Helping Martial cope


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


Ok, I'm going to open the same can of explosive worms that has been opened many times, and I'm sure people are going to get heated, but I'm curious, so I want to ask...

What abilities to wizards/clerics/spellcasters have that pure martial characters just can't compete with? What can they do that martial characters are left behind? What makes martial characters feel "impotent" around magic users?

I'm not trying to troll, or start a flame war (though I'm sure that will happen anyway) but more to get a perspective. In any game I've played a spellcaster, I've never upstaged the rest of the party, or made the GM throw his hands up in frustration, and I've always felt the Martial characters have had something to contribute to pretty much every situation

Dark Archive

None, really; Martials kill things well, lots of hp damage.

The issue is as levels get higher, hp damage becomes a less and less efficient way of killing things. See, hp damage is a subset of "stop the opponent", which can often be one-shorted out; or sometimes opponents can be made much less relevant without so much as a save. This is especially true if you are melee without pounce.

So as you get higher "swing the sword" (or the far more effective higher "shoot the bow") as your only option becomes less available. Mage options keep growing and become more fantastical.

The summoner (and especially synthesist) are the biggest slaps in the face to Martials. At any level past 3, they can be designed to outdo the Martials, before buffs, and then get a powerful caster as well.

Until fighting types get access to more options, they'll always be in the high-level shadows of magic types. Luckily most play occurs pre-level 10, where melees do as good as and potentially better job than magic-types.

Even AM Barbarian needs a Synthasist as a mount to stand a high-level chance. And let's be honest, AM Synthasist riding another Synthasist would be even more powerful :).


A 5th level wizard has better than a 50% chance of getting a save or fail will spell off on a 10th level fighter before being killed, while a 5th level fighter has no capacity to kill a 10th level wizard.

In the old days, fighters could get a sword of flying or invisibility by 5th level. They muliplied the cost of those items by like 10, but created rods for 3000 gold that let a wizard cast spells without making noise.


Thalin wrote:

None, really; Martials kill things well, lots of hp damage.

The issue is as levels get higher, hp damage becomes a less and less efficient way of killing things. See, hp damage is a subset of "stop the opponent", which can often be one-shorted out; or sometimes opponents can be made much less relevant without so much as a save. This is especially true if you are melee without pounce.

So as you get higher "swing the sword" (or the far more effective higher "shoot the bow") as your only option becomes less available. Mage options keep growing and become more fantastical.

The summoner (and especially synthesist) are the biggest slaps in the face to Martials. At any level past 3, they can be designed to outdo the Martials, before buffs, and then get a powerful caster as well.

Until fighting types get access to more options, they'll always be in the high-level shadows of magic types. Luckily most play occurs pre-level 10, where melees do as good as and potentially better job than magic-types.

Even AM Barbarian needs a Synthasist as a mount to stand a high-level chance. And let's be honest, AM Synthasist riding another Synthasist would be even more powerful :).

Ok, what would you suggest we add to Martial characters that would allow them to keep up? ability damage attacks?

Liberty's Edge

Let all characters full attack as a standard action.

Beyond that it isn't what you can give to martial characters but what you have to take away from spell casters.

Dark Archive

It's difficult to give options without making it, well, magic. More mobility would help; I think the 3.5 holdover of single-attack standard actions probably needs to go. Maybe attacks that can force saves or gain nasty effects; Dirty fighting does this somewhat, but more. Or an inquisitor-like ability to switch out 1 or 2 feats on the fly for more options (I need to remember blindfighting so I can attack Mage without relying on a different mage).

The bottom line is not a lot can be done without changing dynamics. The best approach is to stick with PFS-style gameplay and eliminate the highest levels; EL-6, EL-7 and EL-8 are "sweet spot" styles of play that lock the game down at its most balanced, most fun point.

Meanwhile I just prefer to play melees with more options (archer clerics, Summoners, maguses). I love fighting instead of "cast and force saves". My one dedicated melee even splashed into Inquisitor so he can swift-action enlarge and Whirlwind trip a 30-foot radius; something he could never do as a straight fighting type.

And maybe it's for the best; do you really want doing the same basic attack each round to EVEr be the right answer, as it is for most melees/archers? Kinda boring gameplay IMHO.


ShadowcatX wrote:

Let all characters full attack as a standard action.

Beyond that it isn't what you can give to martial characters but what you have to take away from spell casters.

That isnt true. It's the price of magic items that produce spell effects that really screw over fighters. It isn't fair that it costs 50,000 for a fighter to fly but a wizard can cast three spells everyday without making noise for 3000. If there was a sword of flight and invisibility for 10,000 that only characters with a full bab could gain control over, but meta magic rods - lesser costed 20,000, we wouldn't ever be hearing about fighters being under powered.


I've done the following and with a 17th level party I'm having no balance issues (ranger, paladin, sorceror, cleric in the party).

-The entire vital strike tree is available to everyone for free (monsters as well as PCs). You simply qualify for it when your BAB is high enough.
-TWF's may as a standard action do a dual vital strike in which they make attacks with both weapons, but apply additional damage dice to only one weapon (but either weapon if it hits).
-Disallow Metamagic Rods. Replace them with specific magic items which can be applied to a specific spell (or group of spells). For example, bracers of lightning which allow you to automatically empower or quicken a certain number of lightning spells per day (probably created by a cleric of the god of weather or storms or some such). The important thing here is to disallow the complete freebies of applying quicken to whatever you want at no cost.

Your mileage may vary, but it's worked well for me and my group.


In my mind, it would take martials becoming what is basically a half-outsider/half-divine/half-human type being to cope. They are so physically advanced that their physiology itself becomes resistant to magical effects and let's them do things that are almost god like (think the first hulk movie where the long-jump takes you about a mile each time).

Currently, a smart mouth level 15 wizard can talk smack to a 20th level barbarian and just use overland flight to get away and basically be impervious. But, if the barb had utterly ridiculousness in their very muscles he could be like 'get back here, b!%~*' and just jump up and snatch the dude from the air. Things like that would even the playing field a bit between martials and casters.

I also think you should be auto-granted certain abilities based on a certain BAB without requiring you to spend feats. For example, for a martial grant a cleave-like ability just because you have a BAB of +12, or treat a weapon as magical for bypassing DR at BAB +16and bypass all DR with a BAB of +18 regardless of weapon, or treat any weapon you wield as if it had the keen condition but don't let the keen effects stack if they weapon actually has keen with a BAB of +20. Those are just some off the cuff thoughts.

Also, yes, let martials do more than a single attack as a standard action. Perhaps don't let them take all their attacks but more than 1. That's just cheap. Just give them extra ability. Keep them grounded to the material plane, sure, but let them sort of 'bend the rules' ala The Matrix minus flying, which was always a tad cheesy to me.


Casters can basically outshine martials at everything. But I'm ok with them being better overall, as long as martials actually had some areas they were best at. But they don't.

I've been toying with the idea of ripping away the all day / long duration buff spells from casters and giving them to martials as battle auras, luck, stances, etc... If they're supposed to be the ones that are good at fighting all day why do the CASTERS get crap like wildshaping, overland flight, mind blank (well...the 3E version), healing, etc...? Give all that stuff to the non-casters as Su abilities so for once in d20 they actually ARE the kings of "fighting all day."

But...people don't want super saiyan warriors, so we'll never see that.


Alot of the so-called disparity exists on the boards and not in actual play.

In actual play monsters actually have to make those saves. Wizards (or whoever) actually have to have that special spell prepared and it has to work or they've basically twiddles their fingers and spouted gibberish as their action that round.

The melee guy always has his sword, and he's alwayas able to swing it. He swings it now, he swings it next round, he never has to worry about not having his sword (except for some gimmick cases, of course).

I've never really had a big issue with caster/melee disparity. Both sides hold their own in actual, in-game situations where you aren't able to just say "well I use X verses that and Y verses that and I'm a wizard so you can't tell me I can't" like they can here on the boards.

You asked for advice so, here it is:

Keep the number of encuonters per day as something the PC's can't predict. Change it up. Keep changing it up.

Never use the BBEG as the first encounter after they've had a chance to rest up. Never. (or if you must, beef him up when you design him to take into account that they are all going to go nova, no holds barred to nail him to the wall)

Make the monsters be as intelligent as they are supposed to be.
Even wolves, int 2, use tactics in combat. Anything smarter than that, can use tactics too.

Use multiple critters. One sole critter is going to get roflestomped due to the economy of actions, as well as to failing saves. Multiple baddies force the casters to use their one-shot spells on some critters leaving the others free to roam.

And lastly:

Make sure your casters and melee are all optimizing to the same level.
Whether this means taking multiple Skill Focus to shore up weaknesses or min/maxing to the extreme to squeak every bit of power out- get everyone on the same page. That alone can create a disparity where there otherwise wouldn't be one.

-S


Ask why your setting isn't ruled by flying wizards aerial bombardment to destroy cities, sorcerors mind controlling every mundane leader from behind the throne, scry-n-blackmail, and/or teleport tag assassination-fests. Nerf magic until you have answers. Now Martials can cope.

Maybe you have to gut the enchantment school, remove scry, fly, and teleport. Probably less extreme measures will work if you're creative, but the solution has to be nerfing casters.

If you do want to allow high magic you still need to work out a way to stop teleport assassination for your world to make sense, and ban all martial classes the same way you'd nix someone wanting to play a commoner in a normal game.


Selgard wrote:

(lots of good stuff)

Pretty much this. A lot of the disparity comes from two-men-enter-one-man-leaves scenarios from online, which isn't what actual play is like. Much of it also comes 15 minute resting days.

To answer your question martials don't have any utility to them. So they lack the spells that are really useful like teleport or scry. Also they can't get through magical defenses easily, so if a wizard casts wall of force then the martial is in a lot of trouble. AM BARBARIAN was able to get through caster defenses such as that which is what really made him good.


One problem is that a lot of the monsters and enemies from the book use poor or even bad feat and spell selection. I gave a group of koblods a few levels in warrior, some ok gear, made most of their feats teamwork feats and used basic tatics and almost killed the party. I was not trying to kill the party just give them a good fight.

I find that building monsters better hurts the casters more so than melee, but that could just be my players.


Also higher point-buys tend to help martials more as they tend to be more MAD.

Dark Archive

back in the late 80s a few of the local conventions in the San Francisco/ Bay Area,California Had a Battle Royal (AD&D/1st edition rule sets). it was ran by 2way radio head set equipped Game Masters with 3-5 teams and Co-Master for each team.
I played it 2-3 times. In opened ground Spell casters rule. But get them in tight quarters. Martial classes are so much better. plus spell casters wear down quick.

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