Why are you dropping 16k on Wis for a paladin again?
Kinda losing you here. If I threaten 20' in all directions, including the area where my allies are, how do they saunter about and ignore me to strike at the casters? Not all enemies have 50+ movement speed. Oh, wait, you mean they take the hits and keep on walking? Yeah, if they have sufficient HP, sure, I see that.@CoDzilla: Tanking is not a viable concept in high level play. This much is obvious. That is why I base myself on being nigh invincible in terms of saves (14+ in all saves at lv8) and HP, and have a strong offense (aka making sure I can euthanize stuff the casters tie down in short order). For what I CAN tank, I do. Saved our hides several times, but then again, as you say, the APs are tailored towards making all manner of characters useful. ("Humoring martial characters")Wrong. By humoring you, I meant having the enemies forget they can calmly saunter around.Spiked Chains were nerfed into uselessness. So how are you doing that?
New take on Enlarge Person doubles your reach, meaning my longspear or guisarme has 20' reach when I am big. Guisarme allows me to trip people who enter that area, only way I can see stopping people without kicking me in the feats. Of course, anything and everything will now spam me with everything they've got to bring me down, but hey, that is kinda what I am there for.
If I die, I am making a druid. It's funny, we started out with 1 caster and 3 martials. 3 deaths later, 3 casters, 1 martial (me).
I was never a heavy optimizer in those days. I wasn't aware stand still was an old feat. Do you know what the old one did / what its requirements were?Not really, no. Now give him some not nerfed control stuff, like a Spiked Chain (not a gimpy Flail, but a Spiked Chain), the real Stand Still feat, Thicket of Blades, and Combat Reflexes (actually good, once you have something to do with it) and you're getting somewhere. Of course there is still fly/teleport/burrow around or just use ranged attacks, but you can at least attempt it.Codzilla, the defensive feats used to defend a caster -- of course the caster is going to defend himself. But having a warrior standing there with stand still, combat patrol, teleport tactician, and in harm's way has got to be helpful. If the caster can toss up a mirror image, that is just icing on the cake.
I have a house rule when we use a mat... people can take their movement at basically any time, even if their initiative hasn't come up. That way, if someone tries to go running past the fighter or barbarian, they can just take their movement to intercept the attacker.
For that matter, if the wizard hides directly behind someone with a huge shield, he can get pretty much full cover from range attacks. People do that in my game as well.
Stand Still was in the expanded psionics handbook and it was in the SRD also.
Stand Still [General]You can prevent foes from fleeing or closing.
Prerequisite Str 13.
BenefitWhen a foe’s movement out of a square you threaten grants you an attack of opportunity, you can give up that attack and instead attempt to stop your foe in his tracks. Make your attack of opportunity normally. If you hit your foe, he must succeed on a Reflex save against a DC of 10 + your damage roll (the opponent does not actually take damage), or immediately halt as if he had used up his move actions for the round.
Since you use the Stand Still feat in place of your attack of opportunity, you can do so only a number of times per round equal to the number of times per round you could make an attack of opportunity (normally just one).
NormalAttacks of opportunity cannot halt your foes in their tracks.
Unlike the pathfinder version you can stop whatever you can reach instead of only affecting adjacent squares.
I think the CD being equal to a damage roll +10 was OP, but it was not a bad feat to have.
Ohhhhhh I get it.
You know, I've been telling my players that the pathfinder one works for anyone you can reach. I understood it initially, as RAW intended, but second guessed it into the 3.5 version because it makes no sense to restrict it to creatures adjacent to you when they put it in the book right with Combat Patrol.
Maybe they just wrote it up wrong, off the cuff from memory.
I think they just got carried away with it. I allow the PF version to use reach also.
Can someone explain to me this seeming obsession with melee classes stopping movement?
I can see it in 1st Edition when a magic-user had 30 hp at 10th level and far fewer spells, but well, that was 30 years ago.
These days casters can take a hit or five, and there are all kinds of spells that offer miss chance, mirror images, temp hp, etc. There are all kinds of options to escape a foe: from 5ft. steps, defensive casting, spell-like ability, using a wand, etc.
Finally, there are all kinds of options for healing, magic walls, teleporting, etc.
The scenario that folks get hung up on usually involves a monster eating an AoO an order to get a single attack at the caster. It seems that this is a great reason to have a fighter there- it gives monsters a serious reason not to try to attack a mage, and generally makes it an overall loss for team monster. Having the fighter there generally prevents charges, and usually puts the monster in a bad situation after movement.
Yet despite all of this, folks continue to use it as a reason martials are "unnecessary" or "can't do their job". But martials don't have to prevent contact, they just have to make the monster pay for it - which they can do just fine.
Can someone explain to me this seeming obsession with melee classes stopping movement?
I think it's because you can always count on a few people saying that melee classes are necessary "to tank for the squishies" or some variant thereof. That, in turn, prompts someone to point out that they really can't, and someone else to try to make an argument for why they can.
(Tanking wouldn't be my argument for melee characters, but start a thread saying that parties don't need them and I guarantee you it'll come up in the first page of posts at least once and probably more.)
So- Tanking = stopping movement and preventing contact.
Even though it would be much better to just bust the monster up in most cases. Kind of odd since tanks in real life have nothing to do with stopping movement, and everything to do with racing into hostile areas and causing damage. Things Pathfinder fighters are quite capable of.
So- Tanking = stopping movement and preventing contact.
Even though it would be much better to just bust the monster up in most cases. Kind of odd since tanks in real life have nothing to do with stopping movement, and everything to do with racing into hostile areas and causing damage. Things Pathfinder fighters are quite capable of.
I said that my paladin typically makes himself useful by standing in front of the casters and being a meat-shield. CoDzilla said they could walk around. I argued that it was not so easy. And then we had the last 100 posts.
Point of interest:
A 'taunt' ability would be pretty kickass (and actually introduce a tank role to the game) Especially something that prevented enemies from taking actions apart from move, attack, 5-foot step, and full-attack
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As far as balancing goes; has anyone gone about allowing different classes to use different Point Buy totals?
And if so, how did you break it down?
If you haven't, what might be a good way to break it down?
Something like
Full-casters (9th level spells) at top tier, get the least points
Mid-Casters (6th level spells) at 2nd tier, get 2nd least
Low-Casters (Paladin, Ranger) at mid tier, get average points
Non-Casters such as fighter and rogue at low tier get more points
Monk, being monk-tier gets the most?
Thoughts?
As far as balancing goes; has anyone gone about allowing different classes to use different Point Buy totals?
Another option is to make higher stats more expensive, to help MAD, since MAD classes are usually lower tier than SAD classes. For example, the current costs are:
10-13: 114-15: 2
16-17: 3
18: 4
If it instead was like this:
10-13: 1
14-15: 2
16-17: 4
18-19: 6
20+: 8
having an 18 in a starting score is much harder. To this you can add that instead of gaining 1 ability score boost every 4 levels as now, you gain 1 ability score point (as in you pay point buy costs for increases) for every level (so 4 points every four levels, equaling an increase to 16 or 17). That means a sad class which may start out with 14 in an important attribute can increase it at level 2, while a wizard that starts out with 17 intelligence (due to the increse in point buy costs, 18 is hard to do) has to wait until level 6 to increase his.
And then there is the part about ex-druids. When you ceases to revere nature, you lose everything (just like a paladin). If you see your animal companion as replaceable, you have stopped revering nature. Simple as that.
Nope. It is very darwinistic. So very Druid/Survival of fittest.
He revers nature too much to coddle the animal compamion. He wouldn't be good, but Druids only have to be neutral in one way not both.
Every top tier will be a caster. Using 3.5 splat gives melees a better chance to contribute, but I have yet to see a broken pathfinder only build. <--If the DM plays in hardcore modeI do agree with you fully about delaying casters though.
...snip...
sorry, i know i'm addressing this several days after the fact and there's an excellent chance you've stopped paying attention to this thread, but i'm genuinely curious about this.
you have stated you believe casters are top tier but you are against the idea of delaying them. why? do you believe a fighter 15 is now going to be overpowered vs a fighter 2/cleric 13?
Now I gotta go back and try to find my old post.
Just joking.Serious reply:You only need to do so much damage to be able to threaten an opponent in melee, and while a fighter is good at that he brings more than what is needed. A [cleric 13/fighter 2] can do sufficient(enough to matter) damage, and still bring many other options to the table.
Let's say we go out deer hunting and you bring a 50 cal sniper rifle. More than likely it will kill the dear. I don't know much about hunting so let's say I bring a weaker weapon, but one that is still enough to kill a deer, and I can also setup tents, track animals, cook food, and so on.
Which one of us is more valuable to a hunting party?
Can someone explain to me this seeming obsession with melee classes stopping movement?
I can see it in 1st Edition when a magic-user had 30 hp at 10th level and far fewer spells, but well, that was 30 years ago.
These days casters can take a hit or five, and there are all kinds of spells that offer miss chance, mirror images, temp hp, etc. There are all kinds of options to escape a foe: from 5ft. steps, defensive casting, spell-like ability, using a wand, etc.
Finally, there are all kinds of options for healing, magic walls, teleporting, etc.
The scenario that folks get hung up on usually involves a monster eating an AoO an order to get a single attack at the caster. It seems that this is a great reason to have a fighter there- it gives monsters a serious reason not to try to attack a mage, and generally makes it an overall loss for team monster. Having the fighter there generally prevents charges, and usually puts the monster in a bad situation after movement.
Yet despite all of this, folks continue to use it as a reason martials are "unnecessary" or "can't do their job". But martials don't have to prevent contact, they just have to make the monster pay for it - which they can do just fine.
Honestly people don't actually come out and say it but they want the martial characters to have some sort of control mechanic so that they can force monsters to go aggro on them.
Basically you have 3 schools of doing things
1)DM Fiat- Monsters tend to focus on PCs in base to base contact. Monsters seek to maximize the damage that they do which means full attacks or withdrawal and SLA instead of trying to break through the line.
2) Tactical Positioning- One side suggests that proper positioning of the martial characters means that they can prevent monster from bypassing them. Between AoOs and the inevitable decrease in DPR because the monster is only doing a single attack this is pretty compelling.
3) Metagaming- The monster always knows the full caster is the biggest threat and will try to attack, use and SLA or grapple him instead of doing full attacks whenever possible.
CoDzilla is undeniably in the third camp. Martial characters are 100% cohort class and monsters will automatically focus fire on PC casters with insta-kill melee combos or spam SoL spells.
The % of people that play the game using CoDzilla's assumptions is incredibly small and likely getting smaller and smaller.
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Every top tier will be a caster. Using 3.5 splat gives melees a better chance to contribute, but I have yet to see a broken pathfinder only build. <--If the DM plays in hardcore modeI do agree with you fully about delaying casters though.
...snip...
sorry, i know i'm addressing this several days after the fact and there's an excellent chance you've stopped paying attention to this thread, but i'm genuinely curious about this.
you have stated you believe casters are top tier but you are against the idea of delaying them. why? do you believe a fighter 15 is now going to be overpowered vs a fighter 2/cleric 13?
I wouldn't say overpowered, but it will get an extra attack and two more feats.
Character value is relative to the party the character is in. Your value is your benefit to filling party needs, not individual power.
Point of interest:
A 'taunt' ability would be pretty kickass (and actually introduce a tank role to the game) Especially something that prevented enemies from taking actions apart from move, attack, 5-foot step, and full-attack
Where I think that falls apart is the moment the DM tells you your PC wizard has to melee with the troll barbarian instead of casting a spell because it's taunting him.
If you want to do a 'tanking' mechanic in a classic RPG, 4E's take on it ('tanked' characters don't lose free will, but gain some incentive depending on 'tank' class to attack the 'tank' over other targets) is really the only way to do it.
I don't love 4E, but they got that part right. Assuming you think a tanking mechanic is even a good thing in the first place, of course, and I'm not sure I do.
3) Metagaming - The monster always knows the full caster...
If the monster is a Balor, for example, with Int and Wis 24 each, he's got inborn observational and processing ability that puts Sherlock Holmes to shame. He'd better always know who the full caster is -- I'd assume he could deduce it nearly instantaneously. That's not "metagaming." That's what it means to be so brilliant he makes Stephen Hawking look like a low-grade moron, with awareness so keen he makes everyone else around him seem dull in comparison. Indeed, if you pretend he's clueless, go ahead and dock his mental stats and drop the CR.
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He said
Having the fighter there generally prevents charges, and usually puts the monster in a bad situation after movement.
You said
Not to mention enemies can get Pounce a lot easier than martial characters in Caster Edition.So all you've really done is kill your own argument.
The rules say
"Pounce (Ex)
When a creature with this special attack makes a charge, it can make a full attack (including rake attacks if the creature also has the rake ability).
Format: pounce; Location: Special Attacks."
Don't have the Monster Manual either, huh?
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3) Metagaming - The monster always knows the full caster...If the monster is a Balor, for example, with Int and Wis 24 each, he's got inborn observational and processing ability that puts Sherlock Holmes to shame. He'd better always know who the full caster is -- I'd assume he could deduce it nearly instantaneously. That's not "metagaming." That's what it means to be so brilliant he makes Stephen Hawking look like a low-grade moron, with awareness so keen he makes everyone else around him seem dull in comparison. Indeed, if you pretend he's clueless, go ahead and dock his mental stats and drop the CR.
But if the monster is a Balor, you are either high level, or running like hell :)
Not to mention enemies can get Pounce a lot easier than martial characters in Caster Edition.
Wat?
Seriously you are going to have to cite this because unless all your monsters have some sort of wildshape/ beast shape Spell or SLA ability the list of creatures with pounce is extremely small.
Now if you are doing 3.x/PF crossover and every melee monster has a level in lion totem barbarian then maybe I'd agree with you but just about everyone has said time and again that mixing 3.5 and PF willy-nilly is bad for balance.
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Doesn't have to be a super genius. Geek the mage is ingrained into gamer culture, and yet humans are only Int 10 on average. And it's just as obvious IC as it is OOC why enemies should be relentlessly gunning for the primary spellcasters.3) Metagaming - The monster always knows the full caster...If the monster is a Balor, for example, with Int and Wis 24 each, he's got inborn observational and processing ability that puts Sherlock Holmes to shame. He better damn well always know who the full caster is -- I'd assume he could deduce it nearly instantaneously. That's not "metagaming." That's what it means to be so brilliant he makes Stephen Hawking look like a low-grade moron, with awareness so keen he makes everyone else around him seem dull in comparison. Indeed, if you pretend he's clueless, go ahead and dock his mental stats and drop the CR.
Metagaming - Urban Dictionary
The act of using outside or previously gained knowledge within a gaming universe for personal gain or advantage."
Irony - Example
Citing knowledge from the real world to argue having that knowledge in game is not metagaming.
But if the monster is a Balor, you are either high level, or running like hell :)
Correct. The caster-martial disparity increases exponentially with level. At low levels you can ignore it completely -- one of the reasons E6 is so popular. Because by the time you're high level, the diparity (assuming caster players who can see their characters' potential) is so extreme that CodZilla's "style" is the only logical one supported by the game stats given... unless your opponents are mindless vermin, of course.
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But if the monster is a Balor, you are either high level, or running like hell :)Correct. The caster-martial disparity increases with level. By the time you're high level, it's so extreme that CodZilla's "style" is the only logical one supported by the game stats given (unless all your opponents are mindless vermin, of course).
Well, if you mean that CoDzilla's casters have no defenses and are delicious, I agree 100%.
The Balor avoids the Fighter because the fighter is more effective when it closes, while the caster is fragile needs to keep distance to be effective without provoking or being forced to cast on the defensive.
If I can possibly kill one person if I close, and hamper their effectiveness by being in close, while I would only wound the other and put myself in range of a heavy damage load, of course I go after the unarmored guy.
It isn't because he's awesome and I'm scared. It's because he's less effective when I hug him, and deliciously under armored.
3) Metagaming - The monster always knows the full caster...If the monster is a Balor, for example, with Int and Wis 24 each, he's got inborn observational and processing ability that puts Sherlock Holmes to shame. He'd better always know who the full caster is -- I'd assume he could deduce it nearly instantaneously. That's not "metagaming." That's what it means to be so brilliant he makes Stephen Hawking look like a low-grade moron, with awareness so keen he makes everyone else around him seem dull in comparison. Indeed, if you pretend he's clueless, go ahead and dock his mental stats and drop the CR.
What are the visual cues that separate a cleric from a paladin or a fighter?
They both wear medium to heavy armor, they both have weapons, etc.
The cleric has a holy symbol but chances are the Paladin does too. Also no reason why the fighter wouldn't have some token of Gorum or something like that.
So other than the actual act of casting what does the Balor have to go on?
If you are dressed like a stereotypical wizard with a robe and wizard hat you are probably going to stand out but honestly why would you do that if everyone in the setting knows to "Gank the Mage". Hell I'd probably maintain an illusion that I'm some big stupid fighter in plate armor all the time so I wouldn't get targeted.
A CR 20 foe is going to choose a fairly optimal strategy. Sometimes that's full attacking an adjacent foe, sometimes that maintaining distance and spamming SLAs, sometimes it's just teleporting away.
The simple fact of the matter is that the number of foes that have both good SLAs and good full attacks are limited to elite creatures: High CR Dragons and Outsiders. Virtually every other monster is either a ranged blaster or a melee brute.
the caster is fragile needs to keep distance to be effective without provoking or being forced to cast on the defensive.
By the time you're fighting Balors, concentration for most spells nearly auto-succeeds. Even a time stop (15 + 18 = 33) has a 70% success when you're rolling 1d20 + 18 + 7 = 26 minimum (30 minimum, for 90% success, if you bothered with Combat Casting). Concentration in Pathfinder makes low-level wizards "squishier," but doesn't slow the higher-level ones down at all.
That's why in my houserules, concentration is 10 + opponent's BAB + twice spell level. Easier at 1st level, a significant challenge at 18th. That makes the game world "physics" match your description, instead of being at variance with it.
I do agree that concentration should have been done better - I find it too easy at high levels.
Said this, 30% failure when you are near a Balor is not that low. At all.
And only +7? At those levels?
Things like this always sound to me like "That blouse? with that skirt? honey PLEASE..."
:D
Why are you dropping 16k on Wis for a paladin again?He is assuming that the PF Paladin has a Wis of 10 from his base stats, as if the 3.5 one does not.
I pointed out the cost of turning a 10 to a 14 in 3.5 is 16k. And that's less than the PF Paladin is spending to afford the markups on HIS stat items, so the PF Paladin pays more for stat boosting gear anyways.
Enlarge Person -> Slow & NerfedKinda losing you here. If I threaten 20' in all directions, including the area where my allies are, how do they saunter about and ignore me to strike at the casters? Not all enemies have 50+ movement speed. Oh, wait, you mean they take the hits and keep on walking? Yeah, if they have sufficient HP, sure, I see that.@CoDzilla: Tanking is not a viable concept in high level play. This much is obvious. That is why I base myself on being nigh invincible in terms of saves (14+ in all saves at lv8) and HP, and have a strong offense (aka making sure I can euthanize stuff the casters tie down in short order). For what I CAN tank, I do. Saved our hides several times, but then again, as you say, the APs are tailored towards making all manner of characters useful. ("Humoring martial characters")Wrong. By humoring you, I meant having the enemies forget they can calmly saunter around.Spiked Chains were nerfed into uselessness. So how are you doing that?
New take on Enlarge Person doubles your reach, meaning my longspear or guisarme has 20' reach when I am big. Guisarme allows me to trip people who enter that area, only way I can see stopping people without kicking me in the feats. Of course, anything and everything will now spam me with everything they've got to bring me down, but hey, that is kinda what I am there for.
If I die, I am making a druid. It's funny, we started out with 1 caster and 3 martials. 3 deaths later, 3 casters, 1 martial (me).
Cheap potion. I draw potion (move), I drink (standard), get my reach-poker out with quick draw (free). If something looks really dangerous I smite it with my swift.
Dude, you should know by now that if you spend your whole round not doing something to the enemy, it counts as too slow to CoD.Cheap potion. I draw potion (move), I drink (standard), get my reach-poker out with quick draw (free). If something looks really dangerous I smite it with my swift.
If I start combat by rushing something, I get off 1 attack, unless something has already rushed me, in which case I kill that instead of growing big. If I am not engaged and drink, I get reach to just about anything, and get to take up to 3 attacks with combat reflexes.
Potential trips too, if I use a guisarme.
If Lion Totem Barb is in, then martial characters can get Pounce easily, and every single one of them will have it. But since we were discussing Caster Edition, there is no Lion Totem Barb, so lots of monsters have Pounce, and most PCs don't. Therefore enemy still gets full attacks, and the guy who got walked around does not.
And anyone who makes that claim is wrong anyways. Unless you define balance as a small subset of classes winning everything, and everyone else being nothing but a bag of XP.
Give a list of the number of monsters that have Pounce then.
I think you'll find that the number is extremely small and limited to a handful of cats and dinosaurs.
The simple fact of the matter is that access to pounce is heavily restricted in PF unlike 3.x
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I do agree that concentration should have been done better - I find it too easy at high levels.
Said this, 30% failure when you are near a Balor is not that low. At all.
+1
And the other option is moving into a potential full attack from someone who is made to make full attacks, so of course you go after the caster rather than the melee fighter.
Cleric or arcane caster is the real choice, all things being equal and you can to move anyway.
Said this, 30% failure when you are near a Balor is not that low. At all.+1
30% (or more likely 10%) fail for 9th level spells only. If you simply dimension door out of threat range first, or caster (a different one of your gazillion spells per day at that level), the failure chance is 0%, even without the feat.
30% (or more likely 10%) fail for 9th level spells only. If you simply dimension door out of threat range first, or caster (a different one of your gazillion spells per day at that level), the failure chance is 0%, even without the feat.Said this, 30% failure when you are near a Balor is not that low. At all.+1
Defensive Casting DCs don't scale well, that's a given. The reasons for this appear to be that people think losing spells from AoOs is horribly unfun. Changing the Defensive Casting DC or simply getting rid of it all together is a pretty decent method for constraining casters if you want to go with houserules.
Honestly against high CR foes the threat of losing a spell really isn't the primary fear, it's that you'll be open to a full attack on the monster's next action.
If the caster has to spend a standard action or a quickened spell casting dimension door to re-establish range with me then good that's one less offensive spell he's casting that round.