept of redesigning characters, allowing them to adjust their base WIS and their feat selection when they level up. I would make WILL save items available in town, for a steeeep price. And then I would reward them by still hitting them with SOS spells, but with low enough save DCs that they'll make most of their saves, so they'll feel like it was worth it.
But that's just me.
And that would benefit... who? I would screw up the campaign, and nobody else besides me would have any fun, while I only manage to demonstrate that I'm a bad DM who thinks they're trying to "beat" the system or playing "wrong". Even if we used PHB II or any 3E books at all (note: I'm running a PF Beta campaign, and it's the only book we're using besides MMs), I don't think they would say: "Gee, we need to redesign these characters, because it's obvious that we messed up by ignoring Will saves!". They're not kids anymore, so if I appear to be always gunning for their Achilles' Heel, they'll just say: "You know, I don't find this to be fun, and I think I've got better things to do than watch you show your superiority!".
Alright, there are two primary reasons for them to "dump" Wis. First of all, we're using point-buy, which means they generally have worse stats than what you get by rolling X sets with 4D6 (which we've been using ever since 2E came out). This kind of limits what they're used to, and the melee classes are still running to the MAD-problem (especially the "tactical" fighter with 13+ in DEX and INT). Secondly, they've tried so many different concepts and builds that they wanted to get "back to the basics" with the "new" rules.
All I'm saying is that if the "balance" in the game is so fragile that it's dependant on you always picking items X, Y and Z for your "melee" guy, or a couple of "bad" decisions (such as dumping your Wis or ignoring Iron Will and Great Fortitude for the rogue) breaks it, it's time to redo the math. I want ALL concepts to be *playable* at high levels, even the low-Wis fighter/barbarian/rogue, or maybe we need extensive retraining rules for ability scores and feats?
As I said above, it seems there are a lot of assumptions in the game; should some of them be "hardwired" to the mechanics? Such as if none of the players create a cleric, druid or wizard, the DM is obliged to provide one as an NPC for every session. And magic items (as per Wealth-by-Level table) should be available anywhere, anytime -- either as treasure or via a magic item shop.
Your arguments present a false dichotomy, and pretend that the middle ground I'm looking for can't exist.
Okay...
No; in 3.5/Pathfinder, at higher levels it's a full-caster vs. non-caster thing. Intelligently-played wizards and clerics can kill all non-wizards and clerics.
That's middle ground? That's not false dichotomy?
My high to epic level DM'ing experience points to just about the exact opposite. Super maxed out, PC-treasure NPC Wizards, Clerics, and Psions manage to have a *chance* of actually affecting the PCs, slightly. And the big brute barb crushed *everything* - once ending a battle against a final BBEG and his cohort, in the surprise round, with a full-round action *LEFTOVER*.
My game? Probably at the strong PC-defense end of the spectrum. Asgetrion's game? Probably at the low end. Nothing wrong with that. There's room for it all, that's what makes the game so much damn fun.
Super maxed out, PC-treasure NPC Wizards, Clerics, and Psions manage to have a *chance* of actually affecting the PCs, slightly.
Overpowered PCs vs. NPCs is another thing entirely... but just so we're on the same page, does a super-maxed-out, PC-treasure NPC fighter (of the same level as the BBEG wizard) kill your whole party, or go down like a chump even worse than the NPC wizard or cleric? If the former, then I humbly request to see your notes -- obviously I'm missing a large part of the 3.5 rules. If the latter, well, that sort of bolsters my point.
Yes, D&D should have room for all styles of play. What I've found in 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder is that the style emphasizing preparedness and ruthless use of effective techniques is (grossly) disproportionately hard on warrior-tyes at 12th - 19th levels. On the other hand, the style of play in which the casters spend their time buffing their friends, instead of fighting, and in which the bad guys change their strategy to allow this, IS successful... the end result of which is that, really, only one style of play is supported.
Actually, I'd say Batman would have fighter levels. He has no superpowers, he's just a very good fighter and has cool gimmicks. Maybe some rogue and ranger thrown in, for the stealth stuff.
If we're comparing 3.5 core classes and members of the Super Friends, I'd say:
Superman = wizard
Green Lantern = cleric
Batman = rogue
Hawkman = fighter
"But Hawkman is the best at flying!!" Yeah, except for Superman and Green Lantern, who can do a zillion other things besides flying. Even Batman has a jet plane that he uses sometimes.
If we go by all base asses, Batman = Artificer :p
And Superman is NOT a wizard. Well, maybe he is. He could be an Incantatrix who Persists a TON of buffs to make him invulnerable.
And that would benefit... who? I would screw up the campaign, and nobody else besides me would have any fun, while I only manage to demonstrate that I'm a bad DM who thinks they're trying to "beat" the system or playing "wrong". Even if we used PHB II or any 3E books at all (note: I'm running a PF Beta campaign, and it's the only book we're using besides MMs), I don't think they would say: "Gee, we need to redesign these characters, because it's obvious that we messed up by ignoring Will saves!". They're not kids anymore, so if I appear to be always gunning for their Achilles' Heel, they'll just say: "You know, I don't find this to be fun, and I think I've got better things to do than watch you show your superiority!".
Screw up the campaign?
That's a bit drastic. I wasn't suggesting going that far.
But if your players are all fighting bandits and orcs and ogres, they will never need Will saves. Which may be fine. But metagaming and driving their Will saves through the floor because they know they won't need them is, well, metagaming.
(note: if the players didn't know in advance, but you as the DM only choose safe monsters because they tanked their WILL saves, then it's you who is metagaming for them).
Maybe you're OK with metagaming.
In which case all is well in your campaign.
And yet, you posted here that there is a problem with WILL saves, so maybe all is not well.
Alright, there are two primary reasons for them to "dump" Wis. First of all, we're using point-buy, which means they generally have worse stats than what you get by rolling X sets with 4D6 (which we've been using ever since 2E came out). This kind of limits what they're used to, and the melee classes are still running to the MAD-problem (especially the "tactical" fighter with 13+ in DEX and INT). Secondly, they've tried so many different concepts and builds that they wanted to get "back to the basics" with the "new" rules.
Maybe so, but there are equally dire reasons to NOT "dump" WIS. Like surviving an adventure.
I get it. You're making a fighter. Dump WIS, put more into DEX, or CON, and now you're a better fighter.
But you just took your weakness and made it even weaker. Instead of an achilles heel, you now have an entire achilles foot.
So, during the game, you look for the iron boot. Or Iron Will. Or something to offset that achilles foot.
It only makes sense.
Not doing so is like repeatedly taking a knife to gun fights. Sooner or later, probably sooner, youi're going to get shot.
Unless you rely on the DM to always make sure you're opponents have knives too. Or rubber bullets. Or real bullets but he rolls behind the screen and they always miss. Which again, is metagaming (unless it doesn't work).
All I'm saying is that if the "balance" in the game is so fragile that it's dependant on you always picking items X, Y and Z for your "melee" guy, or a couple of "bad" decisions (such as dumping your Wis or ignoring Iron Will and Great Fortitude for the rogue) breaks it, it's time to redo the math. I want ALL concepts to be *playable* at high levels, even the low-Wis fighter/barbarian/rogue, or maybe we need extensive retraining rules for ability scores and feats?
The balance isn't that fragile.
If your fighters don't turn their achilles heel into an achilles foot, they'll be much better off. If they never build on the items and feats to turn them into Will-save gods, they'll be OK as long as the DM doesn't throw SOS-gods at them.
But deliberately taking the fighter's primary weakness and turning it into a super-weakness, then doing nothing in-game to offset this weakness, is asking for trouble. Not finding that trouble is tantamount to getting away with it.
All concepts are playable. Play them as designed.
You want the magic item tree? Then the bad guys get it too, and their Will Save DCs will be higher. Don't want the magic item tree? That's fine too. Your Will saves will be weaker, but so will the DCs.
It only breaks down when the players "dump" their Will saves and suffer no consequences for not compensating for this "dump", and then one day the DM throws a NPC wizard at them and they all go to sleep.
As I said above, it seems there are a lot of assumptions in the game; should some of them be "hardwired" to the mechanics? Such as if none of the players create a cleric, druid or wizard, the DM is obliged to provide one as an NPC for every session. And magic items (as per Wealth-by-Level table) should be available anywhere, anytime -- either as treasure or via a magic item shop.
It's not "hard-wired". If you play a low-magic game, saves and save DCs are both lower. If you play a high-magic game, saves and save DCs are higher.
Just don't mix and match. Don't have low-magic PCs fight high-magic bad guys or the system will seem broken. Don't do it the other way around either, or the system will seem unchallenging.
But, what is hard-wired, is that if you deliberately sabotage your chance of survival in one area, just so you can enhance your chance of survival in another area, you'll eventually suffer for it.
That orc will only exist for one fight. So will the ogre. So will the troll. So will the beholder. They all die. One fight, then out.
If the players exploit a weakness of the orc, well, good for them. Move on to the next fight.
But that PC fighter, he'll be in the game for hundreds of fights by the time he retires epic. Maybe thousands if you count each enemy he faces. Even if only 1% of those fights require him to make a Will Save or die, that's going to amount to many deaths. Given the number of monsters and number of spells in the game that require Will Saves, it will probably be higher than 1%. And a significant portion of all those deaths could have been prevented my not dumping WIS, or by not dumping Will-saves, or by trying to follow the suggested game mechanic and get something, anything, to compensate for the glaring weakness.
But if the PC fighter does none of that, then it's his own fault when Will saves seem broken.
One needs to compare the severity of failed saves as well, not simply the number of good/bad saves.
So, of the three save types, having low Will saves is by far the most dangerous. Only fighters have low will saves and no automatic class features mitigating that loss. Of all the classes in Pathfinder, then, only fighters have such a potentially deadly achilles heel hardwired in. Class balance? Hardly.
Super maxed out, PC-treasure NPC Wizards, Clerics, and Psions manage to have a *chance* of actually affecting the PCs, slightly.Overpowered PCs vs. NPCs is another thing entirely... but just so we're on the same page, does a super-maxed-out, PC-treasure NPC fighter (of the same level as the BBEG wizard) kill your whole party, or go down like a chump even worse than the NPC wizard or cleric? If the former, then I humbly request to see your notes -- obviously I'm missing a large part of the 3.5 rules. If the latter, well, that sort of bolsters my point.
You ask a good question there, and I'm not sure how well I can answer - most of my suped up fighter types were a bit odd. I can say the more.. "normal" ones did at least as well as the casters most of the time, but I have fewer examples to judge by.
Craziness that did work:
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No, 3E wasn't designed for that. It was designed for scalability and flexibility, while retaining interesting differences.
I ran 1st edition for many years. You are 100% correct that saves for high level characters there were better than 3E in most cases. What you frankly are wrong about is the *extent* they were better.
In 1st edition, at high levels, characters virtually *never* failed a save on anything but a 1. Between a minor ring and cloak of protection (or one good one), or whatever else they happened to find, most characters (even with completely random treasure), simply could NOT BE AFFECTED, 95% of the time.
I loved it. I DM'd it. And I'm quite pleased to have the 3E alternative.
In 3E there is an "average" point - I don't call it a baseline, because that tends to mean a minimum - where actual chances to succeed at saves increases slowly. A 1st level fighter has about the same chance to flee from a Cause Fear spell, as an 18th level does from dragon fear.
From that "average" 3E has extreme flexibility. If your character was tormented by older siblings as a child and decides that he's not going to be afraid of anything ever again, he can take many many different steps to achieve that.
So, what's "good enough" for an average fighter/rogue/barbarian, under "normal" circumstances? 50% chance, or even lower? Note that the rogue, at high levels, usually makes the Reflex save, but more often than not fails at *both* Fort and Will saves (which has resulted IME that in most encounters rogues stick to ranged attacks, and try to keep "hidden" as much as possible). As I said above, I've also experienced many times (especially with long-time characters) when the player feels (metagames) that he won't stand a chance to save, thereby refusing to enter combat (as I also noted, I do it too often myself).
You're correct that saves for high-level fighters in 2E (especially if you had a Ring of Protection) were perhaps too easy, but that was intentional for PCs -- after all, fighters *should* be able to shrug off effects to do their "job". Here's the things: if players (also others than in the groups I happen to play in, I'd dare say) feel that without proper feats, items, prestige class abilities and spells they can't tangle up with spellcasting monsters or NPCs, it implies (to me, at least) that there's something wrong in the system.
The way I see it, the huge "gaps" in the math born out of the wide variety of bonuses and the many ways to get them, and the assumption that PCs always always manage to rack up the numbers, is what *enforces* this "number crunching" (which is evident in comparing the low end bonuses vs. high end DCs or ACs). If you won't "min-max" and metagame, your characters will suffer for it, and in most cases you won't be *rewarded* but rather (at best) manage to "offset" some of the penalties imposed on you by the baseline assumptions in the math (i.e. the high end bonuses). If we consider the "average" Will Save modifier for a 20th level fighter/barbarian/rogue, it's nowhere near the +22 I posted above; it's actually closer to +10 than +20, while most high level DCs are easily 25+ (and often defended with the argument that they need to be that high to challenge those "high end guys") which I think underlines my point that the math is "off".
Now, I don't want every class to feel the same or save identical saves or that there's "absolute" balance in the game, because there's middle ground here. Action Points/Re-rolls, feats that scale up with level (e.g. +1 per 4 levels), less bonus types and "buffs", "save ends"-type of mechanic, and some other tweaks to the game would make the "math" more reliable (less "swingy") and less dependant on magic.
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Screw up the campaign?
That's a bit drastic. I wasn't suggesting going that far.
But if your players are all fighting bandits and orcs and ogres, they will never need Will saves. Which may be fine. But metagaming and driving their Will saves through the floor because they know they won't need them is, well, metagaming.
(note: if the players didn't know in advance, but you as the DM only choose safe monsters because they tanked their WILL saves, then it's you who is metagaming for them).
Maybe you're OK with metagaming.
In which case all is well in your campaign.
And yet, you posted here that there is a problem with WILL saves, so maybe all is not well.
Just as you're metagaming when you're deliberately trying to get that Cloak of Resistance just because the DM has the tendency to use a lot of Will-based spells with ultra-high DCs. Where's the difference? Anyway, I think 3E encourages way too metagaming to my taste, and it derives from the simple fact that the math is built on the "high end bonuses" assumption rather than the average.
I don't think there's anything wrong with adjusting the opposition/numbers and content of your adventures to fit the campaign; after all, if there are no spellcasters in the party, you probably won't run them adventures requiring the use of 'Dispel Magic' or other spells, right? Or use puzzles, if all the players hate them? Why would I want to use NPCs -- given the "swinginess" of the system as it is -- who could likely knock out half the party with each of their spells?
My players come to play; not to get lessons or excersies in "how-to-build-an-ultimate-fighter/rogue/barbarian" or anything like it. As far as I'm concerned, low-Wis "melee" types *should* be a *playable* character concept; not something analogous to "shooting yourself in the foot".
I'm discussing this subject because, like I've already posted, it's been a common problem in all of the five groups I play in (in addition to running my own campaigns).
Maybe so, but there are equally dire reasons to NOT "dump" WIS. Like surviving an adventure.
I get it. You're making a fighter. Dump WIS, put more into DEX, or CON, and now you're a better fighter.
But you just took your weakness and made it even weaker. Instead of an achilles heel, you now have an entire achilles foot.
So, during the game, you look for the iron boot. Or Iron Will. Or something to offset that achilles foot.
It only makes sense.
Not doing so is like repeatedly taking a knife to gun fights. Sooner or later, probably sooner, youi're going to get shot.
Unless you rely on the DM to always make sure you're opponents have knives too. Or rubber bullets. Or real bullets but he rolls behind the screen and they always miss. Which again, is metagaming (unless it doesn't work).
Again, if I favor my "secondary" stats over something which *only* affects my Will save and perhaps a couple of skills, am I "shooting myself in the foot"? What about my Initiative, Ref save, Fort Save, Attack bonuses, most skill modifiers, and so on? These are derived from Str, Dex and Con -- all of which "suffer" if I invest 20% of my points into Wis, right? It's easy to say that "hey, if you dump it, you must compensate for your weakness!", if nobody wants to play a spellcaster (or use "buffs" on your character), or because the "action" takes place in the middle of nowhere where there are no ways to buy potions of magical items (and "old skool" DMs usually don't like the idea of "MagicMarts" anyway).
The balance isn't that fragile.
If your fighters don't turn their achilles heel into an achilles foot, they'll be much better off. If they never build on the items and feats to turn them into Will-save gods, they'll be OK as long as the DM doesn't throw SOS-gods at them.
But deliberately taking the fighter's primary weakness and turning it into a super-weakness, then doing nothing in-game to offset this weakness, is asking for trouble. Not finding that trouble is tantamount to getting away with it.
A quick comment on this (more below), but how would you consider the rogue with two poor saves... how to turn them into
And, even if I never used any "SOS-gods", I think DC 25 is more than enough to take out most "melee" guys on a pretty reliable basis (see below).
All concepts are playable. Play them as designed.
You want the magic item tree? Then the bad guys get it too, and their Will Save DCs will be higher. Don't want the magic item tree? That's fine too. Your Will saves will be weaker, but so will the DCs.
It only breaks down when the players "dump" their Will saves and suffer no consequences for not compensating for this "dump", and then one day the DM throws a NPC wizard at them and they all go to sleep.
It's not "hard-wired". If you play a low-magic game, saves and save DCs are both lower. If you play a high-magic game, saves and save DCs are higher.
Just don't mix and match. Don't have low-magic PCs fight high-magic bad guys or the system will seem broken. Don't do it the other way around either, or the system will seem unchallenging.
But, what is hard-wired, is that if you deliberately sabotage your chance of survival in one area, just so you can enhance your chance of survival in another area, you'll eventually suffer for it.
I think "sabotaging" is a strong word, especially in point-buy system in which you *cannot* afford a high score in every stat. If every fighter, barbarian and rogue is expected to invest in high Wis (which 14 is for these classes by my standards), your primary and secondary ability scores suffer for it. In essence, your Initiative, HPs, Ref Save, Fort Save, Attack Bonuses all suffer from it (whether it's one or two points lower).
By "hard-wired" I refer to "baseline assumptions" discussed on this thread, i.e. that the game math and mechanics expect or requite Feats X and Y plus Items/Potions/"Buffs" Q, W, E and R in every combat. Ergo, you're expected to gain certain amount of bonuses at every level, but instead of measuring them by the "average" amount (or average +2 or something like it), the game uses the "best case scenario" which includes nearly *all* of the possible bonuses (some of which are dependant on the presence of non-multiclasses spellcasters). And that's what I think enforces "min-maxing" to a ridiculous degree, and also makes the game less "newbie-friendly" than any other edition.
Anyway, it's not that simple -- a high-level fighter/rogue/barbarian PC might have Will save modifier ranging from +4 to +22, but if we assume, say, +8 (no "magic tree effect" or high Wis) vs. DC 26 (NPC without magic items; Int 24 with Fox's Cunning and Greater Spell Focus and 9th level spell) you have a 10% chance to save. Wow. Even if we assume a 7th level spell and no Fox's Cunning, it's still only 30% chance -- is that "okay" by your standards? Because that's actually a pretty low DC at high levels, and +8 is (in my experience) pretty much a good saving throw modifier without the "christmas tree effect".
And please elaborate on your "play them as designed"-comment, because to me it implies that "don't try to deviate from the script" -- maybe I misunderstood you?
That orc will only exist for one fight. So will the ogre. So will the troll. So will the beholder. They all die. One fight, then out.
If the players exploit a weakness of the orc, well, good for them. Move on to the next fight.
So you're okay with PCs going "nova" for every fight (usually first spending ten rounds of "buffing" and huffing behind the door) and then getting out to rest? That's one of the "features" in the game I could do without.
But that PC fighter, he'll be in the game for hundreds of fights by the time he retires epic. Maybe thousands if you count each enemy he faces. Even if only 1% of those fights require him to make a Will Save or die, that's going to amount to many deaths. Given the number of monsters and number of spells in the game that require Will Saves, it will probably be higher than 1%. And a significant portion of all those deaths could have been prevented my not dumping WIS, or by not dumping Will-saves, or by trying to follow the suggested game mechanic and get something, anything, to compensate for the glaring weakness.
But if the PC fighter does none of that, then it's his own fault when Will saves seem broken.
And if he had put those 5 points (required for Wis 14) into, say, Dex or Con, how many times would that have resulted in a successful outcome for an attack roll, Initiative, Fort save, Ref save, or skill check? Or having those extra 20 HPs would have resulted in not dying? These would be vastly more important for a fighter/rogue/barbarian, after all. The problem lies in that while most often losing an Initiative roll, or Ref save, SoS/SoD-effects usually take you out of the fight (if not the game).
Instead of a thousand different ways to "compensate" for something I see as a "bug" or "glitch" in the game, wouldn't it be easier to try to "fix" those SoS/SoD-effects (which are the primary reason why failing your Will/Fort save is so lethal)?
One needs to compare the severity of failed saves as well, not simply the number of good/bad saves.
Death spells used to kill, so low Fort saves were lethal. Wizards needed Great Fortitude as much as fighters need Iron Will. In Pathfinder, though, death spells are just save or take more damage, and wizards and sorcerers got a lot more hit points, so this 3.5-ed weakness is no longer really present in Pathfinder.
But you are forgetting that those death spells do on average 10 hp per caster level as opposed to a d6 per caster level (averaging at 3.5 damage per dice). That's a huge difference. Even if your wizard maximizes his HP every die, and has a 16 Con with Improved Toughness one failed save and he's down to 3 HP against another caster of equal level (negative numbers for anything higher).
Also included diseases and poisons (as I mentioned eariler while talking about how reflex are the weakest of the three saves) and the fact that failing some of those makes you more prone to fail them then next time around and you'll realise fortitude isn't so far behind (if at all) the will save in importance.
And that would benefit... who? I would screw up the campaign, and nobody else besides me would have any fun, while I only manage to demonstrate that I'm a bad DM who thinks they're trying to "beat" the system or playing "wrong". Even if we used PHB II or any 3E books at all (note: I'm running a PF Beta campaign, and it's the only book we're using besides MMs), I don't think they would say: "Gee, we need to redesign these characters, because it's obvious that we messed up by ignoring Will saves!". They're not kids anymore, so if I appear to be always gunning for their Achilles' Heel, they'll just say: "You know, I don't find this to be fun, and I think I've got better things to do than watch you show your superiority!".
The terrorists have won! :P
Seriously: No one is saying that you should always gun for their weaknesses. But neither should you wear kid gloves and go out of your way to only target their strengths. Because if you do that, one-trick ponies will be the most powerful characters: They do one thing really well, and you can't touch them for their weaknesses.
What you do is play the NPCs as if they were smart. Not genre-blind. Most NPCs will what a wizard, rogue, cleric, wizard etc usually looks like, and have a good idea in general what their strengths and weaknesses are, and what tools at their disposal usually have the best chance of making them survive.
The wizard will see guys in massy armours with big weapons and think "Fighter. Weak resolve. use will save spells". He will NOT think. "my CR indicates that I should not burn more than 20% of their resources, and since I'm the second of my CR today, I cannot kill anyone."
If the characters leave their flanks wide open, it's only logical that they're going to be flanked.
Alright, there are two primary reasons for them to "dump" Wis. First of all, we're using point-buy, which means they generally have worse stats than what you get by rolling X sets with 4D6
So? Does that mean they have to dump everything in their one prime stat and have all 8s everywhere else? Is a fighter only viable with 18 strength?
If you all think you're too weak and pathetic, use more points in point buy. Or accept that you're not that much above the average in stats.
Note that NPCs are usually created with the "elite array", which equals 15 purchase (or 25 point buy). So with 15 purchase, you're on equal footing. With 20 or even 25 purchase, you're better than them already. Do you need 50 points to have a chance?
Secondly, they've tried so many different concepts and builds that they wanted to get "back to the basics" with the "new" rules.
If basics means "lets wear our weaknesses on our sleeves", the basics mean "one of those adventuring parties that never lived to see the second level up" :D
Super maxed out, PC-treasure NPC Wizards, Clerics, and Psions manage to have a *chance* of actually affecting the PCs, slightly.Overpowered PCs vs. NPCs is another thing entirely... but just so we're on the same page, does a super-maxed-out, PC-treasure NPC fighter (of the same level as the BBEG wizard) kill your whole party, or go down like a chump even worse than the NPC wizard or cleric? If the former, then I humbly request to see your notes -- obviously I'm missing a large part of the 3.5 rules. If the latter, well, that sort of bolsters my point.
Four words: ring of spell turning. Add one more word: Leadership.
Now, your BBEG fighter reflects spells (partially) back at the party casters and can have a caster cohort to keep the PCs busy, counterspell, or otherwise disrupt the party's tactics while the BBEG fighter kicks their butts.
I was recently looking at the 2nd Ed AD&D Spelljammer adventurer SJA4 Under the Dark Fist and wanted to use a similar concept with Pathfinder Beta. Below is what I came up with so far (one house rule - Human Weapon Training can be used for Exotic Weapon Proficiency if the character is a member of a class with proficiency in all Martial Weapons at 1st character level):
Vulkaran, the Golden King, LE Human/Half-Dragon (Red) Fighter 16 (CR 19)
24 Str (+7), 16 Dex (+3), 16 Con (+3), 14 Int (+2), 14 Wis (+2), 16 Cha (+3)
Racial Traits: +2 to one score (Wis); Medium Size; Speed 30 ft; Bonus Feat; +1 Skill Point per level; Martial (or Exotic) Weapon Proficiency; Favored Class (choice: Fighter); +4 Natural Armor; 2 Claws (1d4), 1 Bite (1d6); Breath Weapon (6d8 fire, 30 ft cone, DC 13) 1x/day; Darkvision to 60 ft; Low-Light Vision; Immune to Fire, Paralysis, Sleep; +8 Str, +2 Con, +2 Int, +2 Cha; +2 CR
Exceptional Stats: 25 point purchase, gear as a 16th level PC; +1 CR
Class Abilities: Bonus Feats (9), Bravery (+4 vs. Fear), Armor Training +4, Weapon Training (+3 Heavy Blades, +2 Bows, +1 Close)
Skills: Appraise +11, Diplomacy +17, Intimidate +24, Knowledge (Engineering) +13, Perception +14, Ride +16, Sense Motive +18
Feats: Backswing, Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Dazzling Display, Deadly Stroke, Double Slice, Exotic Weapon (Bastard Sword), Greater Weapon Focus (Bastard Sword), Improved Initiative, Improved Shield Bash, Iron Will, Leadership, Overhand Chop, Power Attack, Shield Slam, Stunning Defense, Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus (Bastard Sword), Weapon Specialization (Bastard Sword)
Leadership: Score 21; Cohort 15th (14th), Followers 60 1st, 6 2nd, 3 3rd, 2 4th, 1 5th, 1 6th
Combat: AC 40 (DR 3/-), 173 hp, +26 bow (+26/+21/+16/+11, 1d8+12/x3) or +33 sword (+33/+33/+28/+23/+18, 1d10+32/+18(x4)/19-20; +24/+24/+19/+14/+9, 1d10+50/+36(x4)/19-20 with Power Attack) or +31 sword/+25 shield (+31/+31/+26/+21/+16, 1d10+17/19-20 sword; +25, 1d6+11/x2 shield), Fort +19, Ref +14, Will +13, Init +9
Gear: Gold-plated +3 Moderate Fortification Adamantine Full Plate of Command, +3 Animated Bashing Light Steel Shield, +3 Mighty (+7) Composite Longbow, +3 Speed Bastard Sword, Ring of Protection +2, Ring of Resist Energy (30 points, 110 min) 1x/day, Amulet of Natural Armor +2, Belt of Physical Perfection +4, Boots of Striding and Springing, Cloak of Resistance +4, 4436 gp
Mongrelle, LE Human Wizard (Universalist) 14 (CR 15)
8 Str (-1), 14 Dex (+2), 14 Con (+2), 18 Int (+4), 10 Wis (0), 13 Cha (+1)
Racial Traits: +2 to one score (Con); Medium Size; Speed 30 ft; Bonus Feat; +1 Skill Point per level; Martial (or Exotic) Weapon Proficiency; Favored Class (choice: Wizard)
Wealth: gear as a 14th level PC; +1 CR
Class Abilities: Arcane Bond (?), Cantrips, School Powers (Hand of the Apprentice, Metamagic Mastery 7x/day), Scribe Scroll, Bonus Spells (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th), Bonus Feats (2)
Skills: Appraise +14, Craft (Alchemy) +14, Diplomacy +8, Handle Animal +8, Knowledge (Arcana) +21, Knowledge (Nature) +14, Knowledge (Nobility) +14, Knowledge (Planes) +14, Linguistics +14 (+7 lang), Perception +14, Spellcraft +21, Use Magic Device +15
Feats: Augment Summoning, Craft Arms and Armor, Craft Wand, Craft Wondrous Item, Empower Spell, Extend Spell, Forge Ring, Greater Spell Focus (Conjuration), Improved Initiative, Martial Weapon (Longsword), Scribe Scroll, Spell Focus (Conjuration)
Spells: Wizard (CL 14); 0-4, 1st-5, 2nd-5, 3rd-5, 4th-5, 5th-3, 6th-3, 7th-2
Spellbook (All 0-level; 7 1st; 4 2nd; 4 3rd; 4 4th; 4 5th; 4 6th; 4 7th)
Combat: AC ??, 80 hp, +7 BAB, Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +9, Init +6
Gear: 185,000 gp
Sorry, I had to run to a volleyball practice. I just wanted to add that I know that the fighter above doesn't have a ring of spell turning, but that would be easy to afford if I increased his Wealth to that of a 18th level PC (from the +2 CR from being a half-dragon).
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Sorry, I had to run to a volleyball practice. I just wanted to add that I know that the fighter above doesn't have a ring of spell turning, but that would be easy to afford if I increased his Wealth to that of a 18th level PC (including the +2 CR from being a half-dragon).
I think Vulkaran would be CR 16 in Beta (-2 from class levels and +2 from Half-Dragon), and Mongrelle would be CR 12 (-2 from class levels). Also, NPCs don't have as much wealth as the PCs.
Sorry, I had to run to a volleyball practice. I just wanted to add that I know that the fighter above doesn't have a ring of spell turning, but that would be easy to afford if I increased his Wealth to that of a 18th level PC (including the +2 CR from being a half-dragon).I think Vulkaran would be CR 16 in Beta (-2 from class levels and +2 from Half-Dragon), and Mongrelle would be CR 12 (-2 from class levels). Also, NPCs don't have as much wealth as the PCs.
Normal NPCs don't get as much wealth. However, some BBEGs are designed with wealth equal to a PC (and get a +1 CR): see Karzoug in PF 6, for example.
I'll have to double-check the Beta for NPCs with PC class levels.
Four words: ring of spell turning.
I have to admit I'm pretty skeptical to claims like "Spell XYZ is not overpowered because there's another specific spell (e.g. Globe of Invulnerability/Antimagic Field/Protection from Evil/Death Ward/Heroes' Feast/whatever) that counters it."
I have to admit I'm pretty skeptical to claims like "Spell XYZ is not overpowered because there's another specific spell (e.g. Globe of Invulnerability/Antimagic Field/Protection from Evil/Death Ward/Heroes' Feast/whatever) that counters it."
Four words: ring of spell turning.
All I'm saying is that it's possible to create a non-spellcaster BBEG that can challenge or kill the party. Not that every non-spellcaster should.
I'll have to double-check the Beta for NPCs with PC class levels.
There it is on pg. 291. OK, that makes Vulkaran CR 17 and Mongrelle CR 13. With six CR 8 bodyguards (total CR 13), that's a nasty CR 18 encounter for an APL 15 group.
Also included diseases and poisons (as I mentioned eariler while talking about how reflex are the weakest of the three saves) and the fact that failing some of those makes you more prone to fail them then next time around and you'll realise fortitude isn't so far behind (if at all) the will save in importance.
In my opinion, Pathfinder has taken a very good step in making diseases and poisons a bit harder to remove (with the caster-level check mechanism). Still, any group with a cleric will immediately demand that he prepare heroes feast upon hitting 11th level, so poisons in particular are really a non-issue at higher levels, because of this bizarrely broken spell effect. Diseases in many cases take long enough to incubate that they have no effect on an adventure in progress, and can be removed at leisure afterwards. In summary, at high levels (the ones at which low will saves become increasingly onerous), poisons and diseases do little to nothing to make Fort saves analogously dangerous, in my experience. Banning or limiting heroes' feast would certainly be a step in the right direction.
Banning or limiting heroes' feast would certainly be a step in the right direction.
Pathfinder's version of Heroes' Feast doesn't give poison or fear immunity, if that's what you're referring to.
Four words: ring of spell turning.
I'll admit that's certainly one viable approach to curbing the overpoweredness of spellcasters at higher levels: make everyone partially immune. After a few BBEGs, the whole party has rings of spell turning, and all the villains have them, too, in order to survive, and you've neatly solved the entire problem. The logical next question is: why not just reduce the power of magic slightly, rather than use such an elaborate fix? To my mind, nudging up a Will save a bit to help protect against spells is a less-invasive "fix" than flooding the world with special rings. YMMV.
DCP, I agree with you all the way down the line that there are ways within the rules to circumvent most problems. Where I differ is that those rules are necessarily the best ones possible.
Pathfinder's version of Heroes' Feast doesn't give poison or fear immunity, if that's what you're referring to.
Ah! The Hand of Reynolds at work! Excellent -- the de-valuation of death spells is compensated for by re-valuation of poisons.
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Pathfinder's version of Heroes' Feast doesn't give poison or fear immunity, if that's what you're referring to.
Well, depending on your reading of it, they are at the very least immune to poison still for some time. Heroes feast says it bestows on the user the effects of neutralize poison and remove disease. Neutralize poison makes you immune(not just delays) any poisons while it is in effect.
The question is whether it is simply like those spells are cast on you when you eat the food(thus making you immune to poison for 10/min a level and removing any current diseases you have) or if those spells last for the length of the heroes feast, thus giving you 12 hours of immunity to poison and 12 hours where any disease you catch is subjected to a caster level check vs its dc to remove it.
Now, I would actually lean towards that latter definition, just because they specify that when you eat it, any poisons and diseases(or nausea) are removed from you, and you are subjected to the effects of those spells. If those spells didn't linger, then saying all diseases are removed and then you are subject to remove disease would be redundant.
-Tarlane
FYI:Pathfinder's version of Heroes' Feast doesn't give poison or fear immunity, if that's what you're referring to.Ah! The Hand of Reynolds at work! Excellent -- the de-valuation of death spells is compensated for by re-valuation of poisons.
Deathward:
The subject gains a +4 morale bonus on saves against all death spells
and magical death effects. The subject is granted a save to negate such
effects even if one is not normally allowed. The subject is immune to
energy drain and any negative energy effects, including channeled negative energy.
FYI:Deathward:
The subject gains a +4 morale bonus on saves against all death spells
and magical death effects.
Yeah: trickle-down effect from nerfing death spells. If all they do is direct-damage, and if one spell negates them all, they'd be useless. Still, necromancers are better evokers than evokers now, which annoys me in a purely fluff-related way (not that evokers have been worth anything since the damage failed to scale with the 2.0 -> 3.0 hp inflation).
FYI:Yeah: trickle-down effect from nerfing death spells. If all they do is direct-damage, and if one spell negates them all, they'd be useless. Still, necromancers are better evokers than evokers now, which annoys me in a purely fluff-related way (not that evokers have been worth anything since the damage failed to scale with the 2.0 -> 3.0 hp inflation).Deathward:
The subject gains a +4 morale bonus on saves against all death spells
and magical death effects.
Agreed! Necromancers should do status effects, not direct damage (dead is a status, so is comatose).
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Agreed! Necromancers should do status effects, not direct damage (dead is a status, so is comatose).
Seconded, but not completely. I like some spells doing damage in place of insta-death. Disintegrate is probably the best example. Transmuters shouldn't be able to insta-kill somebody. Turn them into a frog yes, but a pile of ash...
I've always had an issue with the Will saving throw. My problem is that it favors the non-"tough" classes. Now this makes perfect sense if Will is only referring to being able to resist magical effects, but it isn't. It's also about overcoming non-magical fear and phobias (as in "Heroes of Horror"). So suddenly the big tough fighter becomes much more susceptible to being afraid of heights and spiders, for example. Somehow this seems wrong. I don't really see why any specific class should have an advantage over another when it comes to non-magical Will tests... sure, when the evil necromancer is putting fearful thoughts in your head, the wizard should be able to resist and recognize what is being done more than the fighter. But why should the fighter or barbarian be more vulnerable in mundane Will-based tests?
Here's an example of why (IMO) the current Will saves don't work. From "Heroes of Horror", a character suffering from a mild phobia makes a Will save vs DC of 12 + CR of the challenge that is the subject of the phobia. A moderate phobia is 14 + CR, and as severe one is 16 + CR. These phobias are non-magical in nature, including heights, cramped quarters, darkness, fire and water. Why should the barbarian be more afraid of heights than a wizard? Why should a fighter be more afraid of water than a cleric?
My hope is that the Will save progression in Pathfinder will either be entirely against magic or that non-magic based Will saves will be equal for all classes. Any chance of that?
Yes, you can take feats that help with saves, but I don't think the big brave fighter should have to take a special feat just to be as brave as a a wizard.
Low base will saves fit fighter perfectly, even for fear effects.
Why?
Because of fighters mind setup, "easy to train-easy to trick".
Fighter is brave while in a situation that he can fight out of it. If he cant get out with "brawns" he will "loose it".
High wisdom and iron will gets around this, but those two describe an above average stable fighter.
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Oh, and the answer to the above question - A stable fighter has a CR 2 lower than a gazebo fighter:)
But the stable fighter has max ranks in and skill focus Handle Animal...
Steadfast determination is okay as a feat, but if everyone is going to take it why not just make it a class feature. </Devil's Advocate>
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The terrorists have won! :P
Seriously: No one is saying that you should always gun for their weaknesses. But neither should you wear kid gloves and go out of your way to only target their strengths. Because if you do that, one-trick ponies will be the most powerful characters: They do one thing really well, and you can't touch them for their weaknesses.
What you do is play the NPCs as if they were smart. Not genre-blind. Most NPCs will what a wizard, rogue, cleric, wizard etc usually looks like, and have a good idea in general what their strengths and weaknesses are, and what tools at their disposal usually have the best chance of making them survive.
The wizard will see guys in massy armours with big weapons and think "Fighter. Weak resolve. use will save spells". He will NOT think. "my CR indicates that I should not burn more than 20% of their resources, and since I'm the second of my CR today, I cannot kill anyone."
If the characters leave their flanks wide open, it's only logical that they're going to be flanked.
And that's what I kind of said in an earlier post; that the "old skool" DMs often think it's okay to assume that a high-INT villain would anticipate any "angle" or tactics the PCs might try. I'm not sure it works really well in 3E, because just like the PCs can min-max, so it is pretty for the DM to go “over the top” – easier, in fact, because many NPCs are not even supposed to have an out-of-combat role and abilities (note: by this I mean those NPCs who the DM clearly intends to die; BBEGs and major villains are another matter altogether). For example, the other day I created a dwarven fighter whose min-maxed abilities plus a template (half-golem) and certain feats made him virtually unbeatable in melee, because he could take down the fighter and barbarian during the first round (note: they’re not nearly as “min-maxed” as this guy was) with 75% certainity; even counting in all the bonuses from items and “buffs” it would be a close call (the rogue couldn’t probably even hit him). And I understood that if I’m going to use him, it’s a likely TPK, because he’s a construct, and I can pretty much guarantee that even with the cleric/barbarian and paladin in the melee, he’d at least make them go “nova” in a single encounter.
I want to challenge them, not overpower them if they don’t happen to have all of their “buffs” on. So, maybe they all did “leave their flanks open”, but as I’ve said before (and yet repeat below), I think all kinds of PCs should be at least *playable* under all conditions; a character who always with 90% certainty gets “stunlocked” for 10 or 20 rounds (or even more), isn’t. And if players need constantly to metagame to the extent that it hurts immersion in order to “compensate“ for their weaknesses (or even for being “just average” in something), I find it disruptive.
As for “intelligent villains”… let's consider the 20th level wizard here... the most intelligent tactics, I think, would always be to use Time Stop - Disjunction - Meteor Swarm - Mass Dominate (in that order, preferably). The poor PCs in most groups wouldn't even know what hit them... and if they have counterspelling items/feats, or antimagic aura, the villain might just teleport away (which could be *THE* most intelligent thing to do if you're "cornered" by a group of murderous high-level adventurers). Or maybe in such a case the villain would use his Iron Golem minions to herd them out of their antimagic field?
I always try to think of every villain’s personality – what kind of spells would he use? Which feats would he likely pick? Because always choosing the most effective tactics gets old pretty fast. Sure, TPKs happen, but I think the current math affects it more than enough -- single bad roll or bad player tactis (or good DM tactics) may result in a single-round TPK. And this is further emphasized in high-level play.
So? Does that mean they have to dump everything in their one prime stat and have all 8s everywhere else? Is a fighter only viable with 18 strength?
None of the PCs had 18 in any stat, if I recall correctly. Most had a couple of 17s and 16s. And, the less you invest in STR, more it’s going to hinder you later on, unless you have magical means to boost your attack and damage bonuses. It’s not “mandatory”, but it’s especially critical at low levels, because *most* of your hit bonuses come from STR, right? Now, pretty much the only fighters I’ve seen with Str 14 or less were archer/finesse builds all.
If you all think you're too weak and pathetic, use more points in point buy. Or accept that you're not that much above the average in stats.
Note that NPCs are usually created with the "elite array", which equals 15 purchase (or 25 point buy). So with 15 purchase, you're on equal footing. With 20 or even 25 purchase, you're better than them already. Do you need 50 points to have a chance?
The “standard” point-buy in 3E was, if I recall correctly, 32 points? Anyway, here’s the thing: the real problem underlying the whole math (saves, attack bonuses, MAD, etc.) is the fact that there are so many bonus types and options in the game that the range of bonuses between two PCs of the same level and class may be dramatically different; for example, a 20th level fighter who has optimized his saves might have +20 on Fort and Will, while another fighter of the same level could have Fort +13 and Will +4. This “glitch” in the math is further emphasized at high levels, because the “standard” on which NPC and monster ACs, DCs and attack bonuses are based on is the “high end” of the range, i.e. that the math strives also to challenge “the best” (by giving them roughly a 50% chance to succeed). It’s all fine and good, but this decision hurts the “average” PCs, because for them it’s only 25%, and the “low end” guys only have a roughly 5-10% chance.
I’m not saying that there should be absolute balance like in 4E (i.e. you always have 50% chance or so, regardless of what you try), but if the math gave the “average” guy a *fair* chance, and rewarded the “high end” guys by making it easy for them (after all, they’ve probably burned a lot of gold and feats to rack up the numbers, and most likely they’re only “average” or worse in some other aspects) , then there would be less reliance on min-maxing and metagaming. After all, if I felt that there’s no pressing *need* to pick Item X and feat Y plus “boost” my Ability Score Z by any means necessary, I could select my “strength” freely without worrying about “sucking” in everything else. And it would make the game more “newbie-friendly”, to boot.
If basics means "lets wear our weaknesses on our sleeves", the basics mean "one of those adventuring parties that never lived to see the second level up" :D
By "back to the basics" I mean that... trying some "basic" concepts without falling to "min-maxing", e.g. a low-Wis barbarian, high-STR fighter who invests in Dex and Con. The only feats, magic items, spells and prestige classes available are what's in Beta and the Web Enhancements. Maybe the problem lies in that "old skool" gaming is not really what's supported by the 3E rules; rather the "rules lawyers" and "min-maxers" who metagame their heart out *do* fare better than others. What I mean is that if you want to really focus in something, you end up being barely competent in others, and that’s going to bite you in the long run; “powergamers” generally know how to compensate for this, but if the math would be tweaked a bit to be more “player-friendly”, there would be no *mandatory* need for optimization and metagaming. Now, I’ve already posted several suggestions how this might be done – maybe they’d work, maybe they wouldn’t; in any case, I don’t think Action Points for PCs, for example, would be game-breaking.