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she had access to stuff like scry, detect location, teleport, phantom steed, fabricate, wall of iron and such.
For me the game becomes broken when a person CAN'T play such a wizard and have fun while contributing to the adventure. By contribute I don't mean the obvious, and in my mind, boring combat arena alone. So you get a standing ovation from me for playing a Wizard 'the wrong way'.
Sad days for D&D-like games,
S.
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Non-spellcasters don't have anything like this, and that's the problem. I'm all fine with a fighter not casting spells, but his only option is "beating things with a stick", and if that isn't viable he has no way of doing anything.
+1
I was rather upset when my epic level monk came up against a monster she couldn't damage enough and which could hit her on a 2, and I realized I had no other options besides continuing to stab it in the face.
TOZ
Not to step into the middle of a good pissing contest, but what sorts of things would you propose?
I dig what Pathfinder has done with the feats that inflict conditions and such, but I don't know how much beyond that I could go and still think of it as a "Fighter".
I would like to hear some other suggestions besides 50 AC's and +60 hit bonuses at 10th level. I also don't buy the "need" to auto-one shot CR+3 opponents to be viable.
I do kind of miss the old days when a high level fighter had a keep and men-at-arms and all. Very cool character material that could influence things, but not really combat action type stuff.
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TOZ unrelated/related I liked your move/action point system you posted in the other place.
Gave me some ideas-
Imagine using some of those points to suspend debuffs/negative affects on the fighter as long as he uses a point or two each round to suppress a effect.
I actually though a mini-economy of purchasable benefits/suspend negative effects that would be another way to spend action points. So more options besides extra attacks and moves. Maybe even super attacks - not something stupid, just an attack to get past whatever your Monk PC couldn't get past in her fight with the monster she couldn't damage.
At a cost of course, but something that breaks the "ok, I hit it again" routine.
Ex- Use Full action to temporarily negate the effects of level drain/enervation. After the fight the effects kick in, but during the course of the fight full action points could be used for a number of things besides attacks and moves.
In any case it was a good idea.
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Mine, or kyrt-ryders Aux? I put it up elsewhere for evaluations and it was pointed out kyrt's upgrade of the move action was easier to grasp and had less chance for confusion about what you can do with a half-action. I'm also going to repost your suggestion over there if you haven't already done so.
Fergie, check me and kyrt's discussion over here. Combine that with Aux's suggestion about spending actions to suppress penalties and melee characters might start to get more versatility.
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Your core idea from the den, but I see you got it over here also. Kyrt has some good stuff to add, overall a good approach to a problem.
So much potential actually (for me): I would love to see a fighter go up against a casting creature - he gets hit with a hold or dominate type of effect, 1AP (override), then he gets hit again with another effect - say attribute damage: 1AP used to mitigate effect, or not, he choices what to override/overcome, all the while he is keeping up the assault with his remaining APs.
So the fighter is still affected, just at a suppressed and reduced degree for the fight and not just "shut down" or being relegated to insignificance. And not just defensive, I would add in boosts and action options - maybe some crazy heroic maneuvers set at different tiers/levels.
I wouldn't limit the AP progression just to BAB, maybe allow bonus feats buys for pseudo APS (not true full actions/limited use) for fighters who are lower level or want more options in a round. That and add a few AP options/progression to all the core melee types at different level progressions. The BAB is the cleanest without a whole rewrite, I just want a more severe change I guess.
To me the idea opens up a new type of power/currency and class potential to non-casters that goes beyond feats or even built in class abilities.
Have you play tested those against the group as much as with the group ToZ?
I'm wondering how your PC casters are feeling when the baddies start breaking out of their limited number of holds/dominates/debuffs etc? Or have you played with the magic system as well so that's not such an issue?
Cheers
curious myself actually.
This is starting to sound like a complete scratch the old version and rewrite it kinda thing instead of a variant action system.
Have you play tested those against the group as much as with the group ToZ?
I'm wondering how your PC casters are feeling when the baddies start breaking out of their limited number of holds/dominates/debuffs etc? Or have you played with the magic system as well so that's not such an issue?
Cheers
curious myself actually.
This is starting to sound like a complete scratch the old version and rewrite it kinda thing instead of a variant action system.
Yeah, I realized it was that big of a change a long time ago.
Anyways, as for Wrath's question. As far as I know, the 'Action Point mitigation' ability is something Aux suggested, and ToZ and I are only just now starting to think it over. (If I'm wrong and you have been using this, by all means go for it ToZ.)
As for my own opinion, I want to know a bit more about what Auxmaulous is talking about exactly. Are you saying you spend those actions every round to ignore the penalties, until either the fight is over or the penalties are cured?
Kind of puts a new spin on abilities of a fighter. The higher level the spell the higher the action tax should be though, and it should definitely not be a light one.
this is personally because I dont believe there is that big of a discrepency between casters and meleers (there is a few minor things that are just geared that way). Overall I think it really comes down to the player, it just so happens that fighters are played by non tactful PC's by most peoples standards.
But that is for a different point.
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As for my own opinion, I want to know a bit more about what Auxmaulous is talking about exactly. Are you saying you spend those actions every round to ignore the penalties, until either the fight is over or the penalties are cured?
Yes, sort of like a fighter maintaining a form of "concentration" by tying up APs per effect.
And I would go with ignore or reduce penalties - I don't want to negate casters, if one stuck on the fighter PC and kept up the debuffs he would still be in trouble, just not as much if hit by one SoD.
Less binary than the current system.
So if he's hit by a Hold and using using one of his APs to overcome it - the the fighter would suffer some kind of neg to hit or move, or if that is too drastic maybe just let him get a reroll on his failed save. I suppose it would depend on how much of an impact you'd want a system like this to have on the game.
I would say that short term effects would be reduced/negated for the fight while long term (level loss) effects would kick in at: rnds/fighter level once the fight is over.
Just throwing ideas out here, I just like the currency of actions TOZ offered up just to get the fighter better/more hits and more flexibility on the battle field.
I would expand it to all martial, plus build in some points that go a little beyond current class abilities/feats.
Less dramatic than hero factor point use, but something that gives melee types more options and control in a fight. And not just "I hit it again" if 5 different variations.
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Something like this idea was posed during the original beta test, but based off Iterative attacks, so all characters with full BAB were benefitting. We even made sure it was based off the number of base attacks per class to avoid the obvious abuse of TWF.
The same action economy idea was proposed for move and attacks, so that characters could use more of their 3 or 4 attacks in combats that were fluid.
The problem with both of those that we found in our playtest in my group is that casters suddenly died much easier. This is fine when its happening against opponents, but much less helpful when it happens to your party.
Pathfinders Vital strike and stepup mechanics mitigated this a bit, plus some of their other feats. I'm sure there's still more that can be done with it, but be careful you don't swing things so far in favour of the fighters that suddenly casters suck heavily.
Of course I'm coming from a perspective where I already believe the balance is ok, so take it with a grain of salt.
Cheers
I was rather upset when my epic level monk came up against a monster she couldn't damage enough and which could hit her on a 2, and I realized I had no other options besides continuing to stab it in the face.
If we take away pure damage dealing, the combat options are already over, and that's already a lot considering how limited damage dealing is: you need to be wielding a weapon, your opponents needs to be within range, you must see it and all. This applies to everyone, of course, but all it takes is an invisible enemy (a 2nd level spell) and a non-caster already needs to have ridiculous perception to have a chance at telling there's something to fight at all.
Even the other combat options are kind of lame. Last time I played tabletop D&D I was with a friend that is kind of a n00b (he believes the monk is the ultimate class, for crying out loud) and he had just discovered "improved trip" via virtue of 6th level bonus feat. This was back in 3.5.
He used trip all the time, because doing so granted him an extra attack, a +4 to hit with consecutive ones and free attacks of opportunity to anyone nearby. He hardly ever lost anything by not trying to do so, it was so convenient with the appropriate feat that it was a no-brainer.
I was playing a charisma paladin with improved grapple and, myself, was too trying to grapple most of the time, for considering the critters we usually found it was quite convenient to neutralize their main form of attack.
No one ever tried to disarm, bluff, bull rush or overrun. Ever. For one thing because the first thing that happens if you do without having the feat is "You get beaten up. Then...", which is not really an incentive with the meaner critters, also known as those you would want to neutralize more, for another thing because they get progressively useless.
Aside from the fact that all restrictions on noncaster combat apply to these options as well, such as needing to be in range and all.
Improved trip? Each size category is +4. More than two legs is +4. Most monsters have ridiculous strengths anyways. Either you're an optimized trip build or you're not going to do much after a certain point, which is more or less when spells take the game anyways. Also, it does nothing while flying or underwater or against things that slither.
Improved grapple? Aside that grapple was a convulsed mess and I swore I'd never try to play another character with improved grapple in 3.x ever, it automatically fails against opponents that are more than one size category larger than you, which means you either get size increased (via spells), in which case the benefits of the feat itself are almost irrelevant, or you have just spent a feat for something you'll never get to use.
Improved disarm? Yeah, count the number of critters that don't need weapons. Casters included.
Improved overrun? Extremely situational, and a waste of time in most cases.
Improved bull rush? Even more situational than overrun, and like the previous option you either get ludicrous size increases or you won't budge anything after a certain point. Not anything that's worth pushing around, at least.
And this is just combat. I agree the problem isn't (just) combat itself, as much as the fact that there's little else to do, in general, speaking of options. Most of the blunt of the matter comes from non-combat options actually, as the last tabletop 3.5 game I played showed me: the one when I played the noncasting 15th level wizard, we had a grand total of one fight and it was just a distraction. I still was the only one doing anything relevant. Except when another guy went for a grand style sabotage... Using soul jar. So yeah. Assassin guy did... Nothing. I honestly can't remember him doing anything at all.
I'm not gonna touch roleplaying because I feel that has nothing to do with class balance, but it certainly feels better, at least to me, to play a character type I like and still have a way to contribute to the game.
I had very little chances to play Pathfinder and my few experiences weren't... Great, so I don't think I'm really qualified to bring mechanical answers to these problems. I agree with Fergie: the answer should never be "make the fighter's bonuses so high that no one has a chance to fight him on his own conditions" because the real heart of the matter is that his conditions are extremely narrow and voided with little effort. His and those of every noncaster.
It's great to be the master of a keep and have servants and cohorts and all, I agree, but nowadays that's leadership, it's a feat, and it has no prerequisites, so it doesn't count anymore.
I don't know what this ToZ you are talking about is, but from what I gathered on the previous posts, the idea of AP doesn't really work in my opinion. It's not a bad idea per se, but it appears all it does is "stop" or "mitigate" some negative effects. This should already be built-in, that's what saves are for, if there's many spells that allow no save or that set DCs so high that you need a 20 regardless of how high you try to get your bonus, that's another problem entirely.
And again: even if you give the fighter a limited-times-per-day mean of saying "no" to some "I win" buttons, that doesn't really let him do anything, if he couldn't contribute to a situation before, he still can't.
In all fairness CoDzilla (I generally agree with your mechanical obvervations), I don't find Power Attack nerfed in the slightest. In fact, I see it as more powerful than it's 3.5 counterpart. The reason is barring certain splat-book options (like the badly written Shock Trooper), the best you got from it was a 2:1 ratio of damage for accuracy, which means to deal +10 damage you needed to take a -5 on every attack you had, and I've heard many people couldn't decide on when it was a good idea to Power Attack. This assumes a 2 handed weapon, since a medium weapon only received 1:1, which is horrible, and light weapons got nothing.
Likewise, most of the heavy damage dealing options in 3.5 revolve around tricks like Leap Attack and Shock Trooper. Some games don't even use those books or feats because they're not core, and some (such as Shock Trooper) are questionable.
In Pathfinder, Power Attack is self controlled and scales with your level, but it gives you noticeably more bang for your buck. With 1-handed weapons you receive a 2:1 ratio, and with 2-handed weapons you receive a 3:1 ratio. Honestly, at 4th level, having a -2 to hit and +6 to damage is something I am all for. At 20th level, a -6 to hit for +18 to damage? Yes please. I've found that this generally means that you'll be doing far more damage, since your accuracy doesn't take a hit (which also improves your chances of landing a successful critical, but I don't really count that so much as merely acknowledge it).
That being said,
I wish that fighter types had more lockdown options. One of the most fun (and effective) ways of playing a fighter-type was with battlefield control, and admittedly they nerfed Stand Still hard, and tripping is limited. I would like to see more official battlefield control options for warriors. Fortunately, I can just house-rule stuff, and import some 3.5 stuff (I think house rule #1 was turning spiked chains into martial weapons and giving their reach back to anyone who take the EWP).
Codzilla - You said, "Even at level 1, a team of Cleric/Druid/Wizard/Sorcerer has around 15 good spells between them, possibly more. And any one of those can end a level appropriate fight instantly with a high success rate. It only gets better from there. "
I asked you to provide a spell that backs up that statement other then color spray or sleep. As I said before, I'll give you the occasional entangle as well, but that is a pretty situational spell. All you offered up is melee. You are welcome to select a more difficult encounter (one you feel would back up your statement) and tell me which spell would "end the fight instantly...".
As a general question to everyone:
If the melee character had some sort of move and multiple attack options, and also abilities to shrug off some condition effects, would that make the class viable? Or does the fighter need more flashy options (area damage, fly/teleport, SoD type effects, etc.) in order to hold it's own? Can there be parity when one character can cast wish, and others are limited to damage and some condition effects?
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I'm not gonna say much, but I am going to chime in somewhat regarding the whole "Casters vs. Martial" issue.
What kind of D&D games are people playing? Seriously? I would LOVE to have a Gnome cavalier at level 11-12 hitting enemies for 80+ damage while moving! That's over 1/2 a Cloud Giant's HP! If a caster can nuke the group for 10d6 and gets a decent damage roll, combined the two can take down a group of giants pretty easily!
And what's all this "200 damage is lame" stuff I'm seeing? Maybe I'm crazy, and yeah, I've never played in 15+ games before, but just looking at monster HP, I can't find anything that gets much higher than 350. A single character taking out more than 1/2 of a Balor's HP? That's awesome! I'd like to see more of that!
I just don't understand what the big fuss is about. Maybe people like CoDzilla played in games where epic level enemies by level 15 were the norm (yeah, I've seen games like that). But, for the most part, what guy is gonna be doing 100+ damage and thinking "Man, do I suck! Sure, I could push that Giant over just by blowing on him at this point, but I couldn't take him down in one shot. I'm lame."
Now, yes, you could PROBABLY build a Cleric/Druid that could hit almost as hard and still have spells in reserve for many different situations. But what if I don't wanna play a righteous holy man? What if I don't want to play a forest hermit? What if I want to be a bad@$$ in full-plate armor and ride atop a freaking warhorse? I can do that, and still contribute. At least, if my DM is any good, I can :P
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Codzilla - You said, "Even at level 1, a team of Cleric/Druid/Wizard/Sorcerer has around 15 good spells between them, possibly more. And any one of those can end a level appropriate fight instantly with a high success rate. It only gets better from there. "
I asked you to provide a spell that backs up that statement other then color spray or sleep. As I said before, I'll give you the occasional entangle as well, but that is a pretty situational spell. All you offered up is melee. You are welcome to select a more difficult encounter (one you feel would back up your statement) and tell me which spell would "end the fight instantly...".
Let's look at each spell. First color spray. A great little spell to have at low levels. A first level Wizard would have it, at absolute best (20 Int) 3 times a day.
To use it, you have to be within 15 feet of what you are attacking, and it gets a will save. Save will be, again absolute best case with a 20 Int, 16.
And it is a cone, so hope your friends aren't in the way. Something that seems to be often overlooked with this spell in real play, the fact you have to isolate yourself.
Now pick an adventure path, and let's follow this through the first fight.
Rise of the Runelords, you are in trouble as you will almost certainly be out of spells other than can trips by the time you and your party have dealt with the three waves of attacks (one for each of your spells!). And since you picked 3 color sprays, no mage armor for you. You need to hope they clump together and you don't hit team mates.
Curse of the Crimson Throne has an even more spread out first encounter, where you would be down to cantrips very early on if you use a color spray for each encounter.
Second Darkness has a short, small encounter, so you shouldn't run out of spells. Only problem is it is in a crowded casino with almost as many friends as foe, so good luck not getting allies in your cone.
Legacy of Fire, color spray is actually perfect for the annoying pugwampi. Of course, you'll be down to cantrips fairly early on. But this is the best so far.
Council of Theives sewer run will use your spells up quick, plus be useless against the Zombies and Skeletons.
Kingmaker you are in great shape with the ambush, this is custom made for a wizard to shine, same goes for the Serpents Skull, as Wizards are fine without armor or weapons.
The issue is that the game is actually played with people at a table, and so spells have problems and limitations to go along with strengths.
Not to mention you only know a few.
Pick a level and we can look at what you can do in a level appropriate adventure path. This seems like a fair way to do it, since it seems like there are a lot of DM's people are playing with who don't know the rules, or design scenarios poorly.
His argument comes down to: If you can't charge and full attack, you're screwed.
If you can charge and full attack, if you can't hit with every single attack, you're screwed.
If you can't charge and full attack and hit with every single attack at a -20 to hit at level 20, you're screwed, your Melee sucks, and you lose the game.
He doesn't have any idea of the power of a sword and board fighter in pathfinder...which, I believe, outdamages the 2h sword guy, with a +7 AC benefit.
He is so hard-framed on 3.5 he can't let it go.
Really, why is everyone arguing with him? He's a BG guy frozen in some other world of metagaming and math.
Also, for those of you who need a 3.5 feats reference, I use this:
http://www.realmshelps.net/cgi-bin/featsform.pl
It doesn't have all of them, because they stopped updating it, but it has about 99% of them. As for spells and such, you're on your own, but as COD only has the perfect spells to solve every encounter, and the enemy is always affected, it doesn't really make a difference, does it?
==+Aelryinth
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His argument comes down to: If you can't charge and full attack, you're screwed.
If you can charge and full attack, if you can't hit with every single attack, you're screwed.
If you can't charge and full attack and hit with every single attack at a -20 to hit at level 20, you're screwed, your Melee sucks, and you lose the game.He doesn't have any idea of the power of a sword and board fighter in pathfinder...which, I believe, outdamages the 2h sword guy, with a +7 AC benefit.
He is so hard-framed on 3.5 he can't let it go.
Really, why is everyone arguing with him? He's a BG guy frozen in some other world of metagaming and math.
Also, for those of you who need a 3.5 feats reference, I use this:
http://www.realmshelps.net/cgi-bin/featsform.pl
It doesn't have all of them, because they stopped updating it, but it has about 99% of them. As for spells and such, you're on your own, but as COD only has the perfect spells to solve every encounter, and the enemy is always affected, it doesn't really make a difference, does it?
==+Aelryinth
By his own admission he doesn't have a copy of the APG.
Why would any of us listed to his analysis of what the system can do when he is missing a huge chunk of the rules?
I love how he said in order to be good as a fighter one would have to metagame.
but he seems to always have the perfect spell prepared... even against things with SR, or telepathic monsters, or the tarrasque, or undead, or well anything that has ever existed in the game ever.
Too bad beholdersd dont still exist, that would be a monster wizards would pretty much need a fighter for...
Fighters have good fortitude saves, lots of hp, bravery, and weapon and armor training. Not to mention they get knowledge engineering and dungeoneering as skills (which I value knowledge skills highly and would take them.
A pillared dungeon is the setting. A large cavern opens up, there are several hundred sleeping goblins. He knows he doesnt have a chance. He sees the central pillar (knowledge engineering) and realizes that it is the central structure for this cavern. He pulls out his large hammer and makes a charge for his suprise round, he hits the pillar but its not enough. He takes his full attack next turn while the rest of the goblins attempt to stand up and move to him to swing at the pillar. CRACK! He runs as a shower of debris rains down on the goblins mass for 10d6, he claims 35 damage, plenty to keep him standing. The wails and screams of the goblin mass fill his ears as Mr. fighter grins
Not the best scenario but just an example.
Wrestling with medusa to pull a bag over her head would be another example after feeling the flesh to stone wash over him with a succesful fortitude save. Now he saved his whole party from a threatening monsters best attack instead of just himself.
I just dont think its all that black and white.
Just an example of when a fighters abilities extend past the swing and slash
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At least in Pathfinder you don't have to die to do all that damage. The combo you mentioned - power attack/shock trooper means your AC will be putrid.Yeah? But you'll be automatically hit anyways. That's why Shock Trooper gets used.
The rest of your post is completely off base, so I'm ignoring it.
So you didn't have an answer to his question?
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So you didn't have an answer to his question?At least in Pathfinder you don't have to die to do all that damage. The combo you mentioned - power attack/shock trooper means your AC will be putrid.Yeah? But you'll be automatically hit anyways. That's why Shock Trooper gets used.
The rest of your post is completely off base, so I'm ignoring it.
He did answer.
AC in 3.5 and PF does not scale well generally speaking. Therefore, it is better to sacrifice AC to increase damage in hopes of killing the monster in an attrition war. Monsters will generally have more HP and better status in general than PCs, so it's important to be able to defeat it before wins a full attack fight.
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He did answer.
AC in 3.5 and PF does not scale well generally speaking. Therefore, it is better to sacrifice AC to increase damage in hopes of killing the monster in an attrition war. Monsters will generally have more HP and better status in general than PCs, so it's important to be able to defeat it before wins a full attack fight.
I don't think that was the question the Oilhorse was referring to. The question he ignored was:
Let's take an example, you are a 14th level caster, your target monster is Demon, Nalfeshnee. it has an SR of 25, Fort +22, Reflex +9, Will +21, 203HP, 40' fly, greater teleport at will. It has immunity to electricity, poison and resist acid/cold/fire 10. What spell is a caster going to cast (pick any class) that can reliably disable this creature more than 50% of the time?
As the Fonz would say:
EXACTIMUNDO.
Too bad beholdersd dont still exist, that would be a monster wizards would pretty much need a fighter for...
Fighters have good fortitude saves, lots of hp, bravery, and weapon and armor training. Not to mention they get knowledge engineering and dungeoneering as skills (which I value knowledge skills highly and would take them.
A pillared dungeon is the setting. A large cavern opens up, there are several hundred sleeping goblins. He knows he doesnt have a chance. He sees the central pillar (knowledge engineering) and realizes that it is the central structure for this cavern. He pulls out his large hammer and makes a charge for his suprise round, he hits the pillar but its not enough. He takes his full attack next turn while the rest of the goblins attempt to stand up and move to him to swing at the pillar. CRACK! He runs as a shower of debris rains down on the goblins mass for 10d6, he claims 35 damage, plenty to keep him standing. The wails and screams of the goblin mass fill his ears as Mr. fighter grins
Not the best scenario but just an example.
Wrestling with medusa to pull a bag over her head would be another example after feeling the flesh to stone wash over him with a succesful fortitude save. Now he saved his whole party from a threatening monsters best attack instead of just himself.
I just dont think its all that black and white.
Just an example of when a fighters abilities extend past the swing and slash
I like these examples, Midnightoker.