1: You only have two rounds. That's how long it takes to full attack you into the ground.
In your games. Certainly not in my games. We average 4+ rounds per combat.
2: There is no healing, because healing, sans Heal spell is not viable in combat. It will, at most counteract a single hit, except that there are multiple hits, and now one of the capable party members is babysitting you. Oh and you'll still die.
In your games. In my games, we quite often see in combat healing. It has saved many characters from certain doom.
3: Haste is not a spell worth casting.
And you claimed earlier that you have a 16 Intelligence. I question that and this statement. Even if you have a party of only casters this spell is a great addition. Imagine if every summoned monster got an additional attack each round. Imagine if the druid's animal companion got an additional attack each round. Imagine if your wizard only had to cast the one spell while he watches everyone else take out the opponents quickly and all he had to do was use a single 3rd level spell and just let the XP come flowing in. This is how a party works together and uses less resources.
3: Haste is not a spell worth casting.
In my last combat, Hounds of Tindalos V. Party.
Haste, cast as a counterspell no less, won the fight.
Without it, the wizard himself would have failed his save, been slowed, enemy hasted, party screwed by full attacks.
In this one instance, it was not only worth preparing, it was optimal. Go figure.
Also, whole parties fly at that level. At the very least they aren't hindered by ice.
Why? Because you said so? The party I am DMing for had a Brn2/Rogue10, Wiz12, Inq12, Ftr12, Drd12, Rgr/Sor/Shadow Scout (total 12 levels). The Wizard, Druid, and the Shadow Scout can all fly. Sure, if the wizard casts fly or creates some wands or scrolls, then everyone can fly but they aren't in a position to do that at this point in time. This means that they are stuck with more mundane means of travel. You are making blanket statements that assume everyone is playing the game the same way you do. Why don't you take that 16 Intelligence and see where you are wrong? Not everyone plays the way you do. You way is not the default right way to play.
Haste is not a spell worth casting.And you claimed earlier that you have a 16 Intelligence. I question that and this statement. Even if you have a party of only casters this spell is a great addition. Imagine if every summoned monster got an additional attack each round.Incidentally, this doesn't work out too well Bob. Haste gives the most benefits as a first round cast, and summons are full round castings. By the time the summons are out, either haste is already up and won't effect them, or it's being casted later than ideal.
(I don't think CoDzilla is trying to say Haste is a bad effect, just that those who need it should find their own ways of getting it.)
The wizard can simply hold his action and cast it at the most opportune time. CoDZilla is actually saying that haste is not worth casting. Those are his words. Not worth casting must mean that it is a bad effect. CoDZilla's casters are perfect in every way. They would never cast something with a bad effect.
If your fighters aren't doing as much or more than your casters in games, then you're players really aren't that good. Your casters seem good to you, but that's because you've never really seen good players, they're just better than the bad players you know. I know that sounds harsh, but there's a whole world of gamers out there that play well and truly beyond your players ability to understand.
See how that works?
Except it doesn't, and I'll try to explain why.
For some characters, the bulk of the skill, such as it is, is in building. For other characters, the bulk of the skill is in the decisions you make during play.
Fighters are easy to make arguments about by posting builds, because they fall in the first category. If I post a fighter build, and someone better at it (e.g. Abraham Spalding) posts a fighter build, it's easy to see that his is better. We can compare the numbers. You can give the best player in the world my crappy fighter to play and you can give someone who's only decent Abraham's fighter to play and I guarantee you Abraham's will do more damage or whatever it is we're trying to build fighters to do. There's some room for tactics at the table to make up the difference but only so much.
Contrast that with a Wizard, which falls in the second category. The important parts of the build are trivial to get right (e.g. high INT) and the whole art of playing the character well actually occurs at the game table. I'm not saying this skill is superior to the builder's skill, but it doesn't translate well to message boards. Asking for the spells another player would prepare is almost always the wrong question and attacking their choices is always, always a strawman argument. It is like asking a great quarterback what the best play is and then trying to win a football game by running that play against every opposing team, every down, every game, all season. It's not just the wrong approach to analyzing something, it's obviously a wrong approach.
As for PFS play, you couldn't pick a more restrictive environment for your casters to play in. No crafting, restrictions on gear you can purchase based on scenarios played, limits to what you're allowed to do because they don't want to add pressure to the GM in a 4 hours slot, restrictions on your build options. I've done some PFS and seen it run. Not a years worth, but if its anything like the year I spent playing Living Greyhawk, then casters are even more shot in the foot since they get targeted early by vondictive DM's and killed.
Contrast that with my experience playing Living Greyhawk and seeing better caster players than myself not only survive in that environment but totally run the table. In that campaign I saw clerics with 10 STR and few if any combat stats throw out 400-500 melee damage in a round, a level ~10 druid grapple and pin a pit fiend in a round, another druid take play up an still take encounters meant for the whole party by himself without sweating, wizards reliably end CR = APL+3 and APL+4 encounters in a round, and many even more ridiculous things. Often with DMs that were gunning for them because of their reputation. And honestly, combat isn't even the strong point of most of these characters, it's just some of the easiest to quantify.
As limiting as that kind of environment is, assuming you take my word for all of the above, would you not agree that the kind of people who can make these things work are an octave above?
I think the argument to be made vs haste is that it's a waste for a full caster to be using an action to buff the martial classes. Haste is of very limited applicability to most casters and they can often do something more encounter altering with that spell slot or action.
If we assume that doing HP damage is a fool's game or that martial classes need to be able to one-round CR appropriate foes without haste (typically accomplished with pounce charger builds or some of the Bo9S builds) the net effect of using an action to haste the party really isn't that significant.
This is predicated on the assumption that everyone in an optimized game is capable of one-rounding opponents either with max damage martial builds or SoS spam + CDG actions from called creatures or animated undead.
I also suspect that in CoDzilla's game he's playing with the full 3.x arsenal including spells like celerity and belts of battle. Throw in stuff like rod of quicken and the Nova wizard can be a one round SoS assault cannon. BBEGs go down quickly to that level of firepower even with good saves + resistance items.
A bunch of relatively accurate assessments
I do want to address one part though:
A
Asking for the spells another player would prepare is almost always the wrong question and attacking their choices is always, always a strawman argument.
It's not a strawman argument. It's not a strawman argument when someone attacks the feat choices of a fighter so it can't be a strawman when someone attacks the spell choices of a wizard.
Usually when this is brought up is when someone makes the erroneous claim that their wizards will always have the right spell at the right time. I have been waiting more than 10 years for this illusive build to show up. I would be very happy to see a wizard build thrown out there where we can see the minimum acceptable standard in spell selection.
I have my favorite spells when I play a wizard. They are not "optimal" choices for some people's games and that's ok with me. I build characters that are fun to play not ones that can defeat CR + 5 encounters 100% of the time in a single round. I'm not saying that you are making that claim because you have never even hinted to that. I am saying that this is standard hyperbole thrown around by a select few who have never once even been willing to post their most current uberwizard.
One of my favorite wizards I played was a dwarven evoker blood mage who was completely bald. He had burned his hair off in a fireball accident that he wasn't willing to talk about. He enjoyed carving scrolls into his arms to look like more scars. He got a kick out of cutting himself to increase the potency of his spells. He was a lot of fun to play but would never have been seen as a good wizard to play by the standards on the message boards.
I think the argument to be made vs haste is that it's a waste for a full caster to be using an action to buff the martial classes. Haste is of very limited applicability to most casters and they can often do something more encounter altering with that spell slot or action.
If we assume that doing HP damage is a fool's game or that martial classes need to be able to one-round CR appropriate foes without haste (typically accomplished with pounce charger builds or some of the Bo9S builds) the net effect of using an action to haste the party really isn't that significant.
I would agree with you if the same people didn't also make the claim that they would just summon monsters to be the same melee combatants they said they didn't need in the first place. If they never cared about hit points, we would never see the summoning = replacing fighter arguments. The truth is, they know as well as we do that hit points matter. They may not matter all the time but they certainly matter. It's the same reason why they boost their own hit points while still claiming that their wizards are untouchable. If hit points didn't matter, they would dump Constitution since it doesn't help a single skill and poisons are irrelevant (their claims, not mine).
This is predicated on the assumption that everyone in an optimized game is capable of one-rounding opponents either with max damage martial builds or SoS spam + CDG actions from called creatures or animated undead.
I also suspect that in CoDzilla's game he's playing with the full 3.x arsenal including spells like celerity and belts of battle. Throw in stuff like rod of quicken and the Nova wizard can be a one round SoS assault cannon. BBEGs go down quickly to that level of firepower even with good saves + resistance items.
I'm not sure he's even playing the same game system we are. I suspect that he is just regurgitating what he's read on various message boards. If he is playing Pathfinder/DnD, I suspect he'd be much happier with a different system that suits his style of play much better.
I wasn't including summons because for the most part they end up being action inefficient (they don't last long enough to be reliable meatshields for multiple encounters and they take too long to summon). I think he's typically using called creatures (last longer and much tougher) or other ways of reliably being able to increase your effective number of actions.
Basically the key is to drive up your share of the action economy through effects like quicken and retinue monsters.
Even if I only have a 50% chance of bypassing one of your good saves if I can cast that spell twice in a round then your chances of not being affected drop significantly. Throw in other ways to increase actions and the chances of saving vs the barrage of SoS effects becomes very problematic.
Once an opponent has been neutralized then your retinue can effectively CDG the opposition.
Even if you've wasted 90% of your offensive capacity in 1-2 encounters you can always retreat back into a safe camping spell and rinse and repeat the following day.
Basically the SOS caster bypasses unnecessary encounters and focuses on the CR+3 encounters that offer the most risk and rewards. Once the BBEG is neutralized then the rest of the encounters are often easy pickings.
Note: I don't actually condone this style of play as I feel it's contrary to the team gameplay goal and is no longer really the game I grew up playing. As such if I play as a caster I almost invariably play the support caster which is less optimal from a gameplay perspective but maximizes the enjoyment of all players at the table. I don't pretend that my style of play works for everyone though.
Anyway, the point is, I don't conduct "story hour" (although the stories to tend to be pretty memorable), I play a game. D&D without death is like soccer without scoring - I guess it's still a game, but the point isn't adventure, imo, it's protecting the self esteem of six year olds.
A nice barely-indirect insult. But it doesn't make "But I want to kill PCs*, shame on 3E for trying to take this opportunity from me!" any less of a bad position. Neither it makes justifying such position by bad rules any less invalid.
*And, ultimately, kills through setting the difficulty so high, that PCs will be eventually wiped out by sheer iterative probability are just a delayed, less likely to cause a player revolt, version of "rocks falls", because the campaign difficulty level is set arbitrarily by the GM. 3E and its descendants tried to limit this arbitraryness, but you are not liking them for that, aren't you?
My players know this up front, and have the choice to play or not play.
As this is exactly the choice the majority of players have (only in PbPs and other games through the net there is a real choice of GMs), it says relatively little about the quality of your games.
Exactly! Now we're on a wavelength.
I don't care of dex fighters are 'sub-optimal' - I like Zoro, the Three Musketeers and the Princess bride! Making an effective dex fighter is a challenge. Any idiot can min-max a caster and spam spells for a 15 minute adventuring day ... I want more variety than that.
The problem that I have is that the effort and work that goes into it is easily trumped by a decent player playing a much better class. The problem of that is the gap of power is so great, that making something that isn't viable in the first place is a huge waste of time.
Like trying to making the bestest, greatest, most powerfulest CW samurai is still miles away from a wizard. That itself doesn't bother me. But when it comes down to actual combat, it bugs me if I cannot contribute. For me, it might as well be as if when combat starts, I just leave, because I can't do ANYTHING to affect it.
HOWEVER, most games are not to the level 3 and 4 of optimization for NPCs, so that gap isn't fully explored, and most people like it that way. I do too, although it might not show in my postings.
That's the difference between effective and optimised. I can make an effective dex fighter, even though it's not an optimised fighter if the character can contribute. This is true 90% of the time in Pathfinder, and I have no need to fill the limelight with my character.
In fact, in one game I have a fencer who currently the party's mainstream fighter and doing very well at it ...
It's not a strawman argument. It's not a strawman argument when someone attacks the feat choices of a fighter so it can't be a strawman when someone attacks the spell choices of a wizard.
When fighters get to swap out their full complement of feats each day depending on what they're expecting, I will agree with you.
Until then I think you're wrong.
And the Sword of True Strike has a price. As an effective +10 weapon, I think it was around 3 million gp. If he doesn't know that, he doesn't know the game.Not in Ashiel land, where you think that custom item rules are in any way balanced exactly as written.
There you get continuous Wraithstrike for 48k, and continuous Shield for... I think 4k, though it might be 8k and all manner of other silly things simply because it is what the custom item rules say you can get.
The pricing rules already cover AC modifiers at 1,000 gp * bonus^ (for armor bonuses), 2,000 gp * bonus^ (for deflection), and 2,500 gp * bonus^ (other), so if the spell provides a similar bonus, you should likely price it with those guidelines. In the cast of an x/day shield item, you'd more likely just go with that, since it has a 1 minute duration and doesn't infringe on the other items that act continuously. And if you're going to say "most fights don't last more than 3 rounds", then you would also realize that spending an action to cast shield for 10 rounds is probably a waste and justifiably cheap.
Also, screw wraithstrike. Wraithstrike doesn't exist for all intents and purposes in Pathfinder. You can add it, but don't begin to suggest using it as an example of why the rules don't work, because it just makes you look foolish CoDzilla. Wraithstrike was arguably unbalanced in 3.5 (god forbid a dragon use that shiz), just like tons of other stuff throughout 3.5. Bringing 3.5's problems to Pathfinder doesn't make you right, it just makes you ignorant.
The fact of the matter is, yes, the item creation rules are surprisingly simple and/or effective for most things. There's occasionally a glitch in the system, but for the most part it's pretty solid. I've been using the same item creation rules since 3E, and they've always worked fine for me if you follow the suggested guidelines (such as comparing them to existing items).
If you want to ignore the guidelines, and just use the raw numbers without following the instructions, then you deserve what you get.
Dragons don't need Wraithstrike to wreck your day.
First unequivocally true statement I have heard you come up with.
And there's a reason why the books make it very clear that custom items should be allowed with extreme caution.
Agreed, custom items should be judged carefully.
Now I'd allow the Wraithstrike for 48k item, and disallow most other custom items, but the point is that most DMs will automatically say no to any custom item.
Never had that myself, but then I don't try and makes Truestrike Swords or other broken sh*t.
Anything that relies upon something that even permissive DMs are likely to ban is doomed to failure.
I play Pathfinder, only one of the games I am currently in imports more than the occasional feat from 3.5, some don't even use the APG, so this isn't an issue. I also think it may be one reason for our fundamental disagreements - the supplementary material in 3.5 splats does give a boost to martial characters, but it gives an even bigger one to casters.
Then you're fighting very weak enemies, with a very weak party as healing magic, Heal spell excluded does not keep up with enemy damage output at any level. The best you can hope for is that it can negate one hit, out of several. It often doesn't even do that much.
The party regularly encounters several opponents at the same time with a variety of CRs. Each encounter is made to be interesting. Sometimes the battles are very difficult, other times they are easy. Usually, they are just right. Each level of difficulty is exactly how I designed it. As DM, I take the time to make sure the encounters are balanced to what I want to achieve.
Do you also realize that your two statements are contradictory? If the enemies are weak, then there would be no need to use healing magic. For the record, I never said that they heal completely up in combat. They tend to use tactics when healing. No one heals themselves while getting pounded on. Instead the inquisitor will run over and heal the barbarian/rogue or the druid will heal his animal companion (or even the summoned griffon like he did last session). They use appropriate tactics for the situation. Healing doesn't have to do a lot. It has to do enough.
And you claimed earlier that you have a 16 Intelligence. I question that and this statement. Even if you have a party of only casters this spell is a great addition. Imagine if every summoned monster got an additional attack each round. Imagine if the druid's animal companion got an additional attack each round. Imagine if your wizard only had to cast the one spell while he watches everyone else take out the opponents quickly and all he had to do was use a single 3rd level spell and just let the XP come flowing in. This is how a party works together and uses less resources.
And the enemies are still fully fighting fit. They still get to fight back to full effect, which means more resources get burned. You don't get to start full attacking until round 2, which means you might not get any benefit out of it at all.
No, if you cast a 3rd level spell it will be Stinking Cloud or Slow. That way, you can influence the combat right now and then the party can just mow everything down while it can't really fight back. And with a save DC of 19, without any specialization at all it will be successful far more often than not.
And that's all you need. One and done.
So when are those spells going to be 100% effective? Are you really under the impression that haste has no value at all?
Incoming damage is greatly lessened, or eliminated outright which saves resources. Not to mention, prevents people from being two rounded so easily. Which is what you'd get in the Haste scenario. Congrats, you get one full attack. Did it kill the enemy? No? Guess they full attacked you a second time. Too bad. So what kind of character will you be...
Incoming damage is greatly lessoned? From what? The balor? The dragon that is casting? The incorporeal creatures? The golems? The other wizards? Come on now. You know as well as I do that you are going to run out of options real soon.
I wonder how your wizard would fare against his clone. Has your DM ever thrown an ubercaster at you? If you regularly are able to stop the enemy with a single spell or two, then maybe it is you that have the easy battles. I have never heard anyone complain that the encounters are too easy in my games.
It's not a strawman argument. It's not a strawman argument when someone attacks the feat choices of a fighter so it can't be a strawman when someone attacks the spell choices of a wizard.
When fighters get to swap out their full complement of feats each day depending on what they're expecting, I will agree with you.
Until then I think you're wrong.
Wizards cannot swap out their full compliment of spells every day. They are still limited to the spells they know. From the discussions around here, there are some select spells that the wizard seems to always have prepared. That reduces how much he actually changes his spell list daily.
It's still not a straw man argument. No one is arguing against something that was never claimed. The claim is that wizards are always prepared and can never fail. I want to see that build. I want to see the feat list and spell list that puts wizards in the "always win" column.
Note that I understand you are not making that claim. There are others who are making that claim. There is one in particular who seems to be clinging to that belief and will never show the invincible wizard that he has created at any level of play. Remember that he is claiming that wizards are invincible at all levels of play. There is no reason to not show a complete build other than it doesn't exist.
As an aside, I wish people would stop saying 'I have never had any complaints in X years.' it doesn't prove anything except that none of your players spoke up about any issues they had. I ask my players for feedback and only assume they're enjoying themselves when they tell me so.
Technically true, but in all that time if somebody was that bad then they'd probably wither know it or be very lonely. By the same token that they cannot assume they are doing it right, you cannot assume they are doing it wrong and dismiss them out of hand.
All you can really say is "You may be doing it differently ..."
I still want to see an Uberwizard statblock, for my own edification if nothing else.
As an aside, I wish people would stop saying 'I have never had any complaints in X years.' it doesn't prove anything except that none of your players spoke up about any issues they had. I ask my players for feedback and only assume they're enjoying themselves when they tell me so.
+1. At best it means you happen to have players who enjoyed your game as is, but I can guarantee there is someone out there that won't enjoy your games. That does not make you a bad DM if someone leaves your table, anymore than having players not leaving makes you a good one by that one merit.
I still want to see an Uberwizard statblock, for my own edification if nothing else.
Me too - moreover, I could need it as an NPC, I'm lazy.
Violent Thrust is cool.. assuming you have the objects. And is 15d6.Violent Thrust.
Nope. Up to 25 pounds per object. Which, interestingly enough is more than a Medium sized weapon.
How about Javelins? Medium ones are two pounds. Every size increase increases damage, and doubles weight.
Increase by three sizes. It's 16 pounds, and does 3d6 damage. You throw 15 of them. And that's how Balors do damage.
That probably isn't even an optimal use of TK, just the first one I found.
I prefer maneuvers - all those javelins,assuming you have enough, could incur in DR and similar things.
Nevertheless, thank you, you gave me few ideas. This is the best thing of these threads - you find just another way to screw your players ;)
Violent Thrust is cool.. assuming you have the objects. And is 15d6.Violent Thrust.
Nope. Up to 25 pounds per object. Which, interestingly enough is more than a Medium sized weapon.
How about Javelins? Medium ones are two pounds. Every size increase increases damage, and doubles weight.
Increase by three sizes. It's 16 pounds, and does 3d6 damage. You throw 15 of them. And that's how Balors do damage.
That probably isn't even an optimal use of TK, just the first one I found.
So it gets 15 chances to roll a 20 to break through the fighters AC in order to deal 3d6 damage?
Why? Core is that good for them. It just sucks for everyone else.
Except in pure Pathfinder. Which is what we are discussing - in 3.5 I would not disagree!
No, the Fighter is already dominated, and is getting his first full attack of the game on his own party.Violent Thrust is cool.. assuming you have the objects. And is 15d6.Violent Thrust.
Nope. Up to 25 pounds per object. Which, interestingly enough is more than a Medium sized weapon.
How about Javelins? Medium ones are two pounds. Every size increase increases damage, and doubles weight.
Increase by three sizes. It's 16 pounds, and does 3d6 damage. You throw 15 of them. And that's how Balors do damage.
That probably isn't even an optimal use of TK, just the first one I found.
So it gets 15 chances to roll a 20 to break through the fighters AC in order to deal 3d6 damage?
Protection from evil. Are you even trying?
No, the Fighter is already dominated, and is getting his first full attack of the game on his own party.Violent Thrust is cool.. assuming you have the objects. And is 15d6.Violent Thrust.
Nope. Up to 25 pounds per object. Which, interestingly enough is more than a Medium sized weapon.
How about Javelins? Medium ones are two pounds. Every size increase increases damage, and doubles weight.
Increase by three sizes. It's 16 pounds, and does 3d6 damage. You throw 15 of them. And that's how Balors do damage.
That probably isn't even an optimal use of TK, just the first one I found.
So it gets 15 chances to roll a 20 to break through the fighters AC in order to deal 3d6 damage?
Wow...good point here. A balor is going to use his abilities to turn the party against itself before it ever tries to melee.
Any Balor worth his salt, anyway.
Protection from evil. Are you even trying?No, the Fighter is already dominated, and is getting his first full attack of the game on his own party.Violent Thrust is cool.. assuming you have the objects. And is 15d6.Violent Thrust.
Nope. Up to 25 pounds per object. Which, interestingly enough is more than a Medium sized weapon.
How about Javelins? Medium ones are two pounds. Every size increase increases damage, and doubles weight.
Increase by three sizes. It's 16 pounds, and does 3d6 damage. You throw 15 of them. And that's how Balors do damage.
That probably isn't even an optimal use of TK, just the first one I found.
So it gets 15 chances to roll a 20 to break through the fighters AC in order to deal 3d6 damage?
Depends. Did you know the Balor was there? Had it already been cast?
If not, all it gives the fighter is a second save at a +2, which is probably not going to help that much. Some fighters (typicaly) use wis for dump and have bad Will saves.I can't imagine a Balor being all that set back by a 1st level spell either...
So it gets 15 chances to roll a 20 to break through the fighters AC in order to deal 3d6 damage?
No, you have to understand.. there are NO fighters.
Just casters who haven't bothered with AC 'cause its meaningless.
-James
That was my point above. Melee comes and go depending from the discussion.
yeah.. Balor could dominate our fighter (he is here? or is not?) assuming nobody cast a 24 hour mind blank on him. Or has an item with a similar effect. Or passes the save. Assuming the item has not dispelled or disarmed by the balor. Assuming the Balor know it...
See what I mean?
And again the 3d6 javelin is cool, but I wonder if was an intended use of the spell. Barring this.. does the Balor roam around with 15 huge javelins on his back (reasonable for a prepared room in a dungeon, nevertheless :P) Are the Javelins subjected to Wind Wall?
Nope. It's more true that ever. Casters got massive buffs, everyone else got massive nerfs. So if you want a viable non caster, you must not only pull in lots of (3.5) books, but you must also start scrapping the (PF) rules that hold them back from being viable party members.
Circular Argument. PF does not work because does not work. Or we must discuss again for 40 pages about Power Attack?