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Sure I do, remember it only takes 4 arrows to kill your wizard at minimum. I can always use volley, which would kill most of them. Furthermore, I can destroy a wall of force in one round, and still have enough to kill him if I'm luck. He still is going to waste a bunch of spells on me, probably too many to live. I can also have my Ioun Stone absorb all that crap, mirror image is low level as is wall of force all things told.
That's technically a potion of Gravity Bow. Which I completely forgot about. Doesn't change much though, even if I'm using a standard bow.
Are you guys done patting yourselves on the back? I just figured I'd ask, seeing as how I have some semblance of a life, which kept me from posting until now. You want the build? Fine.
** spoiler omitted **...
And again we come to the same problem: You're fighter has one trick. He fights. In a situation where all minis are on the table you might be able to kill a wizard. But you are proving my point. Look how much your character had to struggle, the shear volume of investment made into a single trick. He is a walking arrow turret. He can't do anything else. If your archer did 1 million damage per hit and had the ability to automatically go first in initiative, he would still only have one trick that cost him more than my wizard was asked to invest in ANYTHING. I seriously could retrain all of his feats and still be just as effective. I could sell half his gear and still be very nearly as effect as I am now. You're character can't even participate in a large portion of the game because he is so specialized that it is a detriment to all else.
Meanwhile casters don't even need to specialize to stay relevant in combat, as a socialite, as a traveler, as an entrepreneur, as an artificer, as a leader, and as an adventurer. Fighters suck because all they do is fight and they don't even do that well except in small skirmishes involving small numbers of combatants (and even then its anyone's game).
Your 20th level fighter archer, who is as meant to be powerful as 1024+ level one characters, who is as powerful as 2048+ average humans; ask yourself why he couldn't have taken 6 -7 levels investing into archery to master it. Completely master it, and then move one to something else. Ask yourself why he had to choose between being an effective archer and being an effect melee character and why being good at either means you can't be a good rider or leader. Ask yourself why your fighter is being told that he needs to remain mundane in a world where he is expected to fight Balors, Dragons, Pit Fiends, and reality altering magic users. Ask yourself why your 20th level fighter's abilities don't look more like this.
Also, (and this is just a minor nitpick) unless I'm missing something (and I very well could be) you can't wield that bow. Bow's are 2-handed weapons and you cannot wield a large size 2-handed weapon. Not that it matters any because its only a minor boost to your damage.
Also...why Huntsman? You can't track most high level creatures because they fly or teleport or planeshift or a combination of some or all of those.
EDIT: You already answered my bow question so you can ignore that.
Whether it is cake or pie is determined by whether it is cake, mostly cake, cake pie, mostly pie, or pie (or some gradation in the middle)It could in fact, be a muffin, a tarantula, or even non existent.
Sadly, it appears as though the Cakepie is a mimic, waiting to turn the tables on you.
Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
Edit:
On topic... much as an afterthought.
No it doesn't? Mostly.
It is indeed 'mostly cake'.
Just one informed opinion.
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Erm... no, he has more than one trick to his name, he has several in fact. Ranged combat maneuvers, volley fire, anywhere from 7-10 skills in the mid20s, and he still hit's like two freight trains. That's actually a pretty good build for general purposes. He's not called a fighter for nothing. This guy could make a heck of a hunter, he could provide food for entire villages. He's also not really struggling, I had to figure what to do with some of his skills and feats. He's actually better in melee than at range (point blank shot), as he can fire his bow there, without provoking attacks of opportunity, and he can set up a combat patrol with a 35foot threat radius.
...I really had nothing better to buy than huntsman and I figured that if I was going to have survival, I might as well get something out of it. Not everything flies, teleports, or whatever at this level, a lot does, but not everything.
Honestly, it seems like you guys aren't even looking at the build. 3 posts in about it and there are more assumptions thrown in than I care to shake a stick at.
Sure I do, remember it only takes 4 arrows to kill your wizard at minimum. I can always use volley, which would kill most of them. Furthermore, I can destroy a wall of force in one round, and still have enough to kill him if I'm luck. He still is going to waste a bunch of spells on me, probably too many to live. I can also have my Ioun Stone absorb all that crap, mirror image is low level as is wall of force all things told.
That's technically a potion of Gravity Bow. Which I completely forgot about. Doesn't change much though, even if I'm using a standard bow.
You can't do enough damage to bypass the wall AND kill the wizard.
As for Volley you dont even know how high the wall is. The other issue is that each image is not a separate creature.
Volley (Ex): At 17th level, as a full-round action, an archer can make a single bow attack at his highest base attack bonus against any number of creatures in a 15-foot- radius burst, making separate attack and damage rolls for each creature. This ability replaces weapon training 4.
The only creature is the caster so all those images won't be going away since the caster can only be targeted once. The one arrow will hit the caster or the image assuming it can get over the wall so the wizard lives unless you can kill him with one arrow.
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I can kill the wall and the wizard. The wall has 200 hp 30 hardness, that takes me on average (56 points, as it's in point blank range presumably) 4 arrows to kill the wall, that leaves me 3 arrows for the wizard. I would need to roll a 19 or 20 on one of those 3 arrows to do it, or I could just roll well on the wall, and get 4 arrows on the wizard. Either way, he dies next round unless he manages to cast a spell I can't actually ignore, which is highly unlikely.
1D8+34+4d6=52.5 points of damage per hit. DR from Wall of Force knocks that down to 22.5. You have 7 hits according to your stack block.
7X22.5= 157.5 points of damage. The Wall of Force is still there.
Even if you are assumed to magically know when to apply the potion to the bow it only gets you 21 more points of damage. The wall is still there. It is now the wizard's go. You have less than a 50% chance of making a will save.
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1D8+34+4d6=52.5 points of damage per hit. DR from Wall of Force knocks that down to 22.5. You have 7 hits according to your stack block.
7X22.5= 157.5 points of damage. The Wall of Force is still there.Even if you are assumed to magically know when to apply the potion to the bow it only gets you 21 more points of damage. The wall is still there. It is now the wizard's go. You have less than a 50% chance of making a will save.
Clustered shots, gravity bow. 2d6+34+4d6=55. Wall of force knocks it down by 30 for the first arrow, nothing for every following arrow.
I only have to hit him ONCE guys. A critical hit= dead wizard.
Clustered shots, gravity bow. 2d6+34+4d6=55. Wall of force knocks it down by 30 for the first arrow, nothing for every following arrow.1D8+34+4d6=52.5 points of damage per hit. DR from Wall of Force knocks that down to 22.5. You have 7 hits according to your stack block.
7X22.5= 157.5 points of damage. The Wall of Force is still there.Even if you are assumed to magically know when to apply the potion to the bow it only gets you 21 more points of damage. The wall is still there. It is now the wizard's go. You have less than a 50% chance of making a will save.
DR applies to every single attack.
What is clustered shots?What are you doing to do Volley, a full round attack or clustered shots? In an actual game you wouldn't be able to go back on your actions. :)
Even doing 55 points of damgage it takes all 7 shots to bring 1 section of the wall down. The wizard is up. You will have less than a 50% chance to avoid being dominated.
PS: 55X7=385=not enough to bring that wall down.
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Clustered shots, gravity bow. 2d6+34+4d6=55. Wall of force knocks it down by 30 for the first arrow, nothing for every following arrow.Hardness is not damage reduction.
Stil probably doesn't change the results any. I fly over the wall. Shoot him, if I get a 19 or 20, I collect his gear. Next round, assuming I don't roll a 19 or 20, because it's improbable. He casts a spell, I don't care, I will probably make the save if there is one, if it's mirror image, it's time for the GM to adjudicate how that interacts with a ring of X-Ray vision. If the wall fills the room, it falls turn 2, to my 3rd arrow, the wizard gets 4 arrows for not accepting his destiny.
Edit: urgh, I thought the Wall of Force got 10/level. The wizard has precisely one option: run. When I get through the wall he's toast. Next time I'll bring a helm of teleportation, because I can afford it WBL still.
Erm... no, he has more than one trick to his name, he has several in fact. Ranged combat maneuvers, volley fire, anywhere from 7-10 skills in the mid20s, and he still hit's like two freight trains. That's actually a pretty good build for general purposes. He's not called a fighter for nothing. This guy could make a heck of a hunter, he could provide food for entire villages. He's also not really struggling, I had to figure what to do with some of his skills and feats. He's actually better in melee than at range (point blank shot), as he can fire his bow there, without provoking attacks of opportunity, and he can set up a combat patrol with a 35foot threat radius.
Doing damage is one trick. Even if you have more than one way to do it. Unless you have something ELSE you can also do with your damage.
Hunting for a village is beneath you. A 6th level character can do this so well that it doesn't matter if their is anyone in the world who can do it better because to the villagers the outcome will look identical.
Since you use being a hunter as an example, let me tell you a few of that my friends Ranger character was capable of in my previous game (at 18th level). He could detect magic at will. He had scent and blind-sense. He could 'track' the lingering magic left over from a teleport or plane shift spell, and could follow his quarry through it. He could track ethereal creatures (he could smell death). He had a side story that ended up with his name being "whispered" through the ancient forests of the world, which granted him speak with animals, speak with plants, and a spy network of birds, bears, and brambles. He had an army, except that all of his followers were bears (the Fey called him the Grizzly King). He could Tree Stride. His bow string was made from the crystallized tears of the Seelie Queen of the fey and caused enemies that were shot with it to become depressed and want to kill themselves. He had two swords that he crafted himself that were both essentially just sword shaped awakened plants named Twiggy Seeddust and A-Branch-Named-Stick-Back (I s!%+ you not).
Call me crazy, but I don't see why its okay for creatures with timestop to exist equally alongside creatures who just shoot things. I don't see how these things can be expected to coexist in any reasonable manner. Even creatures who shoot things for lots of damage. Its like asking Robin Hood to join the Justice League. He just doesn't belong alongside those heroes, fighting those enemies, or facing those challenges. Even if he spent every resource he ever had on a super bow and some some cool arrow tricks.
Clustered shots, gravity bow. 2d6+34+4d6=55. Wall of force knocks it down by 30 for the first arrow, nothing for every following arrow.Hardness is not damage reduction.Stil probably doesn't change the results any. I fly over the wall. Shoot him, if I get a 19 or 20, I collect his gear. Next round, assuming I don't roll a 19 or 20, because it's improbable. He casts a spell, I don't care, I will probably make the save if there is one, if it's mirror image, it's time for the GM to adjudicate how that interacts with a ring of X-Ray vision. If the wall fills the room, it falls turn 2, to my 3rd arrow, the wizard gets 4 arrows for not accepting his destiny.
Edit: urgh, I thought the Wall of Force got 10/level. The wizard has precisely one option: run. When I get through the wall he's toast. Next time I'll bring a helm of teleportation, because I can afford it WBL still.
LoL, why would he run. It is his turn. Will save of 33, assuming no spell focus feats are used. If he has as a rod of bouncing greater it means you have to make the save again if you make it the first time, not likely. Your will save modifier is only a +19.
Next time, there won't be next time. Once you are dominated he just takes all your gear from you. He then takes your gold that you have left over summons/planar binds a few outsider and watches the show.
He could also just walk outside the door you came in, and put another wall of force on that side once you are dominated so you cant leave. He DD's back into the room flyies and kills you with energy drain. I am sure there are other people more creative than me to think of all the ways to kill you once you fail to get pass that wall.
Remember that was the tactics used against a level 9 to 11 party. He has not even stepped his game up yet.
What is clustered shots?A UC feat that allows ranged attackers to combine multiple hits for the purpose of bypassing DR. (Yeah, I know.) Walls of... well, anything, really, have hardness, not DR, so it's not applicable.
Stil probably doesn't change the results any. I fly over the wall. Shoot him, if I get a 19 or 20, I collect his gear.Fly takes an action to use, as does the X-Ray ring. His will save is not great at all. You're claiming that he does things that you didn't actually make him able to do, and handwaving economy of action issues. Not only that, but you're still going back to "Well, whatever you think of, I've got a response for it, because there's some stuff I didn't write on my character sheet!"
Your arguments are disingenuous, you've derailed an unrelated thread, and you openly admit that you have no experience playing at anything even remotely resembling this level without heavy-duty house rules to buff your fighter. You've made constant factual claims that you can't support, and retreat back to this PVP fantasy every time anyone probes them even slightly. On top of this, you've made an extreme gimmick character whose toolset for doing things other than murder is worse than any other class's in the game. The only value that has come from your posts in this thread are the times when people have used your ignorance of the game in order to clarify arcane or poorly-documented rules.
I don't know what you were hoping to accomplish, but unless it was trolling like a madman and derailing a somewhat productive thread, you've completely failed.
He is also assuming the wall does not go all the way to the ceiling.
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No, Wraithstrike, his will save isn't DC33, the aforementioned build is 31, which I pass on 12s, whuppee. You cast dominate monster or hold monster mass and hope I roll low.
WPharolin: hunting for a village, for a week in one day, I can maintain most small nations by myself with this, that's pretty much at my level. That's something he does in his free time: feed nations.
@Man in Black:He comes in with no helm of teleportation, if the wizard makes the smart move and runs away, then I go to a major city, by a helm of teleportation, and begin hunting him again, that's perfectly reasonable, it's called learning from your fights, if you don't do it you die. If he sticks around, I break his wall after a few rounds, while making pretty easy saves (+19 is a bad save? Since when? While it's not equal to what a paladin would have, nothing is really equal to what a paladin has), and once I'm through he's hamburger. I can also turn the ring on in 1 minute increments, I would presumably be activating this before the fight, since he's spending all that time buffing himself, why can't I start with something?
I didn't say there were houserules to buff my character, there weren't any. You also didn't bother looking at the build did you? All of this is RAW, stop making things up. I've shown this to GM after GM, the most common response is "Why are you asking me this? Yes, that's how that works." The only one with a problem with this is you. I wonder why that is?
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Also, if you have a life, why are you arguing about fighter versus wizard on the internet?
I may not agree with you all the time (Hells, I don't agree with you most of the time, which is why I don't normally reply to your posts) but that made me laugh outloud.
Thank you for making my morning.
No, Wraithstrike, his will save isn't DC33, the aforementioned build is 31, which I pass on 12s, whuppee. You cast dominate monster or hold monster mass and hope I roll low.
Are we talking about my build? Cause the DC of all Illusion, Enchantment, and Necromancy spells with that build is 33. Because...those are the schools of magic with saving throws you care about. If the spell in question isn't one of those schools then yes it is a DC 31. However, I will use his Persistent Rod to make you make two saves. Either way you probably fail.
Of course, you are absorbing spells so I would try something, realize it didn't work and then quicken timestop and buff my minions and teleport a few thousand feet strait up and wait...
EDIT:
WPharolin: hunting for a village, for a week in one day, I can maintain most small nations by myself with this, that's pretty much at my level. That's something he does in his free time: feed nations.
No he doesn't. Not unless you somehow are removing the insanely high time constraints you're working with. And even if he did it still feels lame for a 20th level character. Now if you were hunting on other planes and coming back with food that counted as a Heroes Feast for everyone in the town, than that would be kind of cool, but still not level 20 cool.
The only way this could get funnier is if the fighter had a katana
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I didn't say there were houserules to buff my character, there weren't any. You also didn't bother looking at the build did you? All of this is RAW, stop making things up. I've shown this to GM after GM, the most common response is "Why are you asking me this? Yes, that's how that works." The only one with a problem with this is you. I wonder why that is?Your build is perfectly legal. It isn't anything like the character you described playing, with triple wealth-by-level, custom magic items, etc. It's also a pretty lame level 20 PC, with 1/day flight, no tools to deal with invisibility, no backup weapon to speak of, poorly-chosen weapon qualities for high-level play, and no real utility magic items other than the celestial armor and the X-Ray ring. It's almost as if you made the character specifically for the task of murdering a hypothetical wizard, rather than proving your (completely indefensible) claims about fighters being able to replace other classes or effectively do things other than murder people! This is a character who jobs fights to a CR 18 Nightcrawler.
50% miss chance isn't as bad as people make it out to be, I've been put in several situations involving it, and was basically unaffected. I may miss once or twice. I'll spend the remainder of my money if that will make you happy/be silent.
Here's the big flaw with wall of force: it stops spells, this means that if I can't reach you, you can't reach me, while you fiddle around on the other side, I can just come back in 20 minutes. You know, when a bunch of spells have fallen off. Also, I keep finding new things, some of which I've forgotten, to improve my will saves, at this rate I'll be making those on 2s against DC 33. With what I've bought down below, I'm at needing 13s to pass those will saves. Frankly, I could drop the item creation feats, and buy Iron Will and Greater Iron Will, which pretty much guarantees I'll make those saves.
Drop the huntsman on the bow, giving me 34k to play with. Also, not allowing the craft item feats to change WBL is garbage, it's the same type of lousy game-running that makes wishes such a tricky proposition, and if you let him make wishes without wording them properly. I'm going to take advantage of the item creation feats. Not that I'm that interested in a game that forces someone to word their wishes perfectly, or makes the item creation feats worthless.
Broom of flying 17k
Chime of interruption 16.8k
Deck of illusions 8.1k
Goggles of night 12k
Lantern of Revealing 30k
Luckstone 20k
=91.9k/137,495=45,595 and now I have a bunch of tools. Still forgot to take advantage of the item creation price break, but I'm feeling a little too lazy to go back and count it all.
@Spacelard: I thought about giving him a katana because you said that. I still have the money, it could even be pretty nice.
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You want to use crafting feats, fine, you walk through level by level showing how you used them with the treasure you picked up.
Or you can just accept that 20th level WBL is how much you ended up with after selling gear at 1/2 price to craft what you really wanted.
Having WBL of a 21st or 22nd character doesn't prove that your 20th level character is balanced.
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You want to use crafting feats, fine, you walk through level by level showing how you used them with the treasure you picked up.
Or you can just accept that 20th level WBL is how much you ended up with after selling gear at 1/2 price to craft what you really wanted.
Having WBL of a 21st or 22nd character doesn't prove that your 20th level character is balanced.
I'm not going to get that much anyway, the only things I can really make with this are clothes, so vests, gloves, belts, hats, headbands, etc. Probably another 100k or 2. Doesn't get me as much as I could have, as say a paladin, but it does get me a bit more, plus I haven't really spent what I have, much less what I could have.
Edit:I was just reading the ultimate combat book. I came across the part about walls and I realized something. You throw up a Force Wall, I walk through one of the other walls, 1-5-foot square of adamantine wall has hardness 20 (something I can ignore with adamantine arrows) and 120hp, which means 3 arrows, the wall comes down, I spend the remaining 4 on you. It's hard to picture, but it's also rather hard to picture a bow that hits that hard to begin with. Steel walls come down in two arrows, stone or wood walls make me the Kool-aid man.
I am back. I see he has still bypassed the wall of force issue I used on a 9th level party. I am not even trying yet. There is nothing you can do. The bouncing rod doubles that to chance for you to fail since it makes you roll twice. You have a 35% chance to survive, not good betting odds. Note the Rod of Bouncing has not come into play yet because WP did not buy it. If it did and you would be down to 17%.
Now WP's does not have the rod of bouncing but even without it.
You have no way to know the wall of force was there so you would have dropped a full round action trying to lay into the wizard.
Your turn is over. You now take chances with a 35% chance to pass a save. If you make the save I leave your line of affect.
AMiB criticized me earlier for my poorly thought out attempt at this. AMiB is correct. If I am not even trying and you are trying, and you can't do much to kill the wizard you should take the hint. In an actual game there are no do overs. By the rules you can just say I took crafting feats so I can ignore WBL.
Remember you are not even destroying the entire wall just one section over 2 rounds. How many times do you really expect to roll that 14 you need on the dice? What do you do when balors(plural) are gated in and the wizard buffs them so they are equal to your fighter? They in turn summon even more demons.
There are a lot of options you have can't even begin to cover as fighter, especially with your build.
Let's get back to the topic now which is does UC bring power creep.
PS:How can you expect to handle high level play if you have no experience in it? <--No need to answer, just something for you to think about.
PS:Can a fighter win? Sure if the caster has no idea what it is doing. Is the fighter going to win otherwise? No.
You can make another thread if you want to continue this. I am done commenting on it here.
Stuff
This goes back to what I was saying earlier about being forced to specialize to stay relevant and focusing to the detriment of all else. Your scrounging for each little tiny bonus that could give you any advantage at all. We could keep going around in circles changing things and asking "what about in this situation?" and "What about under these circumstances?" but no matter what changes you make to your character I'll never have to make any changes to mine (unless you change to a Druid or something drastic like that and even then probably not).
My resources weren't all spent to make me effective at a single thing. I was already effective before I began spending resources. The most amount of specialization I have is 2 feats in a chain (spell focus/ g. spell focus). And yet those feats are broader than every combat feat in existence because schools of magic are just that broad. I can travel anywhere at anytime, no world is off limits to me. I make an excellent spy or tracker. I can disguise myself and others, go invisible, stay quiet, and use powerful divinations. I have ways to bypass traps and locks. I am a leader, I control minions and the opinions and feelings of those around me. I am a great asset to the military and I can destroy enemy fortifications by myself, get allied troops into a walled city, or shut down enemy archers by the thousands. I can heal, buff, deal damage, take away enemy actions, restrict movement, and shut off down magical effects. I have very few weaknesses but those weaknesses are glaring ones. And it should be the same way for your fighter.
Your fighter shoots things in the face and they die. You shoot things quite well when things are actually able to be shot (which hopefully will be more often than not). However, at some point being good at climbing or jumping or swimming or survival or stealth, just doesn't matter as much as it used to (or in some cases at all) when compared to the alternative. Your fighter should be awesome in melee too. And he should have a lengthy list of other things that he is equally good at that have nothing to do with combat. And he shouldn't be asked to sacrifice being able to do many things to be passable at 1 or 2 things ESPECIALLY if that thing is just damage. Because that makes him replaceable and no player character should be replaceable.
martial v. caster
*yawn*
martial v. caster*yawn*
Yeah, dunno why there's such an argument. It's actually a really simple thing.
If an archer and wizard fight, all things being equal, the one with initiative kills the one who loses initiative. You can replace 'wizard' with 'cleric, oracle, sorcerer, summoner, or witch' if you like. You can also replace archer with 'monk, barbarian, fighter, rogue or ranger' if you like.
Basically, all this argument comes down to is that if you can catch a wizard with his pants down, then you can turn him into a gooey past very easily. If the wizard can get's his pants on, then he turns you into a gooey paste.
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Wraithstrike, you can't cast through the wall, stop trying. That said, I'm coming through a side wall, they aren't anywhere near as tough. I have a 100% chance to pass a spell you cast as it bounces off the wall you built. Allow me to illustrate:
School evocation [force]; Level sorcerer/wizard 5
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (powdered quartz)
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect wall whose area is up to one 10-ft. square/level
Duration 1 round /level (D)
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
A wall of force creates an invisible wall of pure force. The wall cannot move and is not easily destroyed. A wall of force is immune to dispel magic, although a mage's disjunction can still dispel it. A wall of force can be damaged by spells as normal, except for disintegrate, which automatically destroys it. It can be damaged by weapons and supernatural abilities, but a wall of force has hardness 30 and a number of hit points equal to 20 per caster level. Contact with a sphere of annihilation or rod of cancellation instantly destroys a wall of force.
Breath weapons and spells cannot pass through a wall of force in either direction, although dimension door, teleport, and similar effects can bypass the barrier. It blocks ethereal creatures as well as material ones (though ethereal creatures can usually circumvent the wall by going around it, through material floors and ceilings). Gaze attacks can operate through a wall of force.
The caster can form the wall into a flat, vertical plane whose area is up to one 10-foot square per level. The wall must be continuous and unbroken when formed. If its surface is broken by any object or creature, the spell fails.
Wall of force can be made permanent with a permanency spell.
@WPhaorlin:I don't need most of that stuff to be effective. Without feats I hit like this- 41/41/36/31/26 for 1d8+11+4d6. Besides, what am I going to do with 22 feats? Feats are almost exclusively good for combat or bumping skills or saves. That's all they do, go ahead, read the feats, even the mobility feats are fairly based around combat, as most modern militaries have learned: be mobile or die. The fighter doesn't get things like Prestidigitation (which is also one of the very few non-combat spells), that don't have anything to do with combat, they get skills, feats, and bonuses to combat. Stop beating that dead horse, you aren't right anyway, I can do quite a bit of noncombat stuff, as the only things I can't really do are use knowledge skills.
If an archer and wizard fight, all things being equal, the one with initiative kills the one who loses initiative.
Furthermore, I have never witnessed where two characters of the same level face off in the absence of decisive context. It's a silly scenario to dissect. Most of the time, the game involves a party vs. some combination of enemies, one of which is sometimes a higher level threat with some mooks.
In the most common contexts featured in the game, which is what all of the encounter math and design is supposed to support, the class roles work just fine. Deathmatch analysis tells me almost nothing useful about playing the game with a party, and that's how I play.
martial v. caster*yawn*Yeah, dunno why there's such an argument. It's actually a really simple thing.
If an archer and wizard fight, all things being equal, the one with initiative kills the one who loses initiative. You can replace 'wizard' with 'cleric, oracle, sorcerer, summoner, or witch' if you like. You can also replace archer with 'monk, barbarian, fighter, rogue or ranger' if you like.
Basically, all this argument comes down to is that if you can catch a wizard with his pants down, then you can turn him into a gooey past very easily. If the wizard can get's his pants on, then he turns you into a gooey paste.
Never really an argument. Someone just had an idea that an opponent would stand out in the open in front of an archer which is like standing 5 feet away from a melee type, and hoping to live.
@WPhaorlin:I don't need most of that stuff to be effective. Without feats I hit like this- 41/41/36/31/26 for 1d8+11+4d6. Besides, what am I going to do with 22 feats? Feats are almost exclusively good for combat or bumping skills or saves. That's all they do, go ahead, read the feats, even the mobility feats are fairly based around combat, as most modern militaries have learned: be mobile or die. The fighter doesn't get things like Prestidigitation (which is also one of the very few non-combat spells), that don't have anything to do with combat, they get skills, feats, and bonuses to combat. Stop beating that dead horse, you aren't right anyway, I can do quite a bit of noncombat stuff, as the only things I can't really do are use knowledge skills.
You are missing the point entirely and your idea of a dead horse is one that is still bucking. It doesn't matter that you do good damage at any level. You can do 1 trillion per hit and it wouldn't matter and it wouldn't make you good. You're damage without feats is in the 'won't be able to kill me in one round' range (118 average assuming you hit with the 4 hits after my Gloves of Arrow Snaring negates the first attack), which means it is now entirely negligible. On top of that you lost your greatest strengths: Snap shot and Combat Patrol. Which means you aren't even effective at your schtick. Which proves that you need to spend vast resources in order to be able to do 1 thing effectively.
Outside of combat your character is good at survival at a point in the game when survival is pointless, either A) because anything worth tracking is immune to being tracked or B) because casters are just strait up better at it than you will ever be. You are good at stealth at a level where its trivial to have 24 hour see invisibility. You are good at Perception at a level where perception isn't enough to see people anymore. Your character is good at climbing at a level where no one cares about climbing. SO what out of combat things are you good at? Well you can swim, intimidate people, identify some oozes, and make some shirts. Everybody can do that.
Name one out-of-combat thing that can't be done better with a spell that your fighter can actually do? Then ask yourself if you have the related skills necessary to put it to use in a 20th level adventure. And if you can't then tell me why any high powered NPC should elect to hire you over a caster? You're still playing the low level dungeon crawl game at a point when ever caster class and and most of the monsters have moved on. Well I don't want fighters to play low level games I want to invite them to play the same game as everyone else.
If someone were to ask me whether Ultimate Combat had power creep I would respond "not nearly enough"
I still want to understand Kais86's claim that, the fighter can mimic any other class in the game.
I want to know how this 'overpowered' fighter takes care:
* Diplomacy / Encouraging the Party (Bard)
* Dealing with traps and locks / Sneaking their way into things (Rogue)
* Hunting (Ranger)
* Dealing with the undead / Healing (Cleric)
* Controlling the environment (Druid)
etc.
Your build is level 20, at that point parties are generally plane hopping dealing with True Dragons, Elementals, and other Outsiders.
I just don't see how the fighter is the most overpowered class.
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@WPhaorlin:I don't need most of that stuff to be effective. Without feats I hit like this- 41/41/36/31/26 for 1d8+11+4d6. Besides, what am I going to do with 22 feats? Feats are almost exclusively good for combat or bumping skills or saves. That's all they do, go ahead, read the feats, even the mobility feats are fairly based around combat, as most modern militaries have learned: be mobile or die. The fighter doesn't get things like Prestidigitation (which is also one of the very few non-combat spells), that don't have anything to do with combat, they get skills, feats, and bonuses to combat. Stop beating that dead horse, you aren't right anyway, I can do quite a bit of noncombat stuff, as the only things I can't really do are use knowledge skills.You are missing the point entirely and your idea of a dead horse is one that is still bucking. It doesn't matter that you do good damage at any level. You can do 1 trillion per hit and it wouldn't matter and it wouldn't make you good. You're damage without feats is in the 'won't be able to kill me in one round' range (118 average assuming you hit with the 4 hits after my Gloves of Arrow Snaring negates the first attack), which means it is now entirely negligible. On top of that you lost your greatest strengths: Snap shot and Combat Patrol. Which means you aren't even effective at your schtick. Which proves that you need to spend vast resources in order to be able to do 1 thing effectively.
Outside of combat your character is good at survival at a point in the game when survival is pointless, either A) because anything worth tracking is immune to being tracked or B) because casters are just strait up better at it than you will ever be. You are good at stealth at a level where its trivial to have 24 hour see invisibility. You are good at Perception at a level where perception isn't enough to see people anymore. Your character is good at climbing at a level where no one cares about climbing. SO what out of combat things are you good at?...
You just made my list of top posters. It might not mean much to you, but I had to mention it.
Is it really creep if it pushes the rogue and monk from 4 up to 7 ?Yes and no. Some of the options ramp up already-good fighting styles to be even better. It's not good for the game for archery to be so much more effective than melee combat styles, when it already has the inherent advantage of not needing to get into melee. Using a sword is cool, and there's really no reason it should be as bad as it is.
In case people are wondering at my apparent schizophrenia: I "favorited" both of these posts because I found this whole sub-discussion to be extremely useful. (Reading the rest of the thread is like watching "The Jersey Shore" because I'm too lazy to reach for the remote to turn off the TV.)
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I didn't say that the fighter could mimic any other class, but that it could mimic a lot more classes than it's non-magical design would indicate, and certainly far more than most other classes can. Rogues, Rangers, Monks, Cavaliers, Paladins to an extent, and Gunslingers.
Considering he's only using feats, archetypes, skills, and equipment that's pretty good all things told. More importantly, the Fighter can duplicate these classes (again, to a degree) all day long, unlike the wizard, cleric, druid, or bard.
I didn't say fighter was overpowered, I'm saying that fighter deserves a little more respect than it gets, the Wizard isn't the mightiest class, neither is the cleric or druid, especially with how hard those two have been hit with the nerf bat.
If I would consider any class the mightiest in the system right now it would probably be paladin, due to changes in lay on hands, smite evil, and their spells, but they come with so many restrictions, that they had better be the most capable class around. If only to justify something resembling the sheer level of douchebaggery the revolves around paladins and their alleged ability to fall the moment there is a quasi-difficult moral dilemma. Just look around at all of the "Is X an evil act" or "Will X cause a paladin to fall" threads around here.
@WPharolin, doing all of those things more than 10 times a day, without preparation. I can do all that stuff, all day long, no resting, no preparing spells, none of that nonsense, I don't need to sit down, and think about a spell to do that stuff. I just can, without wasting valuable resources (spell slots) to make it happen.
There are plenty of ways to track something that you aren't thinking of. For example: most living things, even the ones that fly, shed feathers, fur, or scales (in the case of dragons) that's how you track those. When a creature uses a gate, or a teleportation spell, they always leave a trace typically indicative of the place they went, teleportation spells are generally harder to track than planeshifts, but there would still be a sign that they teleported.
Watch NCIS, read Sherlock Holmes, learn how to be a detective, figure out what deductive reasoning looks like, it's incredibly helpful.
Edit: that 50% miss chance means a whole lot more to you than it does me. Side note: Stealth trumps see invisibility, you can see the invisible guy, but you cannot see the stealth guy. You need perception rolls to beat stealth, if you think otherwise you are wrong.
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Since NCIS (I very much hate that show) was mentioned, click me for a wee laugh.
That is one of the pettiest gripes I've ever seen about a show. NCIS tends to be a bit more accurate in it's depiction of that stuff than most, not that it's perfectly accurate by any stretch of the imagination, especially since the characters are all a bit more competent than they should be. I'm not saying federal investigators are incompetent, it's just that the characters on NCIS tend to border on hyper-competence, and they need it too, their goofy antics would get most people fired.
Leongorance yes, the guy below me, made me aware of something rather silly you said. There is a "Robin Hood" type guy on the Justice League, just like there is on The Avengers, do you want to know why? Because they can keep perspective, they have abilities of their own, and because a lot of people underestimate the normal guy who hangs out with proverbial, and in at least once case literal, gods. Unlike my character, those "Robin Hood" types, can't actually beat the most powerful members of their teams, as I really don't expect Archer Guy to join the Avengers or the Justice League.
In case you don't read comics: Green Arrow (Justice League) Hawkeye (Avengers), they tend to be the moral compass or heart (respectively) of their teams. They are valued members, treated with respect and dignity by their teammates, and they have been the deciding factor on more than one occasion. Heck, one of the highest-tier events the JLA or Avengers have ever dealt with was decided by Hawkeye. JLA/Avengers was resolved by Flash grabbing Hawkeye, pulling him out of combat, and hiding until they could get to Krona, where Flash could create a distraction so Hawkeye could destroy Krona's machine.
I didn't say that the fighter could mimic any other class, but that it could mimic a lot more classes than it's non-magical design would indicate, and certainly far more than most other classes can. Rogues, Rangers, Monks, Cavaliers, Paladins to an extent, and Gunslingers.
If you can't mimic the class as well as the original class then you are probably not meeting the bar.
Considering he's only using feats, archetypes, skills, and equipment that's pretty good all things told. More importantly, the Fighter can duplicate these classes (again, to a degree) all day long, unlike the wizard, cleric, druid, or bard.
You don't need to emulate a class all day long, only when the situation arises.
I'm saying that fighter deserves a little more respect than it gets, the Wizard isn't the mightiest class, neither is the cleric or druid, especially with how hard those two have been hit with the nerf bat.
You sir are a victim of bad logic IMHO.
What determines the power of a class to you?
If I would consider any class the mightiest in the system right now it would probably be paladin, due to changes in lay on hands, smite evil, and their spells, but they come with so many restrictions, that they had better be the most capable class around. If only to justify something resembling the sheer level of douchebaggery the revolves around paladins and their alleged ability to fall the moment there is a quasi-difficult moral dilemma. Just look around at all of the "Is X an evil act" or "Will X cause a paladin to fall" threads around here.
The paladin is not all that great. His primary thing is damage just like the fighter, but he just happens to have good saves. At high levels the ability to deal hit point damage is not impressive since any class can do, if the player really wants too.
There are plenty of ways to track something that you aren't thinking of. For example: most living things, even the ones that fly, shed feathers, fur, or scales (in the case of dragons) that's how you track those. When a creature uses a gate, or a teleportation spell, they always leave a trace typically indicative of the place they went, teleportation spells are generally harder to track than planeshifts, but there would still be a sign that they teleported.
Watch NCIS, read Sherlock Holmes, learn how to be a detective, figure out what deductive reasoning looks like, it's incredibly helpful.
Edit: that 50% miss chance means a whole lot more to you than it does me. Side note: Stealth trumps see invisibility, you can see the invisible guy, but you cannot see the stealth guy. You need perception rolls to beat stealth, if you think otherwise you are wrong.
There will not be a trail of feathers falling off in such a manner that you can follow them.
Where is this rule for tracing teleportation spells?You can not say anything about not using deductive reasoning. You entered into a debate on high level play with little to no experience in it. My deductive reasoning would have led me to do some research before doing that. These _____ vs______ debates are on several websites, and are fairly common. I have seen a few which is how I knew the wall of force would keep you away.
Many high level monsters have scent, blindsense, blindsight, and other ways to bypass stealth. You also need cover or concealment to make it work. It is really hard to hide at high level no matter how you do it. A lot of monster also have high perception checks.
Your fighter's stealth was a +31
A CR 13 bronze dragon has a +28 perception.
CR 16 black dragon +34.
A marilith CR 17 had a +31.
You are not even to level appropriate encounters and you already can't hide. The point is this, you can't claim a fighter can emulate another class if it can't handle level appropriate encounters with the emulation, so tell us who can the fighter emulate successfully?
At least with invisibility you know all of them don't have true seeing or other forms of stealth detection that gives you away, and it has a chance at working even if blindsense gives your square away.
Call me crazy, but I don't see why its okay for creatures with timestop to exist equally alongside creatures who just shoot things. I don't see how these things can be expected to coexist in any reasonable manner. Even creatures who shoot things for lots of damage. Its like asking Robin Hood to join the Justice League. He just doesn't belong alongside those heroes, fighting those enemies, or facing those challenges. Even if he spent every resource he ever had on a super bow and some some cool arrow tricks.
No offence but you are really crazy than,if you think that is case here and plus you are playing system like that .Than PF team made freakingly pointless and disbalanced system where one classes are allmighty and others are crap.And i personally think that claim is crap.
I think all clasess are equally good,some in one way,some in another.Some classes are better in some segments of roleplay(by using different skills in different situations for example),while other are better in some segments of combat.Every class have something that do better than all other classes,meaning is usefull for something more than any other classes are,and there is no class that is better than any other class.In some ways better,but in some worse.Thats the way it is IMO.I am playing FRP for veeeeery long period of time,same as many ppl here i bet,and i can tell you there was million of situations where wizard was more usefull than fighter and where fighter was more usefull than wizard.And that is main point,isnt it?Balance so everyone can feel usefull and equally good.Dont know if you played differently,but whenever i played,everyone felt usefull.And i played quite a few campaigns where we hit lvl20(lot of playing i know...cant help it,guess we are nerds,geeks,freaks,or whatever you wanna call it,but ye,we played alooooot:)))
Leon
You also have to take into account that your gaming buddies are not jerks who will try to steal your spot in the limelight. There are players like that so the fact that it does not happen at the table, does not mean it could not happen. You also have to take into account the players and who they played the class. Playstyle is a big factor on how people see things. Kaius thinking a wizard would stand out in the open and be shot in the face was an example of that.
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@Wraithstrike, the wizard can't do any of that, not without stopping, and resting if he has the wrong spells. With at most 10 slots of 1st level spells (even then you are pushing a 44 in that stat), 9 in most of the others, the odds of you having the ability to mimic everyone all the time, or any single class perfectly as often as you might be called upon to do so, is slim at best. Probably right along the lines of a fighter's ability to duplicate a class. Also, anyone else could duplicate those classes, flawlessly, then why bother having those other classes? That seems like poor design and worse understanding of how mimcry works.
Paladin actually is pretty mighty, unlike the fighter they don't need to spend as many feats on combat. They can cast from the spell lists of other classes, giving them a lot of versatility, while maintaining a high degree of competence in combat, and they can still heal with the best of them, in fact better if your charisma is high enough. Though I still say the biggest travesty is that they never get 0-level spells, so they have to trait into Prestidigitation (the best spell ever).
You are comparing him to dragons, something based around being better than everyone else at everything except dexterity, they are bigger, have more hp, hit harder, have more spells, have more money, etc, than everyone else, and, in fact, pretty much more than everyone else combined. That is a truly abominable comparison, try something else that isn't supposed to be a ridiculous fight to begin with. Like the Taiga Giant, who has a +13 perception, at CR12, or one of the 400 or 500 non-boss type monsters. Allow me to bring this into some semblance of focus: a Rogue, 20th level, 36 dex, max skill levels, will only have a 36 stealth, 38 if he's a race that's good at it.
A lot of monsters are meant to be confronted, so they tend to have ridiculously good perception checks, like the Draconal a CR20 in the Bestiary 2 with a +48 perception or the banshee a CR13 with a +31. Those are the types of creature who can see clear through things like invisibility, without special types of perception like blind sense or tremor sense. Humanoids on the other hand, tend to have crappy perception checks, you can make it against them.
I would imagine a wizard wouldn't be trailing feathers, but he might be trailing hair, food particles, who knows?
The rule for following a teleport is.... well there isn't one, the trace I was talking of, was that he did teleport. Like whatever trail he had before has suddenly vanished altogether. Deductive reasoning would have told you that.
@Wraithstrike, the wizard can't do any of that, not without stopping, and resting if he has the wrong spells. With at most 10 slots of 1st level spells (even then you are pushing a 44 in that stat), 9 in most of the others, the odds of you having the ability to mimic everyone all the time, or any single class perfectly as often as you might be called upon to do so, is slim at best. Probably right along the lines of a fighter's ability to duplicate a class.
I am not saying a wizard can do everybody's job all day long, but he can emulate a class if he knows it has to be done. Scrolls are cheap. The other issue is many people fall for the "right spell" argument. Many times you don't one a specific spell to get past an encounter. I will go ahead and tell you that you have yet to present an argument that I have not seen or played through, or GM'd. I am not just making this stuff up.
Paladin actually is pretty mighty, unlike the fighter they don't need to spend as many feats on combat. They can cast from the spell lists of other classes, giving them a lot of versatility, while maintaining a degree of competence in combat, and they can still heal with the best of them, in fact better if your charisma is high enough. Though I still say the biggest travesty is that they never get 0-level spells, so they have to trait into Prestidigitation (the best spell ever).
A paladin can not really heal with the best of them. He has the mercies, and a few spells, but he can't replace a cleric for removing status affects. Prestidigation is not the best spell ever unless you have a really lax GM.
You are comparing him to dragons, something based around being better than everyone else at everything except dexterity, they are bigger, have more hp, hit harder, have more spells, have more money, etc, than everyone else, and, in fact, pretty much more than everyone else combined. That is a truly abominable comparison, try something else that isn't supposed to be a ridiculous fight to begin with. Like the Taiga Giant, who has a +13 perception, at CR12, or one of the 400 or 500 non-boss type monsters. Allow me to bring this into some semblance of focus: a Rogue, 20th level, 36 dex, max skill levels, will only have a 36 stealth, 38 if he's a race that's good at it.
I am comparing him to an encounter below his level. The Marilith is not a dragon, and it is 3 CR's below the fighter's level. A rogue should have dex maxed out with a +13. He has +3 from class skills, and 20 ranks. That is 38 like you said, and it is +7 above the fighter, which probably puts the rogue on par with a CR 20 monster unlike the fighter.
The Balor has a + 38 perception, and Linnorn and Gold Dragons get a +40. They are likely to spot the rogue, but they are also of the same CR as the rogue's level. The fighter was being dropped by things 3 level or more lower with regard to stealth. A ranger in his favored terrain does even better.
A lot of monsters are meant to be confronted, so they tend to have ridiculously good perception checks, like the Draconal a CR20 in the Bestiary 2 with a +48 perception or the banshee a CR13 with a +31. Those are the types of creature who can see clear through things like invisibility, without special types of perception like blind sense or tremor sense. Humanoids on the other hand, tend to have crappy perception checks, you can make it against them.I would imagine a wizard wouldn't be trailing feathers, but he might be trailing hair, food particles, who knows?
The rule for following a teleport is.... well there isn't one, the trace I was talking of, was that he did teleport. Like whatever trail he had before has suddenly vanished altogether. Deductive reasoning would have told you that.
No, there is no trailing food or hair or feathers, not to leave a trail anyway. That level of shedding is not even realistic. Imagine you see the caster fly north so you go that way. After about 5 miles you see 1 hair/feather. You have no way of knowing if I turned around, went west, east, and so on.
I am still not getting your teleport example. The caster may have left the plane altogether. All you know is that he disappeared. It might have also just only been a dimension door. He might have teleported to some small random village, instead of big city so nobody knows where he is.Back to the sub-discussion of what is the fighter doing at high levels beside hit point damage? Now in my games I make sure everyone gets a chance to have fun so it is not an issue.
PS:If the wizard know he has to emulate class X it can be done, not as well as class X, but well enough to meet the bar most of the time.
That Banshee is not seeing through invis without a special ability either. Knowing something invisible is in the room is not the same as knowing where it is.
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Actually, once a paladin gets 20th, she's a healing monster. Talking 600 hp, before taking into consideration anything but Lay on Hands, and not even including her charisma bonus (which can get him on the order of 1380hp, if we use the +13 to one stat as the standard, which frankly, every time I've built a charisma paladin they've been way more effective than the paladins I've seen built in other ways) to lay on hands/day. She does this, without rolling. Even before that, she's got a lot of mojo to work with.
You know what? That banshee is below the rogue's level as well and he's probably not sneaking past the banshee. That level of perception is enough to overcome the +40 standing still gives you while invisible, that might as well be enough to overcome it completely all things told.
Everything leaves a trail, why do you think forensic scientists exist? Actually, I do have a method of determining your direction, hair follicles in particular don't turn that often when moving, so you can take a pretty good guess which way they are going based on the direction of the hair, how it landed, and whatnot. Takes a lot of consideration, but a 20something in survival should give you enough. Especially considering that tracking a fine creature over hard ground, while they are hiding their tracks, on a moonless night, is only DC 39, for someone who can't see at night. While I'm not going to be blazing along at a full run speed like a ranger (I always picture Harsk at level 20 hurtling along the ground like Usain Bolt, following tracks, while the rest of his party looks progressively more worried that he's gone insane, until they find the whatever it is they are looking for) is, I can still follow them well enough.
Everything leaves a trail, why do you think forensic scientists exist? Actually, I do have a method of determining your direction, hair follicles in particular don't turn that often when moving, so you can take a pretty good guess which way they are going based on the direction of the hair, how it landed, and whatnot. Takes a lot of consideration, but a 20something in survival should give you enough. Especially considering that tracking a fine creature over hard ground, while they are hiding their tracks, on a moonless night, is only DC 39, for someone who can't see at night. While I'm not going to be blazing along at a full run speed like a ranger (I always picture Harsk at level 20 hurtling along the ground like Usain Bolt, following tracks, while the rest of his party looks progressively more worried that he's gone insane, until they find the whatever it is they are looking for) is, I can still follow them well enough.
And so now you're fighter is now also a forensic scientist? This is rich, Because you know, air currents don't exist Golarion, so there's no chance a super light hair follicle which you found with your +infinity search check could have changed as it fell off the wizard's head. ^o^ I find your off the wall mary-sue fighter very amusing. Really though, you've been watching to many criminal investigation shows if you think that's how forensics work in real life.
Actually, once a paladin gets 20th, she's a healing monster. Talking 600 hp, before taking into consideration anything but Lay on Hands, and not even including her charisma bonus (which can get him on the order of 1380hp, if we use the +13 to one stat as the standard, which frankly, every time I've built a charisma paladin they've been way more effective than the paladins I've seen built in other ways) to lay on hands/day. She does this, without rolling. Even before that, she's got a lot of mojo to work with.
You know what? That banshee is below the rogue's level as well and he's probably not sneaking past the banshee. That level of perception is enough to overcome the +40 standing still gives you while invisible, that might as well be enough to overcome it completely all things told.
Everything leaves a trail, why do you think forensic scientists exist? Actually, I do have a method of determining your direction, hair follicles in particular don't turn that often when moving, so you can take a pretty good guess which way they are going based on the direction of the hair, how it landed, and whatnot. Takes a lot of consideration, but a 20something in survival should give you enough. Especially considering that tracking a fine creature over hard ground, while they are hiding their tracks, on a moonless night, is only DC 39, for someone who can't see at night. While I'm not going to be blazing along at a full run speed like a ranger (I always picture Harsk at level 20 hurtling along the ground like Usain Bolt, following tracks, while the rest of his party looks progressively more worried that he's gone insane, until they find the whatever it is they are looking for) is, I can still follow them well enough.
That banshee rolling a 10 gets a 41. A rogue of that level getting rolling a 10 and then adding the 20 for being invisible+ the actual modifier gets past a banshee.
As for the paladin you will hurt more for losing a caster than the paladin which is why I can't put the paladin up that high.Things leave a trail depending on circumstances. Trying to say a hair folicle landed enough times, in a certain direction, and that you were able to find it sounds like GM Fiat to me. The survival skill is based on following tracks when tracking so for you to follow an airborne creature requires a lot of GM fiat actually. You can't follow tracks if there are no tracks.
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And so now you're fighter is now also a forensic scientist? This is rich, Because you know, air currents don't exist Golarion, so there's no chance a super light hair follicle which you found with your +infinity search check could have changed as it fell off the wizard's head. ^o^ I find your off the wall mary-sue fighter very amusing. Really though, you've been watching to many criminal investigation shows if you think that's how forensics work in real life.
No, he's a tracker, that's why he has survival. Forensics are a mix of survival, first aid, and a few other skills (like craft fire arms) most of which he doesn't have. Yes, those are things you calculate when tracking someone by something as flimsy as their hair. Don't use a phrase if you don't even know the meaning of it, especially when it's already inaccurate to begin with.
The banshee can hear his heartbeat. Makes her count as having blindsight 60 feet, neat huh? There's always some form of trail, even if it's just some bumpkins living out in the woods. Heck, there's even a way to track teleportation, it's just that there's basically only 1 species that can do it.