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It's my understanding that the issue with the whole figher/wizard thing is that wizards eventually gain the ability to do amazing badass things a fighter could never hope to accomplish.
So which spells are the offenders and could someone remove most/all of them to alieviate the issue?
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That would require removing most spells. The problem isnt that there are a handful of overpowered spells (though likely there are) its in the sheer variety of things casters (or supernatural characters in general) can do vs their mundane counterparts. The only way to fix that by removing options is to bring everyone down in options considerably, much like 4E did. Magic as it exists now cant exist if you want to fix it by removing spells.
One solution to the "wizards trump fighters at high levels" would be to end your campaigns before you reach 20th level. Where exactly you draw the line would vary between different people/GMs/groups/campaigns.
Give the fighter a gun.
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Casters get to do lots of things now and again, and can do things that can (in theory) replace any other party member. Once.
Martials get to do one thing, but they do it very well and all the time.
If your wizard or cleric is dealing damage, they are wasting their spells 90% of the time. A good martial character can deal damage faster and better than a caster can. Likewise a good skills monkey can spot traps and open doors easier than a caster can. Casters in a party should be reserving their spells for what only they can do rather than worrying about doing everything.
Those problem spells are issues of caster vs campaign settings or casters vs adventure narrative. They dont cover the problem of caster vs martial character. Even removing all of those the amount of potential options casters have vs martials is overwhelming. Honestly if you want to even things out between martial characters and casters take out all spellcasting classes and replace them with variations on this class. That should just about do it, but you are talking about fundamentally changing how magic works in the game, which has a lot of potential issues.
Honestly, you would need to cut out just about every spell from 5th level on...maybe even 4th.
There are three types of broken spell:
1) Those that make skills (and thus some class features) obsolete, eg Knock, invisibility, spider climb, comp lang, tongues, fly, dim door, teleport. These are somewhat limited by the fact that a skillmonkey can do them repeatedly against the one or two a caster can manage, but that doesn't really help when scrolls are so cheap and easy to make. Secondly, some of them beat anything a skill can achieve because skills can never do anything beyond the merely mundane.
2) Those that break the game, eg fly, rope trick, self-buffs, SOS/SOD spells, SBT, reincarnate. Fly is a necessary evil because many monsters can fly, but (as Atarlost points out) it's too easy to do and too hard to DM.
Rope Trick is broken in all manner of ways. That got the banhammer from me back in 1e. I turned it into a 1st level spell that gives you a temporary Rope of Climbing.
Self-buffs are broken because the casters get to overshadow the martials but can't help the martials in the same way. Righteous Might, Divine Favor, etc. You can't put Longstrider, Sanctuary or True Seeing on the scouting rogue. Can't give True Strike or Divine Power to the fighter. Can't give the monk an Elemental Body.
SOS/SOD spells turn the game into rocket tag at high levels and (when done by the monsters) hit fighters and especially rogues really hard because they target Will and Fort saves.
SBT (Scry-buff-teleport) breaks the game when it's possible to do it. Without Teleport this is much less of a problem, though Scrying can still be tricky.
Reincarnate is just weird and throws unpredictable effects at the target PC. I replaced it with a spell where the druid grows a new body in a cocoon over the course of a month.
3) Those that break the world. IMHO, Teleport (that spell again). See Atarlost above. This ought to be an artifact-level effect. I don't see Dim Door as quite so bad; you just need a lot of lead in your strongroom walls, or traps inside it. It's high enough level that few people can cast it and it's no more powerful than several other 4th level spells. Charms aren't that powerful (read the rules) and Dominate is high level.
Quite a lot of this can be fixed:
1) Design your dungeon with the knowledge that low-level skill spells exist, so they'll often be nerfed somewhat or exhausted. Instead of 1 DC30 lock, put in 2 x DC25.
2) Ban Teleport
3) Use multiple monsters in encounters to reduce the effect of SOS/SOD spells and give them a chance to swarm the caster. Likewise if the single monster with high-DC SOD effects is replaced with more monsters that are a bit more survivable and less random, things even out again.
Likewise, put in a few encounters that are substantially below APL. And don't put in every encounter at over APL or the caster will have to nova everything in round 1 to be safe.
4) Ban Teleport
5) Consider changing many Personal spells to Creature Touched. This allows them to go into potions.
6) Ban Teleport
7) Add some truly exceptional effects that a highly skilled character succeeding against a suitable DC, or a rogue with the right talent, can achieve. So a rogue/ranger/monk/barbarian/fighter can walk up walls, conceal his alignment, make someone Frightened, hide in plain sight, pick a lock with a thrown dagger, hear what someone's thinking, smell gold or talk a barbarian out of Rage. All of those can be done by mere 1st or 2nd level spells. Still working on this one.
8) Ban Teleport
9) Make casters work for their spells. Wizards should need to research their spells and shouldn't automatically get the exact spells they want every time they level. Clerics shouldn't have the free choice of every spell in every splatbook.
10) Wandering monsters (and you thought I'd say Ban Teleport) to screw up the caster's careful plans and prevent the 15-minute day.
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Blocking teleport is actually surprisingly easy.
It's been proven countless times that you cannot weaken the caster classes without either...
A) Ruining lots of fun
B) Just plain breaking the game
C) Doing both A and B at the same time
...and that is why the main solution that a favourite series of houserules I used had was boosting the power of melee classes and feats.
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Rather than problematic as in "overpowered", I'd like to see problematic as in "anticlimactic" spells removed.
Personally, my least favourite spells (that my group and I have an unspoken agreement to avoid using most of the time) are pretty much all divination spells. I'd remove most of the entire bloody school if I could.
1) Coming up with prophetic auguries and such on the fly is annoying.
2) Most of the spells exist purely to ruin suspense or allow a group to side-step the majority of the plot to skip to the end.
3) Scry and die. 'Nuff said.
4) The school as a whole is boring. There's no flashy effects or fun combat tools. It's literally just a whole kit dedicated to avoiding the fun parts of the game, i.e. dangerous encounters.
I'd prefer to replace most divinations with divinatory magical items like crystal balls and so forth.
Teleport spells remove a lot of fun from the game in my opinion as well. If the group needs to go somewhere quickly and you don't care about the specifics (i.e. "We teleport to Absalom to sell our junk and buy some stuff"), I think it would be cooler to have a teleport gate (like the Asura gates in GW2) that allows you to do that. Meanwhile, PCs can't simply go "Well the wizard is almost out of spells, time to teleport back to town and come back to the dungeon tomorrow" - that's... so boring. You might as well not have spell slots at that point. Rope trick and other similar spells are in this same category of anticlimactic as well.
I've considered having teleport spells function like going between does in the Dragonriders of Pern book series. You're not going to the ethereal plane and then popping out somewhere--you are literally slipping between the cracks of the world to a non-place where there is no air, no light, no existence, no nothing. The distance of your teleport indicates how long you spend between -- so if you're teleporting from the North Pole to the South Pole, you better hope you have a way to deal with the lack of heat, the lack of air, etc., for an extended period of time. Even though you might appear almost instantaneously at your teleport destination, your character would spend a number of minutes, hours, days between. I think I had most sight-range teleportation spells like dimension door just giving you the chills and allowing you to hold your breath through it (like how it functions in Pern).
Excellent points and ideas, especially from Atarlost, Mudfoot, and Alice.
.....okay, this was a lame attempt to camouflage a dot....(sheepish grin)
But I do mean it.
Personally, my least favourite spells (that my group and I have an unspoken agreement to avoid using most of the time) are pretty much all divination spells. I'd remove most of the entire bloody school if I could.
My answer: "Yes, you can use divination to avoid dangerous encounters. That means no XP, and no loot, from said encounters. OH, you want to take them on and end the threat for others now? Wise choice."
Personally, my least favourite spells (that my group and I have an unspoken agreement to avoid using most of the time) are pretty much all divination spells. I'd remove most of the entire bloody school if I could.My answer: "Yes, you can use divination to avoid dangerous encounters. That means no XP, and no loot, from said encounters. OH, you want to take them on and end the threat for others now? Wise choice."
I'm not sure I 100% agree with that. If a player creates a diviner, memorizes divination spells, then uses them... they are using limited class resources to solve the problems.
The better thing to do IMO is sure, they avoid the first trap completely because they knew it was there. But then, later on because the rogue assumes the wizard will warn him about any traps, like he did the first, the rogue fails to notice a trap and gets skewered.
Now, on the other hand if you don't enter the dungeon cause of the scary dragon, well then yes of course you don't get xp for beating the dragon nor the dragon's treasure.
But, in the case of a divination spell telling you where a pit trap is, so you just jump over it... you bypassed the trap, you should get XP as appropriately (but not the Holy Avenger on the last paladin to fall down in the pit) IMO.
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If a player creates a diviner and does all that stuff, yeah, sure, they're using resources to solve problems, but it's boring as hell. Why play the game at all if you just bypass encounters and can immediately learn things without the fun of exploration and investigation? I'd rather have the entire party involved in an encounter.
Also, I feel that it's kind of annoying for the wizard to easily obfuscate the more mundane trapspotter/scout type character...
It is within the DM rights to ban certain spells, but talk with your players about it beforehand. And I mean talk with, instead of telling them. I'm sure you can reach a compromise.
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I rather love teleport. Remember it goes both ways - you start getting into teleporting around, you are likely to make someone angry that also has teleport. Paranoia ensues.
That said, if one does not like the pathfinder magic level that it has, maybe FRP is not for you....Not to be snarky, but to some the magic system is an essential part of this game to many. And due to its limited nature, magic use is powerful but requires resource management, compared to the fighter or rogue who can accomplish many things as needed.
I just had an idea. Make all spells that don't need to be swift or immediate actions full round actions but a caster can cast any level of spell they were able to cast 5 levels ago as a standard action. Quicken would reduce casting time by one step (full round -> standard action -> swift action) per slot 2 increases.
This puts casters on a full attack-like paradigm making their action economy more comparable to that of martials.
I'm not sure that's a good idea, because full attacks still happen instantly. Full-round action spells will activate the round after you cast them, meaning that there will be a one round delay on all spellcasting.
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I sort of feel like the dismissive responses and suggestions to "play another game" are kind of rude. It's possible to quite enjoy the Pathfinder system but still have problems with certain spells!
Full-round action spells will activate the round after you cast them, meaning that there will be a one round delay on all spellcasting.
Not necessarily. That's for spells with a casting time of "1 round", not spells with a casting time of "1 full-round action" (which I don't believe currently exist?)
You could simply specify that spells function like this, anyway. If you're houseruling one thing, it's not hard to houserule another. :)
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Rather than problematic as in "overpowered", I'd like to see problematic as in "anticlimactic" spells removed.
Personally, my least favourite spells (that my group and I have an unspoken agreement to avoid using most of the time) are pretty much all divination spells. I'd remove most of the entire bloody school if I could.
1) Coming up with prophetic auguries and such on the fly is annoying.
2) Most of the spells exist purely to ruin suspense or allow a group to side-step the majority of the plot to skip to the end.
3) Scry and die. 'Nuff said.
4) The school as a whole is boring. There's no flashy effects or fun combat tools. It's literally just a whole kit dedicated to avoiding the fun parts of the game, i.e. dangerous encounters.
I feel the exact opposite way. I love when players want prophetic auguries and cryptic rhymes. I feel like divinations are the easiest way to let players into a story element that would otherwise be hard to convey.
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Sorry for the necro-posting, but I was just looking for advice on (narratively/design-wise) problematic spells and came across this thread.
As for teleport, I've basically decided to go with changing it to work more like the teleportation and portal spells in World of Warcraft: namely, that you can only teleport to certain pre-defined locations that require a ritual to create (and, optionally, to maintain). I generally treat the destination as being a specific 20-foot cube. The Familiarity table in the teleport spell description is modified so that instead of "Very familiar", "Studied carefully", etc. the categories basically become "Very familiar", "Studied the teleportation ritual for the destination" (includes being taught or reading notes on it, treated as copying a spell into your spellbook - even if you don't have a spellbook - but without taking up any pages), "Visited the location" (must have at least had the actual, specific destination area in their line-of-sight at some point), "Know the destination exists" (can simply be told, or optionally, a Knowledge (arcana) check could allow a caster to make a reasonable assumption that a teleport destination exists somewhere; for example at the mage's guild in a major city), and "False destination" remains as normal. Greater teleport basically bumps you up one tier on the Familiarity table (except for "False destination"), and grants automatic success if you're already at "Very familiar".
This makes teleport more of a time-saving convenience for long-distance travel to specific locations rather than a way to completely circumvent an adventure.
I've also homebrewed teleportation ward spell that can be used on a destination which basically reverses (and flips) the Familiarity table results (so, for example, someone who has studied the location carefully and tries to teleport to it will only land on target on a roll of 99 or 100). Greater teleportation ward causes anyone who tries to teleport to the destination to treat it as a false destination. Both spells allow for exceptions to be worked into the spell on its casting (only warding against/only allowing certain races or individuals, requiring a password to be spoken during the casting, holding a special token or marked with a specific sigil - more uses for arcane mark! - etc.).
In 5E, you teleport only to pre-approved teleportation circles, so that you can easily travel to cities, but only to specific points in said settlements. It also takes a year to create a new circle.
As such, the more general teleport spell is 7th-level and there is no teleport without error spell.
Lots of neat ideas here.
There's a sci-fi webcomic called Schlock Mercenary that has a nice setup. A technology called "terraporting" has been invented, and it's sci-fi teleportation. Everyone freaks out at the implications, and it's not long before a terraport area denial (TAD) system is invented. Make a broadly available fourth-level spell that blocks Teleportation, and a broadly available sixth level spell that also blocks Greater Teleportation. One day per level, 1,000 ft. radius per level, must be dispelled at any easily traceable but probably guarded center. There's a catch, though. TAD fields can have holes punched in them with special cages. If you set up the cage within the field, anybody who knows its location can use that as their target (provided one is on-target, although knowledge of the cage's location counts as at least "seen once"). The size of the cage determines how many things you can get in or out at once. That leaves the possibility of infiltration and intrigue. Cities and lairs can't be teleported into, but the area around them can. Once in a city or lair, there's no teleporting out, although wealthy people with reasons to flee quickly may have a collapsed cage they can set up in a minute or so.
There are a few truly problematic spells and feats that you should avoid at all costs. Things like Blood Money, Sacred Geometry, Simulacrum and Mind Swap can be too easily abused.
There are threads on these boards that inventory the most problematic spells. Don't recall offhand which ones, but the search function is your friend.
Other than that, there is no easy fix to the "martial/caster disparity". Some people advocate giving martials cool abilities to compensate. Others suggest making skills more superhuman, perhaps using the skill unlocks system from PF Unchained. Still others advocate a major nerf to spellcasters, either:
1) increasing casting time by some degree
2) requiring additional expensive components for spells above a certain level
3) having some small chance of negative consequences to spellcasting linked to spell level
4) having spellcasters expend some part of themselves on spellcasting (CON drain, hit points, increasing levels of fatigue, etc).
Whatever choice you make, be sure to apprise your players of your special house rules prior to play, and impose the same penalties on NPC spellcasters and monsters.
Finally, the simplest solution is to just live with it. Sure, casters can change the world and exert great narrative control, while martials can only inflict damage (gross oversimplification, I know, but that's the root of most arguments). But a given party of PCs is suppose to work together, so each PC will have his or her own strengths to bring to the table, and that spellcaster's vast narrative powers should be used primarily to enable his buddies, not hog the limelight. Which is a separate issue.