A spellcaster / noncaster disparity fix idea.


Homebrew and House Rules

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Shadow Lodge

Adamantine Dragon wrote:
I wasn't able to use the same old name on some new boards, so I decided to consolidate my board appearances under a name I could get in multiple sites.

Score. Good choice!


Adamantine dragons sound like terrible foes.

But they don't hold a candle to the almighty wizard! NOTHING is as bad as a wizard. NOTHING!


Benicio Del Espada wrote:

Adamantine dragons sound like terrible foes.

But they don't hold a candle to the almighty wizard! NOTHING is as bad as a wizard. NOTHING!

LOL, except maybe a CoDzilla...


Adamantine Dragon wrote:
Benicio Del Espada wrote:

Adamantine dragons sound like terrible foes.

But they don't hold a candle to the almighty wizard! NOTHING is as bad as a wizard. NOTHING!

LOL, except maybe a CoDzilla...

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!


2 people marked this as a favorite.

So you want to make the game balanced between mundane classes and magical classes but you don't want to make it boring like 4E where everything is the same? Go in the complete opposite direction.

Give mundane classes the ability to make their attacks SOS or SOD. If fighters could actually cripple their opponents normally (and not part of some ridiculously long chain of feats and hoping for a critical unlike the wizard who doesn't need to take 5 spells of weaker versions of their current spell and isn't entirely dependent on getting a lucky critical) then fighters would more often feel like they're more than "hit and hit harder".

Give weapons variety. Let axes maim limbs or destroy armor (sunder & do damage), let swords deflect blows, have the ability to impale and hold back an enemy with a spear, have clubs and blunt objects knock out opponents.

Make them fighter abilities, not available to any class that wants to try it.

Let a fighter retrain a feat once per week, not once per 4 levels.

Scarab Sages

Adamantine Dragon wrote:
See, I actually like the fact that PF is not "balanced." Game balance is a highly overrated concept imho. I don't play Pathfinder so that any dude swinging a stick can be just as powerful as a wizard who has mastered the arcane secrets of the universe.

I see the argument a lot, that wizards should be exponentially better than martial characters, due to the wizard having expended more time, thought, and energy. "I spent ten years as an apprentice, learning the secrets of magic, therefore I should have an inherent advantage."

Trouble is, as far as the players are concerned, he hasn't.
A group of players sat down at the same time, picked ability scores, picked a class, and played the exact same number of sessions.
There is no 'extra effort' being made by one player, to result in 'extra credit'.
What it amounts to, is one player gets to be better 'because I said so'.

Would you allow the player of a martial PC to simply declare "Before the game started, I spent ten years in a monastery, so I know every martial art, every method of meditation and self-control, and am also an expert on all my culture's religions and history. Give me every monk feat, an inherent +5 on all saves, the ability to feign death, hibernate, go without food and water, and heal at four times normal rate. And ten ranks in every Knowledge skill."?

No, you'd tell him not to be so silly, you'd tell him everyone has to start from a level playing field, and those are all things he needs to earn during play.


I can see the argument for "casters should be superheroes because that's how I see fantasy".

That does sort of beg the question:
Then why not cut short non-caster levels?

The way I see it if "magic is more powerful" shouldn't that translate into magic having more levels? It kind of makes sense that if there's a limit to mundane power that you would force anyone who wanted to rise above it to start taking levels in magic.

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