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I have blue eyes! I'm the best!
I have brown eyes, so I'm not as good. But if I had to spend a feat to get my inferior brown eyes, wouldn't that be even better?
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I have blue eyes! I'm the best!I have brown eyes, so I'm not as good. But if I had to spend a feat to get my inferior brown eyes, wouldn't that be even better?
Just because you took a feat for it doesn't mean it gets to be better according to one of the quotes I posted. I know you put some points into it, but obviously you need to suffer for your choice to have inferior brown eyes. Maybe if you took a few more feats your eyes might be as good as blue eyes, but you could've just picked blue eyes in the first place.
Btw, everyone knows my eyes are the best eyes, obviously!
...And all this happens while the dragon and the ghost are napping and not killing the oracle?I can give multiple examples of why martials aren't as respected from actual games. This isn't all levels and martial players still have fun. But their power pales to caster power at high levels.
1. Example 1: High level Oracle of Life (lvl 18): Fighting a big old dragon with some ghost support. Martials engage the dragon. She activates her bead of karma so she is 4 caster levels higher. Very helpful. Ghost mooks come out. holy word kills them all. They were about 10 or so lvl 10 ghosts. She summoned some creatures to help fight the dragon. Healed everyone with a mass heal to keep them alive. Turned herself into a glowing fiery elemental of life with the elemental subtype which made her immune to stunning and crits. Boosted her Con,Str, and gave herself the abilit to fly with a spell that did all this with one casting. It's an Oracle only spell.
All of this made the dragon a trivial fight. No fighter or martial can do anything close to this. Alone the martials die to the dragon, the Oracle of life may have still lived. She could heal herself very quickly and with ease.
Why do you think they can kill the oracle? It isn't exactly easy. I built up her con where she had in excess of 220 hit points and a high AC. She can heal herself to max hit points in one round. Heal was her Magical Lineage spell, so she could quicken them with a lvl9 spell slot.
No. The martials engaged in the dragon. The ghosts flowed out of the place they were guarding to attack the party. The Oracle destroyed all the ghosts with one standard action holy word. She buffed for a couple of rounds before entering combat to put herself in super holy healer form as I call it.
Nope. They weren't sleeping. The dragon certainly didn't waste his time trying to kill the Oracle of Life who was practually unkillable. He couldn't do
It didn't happen to have that spell.
My most likely tactic would have been to move outside of the radius of the shell and heal herself while the martials beat on it. If it wanted to follow her around attempting to kill her, hopefully the martials would have finished it off. If that weren't the case, then she would have had to word of recall away.
That's a tough situation. I don't see anyway to bring an antimagic field down. I'm going to have to give more dragons antimagic field. That will make them very tough to beat.
That is one situation where you're thanking your lucky stars a fighter is there. He would shine in that situation given all his powers except his magic weapon are mundane. Still a dragon in an antimagic shell is almost impossible to beat.
In ALL the games I play, you see an enemy, they see you, roll initiative. Not you see an enemy, they see you, both sides have a free round, roll initiative.That is a rather disingenuous response. You can't really think that's what I'm referring to. No, I find that 95% of the time, it's more like...
...you hear through the door that there's something on the other side--with your absurdly high perception check, you think it might be X
...it appears you've tracked the creature back to it's lair--with your Survival check, you can tell that the tracks are rather fresh, so it's almost certainly home.
...[familiar, animal companion, trained bird, arcane eye, or stealthy scout character] spots a group of foes. They are [unaware of you/unconcerned with some random bird that doesn't look special/etc.]. The scout can then return to the party and tell them what they saw.
...[one of several divination spells] gives you some indication that there's definitely some combat going down soon.
...it's pretty damn obvious that the BBEG is coming up imminently for one of many different reasons.
Seriously, it's extremely rare to not have some kind of warning a fight is coming--I can't even imagine the sort of game where you wouldn't. Maybe I just play more cautiously than you?
So please tell me what this group can't do that a group of casters could?At level 8? Not much. At level 12+? You won't have this question any more, unless the GM changes things to accommodate your party--he'll basically have to throw CR out the window, for example.
2. To those that say the whole " and I full attack...again" and how boring it is. But the same thing applies to Save and Suck/Die spells. You just use a "newer" version but still are stuck doing the "same thing" again and again. I fail to see the difference. At least the martial had the joy of rolling some dice.I'm with you--I don't think full attacking is boring. It's just the...
have your characters ever been on the receiving end of such tactics?
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That's beside the point. It's GM fiat if the enemy uses the same tactics as the PCs.
That's beside the point. It's GM fiat if the enemy uses the same tactics as the PCs.Please tell me you're kidding. Tone doesn't carry too well on the Internet.
Everyone knows it's GM fiat when an NPC casts a spell that targets a party caster.
Casters are SO OP and any game mechanic that prevents them from having sexual intercourse with the rump of your game is a GM fiat.
What?
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He's a mite delusional, therefore he interprets any challenge to his Ultimate GM status as a personal attack.
What I mean by this, is that he takes offense when someone points out to him that literally changing how an ability works is GM Fiat, as is saying "Random guy shows up, kills your character", and then stretches that in a sad attempt to sarcastically say any attempt to use intelligent enemy tactics is GM Fiat, even when nobody has said any such thing at all.
It's some weird combo of Strawman and Reductio ad Absurdum that I find mildly amusing to watch.
What I mean by this, is that he takes offense when someone points out to him that literally changing how an ability works is GM Fiat
And by delusional Rynjin means I acted crazy in a situation that only happened in his mind.
have your characters ever been on the receiving end of such tactics?
In general, the PCs are the aggressors, so mostly, no. They're not kicking in the doors of our inn dungeon style, after all. We're the invaders, not them.
Although, I have yet to see a BBEG that wasn't fully buffed before we encountered them, even with short duration buffs, so they must have a sense that the "big bad protagonist guys" are coming around the corner to kill him.
Oh, and the group was TPKed once by coup de graces in our sleep. The guy on watch rolled nothing above a 5 on Perception while a pair of Gremlins snuck around and dropped us one by one. The silly thing was that even though he would crit us for 1-4 damage, tops, we all failed our death saves--I rolled a 1 on a DC 11 save. The last PC alive, the one on watch that just couldn't see anything happening, declared suicide and we started over.
Martials have no power in influencing the setting, they are forever bound by physics while casters can blatantly ignore physics.
and many people try really hard to keep martial characters bound to physics.
why can't my 10th level swordsman kill 8 6th level mooks with one swing of his Katana Kenshin style?
why can't my 10th level archer shoot an enemy pirate's parrot in the middle of a hurricane from a mile away with a mundane bow
why can't my 10th level fighter swim for 3 weeks in full plate during a hurricane and slay 25 massive sea serpents on the second week?
why can't my 10th level barbarian swim the styx and survive the fortitude save because he is a borderline demigod?
why can't my 10th level rogue use his massive skill in stealth to hide in plain sight and conceal himself even from foes with blindsight?
why can't my 10th level negotiator be so charming with his words, that his diplomacy checks mimic mind control?
why can't my 10th level infiltrator, be so damned good at disguising himself and acting in character, that he can mimic class features appropriate to a limited number of cover identities and make them actually work as intended?
Because that would make the already over powered martials more OP.
Haven't splattered yet, son.
Says the fighter.
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Because that would make the already over powered martials more OP.
it would give them limited variety of perks that casters already have that should have been martial perks anyway.
martials are underpowered because they generally have no ability to contribute anything that isn't an attack roll followed by a damage roll of some kind.
why can't my 10th level swordsman kill 8 6th level mooks with one swing of his Katana Kenshin style?Because your average group of 4 persons would be TPK by just one swing of a sword from a CR+3 guy, that woul be pretty much unfuny, heck than only swing of a sword would also kill the ranger´s and druid´s pets.
then don't bunch up, stay out of melee range, and use ranged combat to take him down. even ranged hit and run can make him easier.
why can't my 10th level swordsman kill 8 6th level mooks with one swing of his Katana Kenshin style?Because your average group of 4 persons would be TPK by just one swing of a sword from a CR+3 guy, that woul be pretty much unfuny, heck than only swing of a sword would also kill the ranger´s and druid´s pets.
He can't even make a swing at all of those guys at once though. Magus and Bard can however. You never get to be like guys from stories of legend in that manner. Apparently the spoony bard does...
He can't even make a swing at all of those guys at once though. Magus and Bard can however. You never get to be like guys from stories of legend in that manner. Apparently the spoony bard does...why can't my 10th level swordsman kill 8 6th level mooks with one swing of his Katana Kenshin style?Because your average group of 4 persons would be TPK by just one swing of a sword from a CR+3 guy, that woul be pretty much unfuny, heck than only swing of a sword would also kill the ranger´s and druid´s pets.
that should be a fighter feature, not a bard spell.
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He can't even make a swing at all of those guys at once though... You never get to be like guys from stories of legend in that manner. Apparently the spoony bard does...
Well, yeah, duh.
He's the g*%*$&ned Avatar, of course he can do that!
then don't bunch up, stay out of melee range, and use ranged combat to take him down. even ranged hit and run can make him easier.why can't my 10th level swordsman kill 8 6th level mooks with one swing of his Katana Kenshin style?Because your average group of 4 persons would be TPK by just one swing of a sword from a CR+3 guy, that woul be pretty much unfuny, heck than only swing of a sword would also kill the ranger´s and druid´s pets.He is a 10th level samurai, he can just unsheathe his katana and stop all the arrows Kenshin style.
That much difference with just a couple of levels is too much.
true, and he can probably stop all the spells kenshin style too
essentially, it is a feature of being a martial character 4 levels above the CR of the opposition. you can consider it double damage to anyone whose level or CR is 4 or more levels below yours. triple if 8 or more below, quadruple if 16 ore more below, etc.
he is at the top of his tier. once you get to 8th level, he becomes a reasonably dangerous boss.
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why can't my 10th level swordsman kill 8 6th level mooks with one swing of his Katana Kenshin style?Because your average group of 4 persons would be TPK by just one swing of a sword from a CR+3 guy, that would be pretty much unfuny, heck than only swing of a sword would also kill the ranger´s and druid´s pets.
Yet there are so many posters, who don't seem to have any problem with the fact a BBEG caster of CR (APL+3) could TPK a party with one action.
Why the disparity?And they don't need to be CR (APL+3) to do it. Many can affect multiple targets, attacking worst save, CMD or stat, from level 1.
How many PCs have died, or even TPKed, over the last 30 years, in Saltmarsh, to an NPC Illusionist? An NPC who if run as written, had one (hah!) offensive spell available? A class that was always (in 1st Edition) considered laughably suboptimal? And (in PF) is still a rotten choice for a caster, even when rolled into a 'proper' Wizard (given that PF full casters now have 24/7 illusion-busting as standard).
why can't my 10th level swordsman kill 8 6th level mooks with one swing of his Katana Kenshin style?Because your average group of 4 persons would be TPK by just one swing of a sword from a CR+3 guy, that would be pretty much unfuny, heck than only swing of a sword would also kill the ranger´s and druid´s pets.Yet there are so many posters, who don't seem to have any problem with the fact a BBEG caster of CR (APL+3) could TPK a party with one action.
Why the disparity?And they don't need to be CR (APL+3) to do it. Many can affect multiple targets, attacking worst save, CMD or stat, from level 1.
How many PCs have died, or even TPKed, over the last 30 years, in Saltmarsh, to an NPC Illusionist? An NPC who if run as written, had one (hah!) offensive spell available? A class that was always (in 1st Edition) considered laughably suboptimal? And (in PF) is still a rotten choice for a caster, even when rolled into a 'proper' Wizard (given that PF full casters now have 24/7 illusion-busting as standard).
it is unfair that the caster can defeat a party 3 or more levels below with a single action, but a martial 4 or more levels above the party can't even perform, a single action TPK.
there should be a reason, that a 6th level party shouldn't anger the 10th level Samurai. but it doesn't matter because there is no incentive to stop it. the 10th level Samurai is a walking bag of XP = to CR 9 with a bag of loot greater than the appropriate value for a normal monster of his CR because he happens to be an NPC with class levels.
plenty of reason for the 6th level party to not anger the 7th-9th level wizard or 8th-10th level sorcerer though. in fact, the wizard might as well be the deadlier threat, because he can nova his spells in a single fight, can have the exact amount of every required spell for the encounter, has a familiar that can use wands, and a far more customizable set of skills, plus the Wizard's higher intellect is a DM license to metagame against the party.
plenty of reason for the 6th level party to not anger the 7th-9th level wizard or 8th-10th level sorcerer though. in fact, the wizard might as well be the deadlier threat, because he can nova his spells in a single fight, can have the exact amount of every required spell for the encounter, has a familiar that can use wands, and a far more customizable set of skills, plus the Wizard's higher intellect is a DM license to metagame against the party.
Don't forget prep time. A samurai who preps... gets to stand where he wants and maybe call in friends or prep the area. A caster with time to buff on the other hand can be pretty terrifying. A caster can also set up an alarm spell and scry and other means to see the party coming, which would be 'DM license' to give them the prep time to get up a dozen buffs. Buffed up alchemist, or clerics, or wizards, or even paladin's can be pretty nasty.
Poor samurai doesn't even look like a threat without backup. Caster brings the backup! Takes extra effort or fiat to make a martial juggernaut that'll survive being wasted by action economy.
I love the fighter. My favorite campaigns were the ones where I played a vanilla human fighter. I also love casters. And hybrids and skill focused characters as well.
I have not really witnessed much in the way of the caster vs. fighter or one is superior to the other, or disrespect, save on the discussion boards. I still believe both roles have their place and can fill a niche.
Absolutely. They both have their place in the real world and fit together to form a complete set known as a Party.
Absolutely. They both have their place in the real world and fit together to form a complete set known as a Party.
Well, no one is saying you can't or shouldn't make a party with a fighter. A lot of the complaints about his "lack of respect" Are because his role isn't the best. He full attacks and he cleans up after CC and the like. He also isn't the only one that fits into the role.
Cleric, Oracle, Inquisitor, and likely a few I missed can fit into the same role and have additional abilities. He isn't the only one that can fit into the role and other people do his role and more. The flipside is that people have been saying those people can't fill his role and arguing that makes him special.
Saying his role isn't the best appears to be an opinion.
His role is absolutely needed and he fills it very reliably regardless of player skill.
Some say others do his role better. All of these other options require resource management. Part of the fighter's appeal is the lack of resources outside of HP and money. The same can be said for the rogue.
Resource management is clunky and can take people out of the experience. Fighter avoids those issues and fills his role so well that only the most optimized alternatives can replace him. This is important to many people and their role-playing.
The Fighter is good enough. Whether or not "I full-attack!" is boring is completely up to interpretation. For people who find that boring, I direct you towards a magus or druid.
A class that was always (in 1st Edition) considered laughably suboptimal?I never considered the 1e illusionist 'laughably suboptimal'. Consider spells like Tempus Fugat. Seriously nasty.
Tempus Fugit, actually.
I'm more partial to Chromatic Orb. 1st level spell. At high levels, choose: Petrify them, save for slowed; or Kill them/save for paralysis.
Yes, 1st level spell, turning people to stone. You needed to be 12th/16th level for those two tricks, but still!
==Aelryinth
Saying his role isn't the best appears to be an opinion.
His role is absolutely needed and he fills it very reliably regardless of player skill.
Some say others do his role better. All of these other options require resource management. Part of the fighter's appeal is the lack of resources outside of HP and money. The same can be said for the rogue.
Resource management is clunky and can take people out of the experience. Fighter avoids those issues and fills his role so well that only the most optimized alternatives can replace him. This is important to many people and their role-playing.
The Fighter is good enough. Whether or not "I full-attack!" is boring is completely up to interpretation. For people who find that boring, I direct you towards a magus or druid.
Actually, the fighter is so vanilla at filling his party role that the only class more easily subbed out is the rogue in his function as skill monkey.
any martial class can do a fighter's job...and a high level of optimization is required on the fighter's part, not a replacement's.
==Aelryinth
No, martials are not absolutely needed, not when he can be replaced by a couple of hirelings for a gold a day. And then when the party hits sixth level, if you absolutely want a martial, get Leadership and get a martial cohort. Player characters are for spellcasters, martials are for npcs.
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No, martials are not absolutely needed, not when he can be replaced by a couple of hirelings for a gold a day. And then when the party hits sixth level, if you absolutely want a martial, get Leadership and get a martial cohort. Player characters are for spellcasters, martials are for npcs.
You feel that way about Paladins? They are a martial class as well.
There are plenty of other caster vs martial topics on this board and I'm not interested in this being one. Reading those though, I did notice something that I thought needed a new discussion.
Martial work, that is dealing HP damage to things so that they actually die, is called “janitor work” or “clean up”. This is meant to imply that it’s somehow lesser to the caster who cast a spell to make that job easier. Where did this idea come from?
It makes no sense to me. You’ve heard the phrase “You set them up, I’ll knock them down.”? Well that’s a team effort. This is a team game. And it takes both sides of the equation. I’ve been in a party that was all magic set up with no melee knock down. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t pretty at all.
Eventually the Wall comes down, the Pit comes up, or the Hold wears off. Someone needs to kill the enemy before that happens. It’s an essential part of the puzzle otherwise all the magic user has done is delayed his own death.
So why is there no love for the Fighter? His role was invaluable. It was certainly no less valuable than the Wizards. So how about we give some credit where credit is due. Both roles have their place. Both roles are needed. And no role deserves to be crapped on over the other.
The problem here with your post, as with many many many others about the same subject, is that you confuse "martial" with "weapon user".
Yes, every party need weapon users to finish the job, clean up, or however you call the damage dealing. But NO, they don't HAVE to be MARTIALS. Sure, after the Wizard casts a Slow, or sleep, or haste, the enemy isn't dead, and you still need to kill them. But a Druid in tiger form, a beastmorph alchemist, or an inquisitor, or synthesist summoner can coup de grace the sleeping gobling just as well as a fighter. In the meanwhile, they bring a LOT of things to the party than a fighter does not. The fighter does 2 things, hit people, and getting hit by people. Any combat class can do that, and many of them have a plethora of useful stuff besides that. The fighter does not
No, martials are not absolutely needed, not when he can be replaced by a couple of hirelings for a gold a day. And then when the party hits sixth level, if you absolutely want a martial, get Leadership and get a martial cohort. Player characters are for spellcasters, martials are for npcs.You feel that way about Paladins? They are a martial class as well.
Technically they are divine casters :)
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Technically they are divine casters :)No, martials are not absolutely needed, not when he can be replaced by a couple of hirelings for a gold a day. And then when the party hits sixth level, if you absolutely want a martial, get Leadership and get a martial cohort. Player characters are for spellcasters, martials are for npcs.You feel that way about Paladins? They are a martial class as well.
Well, they have a limited access to divine spells but I would consider the Oracle and Cleric to fall more in line as divine casters. Paladins have full BAB, and the same weapon and armor proficiencies as the Fighter, less Tower Shield. That's why I tend to lean more towards Martial for them.
Eeeyup.
Paladins and Rangers still fall under the Martial umbrella, even though they get limited casting. It no more makes them a caster than a Monk having a bunch of spell-likes from Qinggong makes HIM a caster, they're just tricks to augment the main focus of the class: Bashing s@&%.
Saying otherwise just overcomplicates things for no reason. There really only needs to be 3 categories: Martials (little to no magic), Half-Casters 96th level casters, including the Alchemist), and full casters.
In Pathfinder, the fact that they don't get full casting means they aren't a casting class.
so bards aren't casters?
They get full BAB and are proficient with nearly all the same weapons and armor as fighters.
They are a martial class.
Eldritch knights get full BAB. Having full BAB doesn't forbid a class to be a caster
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In Pathfinder, the fact that they don't get full casting means they aren't a casting class.so bards aren't casters?
Eldritch knights get full BAB. Having full BAB doesn't forbid a class to be a casterThey get full BAB and are proficient with nearly all the same weapons and armor as fighters.
They are a martial class.
A class with full BAB and nearly identical Weapon/Armor Proficiencies to the Fighter and only very limited casting options does not a caster make.
A Paladin is much more martial than they are caster, hence the limit of 4th level divine spells.
In fact, isn't the Eldritch Knight a prestige class? Rynjin summed it up pretty well a few posts ago.
In Pathfinder, the fact that they don't get full casting means they aren't a casting class.so bards aren't casters?
Eldritch knights get full BAB. Having full BAB doesn't forbid a class to be a casterThey get full BAB and are proficient with nearly all the same weapons and armor as fighters.
They are a martial class.
A class with full BAB and nearly identical Weapon/Armor Proficiencies to the Fighter and only very limited casting options does not a caster make.
A Paladin is much more martial than they are caster, hence the limit of 4th level divine spells.
But they are technically a caster. Sure it's not as powerful as a full caster, but it is a caster none-the less.
Also, having more or less Weapon/armor proficiencies does not make you a caster or a martial. Rogues have less proficiencies than Magi for example. But rogue is martial and Magus is a caster.
In fact, isn't the Eldritch Knight a prestige class?
Yes. A caster prestige class, with full BAB.
Why can't you be both a martial and a caster? How are we defining these today? Can't you be a caster and fill the martial role?
That said, there is a big difference between spell list and how they work. Six level casters are expected to use spells in their life. Four level casters have archetypes to get out of it and have full BAB and armor. The four level ones usually don't use these skills so much in problem solving and direct combat as much as swift action buffs while full attacking.
A Bard isn't a casting class. It is a Jack of All Trades.In Pathfinder, the fact that they don't get full casting means they aren't a casting class.so bards aren't casters?
Eldritch knights get full BAB. Having full BAB doesn't forbid a class to be a casterThey get full BAB and are proficient with nearly all the same weapons and armor as fighters.
They are a martial class.
Summoner? Inquisitor? Magus? Are they casters?
Eldritch Knight is a prestige class, not a real class.
But is it a caster prestige class? or a martial prestige class?