Imo Fighters cannot take advantage of their Armor Training because of the point buy system, at most a fighter is gonna have either a 14 or a 15 DEX to start with (unless he is making a DEX build) and because he has to focus on STR for DPR, which is his job, he can never really capitalize on his class ability which is actually really good.
Weapon Training is what it is, but it's not that great of an ability. Most fighters will stick with the same weapon that they picked for weapon focus and thus that focus group will be what they pick first and for the most part weapon training will never be brought up again.
That makes two class abilities that are borderline useless due to the system.
Bravery boosts the fighter's worst save against fear effects. Fear effects, and not just a boost to all Will saves is another really weak class feature imo.
The bonus feats and ability to retrain them is really the only class feature that can be used often by the fighter, and it makes them truly versatile when it comes to build options. But all of the other stuff falls short on utility which is what makes the fighter a weak class imo.
The problem isn't so much with the class but with the game system as a whole specifically when it comes to how to incorporate armor training and weapon training.
3.5 had the option of having different stat boosting items in different slots, so your fighter could have a belt of CON, gloves of STR, and bracers of DEX, all for the same price, now, wanting to raise multiple stats costs less than it does in pathfinder.
Mithral full plate has a max dex bonus of +3 and an armor check penalty of -3
A for a max level fighter mithral full plate has a max dex bonus of +7 and an armor check penalty of 0
A fighter with 14 dex should have a belt of physical perfection by then leading to a dex of 20 for a +5 bonus. So she is only "wasting" +2 max dex mod. (and with enough wishes she is wasting 0)
Now consider the fact that you have no guarantee of...
Or you can just be a boss and be a Paladin with a 1 level dip into Lunar Oracle to add Cha to your AC before Smiting (now THAT becomes a rediculously SAD class) xD.
Or you can just be a boss and be a Paladin with a 1 level dip into Lunar Oracle to add Cha to your AC before Smiting (now THAT becomes a rediculously SAD class) xD.You replace dex for cha but otherwise are restricted to max dex bonus. And if we are talking about dips fighters also benefits from dips.
1) that actually makes it better because when the Paladin Smites, they are getting double Cha to AC now...
2) yes a fighter could benefit from a 1 level dip, but they don't benefit to the extreme extent that Paladin's get with a SINGLE LEVEL DIP. With a 1 level dip into Lunar Oracle, the Paladin now effectively uses Cha for almost EVERYTHING. This power buff exponentially powers up the already powerful paladin and allows him to have even more rediculous stats because now Dex becomes a dump stat for pallys (oh and the Lunar Oracle revelation also allows the Paladin to replace Dex with Cha for Reflex saves which is the paladin's weakest save, making them EVEN BETTER when it comes to saves)
The bonus feats and ability to retrain them is really the only class feature that can be used often by the fighter, and it makes them truly versatile when it comes to build options. But all of the other stuff falls short on utility which is what makes the fighter a weak class imo.
(Emphasis mine)
Let's not jump the gun here. The fighter's bonus feats and retraining does not work except in all but the most limited scenario. The reason is because you cannot retrain any feats that are used as prerequisites for other feats, and only retrain one feat every 4 levels.
That drastically limits the retraining that you can do, and makes it worthless in most cases. It sounds good on paper. It doesn't work out that way in practice.
It is true, lunar oracle are certainly great dips. But what I am saying is taht with a full plate the max (non smite) cha bonus to AC is 1.Or you can just be a boss and be a Paladin with a 1 level dip into Lunar Oracle to add Cha to your AC before Smiting (now THAT becomes a rediculously SAD class) xD.You replace dex for cha but otherwise are restricted to max dex bonus. And if we are talking about dips fighters also benefits from dips.1) that actually makes it better because when the Paladin Smites, they are getting double Cha to AC now...
2) yes a fighter could benefit from a 1 level dip, but they don't benefit to the extreme extent that Paladin's get with a SINGLE LEVEL DIP. With a 1 level dip into Lunar Oracle, the Paladin now effectively uses Cha for almost EVERYTHING. This power buff exponentially powers up the already powerful paladin and allows him to have even more rediculous stats because now Dex becomes a dump stat for pallys (oh and the Lunar Oracle revelation also allows the Paladin to replace Dex with Cha for Reflex saves which is the paladin's weakest save, making them EVEN BETTER when it comes to saves)
Mithril... and Celestial...
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The bonus feats and ability to retrain them is really the only class feature that can be used often by the fighter, and it makes them truly versatile when it comes to build options. But all of the other stuff falls short on utility which is what makes the fighter a weak class imo.(Emphasis mine)
Let's not jump the gun here. The fighter's bonus feats and retraining does not work except in all but the most limited scenario. The reason is because you cannot retrain any feats that are used as prerequisites for other feats, and only retrain one feat every 4 levels.
That drastically limits the retraining that you can do, and makes it worthless in most cases. It sounds good on paper. It doesn't work out that way in practice.
Actually, going into this further, this illustrates one of the worst problems that all martials face in Pathfinder (but by proxy, the fighter suffers from it the worst) and that is feat trees.
A sorcerer or bard can trade their spells out for other ones, but those spells don't have prerequisites, so you don't have to trade out all your low level spells to retrain a high level spell.
Imagine if the sorcerer had to take burning hands, then flaming sphere to learn fireball at 3rd level, and then if the sorcerer wanted to trade burning hands for enlarge person, he had to unlearn fireball, flaming sphere, and then burning hands, and he could only do this at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th.
That's the fighter. Except at least the sorcerer's spells scale, or grant additional uses of them as he gains levels. The fighter has no such benefit in most cases, and then neither do any of the martials. The difference is the other martials have enough class features that DO matter that it doesn't matter so much for them.
Don't even get me started on the fact that 1 feat = +1 spell known for a sorcerer. They're just that good. If we reverse engineered this, most spellcasters get more "bonus feats" than a fighter ever will, and their feats (spells) are better to boot.
Really interesting stuff
Gives me an idea about toning down casters by making them take "Spell Chains."
If you want an example of "spell trees" your best bet would be to look at the Shadowcaster from Tome of Magic. That class was designed in such a way that in order to learn more advanced spells, the caster would have to learn basic priniciples from lower level spells to learn mroe advanced spells.
Really interesting stuffGives me an idea about toning down casters by making them take "Spell Chains."
Honestly, I'd be really hesitant to play in a game where casters were forced to have the problems that martials have. It's like breaking everyone else's legs so that the handicapped player feels better about hanging out with them.
I'd rather repair the handicapped guy's legs, and it's a lot easier to add material than it is to rebuild entirely new material. If you tried to shunt every spell effect into a sort of tree, you'd be forced to re-categorize tons of spells, and some don't even have categories.
Instead, I'd like to see a lot of the feats remade to be more versatile and with fewer feat chains. Feats like Bloody Assault, Dazing Assault, or Stunning Assault are great because they scale with your level (even better they scale with your BAB, which makes them ideal for martial types, whereas 3/4 and 1/2 classes get less oomph out of them).
BAB prerequisites I approve of. Likewise, having something that you are improving or adding to with the feat (such as a class feature) makes sense for that prerequisite. But there are tons of feats that do entirely different things, and their prerequisites need to die in a fire.
If feats actually scaled, and had prerequisites that were based more on your capability as a character rather than a trail of feats that came before it, then fighter-types would be much nicer. You wouldn't even need to match spellcasters feat vs spell because even if you only have 10 feats from your class, if all of those feats allow you to do something different and scale with your level, you'd be doing well.
It wouldn't even require you to get rid of spec-feats (the stuff like Mobility that gives a modifier in certain conditions or improves something slightly), just shave their prerequisites off so that you can build the character you want. Feat trees are never guarding something that is overwhelmingly powerful, and we've seen with the Ranger that a cool class feature can be achieving feats earlier without prerequisites.
If you shaved all the prerequisites off the combat feats and added BAB requirements, and allowed fighters to treat their BAB from fighter levels as being 50% higher for the purposes of selecting combat feats, that alone would allow them way more versatility, and give them a real edge. It wouldn't just be that they can take more feats, it would be that they can take them sooner.
4th level Fighter can take BAB +6 feats (so you could get early access to feats like Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Wind Stance, and Lunge. At 6th level, you're effectively +9 BAB, so you've got access to Improved Critical and Critical Focus, at 8th level your at +12 BAB, which means feats like Dazing Assault or Bashing Finish, etc.
If you want an example of "spell trees" your best bet would be to look at the Shadowcaster from Tome of Magic. That class was designed in such a way that in order to learn more advanced spells, the caster would have to learn basic priniciples from lower level spells to learn mroe advanced spells.
Shadow casters were pretty good honestly, but they really needed to get bonus spells. One of their biggest drawbacks was between the lack of bonus spells from their ability scores combined with their limited breadth of options, it resulted in them being pretty weak overall. Totally full of flavor and the basic ideas of the mechanics were really nice IMHO.
If I was going to work on a system for moving up in advanced magic like that, I'd probably require X spells of a particular school or something to attain the higher masteries of a given field. Though you pretty much have to axe wizards as they are since their shtick is "I could have all spells".
But as a general rule, I'm all for spontaneous-type casters with more spells. A funny thing about spontaneous casting is how valuable it is tends to be multiplied by how many spells you have to choose from when casting. A sorcerer with 2 spells known is kinda "meh". A sorcerer with 4 is kinda "awesome".
Did I say I'm a huge fan of Kirthfinder? I am.
Scaling feats is something I greatly desire.
I like your suggestion on Fighters there at the end.
What about fighters being able to trade out feats and not needed the prerequisite feat once they already have a feat? They could take the prereq, take the feat they want, then trade the prereq for something more useful.
Fixing the fighter class can never solve fighter problems.
Things like scaling feats would do the trick.
But as SKR has pointed out, if it is not too broken or only breaks at high levels they won't fix it.
Not that the fighter really has problems if built right, he is still more than enough for CR and CR 3+ encounters. He just has trouble comparing to classes that have their weaknesses glossed over.
If you want an example of "spell trees" your best bet would be to look at the Shadowcaster from Tome of Magic. That class was designed in such a way that in order to learn more advanced spells, the caster would have to learn basic priniciples from lower level spells to learn mroe advanced spells.Shadow casters were pretty good honestly, but they really needed to get bonus spells. One of their biggest drawbacks was between the lack of bonus spells from their ability scores combined with their limited breadth of options, it resulted in them being pretty weak overall. Totally full of flavor and the basic ideas of the mechanics were really nice IMHO.
If I was going to work on a system for moving up in advanced magic like that, I'd probably require X spells of a particular school or something to attain the higher masteries of a given field. Though you pretty much have to axe wizards as they are since their shtick is "I could have all spells".
But as a general rule, I'm all for spontaneous-type casters with more spells. A funny thing about spontaneous casting is how valuable it is tends to be multiplied by how many spells you have to choose from when casting. A sorcerer with 2 spells known is kinda "meh". A sorcerer with 4 is kinda "awesome".
That is true. One thing I did like though was the way Shadowcasters casted. I really fealt like you got mroe used to spells and actually grew in knowledge.
For those who don't know, shadowcasters casted as so:
Highest Spell Level: Casted 1/day as a Spell
2nd Highest Level: 3/day As a SLA
anything lower: At Will as a Su ability.
Or some such similiar. It essentially creates the feel that you have become more comfortable with your basic spells and can use them more with experiance.
Fixing the fighter class can never solve fighter problems.
Things like scaling feats would do the trick.
But as SKR has pointed out, if it is not too broken or only breaks at high levels they won't fix it.
Not that the fighter really has problems if built right, he is still more than enough for CR and CR 3+ encounters. He just has trouble comparing to classes that have their weaknesses glossed over.
Lets see...
Paladin Weakness: Roleplaying, clearly superior mechanically. Outside of Good Campaigns(The majority of campaigns) slightly less superior but superior nonetheless due to his amazing defenses and bringing party resources.
Ranger Weakness: Specialized against certain enemies, mechanically better, needs one round to become fully functioning against enemies he's not specialized in.
Barbarian Weakness: Doesn't mesh well with mid-fight buffs, superior mechanically, Tougher, has more utility than Fighters. Switch Hitting works well enough. Arguably even better at high levels since Furious is a stupid good enchantment.
Of Course, the Fighter is "good enough." He's not interesting or "Wow!" material, but hes good enough to handle the frontliner position.
Edit: And all these dudes are more interesting out of combat too to rub salt in the wound.
Making feats better would go a long way for Fighters. That and considering the most popular archetypes get rid of stupid Bravery, more of those Archetypes.
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But as SKR has pointed out, if it is not too broken or only breaks at high levels they won't fix it.
That should read more like: "But as SKR has pointed out, if it is not too broken or only breaks at any levels they won't fix it".
Since I think you're referencing the crafting thread where SKR responded with a snarky comment, then posters said that wasn't nice, then told players that it was realistic, then posters said that it's not realistic, said that broke down only at high levels, then players said it's broken from first level onward, then he blamed it all on 3.x.
It was...amusing. It reminded me of the Ultimate Combat playtest where some of us were very concerned at the influx of new spells that were going to be available to spellcasters that would make them better in combat and doing martial-things, and he argued that if his cleric wants to cast a spell and wade into combat, he should be able to because it's not fair for fighters and paladins to have all the fun.
I asked him could we expect feats that allowed martials to summon celestial superbeings, raise the dead, and teleport around. He just got mad and left the thread.
But as SKR has pointed out, if it is not too broken or only breaks at high levels they won't fix it.
That should read more like: "But as SKR has pointed out, if it is not too broken or only breaks at any levels they won't fix it".
Since I think you're referencing the crafting thread where SKR responded with a snarky comment, then posters said that wasn't nice, then told players that it was realistic, then posters said that it's not realistic, said that broke down only at high levels, then players said it's broken from first level onward, then he blamed it all on 3.x.
It was...amusing. It reminded me of the Ultimate Combat playtest where some of us were very concerned at the influx of new spells that were going to be available to spellcasters that would make them better in combat and doing martial-things, and he argued that if his cleric wants to cast a spell and wade into combat, he should be able to because it's not fair for fighters and paladins to have all the fun.
I asked him could we expect feats that allowed martials to summon celestial superbeings, raise the dead, and teleport around. He just got mad and left the thread.
Win... xD
But as SKR has pointed out, if it is not too broken or only breaks at high levels they won't fix it.
That should read more like: "But as SKR has pointed out, if it is not too broken or only breaks at any levels they won't fix it".
Since I think you're referencing the crafting thread where SKR responded with a snarky comment, then posters said that wasn't nice, then told players that it was realistic, then posters said that it's not realistic, said that broke down only at high levels, then players said it's broken from first level onward, then he blamed it all on 3.x.
It was...amusing. It reminded me of the Ultimate Combat playtest where some of us were very concerned at the influx of new spells that were going to be available to spellcasters that would make them better in combat and doing martial-things, and he argued that if his cleric wants to cast a spell and wade into combat, he should be able to because it's not fair for fighters and paladins to have all the fun.
I asked him could we expect feats that allowed martials to summon celestial superbeings, raise the dead, and teleport around. He just got mad and left the thread.
Can I get a link to this? That sounds like a hilarious read.
That is true. One thing I did like though was the way Shadowcasters casted. I really fealt like you got mroe used to spells and actually grew in knowledge.
For those who don't know, shadowcasters casted as so:
Highest Spell Level: Casted 1/day as a Spell
2nd Highest Level: 3/day As a SLA
anything lower: At Will as a Su ability.Or some such similiar. It essentially creates the feel that you have become more comfortable with your basic spells and can use them more with experiance.
One interesting thing some friends and I experimented with when dealing with shadowcasters was to use the obscenely broken recharge magic with them as a means of casting their mysteries. It worked pretty well, and gave them a surprisingly fun mechanic.
I wouldn't recommend recharge magic for any core caster in a million years though. >_>
Can I get a link to this? That sounds like a hilarious read.But as SKR has pointed out, if it is not too broken or only breaks at high levels they won't fix it.
That should read more like: "But as SKR has pointed out, if it is not too broken or only breaks at any levels they won't fix it".
Since I think you're referencing the crafting thread where SKR responded with a snarky comment, then posters said that wasn't nice, then told players that it was realistic, then posters said that it's not realistic, said that broke down only at high levels, then players said it's broken from first level onward, then he blamed it all on 3.x.
It was...amusing. It reminded me of the Ultimate Combat playtest where some of us were very concerned at the influx of new spells that were going to be available to spellcasters that would make them better in combat and doing martial-things, and he argued that if his cleric wants to cast a spell and wade into combat, he should be able to because it's not fair for fighters and paladins to have all the fun.
I asked him could we expect feats that allowed martials to summon celestial superbeings, raise the dead, and teleport around. He just got mad and left the thread.
Sure, let me fix my dad's lunch (he works nights) and get him up for work, and I'll try to dig through the Paizo search to see if it's still around.
That is true. One thing I did like though was the way Shadowcasters casted. I really fealt like you got mroe used to spells and actually grew in knowledge.
For those who don't know, shadowcasters casted as so:
Highest Spell Level: Casted 1/day as a Spell
2nd Highest Level: 3/day As a SLA
anything lower: At Will as a Su ability.Or some such similiar. It essentially creates the feel that you have become more comfortable with your basic spells and can use them more with experiance.
One interesting thing some friends and I experimented with when dealing with shadowcasters was to use the obscenely broken recharge magic with them as a means of casting their mysteries. It worked pretty well, and gave them a surprisingly fun mechanic.
I wouldn't recommend recharge magic for any core caster in a million years though. >_>
That actually sounds like fun actually lol
If you want an example of "spell trees" your best bet would be to look at the Shadowcaster from Tome of Magic. That class was designed in such a way that in order to learn more advanced spells, the caster would have to learn basic priniciples from lower level spells to learn mroe advanced spells.
If I had to pick on someone for an example of spell trees I'd pick on ToB actually. Both would require a revamp of the system though. I mean could you imagine a caster balanced for all day casting without limits but still with plenty of options fighting next to martials with a similar design?
I remember the crafting thread. For the game to match real life on one set of armor, the crafter would have to roll a result of 834. I wasn't buying the realism argument.
One problem with scalable feats: How would you prevent wizards and similar spellcasters from taking them and ending up with even more power?
One problem with scalable feats: How would you prevent wizards and similar spellcasters from taking them and ending up with even more power?
If combat feats scale with BAB, that sort of answers the question. And you can selectively scale feats by BAB +1/+4/+8/etc. (like Power Attack already is in PF) if you want rogues and clerics to be able to get some mileage out of it, and scale other feats by BAB +1/+6/+11/+16 if you want only pure martials to get the most bang for their buck.
Metamagic feats already scale, because as you get able to cast higher-level spells, you're also increasing the level of spells you can metamagic. So you don't need to make them scale again.
Lets see...
Paladin Weakness: Roleplaying, clearly superior mechanically. Outside of Good Campaigns(The majority of campaigns) slightly less superior but superior nonetheless due to his amazing defenses and bringing party resources.
Ranger Weakness: Specialized against certain enemies, mechanically better, needs one round to become fully functioning against enemies he's not specialized in.
Barbarian Weakness: Doesn't mesh well with mid-fight buffs, superior mechanically, Tougher, has more utility than Fighters. Switch Hitting works well enough. Arguably even better at high levels since Furious is a stupid good enchantment.
Of Course, the Fighter is "good enough." He's not interesting or "Wow!" material, but hes good enough to handle the frontliner position.
Edit: And all these dudes are more interesting out of combat too to rub salt in the wound.
Making feats better would go a long way for Fighters. That and considering the most popular archetypes get rid of stupid Bravery, more of those Archetypes.
Paladins: agreed, but you underplay the code limitations. With any GM who isn't a push-over the paladins class features are crippling
Rangers: Instant enemy is not the solution to the favored enemy/terrain problem.
Barbars: Agreed. They can't really switch hit as well as fighters, but they do passably well.
None of these are more interesting out of combat to me. And since interesting is a subjective value you can't claim one is objectively more interesting than the other.
I was not there, but I find your post to be completely belieavable.But as SKR has pointed out, if it is not too broken or only breaks at high levels they won't fix it.
That should read more like: "But as SKR has pointed out, if it is not too broken or only breaks at any levels they won't fix it".
Since I think you're referencing the crafting thread where SKR responded with a snarky comment, then posters said that wasn't nice, then told players that it was realistic, then posters said that it's not realistic, said that broke down only at high levels, then players said it's broken from first level onward, then he blamed it all on 3.x.
It was...amusing. It reminded me of the Ultimate Combat playtest where some of us were very concerned at the influx of new spells that were going to be available to spellcasters that would make them better in combat and doing martial-things, and he argued that if his cleric wants to cast a spell and wade into combat, he should be able to because it's not fair for fighters and paladins to have all the fun.
I asked him could we expect feats that allowed martials to summon celestial superbeings, raise the dead, and teleport around. He just got mad and left the thread.
I've seen that SKR's posts can cause a lot of controversy. Is there a story behind that or what?
Actually I wouldn't mind those feats in a limited capacity and different flavor. I don't mind a fighter with high charisma invoking martial prowess from an outsider impressed with his capacity for combat, a huge heal check reviving recently fallen allies, or using his massive leg strength to move in a way that looks like he vanished. If the means to make martials match up to magic is to give them charles atlas powers then sure.
Is there a story behind that or what?
Not one that's particularly safe to share I'm sure. Talking about other human beings tends to be.
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Okay, it looks like my favorite post in the thread (the one where I made the celestial superbeings comment). Some posts that really stuck out to me are ProfCirno pointing out our concern.
Sean condemns others like Tels for being sarcastic, but he's the most sarcastic staff member I know.
A younger me who wasn't yet used to Sean.
A nicer Ashiel than the cynical Paizonian you know today, before the boards took their claim.
The biggest thing was:
Because he has a cleric BAB instead of a fighter BAB. Because he has medium armor instead of heavy armor. Because he has to spend ability score boosts (a limited resource) and magic items (a limited resource) to increase his Wisdom (in order to keep up with his spells) as well as his Strength (to deal reasonable damage in combat). He is not as good as a fighter or barbarian at dealing damage. He's never going to be. He shouldn't be. But if I want to spend his spells on bull's strength or whatever to not make his damage quite so pathetic compared to the fighter or barbarian, I should be able to do that because it is my character and my choice on how to spend those limited resources.
My humorous response and Sean's reaction seem to have been scrubbed before the thread was locked (because sarcasm is bad when Sean isn't using it, y'know); but this is the thread that I posted it in. Took a bit to find it though.
I read somewhere higher up about spell trees.
Personally when I pick a spellcaster I pick a gimmick and stick with it no matter how nerfed it makes me, but I have wondered in the back of my head, why spells don't come in trees like feats. At least in the case of the Wizard wouldn't you learn how to Burning Hands before you learn Fireball? It just seems natural that learning a basic spell leads to more advanced versions of the same spell. I guess that's what schools are for but spells in the same school aren't THAT related most of the time. I know its not something that will change and its more of a legacy issue, I'm just saying that it seems weird. With feat trees and prerequisites and rarely scaling its like feats were meant to suck.
Why would those be printed? They aren't particularly good spells or anything but that just blurs the lines.
Hey, bestow grace of the champion is pretty good on an oracle. Or for a bard or summoner with UMD.
Why would those be printed? They aren't particularly good spells or anything but that just blurs the lines.Hey, bestow grace of the champion is pretty good on an oracle. Or for a bard or summoner with UMD.
Well that's just worse.
Is there any good way in PFRPG to extend the duration of spells, that would allow min/level or round/level spells to be up for all-day or part-day durations?
Not much need in most cases. 17 minutes baseline is 170 rounds. Unless you absolutely must cast this spell in literally every combat through the day, you should be covered. Heck, you might even be able to then if you really wanted to.
As a friend of mine pointed out on skype:
Especially since that's a raw +6 natural armor, not an ehancement bonus to natural armor. It's a net +5 to AC for most clerics.
[5:35:27 PM]: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/frightful-aspect
[5:35:38 PM]: And NO SAVE against that fear effect.
[5:36:06 PM]: Also doesn't have the dex penalty most size increasing spells come with. Just... wow. That's incredible.
[5:38:50 PM]: That plus Divine Power pumps your offense into the stratosphere, beyond what a fighter can output. They're looking at a net +24 to-hit and +4 to damage from class features, and +4/+4 of that is with a specific weapon group. A cleric can cast two spells and be at a net +24/+9(+11 two handed), with a reach increase, 60 extra hp per hit die, +5 AC, and that crazy fear aura.
Bestow grace of the champion is kind of like hijacking someone's whole class and giving it away as a single spell, and also giving it away to yourself is A-OK. :P
Also, despite what Sean seems to think, battle clerics do not need to split their stat buffs between Wisdom and Strength very strongly. In fact, you can cast 9th level spells with a 13 base and a +6 enhancement bonus, not counting your inherent modifiers.
Clerics who emphasize animation, buffs, summoning, and healing, do not need very high wisdom scores. You do not get many bonus spells out of it, so really the biggest reason to pump it up high is save DCs, but a warpriest isn't going to need save DCs that much. Concentration check bonus is nice though, I'll admit.
Seriously, half my clerics don't even have much Wisdom and they rock faces. >_>
When we see that the cleric - already a very powerful class! - may be getting even more tools to be fighter-esque, we look at 3.x and think about how much we don't want to go down that road again.We don't want to go down that road either.
Well, I'm really glad they didn't want to give the cleric more tools to be fighter-esque...
How did that end I wonder.
Oh
Yeah
I
Remember
Now...
I see what you did there.
To my knowledge fighter get improved the archery path. With the clustered shot, poitn blank master and snap shot they can be really good melee combatants, something that was unavaliable for the core fighter.
They also have now a way to make mount build without multiclassing.
And think that pretty much is
Yeah, there is that. I think fighters still rank among the better classes at archery, although perhaps not the best.
EDIT: Hang on, I remembered another fighter boss, a big heavy armor melee type that we fought in the first fight of our most recent chapter. Like the later caster bosses, he was a couple levels lower than us, but unlike them, the party sorcerer killed him in one turn.
With an artifact shield that summoned 7 shadows to attack his terrible touch AC and inflict something like 25 points of strength damage in a single turn.
Lets not forget the details. ;)
EDIT: Hang on, I remembered another fighter boss, a big heavy armor melee type that we fought in the first fight of our most recent chapter. Like the later caster bosses, he was a couple levels lower than us, but unlike them, the party sorcerer killed him in one turn.With an artifact shield that summoned 7 shadows to attack his terrible touch AC and inflict something like 25 points of strength damage in a single turn.
Lets not forget the details. ;)
Yup. One of the probably several reasons why fighters make worse bosses than PCs is because they will only typically particularly good at one or two aspects of defense, and a party is probably going to have more avenues of attack than that. It's like a PC fighter except that instead of only some monsters having the means to attack your various Achilles' heels, every party probably will.
Being a boss enemy probably puts an even higher premium on broad defenses and resiliency than being a PC does.
Being a boss enemy probably puts an even higher premium on broad defenses and resiliency than being a PC does.
In my experience Pathfinder doesn't do one man bosses too well anyway. You don't fight juggernauts who lay waste to armies, you fight guys a few level above you. That said, mirror images, concealment, and various forms of magical buffs do go a long way that feats can't.
Yup. One of the probably several reasons why fighters make worse bosses than PCs is because they will only typically particularly good at one or two aspects of defense, and a party is probably going to have more avenues of attack than that. It's like a PC fighter except that instead of only some monsters having the means to attack your various Achilles' heels, every party probably will.
Being a boss enemy probably puts an even higher premium on broad defenses and resiliency than being a PC does.
To an extent, but I would observe that on the whole that encounter was way out along the outlier side of the spectrum in a bunch of ways. That character's primary defense against martial characters was the band of followers using In Harms Way. He was almost custom built to be a target for said sorcerer, who's character had history with him. Said sorcerer used the most powerful ability on a greater artifact that is specifically good at targeting that specific kind of defense for the first time in the campaign during that encounter.
I've no doubt that his bad touch AC and likely weak saves would have been the death of him either way, but illustrating it as a 1 round K/O as an example of putting forth how martial characters don't function well in that circumstance sort of rubs me as misleading. There was a lot going on there beyond 'caster says die'.