I on the other hand am 100% behind higher-level characters being superhumans who can survive blows that would obliterate lesser men.Actually no. If your GM or you as a GM describe it like that it's wrong.3S, if you try to describe your character with blond hair, you're wrong. I'm telling you that your character's hair is brown.
P.S. I envision hp the way you do, but that doesn't mean everyone else is also required to.
Well, you should probably re-write the hit point rules then.
Because as it stands a mid to high level fighter/wizard/whatever uses the same hit point rules as a mid level commoner, high level npc guard (with no name) or an aged Donkey. What you want and what some describe (super human high level) just isn't so - it's just the hit point system as it's currently written and it applies to all creatures based on their hit die.Maybe a better system for martials hit points would be something like a pad luck (hit) point system, that refreshes every encounter - available only to PCs. These can be used in low healing games (since it refreshes) and to resist spells per encounter (spend X luck points vs incoming spell level to resist).
As it stands the current hp system does not reflect superhuman because the only ticket required is hit die, and everything has that.
Except how is that commoner going to get past 1st level? Seeing as they would need to run out and kill something to do so. The idea of 5th or 6th level commoners is silly. Now, if they did happen to get to that level by fighting and surviving, then I would expect them to be able to take an axe hit and survive.
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Let's just make it clear that losing hitpoints =/= "direct blow to the" anything.
Axe to the neck means you're dead. Still having hitpoints means you're NOT lethally wounded. Any GM that is narrating every hit in mid-high level combat as getting directly struck in a vital spot with a lethal weapon is just doing a really bad job.
That's what reason I love using a crit deck for combat. It makes it clear when character are getting seriously wounded and when they aren't.
As far as the weapon cord thing goes, I never had a problem with it. I imagine character's using them have trained diligantly to be able to do this effectively. It does seem like it might at least provoke an AoO, though, or require some other sort of restriction if it doesn't already. Otherwise it feels like a cheap solution to what should be significant threat of the game (disarm).
I can absolutely see how magic would be more powerful than swinging a sword, and more effective than most forms of manual labor and even capable of things that are flat-out impossible without it. But this is a game where multiple players work together and everyone is supposed to be and feel useful to the party in some way, so if you can't do magic, you should be accordingly compensated in other ways. In PF that mostly comes in the form of the "less magic, the more hit points" as well as some other factors that are generally considered to not add up to the same value.
And that shouldn't happen. In this game every party member should be equally valuable/powerful/useful all things considered. Though i appreciate its difficult, because weighing the creation of a demi plane versus sword-swinging power is a bit problematic.
That's the thing here.
Magic is not supposed to be better at doing what a sword can do when swung by a competent sword swinger. Nor is it supposed to be able to withstand the same. I mean, they finally let us chop down walls of force, that's a good start.
But why can't a swordsman parry spells? Cleave them? Hack through things with unbelievable force? There's no reason for the limitation.
==Aelryinth
I liked second ed fighter saves getting better and better over time. I would prefer that to physically attacking spells.
My point still stands about fanboys or it was better in my day.
Did we enjoy DnD back then? yes we did.
Were casters more awesome than martials? yes
Did it matter? no we didnt have the internet to rant and troll on, if we didnt like something but wanted to keep on playing we changed it.
Did we keep having up dates and rule changes because someone didnt like something and have the Designers second guessing them selves? No, we did get changes but they were in books or maybe in Dragon magazine but if you didnt like it you didnt buy it and all was well.
So the goal posts have changed abit since then some for the better and some for the not. But the real point is that the martial V magic has always been there. You cant blame that on 3rd ed.
To me its easy if you dont like 3rd ed and beyond dont play, why would you. I dont like anime rpg's so i dont play. I prefered 3rd so I changed, I didnt like 4th so stayed with 3.5 till pathfinder if i didnt like it I would have stuck with 3.5. Hell I have more 3/3.5 books than i know what to do with I didnt need to keep buying more. I played 2nd for 5ish years with just 3 books.
But the real question as I'm doing my best to talk about (without ranting or getting shouty) is why do martials not get to do awesome stuff like casters? Why is it so ingrained that it has to be real? Sure magic is magic, but why do fighters have to be well just sword swingers.
Now i remember why i dont reply on the boards. I get too involved.
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Except how is that commoner going to get past 1st level? Seeing as they would need to run out and kill something to do so. The idea of 5th or 6th level commoners is silly. Now, if they did happen to get to that level by fighting and surviving, then I would expect them to be able to take an axe hit and survive.I on the other hand am 100% behind higher-level characters being superhumans who can survive blows that would obliterate lesser men.Actually no. If your GM or you as a GM describe it like that it's wrong.3S, if you try to describe your character with blond hair, you're wrong. I'm telling you that your character's hair is brown.
P.S. I envision hp the way you do, but that doesn't mean everyone else is also required to.
Well, you should probably re-write the hit point rules then.
Because as it stands a mid to high level fighter/wizard/whatever uses the same hit point rules as a mid level commoner, high level npc guard (with no name) or an aged Donkey. What you want and what some describe (super human high level) just isn't so - it's just the hit point system as it's currently written and it applies to all creatures based on their hit die.Maybe a better system for martials hit points would be something like a pad luck (hit) point system, that refreshes every encounter - available only to PCs. These can be used in low healing games (since it refreshes) and to resist spells per encounter (spend X luck points vs incoming spell level to resist).
As it stands the current hp system does not reflect superhuman because the only ticket required is hit die, and everything has that.
It isn't silly, it's the rules.
NPC classes have levels beyond 1st level to reflect the fact that they have been around or are experienced - but they are not adventurers. If you want it so, make it so - no NPCs past 2nd level - that includes guards, thieves guild members, cultist and any number of npcs the pc have to fight as they go from low level to mid and them mid level to high. If you go that route you're going to run out of challenges pretty quick though.So it isn't just a mid-level commoner problem, it's a hit point problem. Do you think a series of faceless, no-name 5th level warriors (guards) should be able to survive falls of 40ft, same level fireballs, etc? So you can say that a 6th level commoner is stupid, what about all the other no-name NPCs that scale up as threats as the PCs advance in level? They use the same hit point system as the PCs.
There is no "superhuman" because they are PCs, it's just the hit point system.
That's my point.
Magic is not supposed to be better at doing what a sword can do when swung by a competent sword swinger. Nor is it supposed to be able to withstand the same. I mean, they finally let us chop down walls of force, that's a good start.
But why can't a swordsman parry spells? Cleave them? Hack through things with unbelievable force? There's no reason for the limitation.
==Aelryinth
I could get behind this. Heck, Barbarians already do.
...But the real question as I'm doing my best to talk about (without ranting or getting shouty) is why do martials not get to do awesome stuff like casters? Why is it so ingrained that it has to be real? Sure magic is magic, but why do fighters have to be well just sword swingers.
That, I agree with totally (sorry for derailing things). Martial characters should be able to do fantastic stuff at high levels and feats don't cut it. The more I play 3.5 and Pathfinder, the more I think that feats are the worst part of the whole system.
I could get behind this. Heck, Barbarians already do.Magic is not supposed to be better at doing what a sword can do when swung by a competent sword swinger. Nor is it supposed to be able to withstand the same. I mean, they finally let us chop down walls of force, that's a good start.
But why can't a swordsman parry spells? Cleave them? Hack through things with unbelievable force? There's no reason for the limitation.
==Aelryinth
Much the same reason they can't parry the water from a fire house, I imagine.
Much the same reason they can't parry the water from a fire house, I imagine.I could get behind this. Heck, Barbarians already do.Magic is not supposed to be better at doing what a sword can do when swung by a competent sword swinger. Nor is it supposed to be able to withstand the same. I mean, they finally let us chop down walls of force, that's a good start.
But why can't a swordsman parry spells? Cleave them? Hack through things with unbelievable force? There's no reason for the limitation.
==Aelryinth
I would have zero problem with a level 7+ fighter doing just that. Heck, I'd imagine that's probably one of the easier things for them to do after level 10 or so.
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I think i've seen that cartoon... where the dude spun his sword and the water parted around him?
... which is actually me showing support for the idea... not putting it down (just to be clear)
It sounds vaguely familiar yeah.
Here, Here Aaron.
But I don like feats, ok not all of them but I like the ability to choose how my fighter does things and what he can do. Feels less vanilla to me, do I think there as good as magic/spells? No
But just like a caster gets to pick find new spells so too can my fighter. He still cant do the awesome stuff like in movies/myths/novels but in my opinion he is more like that than in pre 3rd ed.
As the old adige goes you cant please all of the people all of the time.
For me the internet and big buisness spoilt things. Its the thing I have come to see in past years, 2nd ed for me didnt change much in 20+ years. Yes we got books that changed things about and gave you other options but if you had one of the first books printed it wasnt a million miles away from the last print.
We changed things we didnt like in house, sure it wasnt the same way if you played with a new group but it didnt matter. We didnt change group much. In the years I have been playing I can count on 2 hands the diffrent groups I have played with.
As an idea could we ever have martials do everything people want and still make magic feel diffrent?
On hit points and stuff people are talking about I did in my younger years write/convert a rpg that was pretty real. It was well played by my friends, why no-one wanted to die to a single arrow to the eye. There are games out there that try for realmism I have played some and dont like them personnaly I always come back to DnD.
For me its fun even with its faults, just like everything else in life.
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The rules for weapon cords, both pre- and post-FAQ, are the same for whoever uses them: Bruce Lee or Stephen Hawking, 20th level fighter or 1st level commoner.And this is logical or desirable in what way?
I didn't say it was.
I was replying to this:-
If it's real, it's MUCH WORSE than that. It means the designers hold high-level martial characters to the standards of what sedentary game designers can do, not what actual athletes can do.
The rules for weapon cords do not demonstrate that martials should be held to the standards of sedentary people instead of wizards, because the weapon cord rules make no distinction between how different users use them. Saying that the weapon cord doesn't distinguish between them does not mean that the rules as a whole do the same.
following from Malachi. How would we as a designer see if a rule was goimng to work. When I did mine I did try some stuff myself to get a bench mark.
I would have zero problem with a level 7+ fighter doing just that. Heck, I'd imagine that's probably one of the easier things for them to do after level 10 or so.Much the same reason they can't parry the water from a fire house, I imagine.I could get behind this. Heck, Barbarians already do.Magic is not supposed to be better at doing what a sword can do when swung by a competent sword swinger. Nor is it supposed to be able to withstand the same. I mean, they finally let us chop down walls of force, that's a good start.
But why can't a swordsman parry spells? Cleave them? Hack through things with unbelievable force? There's no reason for the limitation.
==Aelryinth
not a fan of this idea myself.
Any particular reason why?
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It just strikes me as next to impossible to adjucate. Can I punch a charm of of someone? Kill an illusion? Homerun derby a fireball? It's something that would strike me as funny once or twice, but when it's done excessively would make combats longer and frustrating. Your mileage may vary on this, however. I know at least one player who would love this, and two who would abuse it.
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Yah, don't make me punch a charm off a fool.
I like the idea of killing an illusion (once you know its an illusion) much like you do with mirror image. After all a caster can dispel it.
Fighter: its not really!
other: it is real and its scaring the crap outta me
Fighter: NO ITS NOT, sundering the illusion and watching it wisp and fade away.
Other: *sigh* thanks for that.
Pretty much spell sunder.
When you look at thinks like that then there are feats and abilities non-casters can take.
Want to break spells with your sword = barb
want to cause your enemy to bleed = rogue
The designers thought these abilities would be better for those classes to have then for all non-casters to get. I dont know why, but everything has to have a hole it fills to be a choice over another.
I was kinda Meh to spell sunder too.... Maybe it's just me.
Well its how it works really. Should all martials do it to all spells? I dont think so. Is spell sunder any good? Ive never taken it :p
But the idea as i say sounds cool, but its how it really works that counts.
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How many times have we seen the *slap!* "snap out of it" trope in books and movies? Why cant a fighter punch the charm off somebody?
LOL how did we forget that. This has had me hooked all day and I think it comes down to what you want out of a game and how much you let it bug you.
Nothing and no-one is perfect, but I'm so damn close its scary :P
And if you start off with parrying ray spells and things like that rather than punching charms, it feels more intuitive to me.
Or using shields for blocking some spells, which would be a nice boost to shield users.
shields blocking spells I can get behind. Heh. No pun intended.
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And if you start off with parrying ray spells and things like that rather than punching charms, it feels more intuitive to me.
Or using shields for blocking some spells, which would be a nice boost to shield users.
Sadly, there's a Feat for that.
Let's just make it clear that losing hitpoints =/= "direct blow to the" anything.
Axe to the neck means you're dead. Still having hitpoints means you're NOT lethally wounded. Any GM that is narrating every hit in mid-high level combat as getting directly struck in a vital spot with a lethal weapon is just doing a really bad job.
I resent that remark. I (and my players) enjoy the "He takes an axe to the shoulder, opening up a deep gash and spurting blood everywhere" for heavy hits and such.
It's the fact that the guy shrugs it off and KEEPS GOING that makes it cool. Sure, it doesn't work for everyone (I'm not going to do the little Goblin Vivisectionist that way) but it makes the Big Burly Barbarian look like a badass with minimal effort on my part.
Hmmm... I can appreciate that the dev's are trying to keep the mechanics grounded in reality, but I have to agree with Kirth.
I was just watching an old video of Bruce Lee. The man was playing ping pong with a nunchuka (sp?). I realize he was far from a 1st level fighter, but still, the man was real... so even real examples we have can do some fairly "unrealistic" things given enough talent and training.
That awkward moment when I have to be the one to point out that video was viral marketing for Nokia (IIRC), and not actual footage of Bruce Lee.
Lol. It's not so awkward. It was meant as an example of real people doing so-incredible-as-to-be-nearly-unbelievable things. What Bruce Lee was generally capable of so far outstrips what I'm capable of that it's ridiculous... so if i were to use what I'm capable of as the benchmark of what should be do-able in the game is silly.
... at least that was my point. :)
EDIT: maybe the word "illustration' would be more appropriate than "example", if that helps.
Let's just make it clear that losing hitpoints =/= "direct blow to the" anything.
Axe to the neck means you're dead. Still having hitpoints means you're NOT lethally wounded. Any GM that is narrating every hit in mid-high level combat as getting directly struck in a vital spot with a lethal weapon is just doing a really bad job.
I resent that remark. I (and my players) enjoy the "He takes an axe to the shoulder, opening up a deep gash and spurting blood everywhere" for heavy hits and such.
It's the fact that the guy shrugs it off and KEEPS GOING that makes it cool. Sure, it doesn't work for everyone (I'm not going to do the little Goblin Vivisectionist that way) but it makes the Big Burly Barbarian look like a badass with minimal effort on my part.
Seconded wholeheartedly. I LIKE powerful meleers taking impossible injuries, ridiculous blows, and performing deadly falls and jumps and surviving. It's further proof that they are something beyond what normal people can ever hope to attain, and that makes the game and its world more fantastic.
And for characters that doesn't fit, there's always your method. The Swashbucker can be deftly parrying and dodging until he runs out of energy. The mage can have most of the damage soaked up by her wards until her spells run out of protection leaving only her squishy mage body to be hit. And so on and so on and so on. But heck, after a certain level even these kinds can take an actual hit better than lower-level commoners, and I want that to show.
Firm disagreement here. Classes fight each other all the time. It happens.
Yeah not sure people want every class to be perfectly balanced or we get 3.5 psionics which was just nothing new, just copies of magic spells which was boring.
For me 3rd ed psionics is a good example (and no i'm not saying they were balanced or anything). They were diffrent from other casters just as clerics are diffrent from wizards etc. You didnt get X ability/spell which is just the same as everyone elses X ability/spell but with diffrent fluff.
For me thats the thing not complete balance but diffrent abilities that make you feel usesful and unique, i dont know like mages get fireball area damage and the Hulk gets to smash his hands together and shock wave.
Am I even making sense anymore?
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I think the thing everyone needs to take away from this discussion is the fact there's no real consensus on this, and that the game needs to cater for *all* the above opinions as options.
No, martial characters don't need to automatically be superhuman.
Equally - no, there shouldn't be anything *preventing* them from becoming superhuman.
Now, on the Hit Point issue - that already works both ways with zero modification needed. You can treat it as a direct hit to the neck that bounces off superhumanly-tough skin and bone, and equally you can treat it as being parried or dodged at the last second. How you narrate it is completely up to you.
For the more exotic abilities I think archetypes are the answer - creating new ones, that is, as I don't feel the current range caters for enough options, or that those that are available are necessarily balanced enough for everyone. For example, there's the Batman (highly trained) fighter and the Superman (superpowered) fighter. There's "Game of Thrones" high level options and there is "Final Fantasy" high level options. The game certainly doesn't need to cater to one of those styles exclusively. There's nothing wrong with including both and leaving it up to individual groups what works for them any more than there's anything wrong with a GM saying currently that there's no (to take one of the more common examples) Gunslingers in their campaign world (of course, there's always bound to be someone that disagrees with that on the principle they wanted to play a Gunslinger just because it's in the rulebook, but I'm not going to waste anyone's time arguing that here when there's so many other threads on that issue.)
The game shouldn't force anime- or wuxia- style combat as the default. However, it shouldn't force a classic fantasy (for want of a better term)-style either. It's not the game (or the game designer's) place to decide that for any of us.
Just to expand a little more on what I just posted: I think the most immediate answer would be for Paizo to produce another "Ultimate" book that provided the necessary options to martials. Overhauling the core rulebook isn't something that's likely to occur any time soon, and I think that new book would
- Be easier to contain those new options in so people can decide if they want them in their game.
- Be attractive to Paizo - it sells a new book and doesn't require they go to the risk of a new edition
- Be the fastest way to get those options into the game for those that want them.
- Be official enough that it's automatically available in PFS games.
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even if you don't want superhuman fighters, there are things that a party is expected to have by 6th level, and most noncasting martials don't have those things by virtue of their class, even though those things should have been made core class features
1. a Viable Way for martial characters to both move and full attack in the same turn, the fact this ability is restricted, is a stupid idea, it should be a feature of all martial characters
2. a way to reliably improve combat numbers in a pinch
3. a way to mitigate damage to themselves
4. a way to mitigate conditions
5. a way to mitigate negative levels or attribute loss
6. a way to viably damage incorporeal creatures without much investment
7. a way to viably damage flying creatures without much investment
8. a way to reliably inflict conditions
9. a way to reliably damage swarms or bypass damage reduction
10. something useful to do in social encounters
11. something useful to contribute to the group when exploring that isn't climbing, jumping, or swimming
12. a means to quickly and reliably engage foes on their own terms
13. a means to deal viable damage with any stick they pick up
14. means to heal themselves or remove conditions
15. a means to cure ability damage or negative levels done to self
16. the ability to benefit from loot that isn't their signature weapon more efficiently
17. better saving throws against spells and the like
18. better defenses against magic in general
19. extraordinary means to deal with a variety of classic spells that cripple martial builds. something like spell sunder, or a nonmagical long range swift action teleport would be nice
20. a means to deal with traps that don't merely deal HP damage
21. enhanced physical prowess
22. a means to shrug off or negate attacks
23. a means to keep the enemy focused on them
24. a means to punish the enemy for targetting more fragile companions
25. something more interesting than merely full attacking
a lot of these 25 neccessary things could be solved by making fighters, rogues, monks and cavaliers, more Wuxia/Anime/Marvel/Mythology Esque and less grounded by real world human restrictions.
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You could not possibly have been more snide or more wrong. In addition to all of the classes getting piddly little boring powers in 4e, they are absolutely not balanced at all.Yeah not sure people want every class to be perfectly balanced or we get 4th editionFixed that for you.
I am talking from experience. I don't hate 4th edition. It would be pointless now anyway.
It felt that way to me ever since i played it with some friends. I had fun, sure, but to me it seemed like most of the powers were the same, just differently named for different classes. Sure there were some that were different (like monk's dailies) but generally, they went too far into balance.
I'll reiterate classes aren't supposed to be balanced it shouldn't be that every class should be able to beat every other class 1 on 1. That would be boring.
Either martial characters get the ability to do high-powered unrealistic things or they don't. Or, like in the current version, they get the ability to do some high powered unrealistic things (take and dish out ridiculous amounts of damage, for example, most obvious when it comes to things like falling damage which we can easy visualize), while being denied all sorts of other abilities in the name of realism.
That's just it though - as the rules stand right now, there is nothing in there to say people are taking or dishing out ridiculous amounts of damage other than in the falling rules, which have been an anomaly in many RPGs forever anyway.
Damage can be taken as an abstract concept, or you can say 20 points of damage is the equivalent of a fixed size wound no matter who it is applied to. The assumption in Pathfinder is abstraction of dodging, parrying, and countering those dodges and parries (at least, it is during combat. Out-of-combat damage is just weird unless you use the optional Wounds+Vigor rules), but some people enjoy otherwise and there's nothing to stop them doing that (and nor should there be!)
As written, Pathfinder quite happily simulates the average classic fantasy novel. Some people would prefer it went further into fantastic forms of martial combat, and there's really no reason why it can't - it's just a matter of adding fantastic abilities (giant leaps, sundering small mountains, using non-magical blades to parry spells, channeling energy along your blade and unleashing a wave of force upon the enemy, fading and appearing behind your opponent, spinning fast enough to create a whirlwind, the list goes on) where needed.
That sort of thing should be defined by setting - or at least, it needs to be in order to satisfy everyone in this thread. A good ruleset can handle style differences by offering options to players. Perhaps alternative combat rules, perhaps archetypes, perhaps entirely new classes.
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I know. Right?
That is just like that douche who was wailing on the D&D's weight system back in 2000s. Cause he would bring 20 or so pounds of equipment, and had problems with that, he thought that people much stronger then his measly 9 or 10 strength should have the same problem. And then whining about swords being too light. I hate people like that.