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There seems to be quite a few threads about unbalanced characters
So what characters do you think are over powered or under powered and why
Just a brife reason
Usually its opinion, or perceptions. Sometimes its a matter of divergence from the norms of the group. Precious few times its an actual exploitable section of the rules.
Not to mention peoples definition of overpowered is kind of varied. It still baffles me that people insist on comparing everything to the least powerful options and if there is any deviation from that, its overpowered in their mind.
Me, if its not going to outperform a druid with a big cat companion, or a conjuration specialist wizard, I'm not overly worried.
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A lot of people are going to assume that this sort of post is simply trolling since this is one of the most commonly discussed issues on these (or any other gamer) boards. This is a hotly contested issue too, that will quickly devolve into emotional arguments about the finer details of class balance between classes based on specific builds.
To try to keep this from becoming yet another screaming fit post about how rogues suck and how wizards are teh awesome, here are the basics of class balance:
Full casters are generally considered more powerful than lesser casters.
The higher level spells a character can cast, the more powerful they tend to be.
Spell casters are generally more powerful than martial classes.
Ranged builds are generally more powerful than melee builds.
Of the melee builds the two-handed power attacking build is generally the best.
Monks and rogues tend to be generally considered the least powerful of the martial classes, although many people will claim the fighter is the least powerful because "all the fighter can do is fight."
I'm not trolling i just want players to give there opinions on the subject I'm not inviting other to debate there choices or even to say weather or not they agree or disagree i would just like options on the subject something where all entitled to that's all
Tony, you may not be attempting to troll, but this subject is likely to become a thread that ends up as if it were started by a troll.
You can say that you aren't "inviting others to debate" all you like. Debate they will regardless.
It's probably pointless to try to stop this thread from devolving into such a nightmare, but if you really want to explore the relative opinions of individual classes, I highly recommend you spend some time searching the boards for the endless threads on the subject for every existing class and the great majority of class build options.
My original post still stands as a fairly decent way to summarize the overall balance situation. Each individual class, hell, each individual ARCHETYPE of each individual class can support its own thread debating the finer details of how the specific details of the build address the balance of the final result.
Most of the regular posters here could spend a day or two just debating the "balance" of a detective bard vs an archaeologist bard.
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As was said generally full casters are stronger. But how much they dominate the game depends on system mastery and player attitude to the game. Really it comes down to how much the players work together and how "selfish" or one dimensional their builds are.
If everyone is working cooperatively class balance is meaningless between players.
If everyone is working cooperatively class balance is meaningless between players.
You mean my commoner can stand next to a level 20 wizard and look just as good? Not so much. It means as much as you give it meaning from a view point of fun, but mechanically and narratively there is a very large difference between playing a sorcerer, a fighter, and a ranger.
My original post still stands as a fairly decent way to summarize the overall balance situation.
As far as explaining the general sum of things I thought you did pretty well myself.
Another thing is that someone may at some point bring up tiers, which is a rough way of placing classes in 3.5. Link to tiers. Tiers themselves sometimes get debated, but that's a story for another day.
There seems to be quite a few threads about unbalanced characters
So what characters do you think are over powered or under powered and why
Just a brife reason
I don't worship at the unholy alter of 'balance at all costs'. The rule of cool... well, rules, and I'm completely fine with one class being more powerful than another. That's called life. Generally speaking players don't choose the most powerful class when building their character, they choose a class they like or a concept they like and proceed from there. Every class has a niche and every class has a dedicated following. There's room - and a role - for every character type at our table.
.I've played a high-powered Half Elven Summoner and a mild-mannered Halfling Archeologist and had great fun in both cases, even if the former would (literally) eat the latter up and spit him out should it come to combat. Of course, it helps when you don't have a GM with whom the only thing that matters is combat utility...
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There are different kinds of power, too.
Imbalances in combat power I can usually overlook.
What bugs me are large imbalances in narrative power -- Class A might have the tools to change the whole storyline, DM-like, whereas Class B might only be able to influence things within arm's reach. That's the kind of power I prefer to focus on these days.
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If this thread can be turned to a general discussion of the importance of balance overall, and the way to deal with parties composed of characters that have different power abilities, maybe it will still serve a useful purpose. :)
Like Wiggz, I don't care that much about power imbalance. Within reason. I like to play concepts and tend to get more satisfaction out of creating and playing a compelling, interesting and challenging character than out of exercising the mechanics to their maximum potential. In a point buy situation, for example, I'm generally much more inclined to make a character with a couple of 16s in their stats than one with a 20 in a single stat and a bunch of 10s or less elsewhere. I also prefer flexibility in my characters meaning that I tend not to optimize for a single ability, but instead try to ensure that my character can contribute in multiple areas.
For these reasons it is pretty much immaterial to me if an optimized min-maxed wizard is more powerful than an optimized min-maxed druid. In fact I find the constant need to investigate balance and the pursuit of the most highly optimized builds possible to generally make the game less fun, not more fun. The GM is going to balance out encounters to match the party's capabilities anyway, or should.
I am currently playing a halfling detective bard in a Carrion Crown campaign, and while he can't remotely match the 2 handed greatsword wielding half-orc barbarian in damage output, I still manage to have him contribute at least as much to the overall party success through other means, including investigation, scouting and interacting with NPCs. In general I find that outside of combat the half-orc barbarian mostly stands around looking intimidating while my bard is all over the place, while in combat the half-orc may be doing three times the damage, but my bard still gets his shots in and contributes there too.
The relentless pursuit of "balance" is a fool's errand in a game where some characters swing pointy sticks and others manipulate the awesome cosmic powers of the universe.
And that's fine with me.
Seems like the Troll Horde just got Flamestriked by the Holy Order of reasonable Discussion.
So here are my 2 cp: Balance issues (perceived or real) are mostly disguised player issues. It does not matter if they play mechanically stronger or weaker classes, good players will always find ways to contribute in or out of combat. In my experience the bad/weak players are the problem. If something goes wrong it's the fault of their stupid, underpowered class. And if somebody is doing something better than them they're pissed as well because the other plays something obviously overpowered. Just play with the "right" people and balance becomes a non-issue as long as the DM doesn't turn the campaign into a Monty Haul.
Well said.
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There seems to be quite a few threads about unbalanced characters
So what characters do you think are over powered or under powered and why
Just a brife reason
Pathfinder is really very balanced compared to its predecessors and is well balanced as a stand-alone game. From the core rules 8/11 character classes work very well and look good next to each other. Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Ranger, Paladin, Sorcerer, and Wizard are all very well balanced. Because options are power, casting opportunities tend to push the casters a bit higher but not by enough to matter or to invalidate the Barbarian (whom is actually pretty awesome and still has solid options and beautiful resiliency).
The Fighter, Monk, and Rogue have their issues and don't generally compare well to other classes. In the case of the fighter and rogue they lack the flexibility that aids in adventure in exchange for overspecialization in a field others are often better at than them anyway (comparing a fighter to a barbarian or a rogue to a bard or ranger will frequently result in the realization that the former cannot bring as much to the table). The monk is just a mess of random abilities with little synergy, but can be alright with a lot of splatbook material.
From the advanced player's guide, Alchemist, Inquisitor, Oracle, and Witch are well balanced against the core game. Each of these classes are well rounded and should fit into groups pretty well. My largest criticisms out of these belong to the Oracle, not for balance reasons but because I find their forced fluff a roleplaying hindrance.
The cavalier suffers in many ways like the Fighter or Rogue from core. It just doesn't contribute very much to party success beyond being a full BAB class. Many of its abilities are underwhelming, too limited, easily ignored. The summoner would be more or less balanced with core, except due to its mechanics it creates balance issues throughout the game due to bad design. This is mostly connected to its spell list and/or spell progression and not due to the eidolon (which usually isn't an issue if you're careful to not make rule mistakes).
From Ultimate Magic, the Magus is balanced pretty well with the core classes and provides an alternative for a martial caster who is less like a bard.
From Ultimate Combat, the Ninja is generally heralded as a good replacement for rogues because they have more options. Samurai is mostly just a reskinned cavalier but is generally much better than the cavalier due to having abilities that are less limited, usually stronger. Gunslingers have issues due to overly expensive ammo costs, verisimilitude destroying weapons, and the inclusion of the firearm mechanics whole cart opens up abuses like infinite money with a 1st level spell. They also don't bring much to a party which generally makes them less useful to a party than most of the core classes.
I concur with much of Commoner's comments, but with a few caveats.
Good players should, I believe, take it upon themselves to coach and educate less accomplished players. I probably should pretend to be more humble, but I do consider myself to be a pretty accomplished player, both in terms of mechanics and in role playing.
I will frequently make it a goal of mine to help less experienced or less capable players contribute more to the party's goals. In combat that means I frequently will use spells or abilities that redirect combat in such a way that a player who does not excel in combat can do so. That might mean buffing, or it might simply mean providing a key flanking opportunity. In some cases I will even take risks to my own character to give that other player an edge. Done properly I can sometimes give another PC enough of a boost to change their 50% miss chance to a 25% miss chance or less.
If I ever have a character that is clearly superior to the rest of the party, I do my best to use that imbalance to boost the other players' chances of success. When I succeed it means we ALL win.
Spell casters are generally more powerful than martial classes.
Monks and rogues tend to be generally considered the least powerful of the martial classes, although many people will claim the fighter is the least powerful because "all the fighter can do is fight."
Not true. A first level wizard is basically a commoner in a bathrobe. It's also true that when spellcasters get Wish, etc, they greatly overpower the rest , but since almost no games ever get there, it's mostly theorycrafting.
In JJ's games and our games, the spellcasters are about on a level with the martial classes. In fact @ 12th level, our Fighter is far and away the most powerful PC in the party of 5.
Again, not true. It's true that monk needed a few tweaks and fixes, but the monk-o-philes won't stop complaining until monks are Bruce lee @ lvl 1, and full wu-shu demi-deities at level 7. Some of the archetypes are very powerful.
But as Mojorat sez, "If everyone is working cooperatively class balance is meaningless between players." My Sorc puts aside a couple spells to boost the fighter. OTOH, the fighter puts aside charging in to protect my sorc. Teamwork.
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Sigh, anytime I see a post start with "Not true" instead of "I disagree" or "In my opinion" I know that there's no point in rebutting.
Sometimes I do it anyway because of a natural desire to defend a position, but it never ends well. I am trying to avoid those situations in the future.
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Not true. A first level wizard is basically a commoner in a bathrobe. It's also true that when spellcasters get Wish, etc, they greatly overpower the rest , but since almost no games ever get there, it's mostly theorycrafting.
At first level he's a commoner... but with Color Spray. Nicely enough, most spellcasters probably won't blow up your campaign in my experience, but the ability to use conjuration or transmutation spells outside of combat can give them a strong ability over the story and problem solving. That's pretty strong and I wish fighter's got something similar. At least my warblade could smash walls really well and could put points in diplomacy. That said, I have had fun with martials, but I really wish they had a bit more to them to compare to ultimate arcane/divine power.
Sigh, anytime I see a post start with "Not true" instead of "I disagree" or "In my opinion" I know that there's no point in rebutting.
If you had prefaced yours with "In my opinion" or "many people on these boards think", I would have added a "IMHO" or "In most games I have played or heard about" but honestly, these are "not true".
Generally I agree with your comments, you are pretty well reasoned but what you did here is simply repeat the myths many have propagated here and on other boards. Yes, it's true, a well built 20th level Wizard will blow the socks off a well built 20th level fighter, but that's theorycrafting, not IRL table-top gaming. Those "memes' simply are not true at most gaming tables, mostly due to the fact that nearly all gaming is done levels 1-10, not 17-20.
In fact, I had to make sure the post *WAS* coming from AD, that's generally not your style just to repeat memes, you usually go for the deeper truths.
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There seems to be quite a few threads about unbalanced characters
So what characters do you think are over powered or under powered and why
Just a brife reason
Some tables read and interpret the rules very...liberally. By that I mean they read into the rules great benefits and ignore rules that limit player power.
The rules most easily read in this way are spells, and to a lesser extent skills.
If you read spells and skills as doing exactly what they say and no more, things work out.
If you read into spells things that aren't there (the most famous being flammable grease) your view of the game is...different.
Neither is wrong if everyone is having fun, but quite often people don't understand that things broken at their table are broken because of how they adjudicated rules and not specifically because of the rules.
And when you say this, nerd rage often ensues...
Well not the troll war you expected AD ( and i'm grateful for that ) i only asked the question as it seems to me that there a couple of classes that can easily out gun most of the others with little effort
And i was curious to see if other found the same thing, I agree that there's more important things in the game but I've had experiences where certain classes can throw a spanner in the works
Well not the troll war you expected AD ( and i'm grateful for that ) i only asked the question as it seems to me that there a couple of classes that can easily out gun most of the others with little effort
And i was curious to see if other found the same thing, I agree that there's more important things in the game but I've had experiences where certain classes can throw a spanner in the works
I think I and a few others put some effort into avoiding this becoming a troll war. With pretty good success.
The game rewards game mastery quite a bit. I played a straight fighter up to level 9 in a campaign and was able to be a solid contributor both in and out of combat.
As others have pointed out, the game is fairly balanced up through probably level 12 or so. At least within combat.
Also as others have pointed out, spell casters have the ability to do more than just be more effective in combat. They can change the parameters of the situation dramatically with a single spell. Those who focus on combat balance can tend to overlook the capability of a wizard or cleric to completely change the game with divination, teleportation, battlefield control or other effects that non-casters simply don't have access to. While a raging two-handed barbarian half-orc can wreak havoc on the battlefield, a wizard can sometimes avoid the battle entirely.
I stand by my general comment above.
And Deth, in my post I said that "in general" such and such is considered true. Which you implicitly admit to be the case when you call those assertions "myths".
I don't think they are myths. I think that they are, as I said, generally considered to be true. That doesn't mean that they necessarily ARE true, all the time, but they are generally considered to be true. Game mastery does come into play and a highly competent and experienced player can make just about any class or build a monster.
It's also true that when spellcasters get Wish, etc, they greatly overpower the rest , but since almost no games ever get there, it's mostly theorycrafting.
Wish was nerfed big time from 3.x. It's not that amazing these days. It's in fact so not amazing that it's happily sitting on a CR 8 creature, usable 3/day to a nearby non-genie ally.
It's also true that when spellcasters get Wish, etc, they greatly overpower the rest , but since almost no games ever get there, it's mostly theorycrafting.Wish was nerfed big time from 3.x. It's not that amazing these days. It's in fact so not amazing that it's happily sitting on a CR 8 creature, usable 3/day to a nearby non-genie ally.
Even nerfed as wish and miracle were I still wish my druid had access to one or the other...
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Not characters per se, but my pet gripe in "balance" comes from Animal Companions. Seriously Cats and Dinosaurs, (with the odd Moose) are the only viable options. They really should get an over haul and somehow balance them such that there are no bad choices, and no mandatory ones.
(Seriously a BEAR ends up inferior most of the choices ...)
Either nerf them or power up the also rans.
In my opinion of course.
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Following up on what AD said about changing the situation, and to provide an example for my first post, I always look at class balance not in terms of damage per round or whatever, but in terms of this kind of scenario (which I've posted elsewhere):
The party is in room #432 of the Big Dungeon. They've pretty much gotten what they went in for, but there was still a level to "clear." They run into an encounter that's a bit too much for them to handle.
I've seen this kind of disparity get a lot more glaring when casters start using divination spells to their full potential.
Even nerfed as wish and miracle were I still wish my druid had access to one or the other...It's also true that when spellcasters get Wish, etc, they greatly overpower the rest , but since almost no games ever get there, it's mostly theorycrafting.Wish was nerfed big time from 3.x. It's not that amazing these days. It's in fact so not amazing that it's happily sitting on a CR 8 creature, usable 3/day to a nearby non-genie ally.
That's fair. Having more options is always nice.
I've seen this kind of disparity get a lot more glaring when casters start using divination spells to their full potential.
And this is just another area where game mastery comes into play. Many, many players vastly underestimate the usefulness of a lot of low level spells that can affect the game in similar ways to plane shift long before you get to the level that plane shift requires.
Hell, "obscuring mist" alone can make or break a low level encounter. My druid used to use "entangle" to totally destroy encounters. Sure it won't entangle ALL the goblins, but if it delays half of them, the encounter goes from challenging to laughable in one round.
To actually answer the OP's question:
If a class lacks effective abilities for one of the major realms of play (combat or noncombat generally) it has a problem and needs a buff.
If a class has a mechanism for breaking action economy it is too strong and needs a nerf.
If a class bypasses common primary defenses it's situationally too strong and may need a nerf if the situation in which it's strong is too common or too weak and in need of a buff if the situation is too rare. Or to make the ability non-situational and then balance it because you can't predict when designing a class what sort of campaigns will be written in the future.
For example clerics potentially tick all three boxes. They have woefully inadequate skill points, the ability to get standard action summons, and can target weak defenses on many opponents (will or fort bypassing the HP buffer). If balance were a major goal they should have more skill points, no sacred summoning, and the save or lose spells should be weakened or removed.
By this definition more then half the classes are over powered...
I've seen this kind of disparity get a lot more glaring when casters start using divination spells to their full potential.And this is just another area where game mastery comes into play. Many, many players vastly underestimate the usefulness of a lot of low level spells that can affect the game in similar ways to plane shift long before you get to the level that plane shift requires.
Hell, "obscuring mist" alone can make or break a low level encounter. My druid used to use "entangle" to totally destroy encounters. Sure it won't entangle ALL the goblins, but if it delays half of them, the encounter goes from challenging to laughable in one round.
It's useful against most anything on the ground and has a massive AoE. Good for dragging down martials, great for pestering archers (because the entangled condition is really harsh on ranged with its -2 to attacks and -4 to Dex).
I was running a revised version of the Red Hand of Doom recently over the weekend. The group's psion time-hopped a keystone from a bridge during a scene with a green dragon. The bridge was coming down in one round. The dragon threw an entangle onto the bridge that the psion and many hobgoblins were on, it covered the entire bridge with entangling moss.
The psion was like "Uh-oh..." :P
Fortunately, he time-hopped himself before the bridge fell down and then the rest of the party flew out and grabbed him when he came back, to keep him from falling to his doom.
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I think the only fair way to settle this is to have everyone propose different "tier" rankings of the various classes, post supporting builds, DPR calculations, and spend the next 800 posts arguing about whether a wizard would have exactly the right spells memorized to fight a balor.
I heard wind that there was an argument that there was little to no class power disparity from someone at Paizo. Is there a link to this argument?
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I heard wind that there was an argument that there was little to no class power disparity from someone at Paizo. Is there a link to this argument?
Here's James Jacobs on it. Not a big fan of that statement myself. Mostly because it claims balance is the GM's job. Bleh.
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I think the only fair way to settle this is to have everyone propose different "tier" rankings of the various classes, post supporting builds, DPR calculations, and spend the next 800 posts arguing about whether a wizard would have exactly the right spells memorized to fight a balor.
Pretty much the direction I was desperately attempting to avoid. :)
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I think the only fair way to settle this is to have everyone propose different "tier" rankings of the various classes, post supporting builds, DPR calculations, and spend the next 800 posts arguing about whether a wizard would have exactly the right spells memorized to fight a balor.Pretty much the direction I was desperately attempting to avoid. :)
But it always works.
But it always works.I think the only fair way to settle this is to have everyone propose different "tier" rankings of the various classes, post supporting builds, DPR calculations, and spend the next 800 posts arguing about whether a wizard would have exactly the right spells memorized to fight a balor.Pretty much the direction I was desperately attempting to avoid. :)
Not really. Spending 800 post arguing about whether the wizard has the right spells memorized doesn't sound very productive to me!
But it always works.I think the only fair way to settle this is to have everyone propose different "tier" rankings of the various classes, post supporting builds, DPR calculations, and spend the next 800 posts arguing about whether a wizard would have exactly the right spells memorized to fight a balor.Pretty much the direction I was desperately attempting to avoid. :)
We all know which direction this thread wants to go. Struggle against it all you like but it's true nature will always surface. Maybe in 50 posts, maybe 100 but give into it we must.
To actually answer the OP's question:
If a class lacks effective abilities for one of the major realms of play (combat or noncombat generally) it has a problem and needs a buff.
If a class has a mechanism for breaking action economy it is too strong and needs a nerf.
If a class bypasses common primary defenses it's situationally too strong and may need a nerf if the situation in which it's strong is too common or too weak and in need of a buff if the situation is too rare. Or to make the ability non-situational and then balance it because you can't predict when designing a class what sort of campaigns will be written in the future.
For example clerics potentially tick all three boxes. They have woefully inadequate skill points, the ability to get standard action summons, and can target weak defenses on many opponents (will or fort bypassing the HP buffer). If balance were a major goal they should have more skill points, no sacred summoning, and the save or lose spells should be weakened or removed.
Sure, clerics are good in some areas and weak in others. That means they are balanced for TEAM play, not unbalanced.
D&D is a team game, not a one on one arena combat or race game.
I have seen no issues with balance thru 12th level in PF.
True, in my 16th level 3.5 game there are balance issues, as with a moderate number of spells the cleric or sorc can becomes a better warrior than my samurai. That's a balance issue as not only can they do their jobs just fine, they can do mine better than I can. I have become somewhat marginalized.
I heard wind that there was an argument that there was little to no class power disparity from someone at Paizo. Is there a link to this argument?Here's James Jacobs on it. Not a big fan of that statement myself. Mostly because it claims balance is the GM's job. Bleh.
I can sorta see where he's going regardless of whether or not I agree.
To many times I've seen parties with no casters fall apart when coming across an otherwise easily bypassed encounter, and just as often I've seen the same thing happen when the party is full of full casters that blow their good spells early and die to the first thing to touch them. An unbalanced party can kill you pretty fast.
I also try to GM in ways that make martials more useful by making creative terrain, favoring groups of monsters, having monsters use strategies that target casters. I am also not a fan of 5 minute work days and will totally roll random encounters when people sleep in dangerous places, and if my players don't stop big bad evil guy TONIGHT then he finished his big bad evil plan.
Where I disagree is when you bring in the amount of situations where non-magical classes cannot do ANYTHING. That number is pretty high and one of the worst feelings in the world is twiddling my thumbs for half an hour.
I heard wind that there was an argument that there was little to no class power disparity from someone at Paizo. Is there a link to this argument?Here's James Jacobs on it. Not a big fan of that statement myself. Mostly because it claims balance is the GM's job. Bleh.
Here's a snippet: "I don't think its as big a deal as the internet makes it out to be. In my games, casters and non-casters tend to be equally valuable to the party, and equally dangerous in various situations as enemies." So yes, he's 100% right. He never says there are NO ISSUES AT ALL, he says it's not "as big a deal as the internet makes it out to be" which is correct.
He sez also "In my games, casters and non-casters tend to be equally valuable to the party, and equally dangerous in various situations as enemies." and true in our games also.
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Sure, clerics are good in some areas and weak in others. That means they are balanced for TEAM play, not unbalanced.
Just gonna throw it out there, but 'balanced for TEAM play' can really suck. I've always thought the ideal balance is competent in many areas and excels in several, rather than sucks in 22 and excels in one. Some people have a different Ideal balance than others, which is part of the reason why you can argue for days on end about things. Sometimes its just minutiae, sometimes its something major.
Edit: I should add that another thing about 'balanced for teamplay' infers that its okay to suck if you have someone to back you up, but what if you don't have that? What if the rogue doesn't show up in a dungeon full of killer traps? What if you get injured and don't have magical healing? What if you run into a flying invisible foe and don't have arcane magic to assist? What if you have a magical malady and no one to heal it. Those things all suck.
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That number is pretty high and one of the worst feelings in the world is twiddling my thumbs for half an hour.
Martial or not I hate those moments. I just end up munching pizza or grabbing a soda or something when that happens. I think that hurts just about anyone really. That's why I usually try to avoid playing a vancian caster if I can or to play a guy who can't do anything but full attack. Its also a pretty awesome feeling to always have a trick up your sleeve, if you can dig it.
One thing that's interesting. There was a Runic Feat product I got recently, and in my head Fighter was the only class I felt really had the feats to spare for them. So I built up a Fighter who's non bonus feats are mostly Rune feats. The result is awesome. Perhaps martial classes need that; something interesting as opposed to a plus to something somewhere.
I heard wind that there was an argument that there was little to no class power disparity from someone at Paizo. Is there a link to this argument?Here's James Jacobs on it. Not a big fan of that statement myself. Mostly because it claims balance is the GM's job. Bleh.I can sorta see where he's going regardless of whether or not I agree.
To many times I've seen parties with no casters fall apart when coming across an otherwise easily bypassed encounter, and just as often I've seen the same thing happen when the party is full of full casters that blow their good spells early and die to the first thing to touch them. An unbalanced party can kill you pretty fast.
I also try to GM in ways that make martials more useful by making creative terrain, favoring groups of monsters, having monsters use strategies that target casters. I am also not a fan of 5 minute work days and will totally roll random encounters when people sleep in dangerous places, and if my players don't stop big bad evil guy TONIGHT then he finished his big bad evil plan.
Where I disagree is when you bring in the amount of situations where non-magical classes cannot do ANYTHING. That number is pretty high and one of the worst feelings in the world is twiddling my thumbs for half an hour.
Well, you have already found a way to balance that- make sure there are times when the spellcasters can’t do ANYTHING, like after they blow all their good spells on the first encounter.
And JJ has said that it *IS* the job of the DM to balance encounters in such a way that either group’s being unable to participate fully are uncommon and when they do occur happen both ways.
For example, if there are flying ranged attacker, a ground-pounding tank or rogue who is not great with ranged attacks will find themselves feeling a bit useless. Sure, then just don’t have ALL your freaken encounters be ranged flyers.
You do all this, as you have shown. So it's hardly impossible.
One thing that's interesting. There was a Runic Feat product I got recently, and in my head Fighter was the only class I felt really had the feats to spare for them. So I built up a Fighter who's non bonus feats are mostly Rune feats. The result is awesome. Perhaps martial classes need that; something interesting as opposed to a plus to something somewhere.
Maybe. There is a hyperbolic (but somewhat accurate) argument is 'fighters can only full attack' because they really only do get abilities relating to full attack unless they can spend their feats on something else, and feats are something everyone gets so not much uniqueness from that. They also tend to be a bit boring because their class features focus on +1's and less -1's, and feats tend to give more +1s instead of adding options or cool powers. Compare to magus, who can fly, turn invisible, make copies of himself, and dash across the battlefield hitting everyone along the way and doing a full attack at the end of the movement(without taking AoOs!).
Have you ever seen the Tome of Battle from 3.5? Its got 'martial adepts' that use 'maneuvers' with a recharge mechanic. That's something different than full attacking every round, and some of those maneuvers gave them options outside of combat. Shadow Hand school could teleport for instance, and Stone Hammer maneuvers ignored DR/Hardness and made the words best(and least subtle) lockpick. Warblades could only learn from schools that didn't have supernatural powers, and were built similar to fighters, but they had plenty of interesting choices and abilities.
There were actually several non vancian casters in 3.5 too, but martial adepts strike me as the one most aimed at martials. Some of them have been transferred to PF through 3rd party(occultist for binder, Invoker for warlock).
One thing that's interesting. There was a Runic Feat product I got recently, and in my head Fighter was the only class I felt really had the feats to spare for them. So I built up a Fighter who's non bonus feats are mostly Rune feats. The result is awesome. Perhaps martial classes need that; something interesting as opposed to a plus to something somewhere.There were actually several non vancian casters in 3.5 too, but martial adepts strike me as the one most aimed at martials. Some of them have been transferred to PF through 3rd party(occultist for binder, Invoker for warlock).
What?! Where?!
But yeah, that's really the only thing keeping me from being a Fighter or Rogue and why I recently started buying third party material. I just have no real options to really do things. Heck, even vanilla Cavalier has face skills and enough ranks per level to use them, and depending on the order can do some other neat things.