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To answer the thread title directly: You can't.
The game is designed for 'wizards rule, fighters drool'. It's ingrained into the system. It's how it's supposed to work.
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Overall, you kinda can't. You can mitigate the gap, but never really eliminate it with the way the game is designed. But as for mitigating it:
The Rogue is a lost cause. Rogues barely even keep up with other martial characters as it is.
Fighter is workable, but difficult. Focusing on taking Feats that allow more versatility is preferable to pumping damage. Things like Racial Heritage: Aasimar to snag a pair of wings down the line, the Disruptive and Spellbreaker Feats to act as an anti-caster, Cornugon Smash for debuffs, that sort of thing.
Barbarian has it the best. Your usual Beast Totem/Superstition/Spell Sunder build is pretty darn good.
Sure, all he's good at is smashing stuff. But he can smash ANYTHING, be it animal, mineral, or magical.
And for both the Fighter and Barbarian, being able to wipe foes out quickly is a solid boon.
Could give a bit more personalized advice if I had their builds.
Stop playing at 12~13th level. That about the only real way.
Or do what most people do... Hope the party casters will limit themselves to support or blasting instead of using their abilities to the fullest in order to make the rest of the party superfluous.
Most players lack the system mastery to God-caster and/or are not interested in one-upping the whole party, so caster-martial disparity is not usually that much of a problem.
If you play at higher levels, though. You gotta simply accept the fact that they caster can do all sorts of fantastic stuff and martials are more or less restricted to the same things they did the whole campaign.
I presume you mean Book of Nine Swords. Check this project out:
Dreamscarred Press presents Path of War
It's still in Alpha, Beta in some stages, and it's a 3rd-party project, but it's an available option.
I'm afraid you won't see anything of this sort from Paizo itself. Several of the higher-ranking Paizo folks are very much not in favor of anything like Bo9S, and greatly disliked that particular book and system.
Alternatively, you can just import the Bo9S classes into PF wholesale. They'll function just fine within the PF ruleset, with the normal necessary tweaks (merge/remove changed skills, etc.).
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have your fighter PC run the spell caster through in his sleep, when it's his turn on guard.
Take a look at the Kirthfinder Houserules.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2mtob?Kirthfinder-World-of-Warriorcraft-Houseru les#1
It goes through great lengths to balance play between the classes. The Rogue is very fun and playable. The martials don't fall behind at any stage and everything so far seems to be well balanced. The best part is reading on how it all interconnects with one another. Its quite a fun experience. Every choice feels pretty meaningful.
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I have seen this come up quite a few times on the messageboards, and the sages all nod their heads and agree that 'fighters are useless' and no one would play a martial character past 10th. I've even seen examples of whole parties of spellcasters who have finished this or that AP... And I don't get it.
In all of our campaigns, from 1st through 3.5 to Pathfinder we've always had players who love spellcasters, but never a shortage of warriors. At low levels the fighters have all the glory; holding the line, dealing the damage, being the last on their feet.
At mid-levels a fighter can be an absolute beast, dealing 30+ damage a round, while a wizard casts one of their three fireballs per day for approx 21 damage.
Even at higher levels, when a spellcaster's options really open up a single hit from a giant, or single area affect spell is likely to kill them. Fighters who are hasted and can fly can make mincemeat of anything.
I'm curious to know how your spellcasters are so powerful that they're taking out enemies before your martial characters have a chance to engage them.
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I'm curious to know how your spellcasters are so powerful that they're taking out enemies before your martial characters have a chance to engage them.
They don't take out the enemies - not in the sense of dealing damage.
They instead neutralize them. Remove options. Cripple them. Then the fighter types can go in and do cleanup to the hamstrung enemies.
Black Tentacles. Wall spells. Slow. Glitterdust. Pit spells. And so on and so on and so on. 90% of the control mage's repertoire is not laying down the damage with Evocations but rather reshaping the battlefield with Conjurations. If a mage needs to do damage he's better off Summoning something than tossing out a Fireball... or setting up the enemy so he can send the Fighter to go kill it.
Doing damage isn't the point of the God Mage. It's making it so the enemies can't do anything to you. The Fighters, "beasts" doing tons of damage as you say, are just the mage's cleanup crew. And a hasted and flying Fighter is just relying on either buffs the mage has given him or tools the mage (or some other mage, if not an in-party crafter) has made available to him, to make him better at being his janitor.
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Pacing and encounter design is one of the ways I do it.
The problem with resource based characters is their design is to expend their resources over the course of the adventure, forcing them to manage their resources until the very end.
Problem is that "the Course of an Adventure" is a little up in the air and can be difficult to find the sweet spot. Too many breaks or easy rest points and they are free to burn off more resources than then need to making them more powerful for short bursts. Not enough breaks and they burn out too fast and feel useless for the rest of the night.
If your Witch and Sorcerer feel they can burn off spells left and right it's because they feel confident the group will be taking a break so they can recover. They should be relying more on their Hexes and Per day abilities reserving Spells for Big problems.
Try an adventure with a countdown. A rival group racing them for the goal or a doomsday clock they have to beat. IF they have to rest a day every three or four encounters because the Spellcasters are tapping themselves out too quickly they are going to fail.
They start running into dungeon rooms where their rivals have already killed everything and gotten the loot or the Sun gets darker every day until the Evil ritual of the Vampire King blots it out forever.
The group will start thinking We need to make the casters last longer or we are never going to make it before the the other guys/end of the world
That's sad to hear. There aren't any systems like that one 3.5 book (can't remember it's name) that work in pathfinder?
If you mean the Tome of Battle, that absolutely did not balance martials and casters at all--all it did was make being a martial slightly more interesting and less punishing at high levels since you had more options than just full attacking (most maneuvers were standard actions that allowed you to move as well).
The maneuvers were still "martial stuff," though, meaning that you were inflicting a bunch of damage and maybe some minor debuffing condition, while the spellcasters were still bending reality.
I'm curious to know how your spellcasters are so powerful that they're taking out enemies before your martial characters have a chance to engage them.
The spellcasters are not dealing damage for the most part (though a properly built blaster can be terrifying). Instead, they are:
1) Solving 100% of non-combat problems as the martials can't even interact with the majority of them by the teens.2) Controlling the battlefield such that the fighter gets to clean up the enemies, rather than fight them. Nothing like beating on a blind/entangled/dazed guy to make you feel like a hero.
As for what can be done, the possible answers are:
1) Suck it up and get the martials to switch to at least partial casters. Many fighter-types will enjoy a Wildshaping druid, for example.
2) Play E6 or E8 or otherwise cut the game short--I'd say pre-10th, but I can understand some saying 12th.
3) Play Kirthfinder
4) Play a totally different game that has some modicum of balance in regards to spellcasting, such as Savage Worlds.
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The way I see it, the party is meant to work together. So, the wizard immobilizes the giant, the fighter kills it. They both rock because they worked together.
Casters don't outshine and make the martial characters useless unless they are built by the player to do so. IF your players actually want to work together, and design their characters to work together, all is good. Nobody is useless, everyone has their roles.
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Bring back the wandering monster. When the spellcasters get to determine the length of the adventuring day, they can pump an entire day's worth of spells into a single opponent.
No one can withstand that.
But, if they have to pace themselves, and keep some gas in the tank, it helps considerably.
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I have a party at level 8 and the Witch and Sorcerer are already making the Barbarian, Fighter, and Rogue feel more like speed bumps than contributors.
Any suggestions?
Describe what is happening specifically and we can discuss it.
Otherwise this will just be a "Wizard's rule, fighter's drool" thread.
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Take away the caster's certainty about how many encounters per day. Instead of taking days to do the dungeon, room by room, give them time pressure; they've got to do it in one go, otherwise...
* Enemies inside regroup/reinforce/respawn/launch counterattacks
* Enemies evacuate the dungeon's treasure through the backdoor
* A third party arrives to compete
* You need the MacGuffin today, not next week
When the players aren't certain how many rooms/combats there'll be in the dungeon, and if they can stretch a buff spell between two encounters, casters need to be much more stingy with the amount of spells. A few spells to turn the encounter in the right direction, but they can't afford to dominate the entire encounter, because then they might be out of juice in the next combat.
Very evil: decoy BBEGs. An enemy appears that looks like it might be the BBEG, the casters unload their alpha spells, and then it turns out he was only the sub-boss. Do it once or twice and the casters will not be so quick to unload in the first round of combat.
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Make the opponents as smart as they should be!
Make them try take down the casters fists one way or any other. They should know about the basics of magic as they know that swords cut, shiels block and bows stab from far. Take away the components, shut him up or at least make him deaf, nets, alchemicals (or javelins of lightning)can do so mutch when delaying the throwing on the casting!
The bad guy should know that Oils of Dispel Magic, Non-detection and Levitate can cover alot of if's... Hell, Use Magical Device+skill focus and scrolls can cover more (That's mostly for the Rogue)
Powerful opponents should have large quantities of various minions (even relatively low CR ones)and they should know that keeping the pressure on can break the recovery of their ennemies magic powers.
I Long got the feeling that it's assumed that the BBG doesn't know about magic and I only mean the basics but in the D&D/PF settings that only makes sense low level.
Hell, Use Magical Device+skill focus and scrolls can cover more (That's mostly for the Rogue)
Not necessarily, now with PF's revamped skill system any character can put ranks into this, they just lose the +3 Class Skill bonus unless they have a trait that gives them UMD as a class skill. (Which there is one - Dangerously Curious.)
A Fighter who sticks a rank in at every level and doesn't have an abysmal Charisma can probably activate most wands 50% of the time by around level 6. (6 ranks + 2 CHA [14's not a bad score but not super great] + 3 Class Skill [thanks again to Dangerously Curious] = +11 vs DC 20 to activate a wand. Gets better if you have a better CHA or have Skill Focus.) And the best part is? Failing a UMD check does not expend a charge on the wand. He can keep trying that wand until he makes the check without loss of anything but time*. Not great for in-combat "Hah I suddenly throw a fireball!" But for pre-encounter buffs? Perfect.
* = okay yeah there is the "if you roll a 1 you can't use that item for 24 hours" caveat, but unless your dice hate you that's unlikely to happen more than once or twice.
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Hell, Use Magical Device+skill focus and scrolls can cover more (That's mostly for the Rogue)Not necessarily, now with PF's revamped skill system any character can put ranks into this, they just lose the +3 Class Skill bonus unless they have a trait that gives them UMD as a class skill. (Which there is one - Dangerously Curious.)
Fully aggeed, I should have used "Better for Rogues". I had the trait in mind but we are talking of NPCs, Traits aren't as optimised, etc.
But BBEG (or his face-guy)often have a good Cha. bonus. with that, Skill Focus and Magical Aptitude (+4 if you have 10rks+) you'll have a opponent that can deal with magic in so many, many ways.
My group loves traits (well, except for one guy, but his complaint about them is the same as his complaint about feats - option paralysis). Important NPCs - both allies and opponents - tend to have them. It also helps to flesh their backgrounds out. That's very much a personal taste thing, but hey, this IS the Homebrew forum.
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Make sure you're applying the rules that matter. Spellcasters SHOULD be worrying about concentration checks, line of sight, spell resistance, and time elapsed.
If you hand-wave that, it's like hand-waving AC, it's a HUGE advantage to the characters involved, and doesn't affect the others.
Remember, searching for traps is SLOW. Taking 20 is SLOW. While that's fine for the rogue, it means a lot of those buff spells expire.
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And, keep in mind, that 6-8 level is a sweet spot for many casters, especially evokers. After that, a lot of enemies have resistances and immunities, and spell casters have to work a lot harder.
Fireball vs CR 3 ogre - +0 reflex save
Charm Person vs CR 3 ogre - +3 will save
Wall of Ice vs CR 3 ogre - must go around or bash through
Fireball vs CR 7 spectre - half damage & +5 reflex save
Charm Person vs CR 7 spectre - immune
Wall of Ice vs. CR 7 spectre - no effect; pass through
Fireball vs. CR 9 vrock - SR 20 & resist fire 10 & +10 reflex
Charm Person vs. CR 9 vrock - no effect
Wall of Ice vs. CR 9 vrock - can fly, teleport, & resist cold 10
And don't give away information for free.
Don't tell them fire giants are vulnerable to cold. I don't even tell them that they are fire giants, just red-skinned large humanoids. You want to tell the difference between a salamander, an efreeti, and a fire giant, then you can make a knowledge check.
And if you fail, too bad for you. That's what you get for dumping intelligence.
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I have a party at level 8 and the Witch and Sorcerer are already making the Barbarian, Fighter, and Rogue feel more like speed bumps than contributors.
Any suggestions?
Describe what is happening specifically and we can discuss it.
Otherwise this will just be a "Wizard's rule, fighter's drool" thread.
Well one of the fights was against an alchemist that the party had been tracking for several sessions. He'd developed a necromantic serum that allowed him to bring back the dead under his command. Well the battle took place in a dense forest while they were being swarmed by zombies.
The Barbarian and the Fighter were having major mobility issues, while the casters were just walloping everything with lightning bolts. The Rogue ended up getting a critical hit on the Alchemist with a sneak attack on top, but even that wasn't a lot of damage compared to the lightning bolts.
This lit the surrounding forest on fire, but the caster's didn't care, they just flew away while the other three slowly burnt to death unable to escape. (Well they escaped eventually, but that was just because of quick thinking on behalf of the Rogue)
This helps. A few questions.
Why were the wizard and sorcerer not being swarmed? Did they make their concentration checks for casting on the defensive if they were swarmed?
How many times did the wizard have lightning bolt memorized? Particularly wondering if he also has Fly memorized, which is also a 3rd level spell.
If it was a dense forest, were they having line issues, that is were trees in the way (since they caught on fire it would seem they were....)
If your casters set an entire forest on fire, nearly killing the party, I wouldn't describe that as them being awesome.
How many encounters happened that day?
Also, by 8th level, why do the melee not have any fly potions or ways to fly? WBL is 33k. Not trying to Schrodinger, but most of the time a melee will grab at least one potion as an emergency by around 5th or 6th level.
It sounds to me like the melee were engaging the enemy, giving the casters room to cast without being swarmed/killed. Then the casters messed up and almost killed the party, who for some reason don't have a fly potion at 8th level.
It sounds like the kind of encounter where a blaster Sorcerer shines (enemy doesn't have much ranged to get them, enemy has limited mobility)
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Like a lot of people have said up thread encounter design and resource management are key to dealing with casters. If they think they can dictate how many encounters they are having and when then they have broken the game for themselves since scarcity and resource management are the cornerstones of those classes. So remember random encounters, wandering monsters, and to keep them sweating about how they spend those spell slots.
Second, be a dick. Remember that these characters live in a world FULL OF MAGIC in the same way that our world is FULL OF TECHNOLOGY. Just because the local banditry doesn't know that the wizard is casting fireball doesn't mean they don't know the stories of these crazy people who live far away and will create strategies and buy protective wards accordingly.
My go to example is a group of bandits in a remote section of wilderness who have a penchant for burning books and backpacks. In combat they will primarily try to steal someones belt pouches, back packs, or scroll cases and then promptly set them ablaze. This in their minds fills 2 purposes
1. It quickly gives them access to the loot they actually want (gold, jewels, precious metals)
2. Neutralizes whatever magical threats said group might have to fight them.
On top of this it makes even more sense for them to burn most magical items like spell books and ignitible magic items if you consider them living in an area where the population is low and they might not be able to fence or even price some of the items that these players might have.
Now this is but one option but remember to use stuff like this to help curb off your players game control. Other good options are remembering that most towns have to have laws about what magic can and cannot be used in city limits with needs ranging from outright bans to things like needing permits, more strategies from more normal NPC's like night attacks, and just enemies in general playing smarter with their resources then blindly charging the PC's up front.
Even idiot bandits should see the value in spreading out.
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Without jumping into the middle of discussions about caster vs. martial balance or the summoner class as a whole (where I think there are plenty of differing opinions), here are a few plays from my (amazing) GM's playbook that can help balance a character of any type that is lagging behind others in the party or slow down a spellcaster cruising ahead.
1. Don't worry about wealth by level or equal level in a party. If someone is struggling create situations in which they can come across something to help dig them out: a new sword, boots of teleportation, wings of flying. Whatever it takes. He's used gifts by friends and lovers (especially at the end of a given adventure) as his main instrument here, sometimes giving someone something worth a few thousand and another worth tens of thousands. It all depends on who needs what.
2. Higher point buy. This really serves to close gaps that can open up with people that have high system mastery and people more concerned with background or fluff. Higher stats and better point buy tends to reward martial characters in particular, who often need multiple high stats. This tends to really punish druids with companions and summoners, who have companions built with a set selection of points. They don't get stronger in the same way when everyone else does. In a very high stat game we saw a summoner getting absolutely steamrolled, because he lagged behind in attack, damage, armor class, and saves relative to frontliners.
3. Strict interpretation of rules. This one is kind of sticky and works primarily to balance casters, who can get out of hand with a lenient DM. Things like teleport, sending, and divinations have broad definitions for what defines familiar or what information someone gets precisely so the GM can control their use more readily. Stick to them more strictly and draw lines more harshly to mitigate their effects.
4. Have enemies retreat. This one killed me when I first saw it in play. Basically, I think many GMs tend to have enemies fight to the death even as circumstances work against them. This is especially true of battlefield control spells and debuffs. Basically, when enemies are losing and starting to fight an uphill battle with debuffs, enemy buffs, and battlefield control have them pull back or run away. Force the PC to chase them into a disadvantageous circumstance. It really tends to kick spellcaster heavy partys right in the nuts, since they have expended a lot of resources setting up a battlefield that they they have to charge into / undo.
5. Special training, faction benefits, or unique powers for PCs lagging behind. My Wizard PC has been in play since the Core Rulebook and has been lagging behind the more recent caster PCs built using options from the APG, Ultimate Magic, and other sources. The GM in turn basically let her pick up a pair of free spell focus feats via one of her organizations - which she has been a part of for years to help balance out the greater build flexibility seen in new characters built from scratch instead of organically leveled.
6. Have real consequences for shortcuts. PCs that stiff creatures on planar binding can quickly gain a reputation that colors interactions with future bound creatures, outsiders the party interacts with, other spellcasters, and priests of all stripes. They could even end up with outsiders sending people or other outsiders to get the party over such actions. This is especially true with beings like efreeti who are lawful and evil, who work within a hierarchy, and who likely don't take kindly to being enslaved and having their powers forced from them. A wizard binding a single efreeti to get a wish out of him is an encounter that might have long term repercussions as that powerful being and his allies work against the party. A wizard binding a number of efreeti towards that end is probably looking at a quick and brutal death. These are cool and useful spells that can add a lot of life to a game, but can be abused if a GM lets a player play only by the RAW with no outside campaign world consequences for such actions.
The same is true of charm or domination spells - these can be shortcuts to rapid resolution of a given social encounter but will in the long term bite the party in the ass. Kings, rulers, and other powerful individuals will refuse to meet privately with them. People will despise the casters for stripping away their free will. I could see many people drawing a parallel between enchantment spells and rape. Create ethical dilemmas with them that if unresolved turn into social repercussions for the party.
7. Use environmental limitations that are built into the game and often ignored. In a forest or jungle you can't see very far. There is plenty of cover. Stealthy enemies can get very close before you even get a chance to see them. There is a reason there is a limit on line of sight in these areas beyond simple realism. Similarly, be strict with light sources. If casters are casting light spells they aren't casting lightning bolts - regardless of the level.
8. Multiple enemies shut down save or lose casters. Shutting down one relatively powerful fighter is great - what about the other three? If you find players tweaking spell DCs in this way let them have their moments in the sun, but don't let them control the pace of your game.
9. Enemies buff too. Even non-caster enemies can carry multiple potions easily. The best part here is that if PCs are goofing off and casting tons of buffs the enemies can be drinking away the treasure and making the fight harder at the same time. Don't be afraid to even package potions together. High level pirate enemies might carry "Red Rum", a potent drink that carries Bear's Endurance, Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, and Heroism all in one easy to drink potion. These kinds of items can be boons to martial characters if they capture them as well - providing some aces in the hole that are not unlimited in their uses and thus easily controlled by the GM.
10. Magic and the world should be mysterious. There should be times a given spell doesn't work - and that you don't know it will fail until it does. Perhaps there is an astral storm going on that makes teleporting risky. Perhaps special energy fields underground interfere with certain types of spells. Maybe there was an ancient and powerful curse laid upon a given location. These are plot devices that a GM can use that fit in completely with the spirit and tradition of the game which also can allow you to reign in renegade spellcasters or remove some potions. You shouldn't use them all the time - or even terribly frequently because your goal is not to make spellcasters useless - but judicious use can do a lot to change the feel of the game.
11. Wizards don't open their spellbooks to strangers. One of the many cited examples of wizard supremacy is the idea that they can have access to every spell for the low cost of a few gold pieces. Laying aside the problems with the idea that you will always have the right spell prepared, nothing in the lore of any published campaign setting suggests that wizards (especially higher level wizards) simply give out spells for sums of coin that are trivial to them. Instead there are tens of thousands of pages of wizards jealously guarding their most prized possession from all comers, and only sharing arcane knowledge with their close allies and associates. That is something I'd love to see played up in more games. Yes, the costs for scribing spells from a spellbook are well laid out, but the circumstances that lead you to gain access to it are up to a GM. I'm not saying GMs should screw over wizard players and only let them have their 2 spells per level, but I am saying that creating a little more work to get spells means that they might not have the perfect spell available - and that having to work for access to new sources of arcane lore makes for a more interesting story.
12. Mystery in the World. I think something too many GMs underestimate is the value if ambiguity and world knowledge. An NPC saying something isn't likely to work is worth ten active spells that prevent it in terms of keeping the PCs from doing something. As an example...
During the course of an adventure that pitted the my party against the evil ruler of a city they were told that, for instance, his palace dungeons were heavily warded, and that trying to teleport into them was unlikely to work and/or likely to be a disaster. The exact nature of these wards was never expanded upon - the PCs had exhausted the source of knowledge in that regard - but that little statement that gave away nothing mechanically kept us from attempting such a maneuver in a way that the dungeons being dimensional locked never would have.
I don't think there is anything wrong with a GM being vague about these things via NPCs - the world is not spelled out to PCs via all game terms - and leaving some mystery to magic is remarkably valuable.
13. Killer Day: There's also some value in the 'killer' day approach to mitigating things like the five-minute work day. Basically, the theory goes that you don't have to bludgeon your PCs with murderous 10 encounter days every day to keep them from blowing their loads on the first enemy they fight. You just have to hit them with it once out of the blue to make an impact. This happened to us a couple of years ago, when we were unexpectedly taken prisoner while astral projecting on the way to a twenty some encounter day that involved fighting our way through an entire tower full of powerful wizards, golems, clockwork things, and aberration horrors (with no gear!).
I never blew through spells the same way again unless it was an encounter that was tremendously personally important.
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I have a party at level 8 and the Witch and Sorcerer are already making the Barbarian, Fighter, and Rogue feel more like speed bumps than contributors.
Any suggestions?
Describe what is happening specifically and we can discuss it.
Otherwise this will just be a "Wizard's rule, fighter's drool" thread.
Well one of the fights was against an alchemist that the party had been tracking for several sessions. He'd developed a necromantic serum that allowed him to bring back the dead under his command. Well the battle took place in a dense forest while they were being swarmed by zombies.
The Barbarian and the Fighter were having major mobility issues, while the casters were just walloping everything with lightning bolts. The Rogue ended up getting a critical hit on the Alchemist with a sneak attack on top, but even that wasn't a lot of damage compared to the lightning bolts.
This lit the surrounding forest on fire, but the caster's didn't care, they just flew away while the other three slowly burnt to death unable to escape. (Well they escaped eventually, but that was just because of quick thinking on behalf of the Rogue)
Somewhere you now have an incredibly angry druid looking for a Witch and a Sorcerer.
he has no issues with the Barbarian, Rogue and the Fighter cause all they did was chop up some abominations to nature and kill the fiend responsible for it.
If he discovers the casters left them to burn he might even ask them for help punishing the reckless spellcasters who have no compassion for nature.
Also if your Witch and Sorcerer weren't Chaotic before, they are now
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At 8th level a lighting bolt is averaging 28 points of damage per target (3.5 X 8) it hits that does not make a save.
Given a CR 8 creature by guidelines has 100 hit points...that isn't the issue.
A warrior NPC class with power attack 18 strength and a two handed greatsword averages 22 damage per attack (two at 8th level) before you even calculate in criticals.
Dense forest should effect the zombies mobility as much as the players, and the lightning bolts seemed to have caused more problems than they solved.
It seems more like the Witch and Sorcerer almost killed the whole party by making bad choices. Is it possible that is why the other players are irritated?
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What everyone else said, but I am especially wondering how in dense forest the wizard and witch got enough line of sight and effect to be that deadly with the lightning bolts.
Also it seems less than optimal to attack with slow moving creatures in difficult terrain.
And given how the casters abandoned everyone to die due to their own carelessness, they are evil aligned?
Peter has some good options there. The long encounter day does a good job at keeping full casters in check, and it can be used sparingly.
Also, feel free to drop an artifact weapon or a mythic tier or two to those who seem to be a little less than potent.
The answer is you don't and you don't have to. A fighter will never cast Wish or be able to teleport but he isn't supposed to, he is a fighter. Classes have roles. As long as you provide challenges for those roles you are fine. Traps and locks for the thief, spy missions, skill intensive jobs are for rogues and bards. Fighters fight. Mages and Clerics can do everything at high level, but really are your blasters and utility guys...and ...
as has been said above there are ways to make non-casters feel more usefull. Line of sight restrictions, more encounters per day, magic resistant or outright imune enemies, etc. The wizard sure likes that fighter when the golems are about to get him or when it is the 10th encounter of the day and his spells are running out.
And don't give away information for free.
Don't tell them fire giants are vulnerable to cold. I don't even tell them that they are fire giants, just red-skinned large humanoids. You want to tell the difference between a salamander, an efreeti, and a fire giant, then you can make a knowledge check.
And if you fail, too bad for you. That's what you get for dumping intelligence.
usually, it's the casters that minmax intelligence and/or charisma
most martial characters don't even have a chance to roll a knowledge check in the first place
in fact, because a single combat encounter can take up 85% of a session, it is easier to just say, "you see a group of 6 fire giant fighters with longbows, glaives, cesti and adamantine fullplate" than it is to say,
"you see a half-dozen massive humanoids in the distance, 12 feet in height, with powerful and stocky builds, crimson hued skin, long scarlet beards, and scarlet hair, clad in heavy adamantium armor with a long shaft of solid adamantium held between their hands extended 20 feet forward, an adamantium curved blade on either edge, with sharp studs on their left gauntlets. across their backs, were large bows 10 feet in height designed with powerful draws designed for giants"
i prefer the latter description over the former
problem is, with the DMs in my area, such a description isn't often available
in fact, it can be as vague as, "you see 6 fire giant fighters." with no indication of their weapon, and it might as well be the greatsword they wield in the bestiary
Peter has some good options there. The long encounter day does a good job at keeping full casters in check, and it can be used sparingly.
Gotta' be careful with it though. The amount of time it takes before you need to rest varies, and if you blow all your spells the game can quickly turn into 'not fun'. Spellcasting is awkward like that.
Also, feel free to drop an artifact weapon or a mythic tier or two to those who seem to be a little less than potent.
Gotta' be careful with that. That stuff is potent.
Well , i wont really give ideas , i think most of those i could give are covered here.
Still i will remember you OP that the spell caster is also a PC, some ideas here are quite extreme , do try to "balance" things right otherwise you will indeed make the martial player happy , but will have one pissed spell caster leaving because you are antagonizing him/her.
Bad stuff happens to everyone during adventures , not just to X and Y everyday while the others keep it cool because they dont have magic to help it.
A CR 8 creature is supposed to be EASY for a party of level 8 adventurers.
A CR 8 creature is supposed to be EASY for a party of level 8 adventurers.
Yeah, this. A CR Equal encounter is supposed to eat up about 20-25% of the party's resources (consumables, HP, spells, etc).
And as mentioned above, direct damage is, most of the time, a complete waste of a spell. Stuff like Entangle, Black Tentacles and the like is where it's at for the spellcasters.
You're basically going to have to ask the witch and sorcerer to hold back and treat the martial characters like children. You know, they do something abysmally simple that you could have more easily and quickly done yourself, then say 'Good job!'
Or, see if the martials want to change to spellcasters.
May have already been said:
But the best way I get around it as a DM is to throw NPCs at them. Use tactics and traps. Seperate them from the group. Have other Spellcaster baddies that counter their spells. There are tons of ways to stop Spellcasters from controling the combat. Out of everything, I'd say try to use tactics against them mixed with baddies that are either immune to spells or resistant against them.
I mean you don't want them to be completely useless and nerf them, but let the martials have some fun. Even out the battlefield with on par enemies. For the Rogue, the Rogue is good at skills also. Maybe make the Rogue feel important by having lots of locks and traps in a cave or have some kind of quest where it requires someone to sneak into a building, unlock something and retrieve *place item/note here*.
Also the Rogue CAN be good in combat, if they are built right.
you can't really eliminate the gulf in any D20 derived system. you can reduce the gulf by giving martials access to superhuman options, but then it becomes the same as warlock versus wizard.
you can't really eliminate the gulf in any D20 derived system. you can reduce the gulf by giving martials access to superhuman options, but then it becomes the same as warlock versus wizard.
By 12th level we've already hit superhuman capacities. A 20th Level Fighter goes even beyond that.
I've seen this gulf, but it's only a big deal at levels 12 and up. Even then, casters are great when they are ready, and not so much when surprised. Martials are steadier, 24/7.
you can't really eliminate the gulf in any D20 derived system. you can reduce the gulf by giving martials access to superhuman options, but then it becomes the same as warlock versus wizard.By 12th level we've already hit superhuman capacities. A 20th Level Fighter goes even beyond that.
only in the damage you can inflict, and the amount of punishment you can tank
anything that doesn't involve attack rolls, armor class, hit points or a damage roll, you are screwed on
you can't do the majority of the epic deeds in mythology. i'd like martial PCs to do all of these deeds
- you aren't swimming for 2 weeks straight in platemail and slaying 9 sea serpents on the 10th night without rest
- you aren't tearing off grendel's good arm with merely your bare hands
- you aren't deflecting spells back at the caster with the flat of your blade as an immediate action
- you aren't slicing the air so hard, that the vaccuum of air pressure created by your force, flies to your foe as a ranged attack based on your strength
- you can't shake off a Curse, Geass Effect, or Dominate spell or similar hindering condition as a swift action by quoting a mantra to boost your resolve and expand the strength of your will power iron heart surge style
- you can't develop such mad leaping skills, that you can fake flight by means of crazy jumping skills samurai jack style
- you can't dash towards a horde of mooks, toss your blade into them, cleave them all in one toss as you dash forward, and catch the blade mid dash flight to cleave the last mook.
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you can't really eliminate the gulf in any D20 derived system. you can reduce the gulf by giving martials access to superhuman options, but then it becomes the same as warlock versus wizard.By 12th level we've already hit superhuman capacities. A 20th Level Fighter goes even beyond that.
Sort of. He's not nearly as good as he needs to be to stand next to a reality warper. Spell casters can teleport around the battlefield, around the world, through space, summon angels and demons without err and have absolute control, dominate the minds of the weakwilled for days on end, and control undead armies.
What does the fighter get out of all these levels the spell casters slowly grew into reality warpers? He gets to hit a little hard with a sword. He doesn't survive or thrive, he lags behind. The other martials are in a similar shape, but its more noticeable with the more mundane characters(rogue and fighter). The fighter doesn't even learn to do what is necessary to survive in the system, like fly. Nor does he attain new abilities to combat this. At least the barbarian has rage powers, though they cap out around 12, and quiet a few are scaling making them useful. Feats aren't so lucky.
Martial Adepts, mentioned earlier, help mitigate this lack of scaling by introducing maneuvers that you learn as you level. They gain the ability to swap out saves for an always scaling concentration check(3.5, you could crank that pretty high), you could attack flat footed, leap at someone as a swift, and eventually you got 30 foot blindsense, and further after that you could halt time and make two full attacks in a round or freeze someone's heart in ice and blow it up!
I've seen this gulf, but it's only a big deal at levels 12 and up. Even then, casters are great when they are ready, and not so much when surprised. Martials are steadier, 24/7.
Its more noticeable, but even earlier its existent. In particular reliance on magic for things such as flight, which the system demands. Even at level one a wizard can knock out a room full of people with sleep or color spray. Around level 6 Druid and Magus learn to pounce and fighter is actually starting to lose attacks. The gap widens, but some of its realities do still exist. Mind you at low levels you have less ammo in your magical spellslot gun analogy thingy, but I've never liked go big or go home balance.