At lvl 19, my fighter moves, hits, does 180 points of damage and requires a DC 29 Fort save or the target is stunned. At lvl 20, he'll do 270 points, stun with a DC 30 save. He can also whirlwind attack stun.
Ok, but considering things have 500 + hit points the fighter isn't doing much. If he doesn't one shot it, it will one shot him.
That's not at all true.
That fighter is one of the meanest damage machines in the game. When he does 180 points, that is one standard action hit after a move. If he gets a full round of attacks, he does 270 to 340 damage. If he crits, more.
Only things that can kill him in one round are other two-hander fighter types or huge monsters. They should be able to smash on him good if they can unload on him clean.
Otherwise, he has 270 hit points and can take a beating.
And as a I said above, D&D is it's own genre. It was designed as a game. So the fighter isn't going to be able to act in a solo fashion like a book. He needs the cleric and wizard support to help him survive versus the insane stuff they go against. And vice versa since the cleric and wizard will be even more dead against a creature that can take a fighter down quickly if it gets ahold of them.
Right. The fighter in my game kills as many things as the rest of the party combined. He has at least double the hit points and in some cases close to four times the hit points of any other character, and the party really depends on him to take things out.
Not always, of course; really high AC (like above AC50 or so) will negate him somewhat, as will really high DR (around DR30 he starts feeling it), but in general he's the one that takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
Now, he's not a straight fighter; I believe he's a fighter/dervish/legendary dreadnaught combination with a lot of luck feats, but he's designed to wade into combat and make things like mu spores and advanced kraken go down in 1 round.
In terms of staying power, the arcane archer, ranger/scout, spirit shaman/wizard, and the wizard all go down fairly regularly. The fighter and monk, not so much. The druid, once ... ever.
At lvl 19, my fighter moves, hits, does 180 points of damage and requires a DC 29 Fort save or the target is stunned. At lvl 20, he'll do 270 points, stun with a DC 30 save. He can also whirlwind attack stun.
Ok, but considering things have 500 + hit points the fighter isn't doing much. If he doesn't one shot it, it will one shot him.
That's not at all true.
That fighter is one of the meanest damage machines in the game. When he does 180 points, that is one standard action hit after a move. If he gets a full round of attacks, he does 270 to 340 damage. If he crits, more.
.....
How are you getting 180 points of damage on one attack without a crit?
At lvl 19, my fighter moves, hits, does 180 points of damage and requires a DC 29 Fort save or the target is stunned. At lvl 20, he'll do 270 points, stun with a DC 30 save. He can also whirlwind attack stun.
Ok, but considering things have 500 + hit points the fighter isn't doing much. If he doesn't one shot it, it will one shot him.
That's not at all true.
That fighter is one of the meanest damage machines in the game. When he does 180 points, that is one standard action hit after a move. If he gets a full round of attacks, he does 270 to 340 damage. If he crits, more.
.....
How are you getting 180 points of damage on one attack without a crit?
Not all fighters can do what the king of damage can do. It's a two-hander archetype fighter with Devastating Blow. So it is a crit.
It adds up like this:
+20 (31 strength and double strength bonus for single attack Overhand Chop)
+20 Power attack
+4 weapon training
+4 double specialization
+3 weapon enhancement
+51 damage
His axe is a +3 Vicious Greataxe.
He uses Devastating Blow.
It looks like this.
153 (+51 x 3)
+17 (average of 3d12)
+7 vicious
+3 killer trait
Average Devastating Blow damage is 180 points with a standard attack. Higher if he is buffed by bard or other spells.
Only the two-hander fighter can guarantee himself a crit at lvl 19 on a round by round basis. So this is a unique ability and very uncommon damage.
It will go up to 265 next level.
Two-hander fighter is the damage king.
It illustrates that there are fighter builds that do sickening damage with a fairly minimal investment at high level. This is probably the king damage build for a fighter and it is versatile as well. This guy is a sunder machine.
Pretty hard as a DM to deal with. I'll tell you, most of the other characters in the group, especially the wizard, feel like they're using a pea shooter when this guy starts smashing stuff. One time he rolled two crits and destroyed the derghodaemon in one round. This was supposed to be a decent fight, but it wasn't. He annihilated it. He didn't care that he had a 1 intelligence from the feeblemind aura.
I've seen all kinds of sick fighter builds. I have no idea why the fighter is still viewed as chump.
I've seen fighter archers with bull rush and trip builds.
Two-weapon fighters that are crit machines with all their attacks. And they get two attacks now as a standard action or with an AoO.
Stun and Daze builds are powerful where a fighter can pretty much keep a creature stunned or dazed round to round. It turns the encounter trivial.
Alot of powerful fighter builds in Pathfinder now. It's never been quite so much fun to play a melee class in a 3E game as it is in Pathfinder. Just last week the barbarian with his ring of evasion was unscathed when the 6 winterwights unloaded their cone of cold's on the party. His saves are so high that he is equal or better the monk or rogue's reflex saves.
Physical damage dealers have a good situation in Pathfinder.
Fighter must be buffed or invest in defenses because is very easy to shut down at that level. This can be a problem because you need AC too (see what BigNorseWolf said)
With a scythe can deal even more damage. No sense fighting with greatswords and greataxes at that level. Scythes or Falchions if martial weapon.
I indeed think that IF one manages to get enough buff and defenses, the fighter can become a good part of the party strategy. Monsters get a lot of immunities, but you cannot be immune to weapons, at lest not if debuffed.
Only things that can kill him in one round are other two-hander fighter types or huge monsters.
At high level play the number one cause of death isn't hit point loss its missed saves. The fighter either dies, or is removed from combat by missed saves. These do indeed, one shot him. Anything from a high level dominate to maze to a heightened quickened persistent slay living (with a cherry on top) can drop a fighter.
They should be able to smash on him good if they can unload on him clean.
The fighter runs into Murphy's rules of combat here. If the dragon is in melee range for the fighter to get a full attack then the fighter is in range for the dragon to get a full attack.
explanation
I knew about the auto-crit if you take -5 IIRC, but I assumed you were saying a fighter was dropping that type of damage without a crit. Thanks for the explanation.
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Only things that can kill him in one round are other two-hander fighter types or huge monsters.At high level play the number one cause of death isn't hit point loss its missed saves. The PC either dies, or is removed from combat by missed saves. These do indeed, one shot him. Anything from a high level dominate to maze to a heightened quickened persistent slay living (with a cherry on top) can drop any PC.
They should be able to smash on him good if they can unload on him clean.The fighter runs into Murphy's rules of combat here. If the dragon is in melee range for the fighter to get a full attack then the fighter is in range for the dragon to get a full attack.
FTFY.
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High level play is like a MMO. Everybody goes do their "Lolth runs", or "Tiamat runs" or "Orcus runs". There's a line outside Tiamat's cave on the 1st layer of Hell/Baator. Devils love it because they get to charge entrance fees.
While this is hilarious (and much appreciated), I have to call shenanigans!
Differences between high level play and *epic* level play aside, give me any 60th level party you'd like and I'll give you a Tiamat that can kick them across the multiverse. As epic as your party is, Tiamat, as an immortal five headed god-dragon, is stronger.
I have trouble imagining any level of play that can (justifiably) take on gods without a tremendous amount of buildup. You want to slay gods? Fine, but that had better have been the focus of the campaign since level 5. The entire campaign has been about slaying Tiamat and you've tracked down the thirteen lost artifacts required to strip a god of its powers, you've forged the Bane of Dragonkind from the spine of the ten-thousand year dracolich *and* you've convinced Bahamut to aid your cause. In person. All while fighting her mortal followers every step of the way.
Anything less and your party *might* make it to Tiamat's throne room, only to have your blood decorate her carpets. Because Tiamat, as a god, knows the party is coming before they do, and prepares accordingly. Because before challenging Tiamat, the party has to fight through her army of fifty thousand wyrms and then challenge the Five Chromatic Fathers who serve as her concubines. Only then, after they've wasted the time and resources to get through her armies and defenses, can they actually fight her. At which point she fights as the most powerful dragon in existence. Her laughter echoes throughout the nine hells as she slaughters them, and she gives no quarter. When the surviving party members flee, she follows them and kills them in their own base. She then sends her dragons to murder their families, shatter their homelands and turn their kingdoms into ash.
The point is much of the same as what has been posted before: high/epic level play shouldn't ever turn into "monster of the week," *especially* not when gods are the monster in question. If you're going to tell an epic story, it needs to feel epic. And that simply can't happen without the proper framework involved.
High level play isn't unplayable (though it's easier, in my mind, to make that argument for epic level play), though it can be difficult. One of the problems comes in that, eventually, there are few problems that the PCs *can't* solve. I once read a book series (I've forgotten the name) in which one of the characters became a nearly immortal dragon god. It was very cool at the time, but the series didn't end. The result was that for the next five books, the author had to make up excuses for why this character couldn't simply show up to save the day (very much like the transport beams in Star Trek - the series became a montage of why-we-can't-use-the-transporter-to-fix-things moments) In game terms, this means your campaigns needs an ending point to prevent the monster-of-the-week scenario we all fear. They're finally victorious over Tiamat, and that victory should mean something. They're rewarded with kingdoms and wealth and with legends told about them until the end of time. Bahamut himself shows the party his gratitude. How you represent that gratitude is up to you, but if I were running it would certainly be the end of the campaign. Retire the characters and start new ones who grow up with the legends of the heroes who slew Tiamat.
Hey look! Non Pathfinder rules! No wonder the system is broken! It's so easy to build a broken fighter when we just toss out the rules!
Power Attack caps at -5 to hit for +15 damage (if using a 2hander), Overhand Chop and Devastating Blow were removed for the Core Rules release... for good reason, obviously.
"real" fighters don't do nearly as much damage, based on my experiences, without a good deal of set up. This typically involves using Deadly Stroke, which can bump damage up to a good 100+ damage hit, but nowhere near 180.
Wrong. Dead wrong.
Edit: ninja'd by TOZ.
You should really do your research before you make rules claims.
So simple yet so effective. I would probably would have done a line by line correction.
My only question on that damage would be if you can use Overhand Chop with Devastating Blow. Overhand Chop says, "At 3rd level, when a two-handed fighter makes a single attack (with the attack action or a charge) with a two-handed weapon, he adds double his Strength bonus on damage rolls." While Devastating Blow is an ability that uses a melee attack, is that the same thing as "the attack action" that Overhand Chop specifies? I'd allow it anyways if a player got to level 19, being able to do a lot of damage with a standard action isn't going to destroy the game at that level, but with how specific Overhand Chop is about it being used only with an attack action or charge I have to ask.
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In the end, it really sounds like the GM, as well as the players, simply need to be aware of their characters, and be well prepared to play. It also seems that people generally agree that higher level play doesn't necessarily follow the same pattern of play that lower levels do, and in some instances, can't.
In the end, it really sounds like the GM, as well as the players, simply need to be aware of their characters, and be well prepared to play. It also seems that people generally agree that higher level play doesn't necessarily follow the same pattern of play that lower levels do, and in some instances, can't.
Thanks for the thread Jason, I think it was (mostly) constructive. Hopefully it gives the Paizo dev team some food for thought and emphasizes the fact that we need a high level book, with maybe a little post 20 support.
I agree with all that. I think you have to be pretty motivated to keep track of all the dice and rules at high level.It also breaks game world logic. Characters that high level either don't make sense in terms of their own growth or the world is full of them and there is no reason for castles or armies as all that crap can be literally wished away.
I think its easier to have a logical game world if it is constructed around low levels and I think most entertainment (books and movies) reflect low level worlds. High level Pathfinder doesn't emulate any genera, other than maybe some D&D fiction, but certainly not Conan or LOTR or anything else.
That is certainly true, and I would welcome a new set of rules that temper the differences between low and high level, in order to model more "worlds".
But Pathfinder and the D&D games that preceded it have 20 levels (and more in some settings). While I think epic support would be nice, I really don't need it anymore (see here). What I do need is a set of rules, guidelines, and advice on dealing with the levels that the game already has.
In the game(away from the PC's) I expect for the game world to follow novel type logic. If Drizzt(probably level 20 or 21) gets his throat sliced he dies. In the game your level 20 fighter not dying can be explained away with "the mark was missed by millimeters".
Whats this -5Th for a guaranteed Crit stuff?
Whats this -5Th for a guaranteed Crit stuff?
Devastating Blow (Ex): At 19th level, as a standard action, a two-handed fighter may make a single melee attack with a two-handed weapon at a –5 penalty. If the attack hits, it is treated as a critical threat. Special weapon abilities that activate only on a critical hit do not activate if this critical hit is confirmed. This ability replaces armor mastery.
Thanks for that - I dont usually read that high on class progression :)
There are some nice abilities around though, and thats one of them!
Some tactics I have used including extreme buffs to fast heal, DR, resistances or even AC until some environmental factor is overcome. (smash the liches necklace). This increases the lifespan of BBEGs against powerful PCs without massive stat block rewrites.
-snip more inaccuracy--snip inaccurate claim-
-snip response to inaccurate claim
How are you getting 180 points of damage on one attack without a crit?
That's a good question...
Not all fighters can do what the king of damage can do. It's a two-hander archetype fighter with Devastating Blow. So it is a crit.
It adds up like this:
+20 (31 strength and double strength bonus for single attack Overhand Chop)
+20 Power attackHe uses Devastating Blow.
Hey look! Non Pathfinder rules! No wonder the system is broken! It's so easy to build a broken fighter when we just toss out the rules!
Power Attack caps at -5 to hit for +15 damage (if using a 2hander), Overhand Chop and Devastating Blow were removed for the Core Rules release... for good reason, obviously.
"real" fighters don't do nearly as much damage, based on my experiences, without a good deal of set up. This typically involves using Deadly Stroke, which can bump damage up to a good 100+ damage hit, but nowhere near 180.
I'll just leave that there...
As far as I read Power Attack it starts at -1 to hit and +2 damage. Then goes up at +4 BAB and every 4 BAB to a maximum of -6/+12 at lvl 20. At least that is how I read it.
Fighter must be buffed or invest in defenses because is very easy to shut down at that level. This can be a problem because you need AC too (see what BigNorseWolf said)
With a scythe can deal even more damage. No sense fighting with greatswords and greataxes at that level. Scythes or Falchions if martial weapon.
I indeed think that IF one manages to get enough buff and defenses, the fighter can become a good part of the party strategy. Monsters get a lot of immunities, but you cannot be immune to weapons, at lest not if debuffed.
True. A buffed fighter is seriously dangerous.
Only things that can kill him in one round are other two-hander fighter types or huge monsters.At high level play the number one cause of death isn't hit point loss its missed saves. The fighter either dies, or is removed from combat by missed saves. These do indeed, one shot him. Anything from a high level dominate to maze to a heightened quickened persistent slay living (with a cherry on top) can drop a fighter.
They should be able to smash on him good if they can unload on him clean.The fighter runs into Murphy's rules of combat here. If the dragon is in melee range for the fighter to get a full attack then the fighter is in range for the dragon to get a full attack.
Most of the death spells don't do enough damage to take down a fighter. There Fort save is generally very high.
What cleric or wizard worth a damn doesn't protect the fighter from such attacks? It's a team game. Keeping the fighter from becoming the opponent's puppet or speed bump is the job of the casters.
Maybe I'm part of a select group, but if I'm playing one of the casters I consider it my job to make sure the non-casters get my support. I don't ignore their defense while I prepare my own.
Though I do have a caster player who does this and attempts to hog the glory for himself. I throw him some encounters where that works. But most of the time the BBEGs shrug his spells off and ignore him as he is one of the easiest to kill once the melee are handled.
I feel as though I play in a very different game from many folks that complain about the fighter or non-caster types. The fighter is the pain train that is hard to stop with spells as simple as fly. If he can engage the caster for even a round, the caster has a high likelihood of dying. And it's not all that hard to engage for a round or two for a fighter-type when supported by a group.
My only question on that damage would be if you can use Overhand Chop with Devastating Blow. Overhand Chop says, "At 3rd level, when a two-handed fighter makes a single attack (with the attack action or a charge) with a two-handed weapon, he adds double his Strength bonus on damage rolls." While Devastating Blow is an ability that uses a melee attack, is that the same thing as "the attack action" that Overhand Chop specifies? I'd allow it anyways if a player got to level 19, being able to do a lot of damage with a standard action isn't going to destroy the game at that level, but with how specific Overhand Chop is about it being used only with an attack action or charge I have to ask.
You certainly could by RAW deny the two-hander fighter his Overhand Chop for Devastating Blow. But I feel as though Overhand Chop was made for an attack like Devastating Blow.
I understand that Devastating Blow is a standard action while Overhand Chop only gives the bonus for the attack action or as part of a charge action. But it doesn't make sense to me why Overhand Chop wouldn't work with Devastating Blow. So I allow it work with Devastating Blow.
I've also been kind to date allowing Backswing to work with AoOs as they are "an attack after the first" after taking a full attack action. But may not be as intended, though it could certainly be interpreated in that fashion as written.
I was going to give two-weapon warriors an AoO every time a creature hit them with the same creature like Come and Get Me but some Paizo guy says that isn't how it is supposed to work. It's only one AoO per creature rather than per hit. I'm still not sure I'm going to follow this Paizo ruling, but I might. Then again it is a lvl 19 ability. It is pretty weak at lvl 19 to get one AoO per creature if they hit you. You don't get to hit them before they hit you. You still have to deal with reach, which can be substantial if you have say multiple reach creatures on you. Not so great for a lvl 19 ability as it first looked.
In the end, it really sounds like the GM, as well as the players, simply need to be aware of their characters, and be well prepared to play. It also seems that people generally agree that higher level play doesn't necessarily follow the same pattern of play that lower levels do, and in some instances, can't.
You should start a thread on what would make high level play easier to run. Since Paizo with their adventure paths have made getting to high level more likely, they should have a larger number of groups able to give them feedback on levels 12 to 17 or 18 at least.
My only question on that damage would be if you can use Overhand Chop with Devastating Blow. Overhand Chop says, "At 3rd level, when a two-handed fighter makes a single attack (with the attack action or a charge) with a two-handed weapon, he adds double his Strength bonus on damage rolls." While Devastating Blow is an ability that uses a melee attack, is that the same thing as "the attack action" that Overhand Chop specifies? I'd allow it anyways if a player got to level 19, being able to do a lot of damage with a standard action isn't going to destroy the game at that level, but with how specific Overhand Chop is about it being used only with an attack action or charge I have to ask.
Melee attack is just specific Attack Action. There are 4 Attack Action and they are Melee Attack, Ranged Attack, Unarmed Attack, and Natural Attack. Seems kind of that over hand chop calls for an Attack Action then say with Two Handed Weapon. An attack with a Weapon is a Melee Attack so why not say Melee Attack and restrict the weapon to Two Handed. All works out the same in the end though.
You should really do your research before you make rules claims.
A better question is if you are getting an almost assured critical hit, why not use a x4 weapon like a Scythe or Heavy Pick?
I have a campaign-limiting template which helps enormously with high level play problems.
1. All players have to have 1 level in a secondary character class – Commoner, Expert, Adept etc. as a prologue to what they did before. This goes against the 20th level cap and counts as their 1st level class for skill, HP’s etc. Depending on the one you pick – you get background/inheritance bonuses for the character – kit, money, contacts, patrons, unusual secrets etc to balance them out – Commoners of course get the most to compensate.
2. Flight magic only exists if you have it as a racial ability, or if you can manifest wings or other physical ways of flying around (shapeshifting for example).
3. The Astral Plane is polluted with evil energies making all teleport spells as if they were to an unknown location and doing increasing amounts of negative energy damage the further you teleport. Only teleport circles get around this problem if there is one at BOTH ends. Spells like Blink thus become ‘if I must’ spells and longer distance teleports acts of pure 'desperation'.
4. Demographics is controlled so that the ‘average guy’ is actually 3rd level – not 1st – so veteran Guards can be 5th level and Elite troops ALL 6th level – makes throwing your weight around far more difficult. Campaigns however start at 3rd level. This goes for humanoids too – most Orcs in my game are 3rd level warriors – making a horde of the swines a lot more serious to deal with!
5. Economic model – I throw d20 economics out of the window (where it belongs) and start monetary reward escalation at 3rd level and at one-third the normal rate. Magical item prices stay the same however, making them much rarer.
6. Item Rewards – runs at 3 levels behind the current player level – making crafting feats attractive (yet still expensive – see 5.).
7. CR et al – sod challenge ratings – make informed subjective decisions yourself using it as a rough guide only – most other RPG’s don’t have such a formulaic system and you can throw away that crutch – trust me. You need to do this in any case to ensure the challenge of your encounters matches the lower itemisation etc. of the players.
8. XP – award based on a RP style – like White Wolf or GURPS – in the latter case I just give 10xcurrent level XP per session for turning up, up to 100xcurrent level for RP (based on a ‘how good were they this session’ % conversion factor). So awards for a typical 10th level adventure are (assuming pretty high 75% RP score) = 7600 xp. There are one-off bonuses for great events or achievements as I see fit.
9. Gaining levels – levels represent sizeable jumps in capability which just get bigger as time goes on. For each level gained in my campaigns – PC’s have to spend a ‘downtime’ (with associated living expenses etc.) of at least 3 months + 1 month per level to be gained (so to go from 6th to 7th level takes 10 months of downtime as the PC trains and consolidates their skills). If more rapid level gain is required for a short-term story arc – the DM can ‘accrue’ the downtime for after the story arc finishes – and the PC’s take time out afterwards in mundane pursuits and training.
That’s it really – and it makes for MUCH better campaign where fantastical magic and mountain-shaking monsters are no longer daily occurrences to be swatted aside like kobolds.
As far as I can tell, Caliburn's way to deal with high level play is to change the entire balance of the game all the way from first level. Which completely fails to be relevant to this thread.
Cartigan;
Here is a useful maxim you might profit from;
"Never bring up a problem without at least trying to propose a sensible solution."
Cartigan;
Here is a useful maxim you might profit from;
"Never bring up a problem without at least trying to propose a sensible solution."
So if the problem is "Caliburn has failed to be relevant to the thread," then the solution is what? "Ask Caliburn to stay on topic?"
Completely redesigning game balance and play from level 1 does not address the issues that people believe exist at high levels using the game that people actually play as Pathfinder.
Moreover, the topic is a question on the problem, not a question on "How would YOU like to play Pathfinder." What makes high levels unplayable is (a) lax attention to high level abilities, (b) quadratic power grade for casters, and (c) developer problems with creating more and more unique things for a class to do as it levels up.
Capping the game at level X is boring. Turning everything into "Casters win" and "Death tag" is boring. The solution is on the developers' end. They need to pay more attention to high level content development such that it is both interesting and not out of proportion. But since Paizo doesn't really like high-level content nor intends to fix all the bad foundation WotC laid in 3.5 - or bad foundation laid in the past 40 years due to Pathfinder being sold based on nostalgia, there is nothing to be done about high level play other than to quit the game at about 13th level and start over if you don't like anything higher.
So if the problem is "Caliburn has failed to be relevant to the thread," then the solution is what? "Ask Caliburn to stay on topic?"
Completely redesigning game balance and play from level 1 does not address the issues that people believe exist at high levels using the game that people actually play as Pathfinder.
I agree with that.
That laundry list of changes is so far away from a game I would run or play in or, if I'm being honest, consider to be a remotely good idea that it doesn't have much, if any, relevance to the kind of high level game most people would run.
Sorry Caliburn that total rebuild of assumptions from 1st to 20th the way you layout is not a practical solution. Smashing a pumpkin because you don't like how the jack-o-lantern looks and effectively starting over doesn't work. People aren't going to want to reboot their whole game just "deal" with high level play the way you layout.
Most of the death spells don't do enough damage to take down a fighter. There Fort save is generally very high.
While their fort save is high, even their good save doesn't scale as fast as the DC's. particularly with persistent (the one that makes you save twice) thrown into the mix.
Maybe I'm part of a select group, but if I'm playing one of the casters I consider it my job to make sure the non-casters get my support. I don't ignore their defense while I prepare my own.
My 3.0 wizard specifically got extend spell so he could show up at the fighters house for breakfast every morning, down a stack of pancakes that her sister cooked, and buffed her till she glowed like the sun.
For a savage species campaign I had a kobold sorcerer who walked around in the half dragons livery colors casting magic weapons on everyone's gear.
Half my alchemists extracts go into infusions for the party.
What cleric or wizard worth a damn doesn't protect the fighter from such attacks? It's a team game. Keeping the fighter from becoming the opponent's puppet or speed bump is the job of the casters.
Most of the preventative spells have a duration in minutes per level, which means unless you know exactly when you're going to come across the fight you have to cast them at the start (when you could just end the fight yourself) You also need to defend against every attack all the time. There are simply too many avenues to attack someone to have a defense against all of them.
Though I do have a caster player who does this and attempts to hog the glory for himself. I throw him some encounters where that works. But most of the time the BBEGs shrug his spells off and ignore him as he is one of the easiest to kill once the melee are handled.
I don't see how you can just ignore the wizards spells like that. Which ones is he using?
I feel as though I play in a very different game from many folks that complain about the fighter or non-caster types. The fighter is the pain train that is hard to stop with spells as simple as fly.
blurr, mirror image, quickened dimensional doors, fog clouds , darkness, expeditious retreat, corners, insane ac's etc. A fighter does one thing and one thing only: attack your armor class with a weapon and subtract your hit points. Thats far easier to defend against than not knowing if you need to worry about aoe spells, targeting spells, fort ref. or will saves, being interdimensionally shunted off etc.
A better question is if you are getting an almost assured critical hit, why not use a x4 weapon like a Scythe or Heavy Pick?You should really do your research before you make rules claims.
AFAIK, there are 4 weapons at that level: Scythe if you want megacrits, falchion if you are built on crit feats, elevn blade if you are an elf otehrwise see falchion, and falcata to gain in DPR compared to above (barring level 20 vs falchion and elven blade) wit something in the middle regarding crits and critical threats.
I see reason to use polearms, but no reasons to use Greataxes and Greatswords. Both weapons are laughably weak when the damage dealt starts to come from flat bonuses.
I have a campaign-limiting template which helps enormously with high level play problems.
1. All players have to have 1 level in a secondary character class – Commoner, Expert, Adept etc. as a prologue to what they did before. This goes against the 20th level cap and counts as their 1st level class for skill, HP’s etc. Depending on the one you pick – you get background/inheritance bonuses for the character – kit, money, contacts, patrons, unusual secrets etc to balance them out – Commoners of course get the most to compensate.
This is a nonfactor. As you go up in levels the difference in levels matters less. At level 4 character vs a level 6 character is more proportionate than a level 18 vs a level 20 character as an example, even though both are 2 level apart.
All it does is make you put a pseudo level 13(really level 12) party against CR 13 encounters as an example when you could dump the secondary class since it has no real benefit at all. It also says don't play a sorcerer since they are already one level behind for the purpose of getting spells anyway.2. Flight magic only exists if you have it as a racial ability, or if you can manifest wings or other physical ways of flying around (shapeshifting for example).
Play a caster is what I am hearing.
3. The Astral Plane is polluted with evil energies making all teleport spells as if they were to an unknown location and doing increasing amounts of negative energy damage the further you teleport. Only teleport circles get around this problem if there is one at BOTH ends. Spells like Blink thus become ‘if I must’ spells and longer distance teleports acts of pure 'desperation'.
Blink is not really a good spell, and death ward takes care of the negative energy issue.
4. Demographics is controlled so that the ‘average guy’ is actually 3rd level – not 1st – so veteran Guards can be 5th level and Elite troops ALL 6th level – makes throwing your weight around far more difficult. Campaigns however start at 3rd level. This goes for humanoids too – most Orcs in my game are 3rd level warriors – making a horde of the swines a lot more serious to deal with!
Players don't tend to be jerks until higher levels when one of them can probably take on several low level monsters on his/her own. I am assuming you have an "enforcer" character on standby though. Having one of those is something I do recommend.
5. Economic model – I throw d20 economics out of the window (where it belongs) and start monetary reward escalation at 3rd level and at one-third the normal rate. Magical item prices stay the same however, making them much rarer.
Then you have to adjust the encounters unless you have talented players since they are under equipped. It is also another reason to play a caster so you can take the item creation feats, and they are not as gear dependent.
In short I agree with Cartigan's post below. I now have to read past it to see what is said.
Disagreeing with how fighters are harder to stop at high level than casters.
I have to agree with you BNW. I am waiting to hear the response.
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For those criticizing Caliburn101, nowhere in his post did I see him demand that you play using his rules. In fact, I didn't even see him suggest that anyone try it, he simply said that it is what has worked for him and his group. While I wasn't a fan of some portions of it, I also think that parts of it were pretty good.
Cartigan, at least his post actually involved modifications to Pathfinder rules, whereas most of your post snidely imply that using Pathfinder rules at all is stupid. And for that reason I once again ask you, since you've never bothered to give a straight answer: If you have such utter disdain for the Pathfinder system and all of the posters on these forums, why do you post here?
For those criticizing Caliburn101, nowhere in his post did I see him demand that you play using his rules. In fact, I didn't even see him suggest that anyone try it, he simply said that it is what has worked for him and his group. While I wasn't a fan of some portions of it, I also think that parts of it were pretty good.
Cartigan, at least his post actually involved modifications to Pathfinder rules, whereas most of your post snidely imply that using Pathfinder rules at all is stupid. And for that reason I once again ask you, since you've never bothered to give a straight answer: If you have such utter disdain for the Pathfinder system and all of the posters on these forums, why do you post here?
When people ask a question and you post "how you would do things" it is always taken as a suggestion here. We all know that.
Do we really need to put a "this is how I would do it" before all of our posts when we are discussing a problematic issue?
Now if he was not offering a suggestion then I apologize, but that is definitely how we read it.