I guess I'm one of the "jerks", no one asks me to play anything, I pick based on idea's, influenced by what others are playing. The only time I change to have the bases covered is if there are very few players.
I don't play clerics.
I mean most people are going to go "Omg, you don't need a divine caster as a healer because of magic items!" where only the Ranger, Bard, and Paladin can, in addition to Druids, Clerics, and other major divine casters can use those items without UMD.
You can possibly skip one, but you aren't going to be able to leave out both at the same time, especially once you get higher in level. And remember, Paladins, Bards, and Rangers are also all casters when looking at filling the healer role (ie, why divine casters are really so important)I agree, one full caster is pretty essential, but other than that ... you generally can get by with other means.
Or a lock and trap smith. A big dumb fighter with lots of HP can sort of be both, but the one thing a caster can't do is be a lock or trap smith.
Removed a bunch of posts. Keep it on topic and civil please.
Adamantine bolt > locks that are not adamantine. If the lock IS adamantine, you slice the hinges. If the entire DOOR is adamantine, you attack the wall it's attached to and then sell it for megabucks. If the WALLS are adamantine too, expect your DM to cry in very short order.Or a lock and trap smith. A big dumb fighter with lots of HP can sort of be both, but the one thing a caster can't do is be a lock or trap smith.You can possibly skip one, but you aren't going to be able to leave out both at the same time, especially once you get higher in level. And remember, Paladins, Bards, and Rangers are also all casters when looking at filling the healer role (ie, why divine casters are really so important)I agree, one full caster is pretty essential, but other than that ... you generally can get by with other means.
How do you shut the door after you without anyone noticing you were there?
Traps are completely irrelevant in PF. Just run through them.
Even the disintergrating wall trap? Or the rotating vorpal scythe blade trap? or ... any one of a hundred lethal traps there to eliminate the shallow end of the gene pool when forethought was being handed out?
Nah, just one trick ponies. If they weren't good at their one single thing, I'd be sad.She's the NPC. We take turns playing her. We thought it was gonna be okay cause after all it's a suboptimal NPC class, right? Oh. SO. Wrong. o.O
She destroyed an entire undead army all by herself with Mass Heals. She does no damage other than to undead, but she can keep healing us all fricking day. Healers are badass!
I beg to differ. My 9th-level human Healer in a Pathfinder-adjusted game is busy onboard a ship using Mending on the ropes and sails, Purify Food and Drink on the cargo, Create Food and Water and Cooking with the Craft skill, and fishing off the port bow with a +18 to Survival checks. His actual healing is reserved for actual battles. The crew of the ship has been very appreciative of the Cleanse Disease and Remove Disease with the, um, shore leaves.
I chose the Healer from Mini Handbook over a cleric precisely because I was tired of the "damage per round" standard. This guy has zero offensive capability (if you are not undead) until you get in range of his +1 heavy mace. On the other hand, with the Reach Spell feat from the APG, this healer can now cast a Cure Serious at 190 feet with a +6 ranged touch attack. Kind of makes that Mass Cure Mod at 5th level at 45 feet a secondary spell.
I feel that there are no "forced" roles, there are only reactions to poorly worded modules or GMs. If the adventuring party is stuck in a dungeon trying to pick a DC 25 lock, and the Key to the City (a la heavy mace, warhammer, or Strength check) won't open the door after taking 20 and making enough noise to bring the owner of the dungeon around, then it's the fault of the writer/GM, not the players.
This is just the shoe on the other foot. How many times have we heard how "the spellcaster broke the module" because they had Sleep and the Will save of the goblins was in the negatives, or "the fighter is unstoppable" because they chose Power Attack + Cleave + Great Cleave? I once had a GM nearly outlaw Tanglefoot bags from the table because they were sooooo good against low-level monsters, and so cheap for low-level players, compared to magicking swords.
I find that I can play certain roles better than others. I started off playing fighters, then sorcerers, with the occasional turn at being a healbot or wizard. Lockpicking rogues bore me.
What I don't like at the table is when I have to pick up a half-dozen skills because everyone else is focused on their particular prestige class. I've had to pick up Appraise, nearly every Knowledge, and UMD because everyone else only wants to advance their Perception, Stealth, Disable Device, and Profession skills. I wonder how we would sell all that stuff we pick up without the Appraise skill.
I don't mind classes that are specialized, I do have an issue when the "specialized" class is objectively worse then the non-specialized.
The Healer is a huge example of this. All it does is heal...but it doesn't actually heal that much better then Favored Souls or Clerics. Beyond that, they lack a lot of the preventative and protection spells that healers quite frankly should have (what's a white mage without shell and protect?). In fact, the best "healer" if you want the unarmored archtype would frankly by a Cloistered Cleric.
In other words, if you want to play the role of Healer, you're better off...not being a Healer. You're best off as a Cloistered Cleric. That's the problem with the Healer. Even if you do no damage whatsoever, Clerics (or Cloistered Cleric in this place) does it better.
Your disintegrating wall does not exist. Though if it did, it would have a trivial DC of 19, and therefore be irrelevant. Neither does your vorpal blade scythe, though if it did, there's you an easy 25k or more by looting the trap. In this case the lack of forethought is all the DM's. For you see, forethought is realizing anything the enemy will do to you by screwing around too long in their home is ten times worse than the piddly traps will.
You mean a trap you would have to disable to get the vorpal scythe from it?
There are no lethal traps in PF.
Your disintegrating wall does not exist. Though if it did, it would have a trivial DC of 19, and therefore be irrelevant. Neither does your vorpal blade scythe, though if it did, there's you an easy 25k or more by looting the trap. In this case the lack of forethought is all the DM's. For you see, forethought is realizing anything the enemy will do to you by screwing around too long in their home is ten times worse than the piddly traps will.
Any spell can be made into a trap. The fact that there are no lethal sample traps is irrelevant.
How do you shut the door after you without anyone noticing you were there?Adamantine bolt > locks that are not adamantine. If the lock IS adamantine, you slice the hinges. If the entire DOOR is adamantine, you attack the wall it's attached to and then sell it for megabucks. If the WALLS are adamantine too, expect your DM to cry in very short order.Or a lock and trap smith. A big dumb fighter with lots of HP can sort of be both, but the one thing a caster can't do is be a lock or trap smith.You can possibly skip one, but you aren't going to be able to leave out both at the same time, especially once you get higher in level. And remember, Paladins, Bards, and Rangers are also all casters when looking at filling the healer role (ie, why divine casters are really so important)I agree, one full caster is pretty essential, but other than that ... you generally can get by with other means.You don't. But you don't do that anyways because 1: You want the door open so you can escape. 2: You cannot shut the door without alerting people to your presence.
Traps are completely irrelevant in PF. Just run through them.Even the disintergrating wall trap? Or the rotating vorpal scythe blade trap? or ... any one of a hundred lethal traps there to eliminate the shallow end of the gene pool when forethought was being handed out?There are no lethal traps in PF.
Your disintegrating wall does not exist. Though if it did, it would have a trivial DC of 19, and therefore be irrelevant. Neither does your vorpal blade scythe, though if it did, there's you an easy 25k or more by looting the trap. In this case the lack of forethought is all the DM's. For you see, forethought is realizing anything the enemy will do to you by screwing around too long in their home is ten times worse than the piddly traps will.
Telling a DM that something is NOT in their game is a hilarious way to get your foot in your mouth.
Sometimes literally. XD
Players that correct me, about MY campaign. Or say metagame. Or do anything like that, find that my wrath can be swift.
Or I pull a Mr. Fishy and get a stick.
Any spell can be made into a trap. The fact that there are no lethal sample traps is irrelevant.
There are no lethal traps in PF.
Your disintegrating wall does not exist. Though if it did, it would have a trivial DC of 19, and therefore be irrelevant. Neither does your vorpal blade scythe, though if it did, there's you an easy 25k or more by looting the trap. In this case the lack of forethought is all the DM's. For you see, forethought is realizing anything the enemy will do to you by screwing around too long in their home is ten times worse than the piddly traps will.
There IS, in fact, a sample Disintegrate trap.
The Healer is a huge example of this. All it does is heal...but it doesn't actually heal that much better then Favored Souls or Clerics. Beyond that, they lack a lot of the preventative and protection spells that healers quite frankly should have (what's a white mage without shell and protect?).
Yes, my 9th-level Healer when Pathfinderized by myself was feeling the pain of missing out on Endure Elements, Shield Other, etc. Spells you'd think would be automatically Healer-specific that were not in the 3.5 edition.
The Healer does get some spells a level sooner than the Cleric, my main argument in keeping the class instead of going with Oracle. The special abilities (Cleanses) make up for the short list of spells for the Healer.
Did you take the spontaneous healing feat from The Divine Magic splatbook? it gives you that spontaenous healing trick clerics enjoy.
My character did, giving him with a WIS modifier of +3 the ability to choose three non-healing spells per day like Freedom of Movement or Remove Curse in place of healing spells. Reach Spell was officially Pathfinderized in APG; why not the Spontaneous Healer feat? Several feats that add a +2 to skills were made +4 with 10 skill ranks; why not a generalized Healing Hands feat that does this?
There IS, in fact, a sample Disintegrate trap.
Technically, disintegrate isn't SOD. Sure, the damage is nice, but you know he's going to move the goalposts so that the argument changes from lethal to SOD.
I find it interesting that everyone thinks that a party needs an arcane caster to be successful. One of the parties I'm currently in has no arcane casters, and the player who plays the cleric and ranger has a tendency is only just now starting to regularly cast spells with the cleric. It probably helps that we are a fairly large party that can power through things quickly, but even other parties I've been in haven't had an arcane caster and done fine. You do need at least one caster of some kind, but beyond that, good tactics that take advantage of what spells the party has is the most important thing.
How do you shut the door after you without anyone noticing you were there?You don't. But you don't do that anyways because 1: You want the door open so you can escape. 2: You cannot shut the door without alerting people to your presence.
What about when you don't want anyone to know you were there? Clearly, espionage games are not part of your usual forte.
Traps are completely irrelevant in PF. Just run through them.Even the disintergrating wall trap? Or the rotating vorpal scythe blade trap? or ... any one of a hundred lethal traps there to eliminate the shallow end of the gene pool when forethought was being handed out?There are no lethal traps in PF.
Your disintegrating wall does not exist.
Yes it does, I just invented it. The traps in Pathfinder are sample traps, not the be-all and end-all. Pathfinder has as many and as lethal a set of traps as any DM cares to put into it. Just because you/yours do not bother and always play to the strengths of casters doesn't mean everybody's game is like that.
Traps are as lethal as the DM decides. They consist of what the DM chooses to include. Hence trapfinders are as useful or not as the individual game requires. Your generalisations are just assumptions based on your own anecdotal experience which - if you hadn't noticed by now - is a very long way from being universal.
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Technically, disintegrate isn't SOD. Sure, the damage is nice, but you know he's going to move the goalposts so that the argument changes from lethal to SOD.
There IS, in fact, a sample Disintegrate trap.
Since any spell can be made into a trap, one would have to argue there are no SOD spells to take the "no SOD" spells position.
I need some popcorn.
Technically, disintegrate isn't SOD.
There IS, in fact, a sample Disintegrate trap.
It wasn't SoD in 3.5 either so who cares.
Finger of Death, Slay Living, Destruction, Implosion are all pretty SoD, then there is a lot of hampering spells like Flesh to Stone, Imprisonment, etc.
But this also goes in the "Magic(tm): It's better." pile...
And unless you disguise the trap with a Magic Aura/Nondetection and permanency it, any caster can detect it and go "oh. lemme just find my wand of summon monster 1..."
Then you never even lay a finger on the door. You cast Greater/Superior Invisibility, and (Greater) Blink and wall walk through the place. And they never even know you were there. Even when you go to kill them (assuming an assassination mission). Now you're going to try and accuse me of moving the goalposts, when it is you that did so.
However if the goal is to simply get past a locked door, you defeat the low level, trivial obstacle in the exact manner I describe.
Clearly low-level games are not in your forte either.
I find it interesting that everyone thinks that a party needs an arcane caster to be successful. One of the parties I'm currently in has no arcane casters, and the player who plays the cleric and ranger has a tendency is only just now starting to regularly cast spells with the cleric. It probably helps that we are a fairly large party that can power through things quickly, but even other parties I've been in haven't had an arcane caster and done fine. You do need at least one caster of some kind, but beyond that, good tactics that take advantage of what spells the party has is the most important thing.
I think that if anyone was told at the local comic book shop or coffeehouse, "Hey, we've got 5 players but no arcane caster yet, will you be our arcane caster while we protect you?" most of the people here on the board would jump at that gaming table. Once you get to Level 6 the arcane caster is such a game-changer it makes up for all the pain of low-level playing.
I've actually been "forced away" from 3.5 psionics by my gaming group for the last decade. One of the fellow players (and part-time GM) had a really bad experience with 2nd Ed psionics. Now that Dreamscarred Press has Psionics Unleashed for Pathfinder, I'm going to try and roll up my next character as a psion. We'll see if I am allowed to play.
Interestingly, I get forced more into RP-roles than into mechanics-roles.
Telling a DM that something is NOT in their game is a hilarious way to get your foot in your mouth.
Sadly, I've learned that the hard way.
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I can't say I have ever had that problem, but then again I mostly DM. My way of avoiding this problem if to come up with a campaign idea in broad brushstrokes, and then develop the actual adventures after I see what type of characters the group has. No rogue in the party? I just leave out traps from my adventures. No arcane spellcasters? I get rid of DRx/magic on the monsters. No healers? I just add a few healing potions to the inventory of the monsters they fight. That way it all balances out.
Interestingly, I get forced more into RP-roles than into mechanics-roles.
I'm not that surprised. I tend to get forced into party leader/face roles pretty often, even when the character I have created isn't well-suited to that role. In RL, I'm the most outgoing and assertive one in our group, so they frequently expect me to be the same in games. Occasionally has led to hilarious results:
-- They kept pushing my brash, brutally honest to a fault, completely undiplomatic Unicorn character into being a leader in L5R, despite my warning them that doing so would likely get everyone killed. This character's tag line - "All this intrigue makes my brain hurt. Just point me at the enemy and let me kill them."
-- In Red Hand of Doom, my unexceptional Intelligence and Charisms dwarven cleric was party leader, despite the fact that his idea of sophisticated tactics was "Get 'em" and he had the diplomatic skills of a rancid turnip.
-- In a homebrew game in which orcs have taken over the world, the group generally followed the lead of my sorcerer character, who was an anti-orc fanatic with anger issues and no noticeable conscience. Undeniably smart and charismatic, he was also a cold-blooded killer who would think nothing of risking teammates to inflict maximum damage on the enemy.
I can't say I have ever had that problem, but then again I mostly DM. My way of avoiding this problem if to come up with a campaign idea in broad brushstrokes, and then develop the actual adventures after I see what type of characters the group has. No rogue in the party? I just leave out traps from my adventures. No arcane spellcasters? I get rid of DRx/magic on the monsters. No healers? I just add a few healing potions to the inventory of the monsters they fight. That way it all balances out.
And you are the rare GM who will do this for your gaming table. I've played with literal-minded "if it ain't in the book, you're not getting it" type GMs for so long I've been forced to play Sorcerers with the Eschew Materials free feat to become the self-sufficient arcane machine. How's that for forced playing?
If you are level 1 through 4, you can't do a stealth run anyways, as you lack the actual abilities to do that. Even something like a housecat (or any animal with Scent, but housecats are a classic) completely shuts you down.
Again, you resort to assertions of fallacies.
At level 1, a Stealth score of 8 is easily achievable. Given a dog's perception score of +8 (assuming it's a guard dog, not a guard cat), that gives a good thief a 50/50 chance of getting past the guard dog - better if he thinks to bring a sedative wrapped in bacon. The dog has not just to sense you, he has to alert humans you are around, so you only have to sneak close enough to toss the drugged meat to the dog or slide it under the door.
I've done loads of stealth runs at 1st level. They aren't that hard as long as you aren't trying to steal the crown jewels.
I'd love to play in a group with no casters. Sounds like fun!
Fortunately most people realize this and don't try to make casterless teams.
I've done it - it's challenging, but not impossible.
I find it interesting that everyone thinks that a party needs an arcane caster to be successful. One of the parties I'm currently in has no arcane casters, and the player who plays the cleric and ranger has a tendency is only just now starting to regularly cast spells with the cleric. It probably helps that we are a fairly large party that can power through things quickly, but even other parties I've been in haven't had an arcane caster and done fine. You do need at least one caster of some kind, but beyond that, good tactics that take advantage of what spells the party has is the most important thing.I think that if anyone was told at the local comic book shop or coffeehouse, "Hey, we've got 5 players but no arcane caster yet, will you be our arcane caster while we protect you?" most of the people here on the board would jump at that gaming table. Once you get to Level 6 the arcane caster is such a game-changer it makes up for all the pain of low-level playing.
I didn't say that people were avoiding arcane casters, just that people were not concerned about it. As far as level 6 spells are concerned, any caster that gets level 6 spells, whether they are divine or arcane, are game changers. It tends to be less apparent with divine spells, as most of those will be boosting effects, battlefield shaping effects, or some other indirect effect that don't immediately end battles by themselves, but that doesn't change the fact that they are just as game changing as the stuff the wizards and sorcerers are throwing around. The cleric (at least at higher levels), druid, and wizard spell lists are all equally capable of handling diverse situations; each just does it in its own way and requires a different set of support tactics to get the most of them.
I could see a truly casterless party being near impossible at higher levels, but a party without full casters is certainly doable. Bards, rangers, paladins, and now the alchemist, summoner, and inquisitor, can all be effective casters when supported by and supporting at least one other partial caster. It may not be as easy to get around certain things, but still entirely doable. Just don't try to do things as if you have a full caster in the party, pick appropriate goals, delegate stuff you can't do to npcs or otherwise work around them, and the party can do just as much to shape the world as any other group of high level adventurers. IF the DM insists on pulling the world is going to end and only the party can stop it, than either the party has the resources to pull it off or it doesn't, either way, you roll with the punches and figure out how to keep going or at least have fun in the attempt.