Interesting. Dreamscarred press do good work, I look forward to seeing that when it's finished.3) Adapt the book of nine swords to Pathfinder.Number 3 is a really the easiest option here especially since Dreamscarred Press is doing just that and I am very excite.
DSP's is not the same thing and isn't the best solution. 9 Swords was awesome for me, I liked having a combat viable character with an okay number of skill points and who could perform great feats of strength and had options in combat. 9 swords however doesn't give you that much narrative power. It gives you a power lockpick in the form of stone hammer, it can give you blindsense, and it can give you some mobility, but it doesn't give you the power to change the world around you or shape the battlefield very well. It doesn't give great defenses directly against casters beyond smashing them and mobility. Its a step up, but not in all the right places if that makes sense, its a lot of lateral movement out of combat. Your still a tier 3 surrounded by tier 1/2, if that makes sense(which is a whole lot better than being tier 5/6).
I'd like to add a number 4, rather than taking the 2 route which is exceptionally punishing, mix it with 3. Lots of good not so world shattering classes out there that can represent caster types. The warlock(invoker), binder(occultist), and gish types aren't so awful at stealing the show(though magus does blow things up pretty well) and can add a lot of flavor to the world. Not the best solution either though, for its own reasons.
Pumping initiative is optimal on casters because if you do your first round right, you might not need another one. When your playing the class with the rockets for rocket tag, being able to shoot before your enemies is critical. This factor is more valuable then pretty much anything else. (Though if there were some theoretical statistic that was objectively more valuable I'd argue for that, because really this isn't an emotional thing for me, its just math.)
But just because YOU see an imbalance doesn't me I or someone else do.
Why are YOU the person who decides what is and isn't balanced and others opinions not valid?
Because I am the person who has pointed out exactly what the imbalances are and where they exist,
Link? I can't find such a post.
All I see is Wizards do Wizard stuff. That's not proof of imbalance.
It an opinion you have that Martials can't affect the plot-- with skills they can do nearly everything a Wizard can just slower. There are a few exceptions, but simply pointing out that wizards can teleport and create planes of existence and use divinations isn't "proof" of an imbalance.
Anzyr-- you are playing a very thing style of game where you stack up every buff in the world, then rush through a dungeon glancing at rooms instead of searching them, where summoned minions can be used as suicide bombers, and where nothing ever happens when you don't want it to.
Yes-- if you are allowed to work for 10 minutes then retreat to recharge, when every spell is interpreted in the most powerful way possible, and when you are allowed to spend 10+ rounds before combat starts setting up buffs the Wizard is more powerful than the fighter.
This is not the way the majority of people play the game. There used to be a word for this style of play "munchkin" "monty haul" ect. . . what you are describing isn't an unbalanced game, its a DM allowing the players to dictate the game.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Pumping initiative is optimal on casters because if you do your first round right, you might not need another one. When your playing the class with the rockets for rocket tag, being able to shoot before your enemies is critical. This factor is more valuable then pretty much anything else.
I guess I'm imagining someone who prefers a different strategy than playing rocket tag (or who plays in a campaign where that is deemphasised). If the DM (or story) happens to favour very high initiative monsters (for example), wont the tactic of pumping initiative be less advantageous? You're going to spend the same resources but not win the same proportion of initiative contests. Beefing up survivability or otherwise improving yourself will be more beneficial in those games, won't it?
Pumping initiative is optimal on casters because if you do your first round right, you might not need another one. When your playing the class with the rockets for rocket tag, being able to shoot before your enemies is critical. This factor is more valuable then pretty much anything else.I guess I'm imagining someone who prefers a different strategy than playing rocket tag (or who plays in a campaign where that is deemphasised). If the DM (or story) happens to favour very high initiative monsters (for example), wont the tactic of pumping initiative be less advantageous? You're going to spend the same resources but not win the same proportion of initiative contests. Beefing up survivability or otherwise improving yourself will be more beneficial in those games, won't it?It's generally more advantageous, unless the monster initiative is pumped like 20 points more than you can achieve.
You have an initiative of 10, the monster 19.
On average rolls you have about a 5% chance of going first.
Take feat+familiar+trait, that's a +10.
Now it's 20 vs 19.
Your chances of going first improved from 5% to 55%.
"It's generally more advantageous" is a far cry from "casters who don't pump initiative are bad casters".
Its not an absolute truth, and there's no need to insult people for disagreeing with it. And when people are insulted and attacked for having a differing opinion they tend to lash out, so I don't know why you are confused that I got ticked off.
I don't have 11 feats at 1st, 5th, or 8th level. I have 1 or 2 or 3 if I'm a human 4.
So I should spend 100% or 50% or 33% of my feats on Improved Initiative by that point?
Then I should also give up +2 to a saving throw to gain the +4 initiative, and should give up the favored item which allows me an additional spell that I can default to 1/day (which is the option I choose most often).
The favored item is also doubly powerful at first level when I have 3 spells because it can be a Masterwork weapon which I receive for free-- but I shouldn't take this despite it being a powerful option at 1st level because when I get to 20th level it won't matter as much?
In fact, according to Anzyr-- making any other choice that this I am "a bad caster".
characters aren't made in a vacuum, and they aren't usually made with all of their feats up front.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Pumping initiative is optimal on casters because if you do your first round right, you might not need another one. When your playing the class with the rockets for rocket tag, being able to shoot before your enemies is critical. This factor is more valuable then pretty much anything else.I guess I'm imagining someone who prefers a different strategy than playing rocket tag (or who plays in a campaign where that is deemphasised). If the DM (or story) happens to favour very high initiative monsters (for example), wont the tactic of pumping initiative be less advantageous? You're going to spend the same resources but not win the same proportion of initiative contests. Beefing up survivability or otherwise improving yourself will be more beneficial in those games, won't it?It's generally more advantageous, unless the monster initiative is pumped like 20 points more than you can achieve.
You have an initiative of 10, the monster 19.
On average rolls you have about a 5% chance of going first.
Take feat+familiar+trait, that's a +10.
Now it's 20 vs 19.
Your chances of going first improved from 5% to 55%.
Presumably there are alternative strategies to playing a wizard though? My position is peculiar (in that I don't care about optimisation or balance so don't have much of a view about what's "best") but I'm nonetheless interested. From general principles, it seems like "optimisation" only makes sense in the context of achieving some predetermined goal.
I can accept that if your strategy is to maximise your chance at neutralising things in round one whilst the enemy followed the same strategy (I'm presuming that's what results in the term "rocket tag"), you'd want to ensure you had a decent chance at going first. I don't accept that there's no trade off though. Surely the stat allocation/feat expenditure/items or whatever that you're spending on going first could instead be spent on surviving those times when you don't win initiative. In a campaign against super fast things, the balance is likely to tip (or against super slow things, for that matter - if your DM typically plays enemies you can beat easily, there's not such value in ensuring you beat them by twenty plus, is there?)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Of course having the option to go first in Combat is good. Still, it has a cost. Diviners pretty well can go first, but it's not a great school. Impr Init is a solid choice, but there are other choices, like say Toughness, as a dead Wizard goes last of all.
So it's a Choice. It's a good choice. It might even be the best choice, but it's not the ONLY decent choice.
@Steve Geddes:
What battle concept do you have that wouldn't be served by going first in combat? Even if you just want to buff, going first means your allies can benefit from your buffs on their turn (whereas if you went after them they'd have to wait until next turn). Even if you re a blaster, you'd want to blow people up before they get the chance to get close and threaten to catch your allies and yourself in the AoE. If you expect combat, pumping initiative is somewhere around the level of pumping your save DCs in importance (possibly more since buffer or summoner wizard for example don't care 'bout no DCs).You don't have to absolutely positively max initiative after you get the biggest/cheapest bonuses; as you say, after a while it becomes redundant, but making an initial investment is cheap and boosts your effectiveness massively. Defences are usually not too great because you'd have...
I don't have a battle concept (my wizards aren't built with battle in mind, really) I build terrible characters, I'm sure, however I like trying to understand the perspective of those who know the system well. I was just speaking from general principles.
My point was that optimising doesnt make sense outside of maximising a particular value within some specific constraints. There are presumably many variables that go into determining exactly what you might be trying to maximise - any resources you spend on improving initiative must have a cost. Whether that cost is "substantial" is going to depend on what your approach to playing a wizard is, how the DM structures the adventure, etcetera.
I have no problem with a generic tanking machine but unfortunately the 3.x/PF isn't a particularly great tanking machine.
1) He has nothing that makes him sticky - no mechanics that either force the NPCs to attack him or punish them for moving away and attacking someone else
2) He has mediocre defenses - bad saves and the need to push every last dime into boosting AC and still getting hit relatively easily by level appopriate monsters does not a tank make
3) No ability to self-buff or self-heal- Self buffing could easily be described as a martial trance or katana and assuming that everyone actually plays were HP is not equal to MeatPoints then self-healing really isn't that hard to get past.
4) Fighter has crap mobility- the high level martial game is built around iterative attacks and guess what you can't do if you want to have iterative attacks? Oh yeah move.
Fix those 4 issues plus give the Fighter more narrative power in non-combat situations (2 + Int SkillPoints is a joke) and the Fighter actually be comes viable.
When I talk about AD&D having far greater parity between caster and martials it definitely revolves around the 3.x caster getting a ton of power ups while the fighter got some nerfs.
Some of those changes were beneficial but over the net effect was to make the caster and the martials imbalanced.
I'm not going to defend the AD&D thief because it was largely garbage until 2e but 3.x Rogue could also be substantially improved
The point is, if you expect any combat at all, it is a good pick, possibly the best.
It's like Power attack for fighters. Even high dex fighters try to take it for various reasons, it's just that good.
If you are optimizing your wizard for "generally competent at every area of the game" this boosts your combat capability by a lot for the resources invested. Even if you want to focus on one particular area of expertise (say, crafting), it's good enough that with whatever leftover feats/traits/familiar choices you have you should pick it up sooner or later. Unless you want to do it to the exclusion of everything else, I mean for roleplay reasons you want to play a fat slob who can't move and is carried around by his summoned servants and his favorite silver salad fork is his favored item I guess it wouldn't fit. But when discussing the capability of an average wizard that's just trying to be competent at wizarding you can't just say "well, he doesn't pump initiative pas the fighter's" because he absolutely should. If you don't, he is not as good at his role as he could be, and hence not optimal.
I guess to me, where it seems to be subjective is in determing what the wizard's role is. I can appreciate there's a general baseline assumption for "most tables" (or even, perhaps, that there's a general baseline assumption that optimisers take as read - that would be sensible). I wonder if that's the disconnect though - at our table, for example, pretty much nobody takes initiative boosting feats and options. This probably colours how we see all classes, including the wizard, hence influences how we play them and therefore makes us value other options more than at your table.
The whole concept of 'what a class's role is' is inherently subjective, in my view. Once that's settled, I suspect optimisation becomes an objective question (at least presuming it can be relatively sensibly measured) - what are the best character building choices to maximise that chosen statistic. I wonder if the 'controversy' is just a function of operating from different assumptions.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Keep in mind that a lot of games are basically built around high stakes games of rocket tag. This was especially prevalent in high end 3.5 games. PF toned down some of the rocket tag aspects of the game but they are still there.
You don't have to invest in init boosters if you aren't playing rocket tag . The GM can influence that decision by building encounters differently. The casters can also influence that by playing less selfishly.
The problem is that in some games the social contract necessary to neuter rocket tag doesn't exist. This can be really problematic in settings like PFS where one or more players deciding to optimize for rocket tag can heavily influence the entire group.
Scry leaders of army, teleport in, assassinate, teleport out
You're assuming that 1. you know who the leader is an can scry on him
2. Teleport will let you teleport somewhere you've never been before (this went round and round earlier and you need it to be Greater Teleport for it to work was the endstate I believe)
3. You are capable of assassinating said leaders. . .
That's three assumptions that aren't necessarily true. . .
Oh, if you want to take out an army, just use cloudkill.
Scry leaders of army, teleport in, assassinate, teleport outYou're assuming that 1. you know who the leader is an can scry on him
2. Teleport will let you teleport somewhere you've never been before (this went round and round earlier and you need it to be Greater Teleport for it to work was the endstate I believe)
3. You are capable of assassinating said leaders. . .
That's three assumptions that aren't necessarily true. . .
That's just one solution (and I note you skipped over mine) but here is a few more.
Drop Shrink Item Lava flows on the enemy army from near orbit? Divine out exactly where they will be and litter the field with trap spells? Animate your own undead army and get way over your HD in undead with the Command Undead Spell. Use planar binding to get an undead hates good aligned outsider to aid you (or an army of them why not)?
Now whats the Fighters solution other then "I fight them."?
Scry leaders of army, teleport in, assassinate, teleport outYou're assuming that 1. you know who the leader is an can scry on him
2. Teleport will let you teleport somewhere you've never been before (this went round and round earlier and you need it to be Greater Teleport for it to work was the endstate I believe)
3. You are capable of assassinating said leaders. . .
That's three assumptions that aren't necessarily true. . .
That's just one solution (and I note you skipped over mine) but here is a few more.
Drop Shrink Item Lava flows on the enemy army from near orbit? Divine out exactly where they will be and litter the field with trap spells? Animate your own undead army and get way over your HD in undead with the Command Undead Spell. Use planar binding to get an undead hates good aligned outsider to aid you (or an army of them why not)?
Now whats the Fighters solution other then "I fight them."?
Your first solution was to teleport away? You could do that. . . the fighters could also walk away. . . but thousands of innocents are slaughtered because you don't take any part.
How are you going to aim your shrink itemed lava flows? I assume you mean non-magical lava that you somehow found a place in existence and within your reach that you could shrink since Shrink item only works on non-magical items. . . and even 40 cu ft or lava is only going to do so much even assuming you can get to your near orbit position, aim it correctly and hit the enemy. . .
How many undead are you going to command with the command undead spell? Where are you getting these undead? How do you know their casters won't wrest control back from you?
Again, you are ASSUMING that the undead fail their save and enter your control in the first place. . .
Planar binding could be useful . . . but here again you are assuming that the creatures fail their saves and are willing to aid you. . . also, which 12 HD or lesser good aligned outsider are you summoning that will turn the tide of this battle?
Cloudkill is good, it will probably take out a couple hundred of the enemy, so casting it is a good idea-- so long as you can assure its going the right direction and only hitting them (though their commanders are high enough level that it doesn't affect them much and it has no affect on the undead. . .)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The argument is more easily solved by what happens when you remove the offending party.
How does the game change when you remove the wizard? The cleric?
It changes incredibly. Magic items define what unnatural stuff you can do. You can't fly. You can't teleport. You can't summon monsters. You can't toss fireballs, you can't change shape, you can't charm/dominate monsters. You don't have HEALING. You can't be returned video gamish from the dead. You can't buff/immunize yourself against special attacks. That's all now in the province of the enemy, and Craft Wondrous Item/Ring.
What happens when you remove fighters and rogues?
Nothing. Alchemists and urban rangers can take care of the trapfinding. You can melee with summoned monsters or the right buffs. You can use different tactics and different spells to end the fighting. Your recovery options are still the same, you can still come back from death.
That right there shows the power of spellcasters.
As for a 1v 1, come on. THe wizard can optimize his load out against any one foe. The fighter brings the same thing to every fight, except potions.
Tome of 9 Swords: This had a ton of anti-caster options, in the form of the 'I always make the save' Diamond Mind concentration check for saves techniques. Slap on a Concentration Modifier toy, and your +39 to the check (and a 1 does NOT FAIL on a skill check, remember) always wins. At later levels, you got the +level to ALL SAVES as a backup, if you had to make the same save twice in a row.
And then, there was Iron Heart Surge, which could remove caster inflicted effects upon you.
Tack on Blindsense, the ability to jump as a Swift Action, to jump +10' in any direction (esp up), to walk on air, to short range teleport, and the mobility options were also much greater.
It even had a form of healing for characters, 1 pt/level? But you could repeat it every other round. You could get fire resistance and even immunity to fire.
In short, Tome of 9 Swords allowed you to play without a caster and not really miss them. With defenses against magic so high, it had a more 1E feel, where casters in melee got less and less effective with the fancy spells, because the monsters got more and more effective saving against them, not less.
----------------
But please remember also that in a good group situation, where Casters take care not to step on toes or overshadow other players, problems are easy to gloss over.
As for the 'don't nerf' argument, that is NOn-EXISTENT. Remember, 1E wizards were considerably more limited then 3.5E Wizards, but the iconic PC of the early game was not a fighter. It was arguably Mordenkainen, who was definitely a wizard.
In 1E, vs 3.5:
It was VERY hard to get an 18 ability score, and you generally only had bonuses if 15+. 14 Dex/Con? Meant nothing.
Wizards had a d4 for hp, and max +2 Con to HP bonus, and 11 HD, +1/level after 11. Yes, they were SQUISHY.
Creatures had elevated saves against magic by level. Wizards got WORSE at affecting monsters as the monsters got more powerful, not better.
Spells took WHOLE ROUNDS to cast, and getting hit once spoiled the spell. Oh, and you couldn't move.
Buff spells for armor class and ability scores largely did not exist. Mages tended to have sucky AC and got hit easily.
Immunities to spells, or major resistance to them, wasn't all that hard to come by.
Spells took 10 minutes/level to memorize. Not this 1 hour junk. An Archmage could take DAYS to get his full spell allotment back in place.
Spell Resistance had no special tricks to getting past.
Conjuring monsters? They could be taken away by a simple Dispel Magic and turned against you. Or, more importantly, just your control dispelled and they'd come after you BY THEMSELVES.
And Dispel Magic worked much better against casters.
And lest I forget, wizards had BAB +1/3 levels, and clerics +2/3. So they couldn't fight, either.
And yet, people still played casters. If you brought all those limits back, people would STILL play casters, because spellcasting is simply THAT STRONG, and enjoys that much narrative power.
Would more people play melees? Absolutely, and they'd enjoy it, because Melees would once again have dominance in their niche, and weren''t as hugely overshadowed by casters.
Getting your own castle and troops helped, of course...
-----------------
3E and Pathfinder marginalize the importance of Skill RANKS. A +15 Cloak of Elvenkind is just as powerful as 15 RANKS in the skill. Any effect which can be so easily replaced on demand by a spell is automatically 'nerfed' in so doing.
This is also why crafters are nerfed in PF. YOu can duplicate them 100x faster with a Fabricate spell, and juice the results with +5 or +10 whenever you like with a low level spell. IT completely obviates the need for actual skill Ranks, time, and the need for a master craftsman.
And lets not forget the ability to acquire any skill on demand via a +2 Headband.
==========
Initiative.
It is OPTIMAL that casters go first, so they can manipulate the battlefield.
This is IDENTICAL for the desire for ARCHERS to go first. Casters, like archers, are ranged combatants. An archer always wants the chance to full attack and take out the enemy before the get to act. Likewise, the wizard always wants the chance to get a spell off and take out a foe/shape the battlefield before the enemy can act, in effect forcing the enemy to respond to their actions, instead of vice versa.
Melee characters, unless they have the ability to full attack on a charge, are better off going second/last in initiative. The simple reason for this is that if you charge the enemy, you get ONE ATTACK and are unlikely to significantly hurt/kill them.
They, in return, can now full attack you. That's mathematically bad news.
Melee characters should either full attack with ranged weapons, or wait for the enemy to charge THEM. When they do, the melees get to full attack the bad guys, as opposed to being full attacked themselves.
That's just tactics. THe reason why you want spellcasters to go first is so the archers do NOT kill them at range, so the monsters CANNOT charge them, so summons can't be dropped on them, and so your casters don't have to play duck and roll, the enemy casters do.
That's optimal tactics, and that's why serious casters want to go first.
(Caveat: All the tricks for high init are easily duplicated by NPC casters, since they are all feats, traits, class abilities, not wealth. This is one of the reasons why NPC casters are so much more dangerous then NPC Melees...Melees get 20-40% of their combat effectiveness from their gear, and NPC Casters get maybe 5-10%.
In short, PC power builds work WONDERFULLY for NPC's, because it's all about the skills and class abilities, not the gear. NPC melee builds? not so much.
=========================
Yes, PF has some glaring imbalances. But if you've got a table there to have fun, and not powergame, the differences can be glossed over or simply not taken advantage of.
It does not, however, mean that the problems are not there and should be ignored.
--------
Hey, Vincent Takada, you need to change your Avatar. That does not look like a Takada! :)
==Aelryinth
Despite all the negativity, those are more options than the fighter had. So, rather than complain about the wizards choice of action, tell us what the fighter can do maybe?