This is a follow-up thread to avoid derailing link
First, some caveats and explanations:
1) I do not personally have a problem with how wizards work in Pathfinder; this suggestion is for those who do. And most people will disagree/dislike it anyway. I usually play wizards, or other spellcasters and rarely play fighters.
2) I will be using the term 'wizard' at various points, and sometimes this will be shorthand for 'wizards, clerics, sorcerors, spellcasters generally' and sometimes it will be a subset of those and sometimes it will apply to wizards specifically. This is going to be long enough without me spelling everything out every time I mention things. I might even be consistent, occasionally, in my usage. The same goes for 'fighter' and all the other non-casters.
The perceived problem is one that is mentioned repeatedly and often summed up by the phrase 'linear fighter/quadratic wizard' or similar.
This is where the differences between the two classes go as follows:
Fighter: I just levelled. I can now do 30 more damage per round.
Wizard: And I just gained the next level of spells. I can do 20 new different things and ten of those are really good. The rest, well, I'll make a few scrolls for emergencies.
Basically, wizards get more and more options each level, more and more capabilities, and many of those are encounter or world changing. Whereas fighters just get better at putting down the hurt.
I'll break this up a bit into separate posts, so the wall of text looks less annoying.
Possible solutions
If you are one of those people who feel that wizards need toning down, then here are some options and explanations:-
1) Damien's proposal in the linked thread. Reduce xp and level progression for wizards compared to fighters.
Does it work? Partially. It delays the point at which wizards dominate and can change the encounters. Why don't I like it? The original balancing mechanism between wizards and fighters back when AD&D first came out used this method, and it maintains the existing trade-off between a wizard being pretty rubbish at low levels until he becomes high enough level to gain all the wonderful spells that 'solve' encounters. It doesn't prevent the 'quadratic' business at all, since high level spells still allow wizards to do lots of stuff, while the fighter still just gets better at his one thing of hurting things.
Taking this method to extremes (not that Damien suggested doing so), results in no-one wanting to play wizards if a campaign starts at low level, but they would switch to do so once the campaign reaches high enough level - by-passing the period at which the wizard is weak, and also by-passing the period at which the fighter is too limited in what he can do.
2) Low level wizards are weak, fighters are much more effective. Assuming a 4-encounter day, the fighter is likely to be just as capable in all 4 (but might need some healing along the way); the wizard at levels 1-4 gets somewhere between 3 (all first level spells) and 8 spells (split between 1st and 2nd level). That's 2 spells per encounter, and if he uses any for personal defence (eg mage armour/blur/mirror image) then he has less available to do anything effective in those encounters except try to hit something with his crossbow or sling. If he doesn't protect himself, then the fighter might have to do so, or he risks being taken out by anything that takes a swing at him.
At high levels, you can find loads of threads about uber-powerful wizards who fly, have greater invisibility up, and are casting quickened, dazing fireballs along with piercing enervates every round. I'm sure you can find builds far better than that.
(I know I've just restated the issue, but I think it makes my suggestion which follows clearer)
Sorcerors were invented to attempt to help address this balance between high and low levels: less spells known, so less possibilities but more castings of each one, therefore less 'quadraticness'. However, as time has gone by, sorcerors have gained more and more spells and capabilities each level (and so have wizards, thus compounding the problem).
So, what to do?
3) Limit wizards by limiting their access to spells; but let them cast their few spells more often - but not the way that sorcerors do.
3a) Limit by school: a wizard chooses a school of magic. He gets spells from that school and no others. And can't use magic items that rely on/provide spell effects from any other school (and that applies to fighters too - no boots of flying unless you're a wizard of the right school). You might never get a PC diviner, with a party having to consult NPC wizards to do many things - but that is simply an opportunity for skill users/face characters to shine.
3b) Limit by theme. Air Mages get spells pertaining to air, and no others. See 3a for a repeat of the blurb.
Remember that this applies to all casters, so clerics of a battle god would only get spells that are relevant to that god - no healing for you, boy. Druids are harder to set themes for, but might be done by ecosystem, or plant druids vs animal ones.
4) Boost low level mages by making certain spells from low levels be unlimited like cantrips. eg one defence spell, and one attack spell (which can't be changed) from each level as you get the next level. This would need to be play-tested to determine how many spells, and if they could be changed each level or each day. Alternatively, make some spell effects be like the current school powers, instead of being spells.
Basically, in literature you get wizards based around themes a lot. Rarely can one do every (or almost every) type of magic. Why should wizards in Pathfinder have access to so many different effects?
Anyway, as I said in the opening post, I'm quite happy with wizards as they currently are - but judging from the many threads complaining about the relative power of fighters vs wizards, some of you aren't so happy.
The important consideration is 'are you having fun?' If so, enjoy it. If not, change the game.
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Your argument is that in terms of options,
wizards > fighters
And that at higher level, this becomes
wizards >>> fighters
I agree on that part of the analysis. I'm not convinced by your approach to solving it. I think the solution should be to increase the fighter's side of the equation, rather than trying to nerf the wizard's side. I tend to avoid fighters because apart from combat, there's just not enough they're good at. Nerfing the wizard won't change that.
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You might check out the Scaling Combat Feats in the [url=http://paizo.com/products/btpy91x5/discuss?New-Paths-Compendium-Print-Edition#tabs]New Paths Compendium[/url The reviews and posts indicate they are very popular. Scaling Combat Feats are a good way of boosting martial class's power by opening up the number and usefulness of combat feats
Your argument is that in terms of options,
wizards > fighters
And that at higher level, this becomes
wizards >>> fighters
I agree on that part of the analysis. I'm not convinced by your approach to solving it. I think the solution should be to increase the fighter's side of the equation, rather than trying to nerf the wizard's side. I tend to avoid fighters because apart from combat, there's just not enough they're good at. Nerfing the wizard won't change that.
Ah well, that is an entirely different problem. This set of posts was a spin-off from another thread (and not my personal preference). The issue of fighters being limited away from combat is something that I would combine with the rogue issue of being the opposite. Literally combine. Why can't fighters have skill points? And multiple abilities? Why shouldn't rogues have full BAB and be able to wear armour?
So, a fighter/rogue class: fighter base, choose which save you want to be high and which low, add full skill points from rogue, and give the character the option to replace any fighter bonus feat by a rogue talent. Add in all the rogue starting bumf like trapfinding and sneak attack and evasion as optional choices as more rogue talents.
Because you'd have to choose between fighter feats and rogue talents, no one character can get everything and therefore be any more powerful in combat than they already can be (except being able to sneak attack with full BAB, higher AC and more hit points), but the character can be effective out of combat too because of the skills. And that means that there becomes a choice about which stats will be best, rather than following the fighter min-max route.
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It's funny, when I was writing my first post I was thinking along those same lines, "why not shove Fighter and Rogue into one class". Arguably, that's the Slayer class from ACG.
Also, the Bloodrager from ACG gets some spellcasting so he's more independent from the full casters - casting his own Fly spells for example.
Seriously, combining the fighter and the rogue won't make a relative difference worth mentioning and it won't come anyway near to solving the problem (though it probably will make fighters a bit less boring to play outside of combat). And that's even if the new "fightogue" actually was a full gestalt, gaining all features of both classes and taking the best numbers for saves, HP, BAB etc.
And why is that? One answer is found in the classic Tier list for classes* by JaronK, which you have probably read numerous times already (and if you for some weird reason haven't, do it now, it will increase your system insight even if you don't recognize or agree with everything it says). Even in 3.5, which has a lot more classes in each tier, a gestalt build of ALL tier 4, 5 and 6 classes probably wouldn't even be capable of getting above tier 3.
Another shorter related answer is that, in comparison to full casters, fighters suck (mechanically) - in combat, from about level 10, as well as outside of combat, from level 1. And rogues are about the same, except perhaps they instead suck in combat from say level 3-4 and outside from level 8. This is simply because nothing the mundane classes can do cannot be bested by caster classes. The mundane classes actually only has one viable numerical mechanic to focus on, and that is damage. And besides the fact that damage becomes more or less irrelevant in higher levels, the mundane classes usually don't even have the tools required to reliably get a good use out of their damage potential (dealing 9.000 average damage in a melee full attack means nothing if you're not also able to reasonably consistently get that full attack, and/or not just overkill a single enemy). This means casters are the only ones capable of being viable in other combat functions/roles (notably in the very varied and broad field of control), and this is where the fighter and the other mundane classes need major strengthening, along with better out of combat features that cannot be overshadowed by spells as easily.
Three good examples of actually meaningfully less UP mundane classes are found in the ToB-inspired Path of War recently released by DSP. These are considerably more powerful in combat (tier 3) than any of the existing mundane core/base classes, primarily because they have flexible and viable mechanical combat tools besides full attack damage.
*In PF, this list is something like (classes in two tiers means they're in between or archetype dependent):
1 cleric, druid, oracle, wizard, witch, soon arcanist (human sorcerer)
2 sorcerer (non-human), summoner
3 alchemist, bard, inquisitor, magus, summoner, soon warpriest (perhaps certain superstitious barbarian and soon arcane bloodline bloodrager builds)
4 barbarian, gunslinger, paladin, ranger
5 fighter, gunslinger, monk, rogue
6 commoner
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You might check out the Scaling Combat Feats in the New Paths Compendium The reviews and posts indicate they are very popular. Scaling Combat Feats are a good way of boosting martial class's power by opening up the number and usefulness of combat feats
Wow - botched up the link pretty well! Hope no one minds if I fix it:
You might check out the Scaling Combat Feats in the New Paths Compendium
While it's true that a true Fighter Rogue gestault doesn't bring the hybrid up into the high tiers, it DOES move them into Tier 4, which is the point many people rather like. (I'm generally more of a Tier 2 designer myself.)
Well, that's what I meant by "won't make a relative difference worth mentioning", since the thread is about balancing caster and mundane classes. But yes, the "fightogue" gestalt is probably a good thing if someone wants to play either class in a tier 3-4-ish game. (And I'm generally more of a tier 3 guy, BTW.)
You might check out the Scaling Combat Feats in the New Paths Compendium The reviews and posts indicate they are very popular. Scaling Combat Feats are a good way of boosting martial class's power by opening up the number and usefulness of combat featsWow - botched up the link pretty well! Hope no one minds if I fix it:
You might check out the Scaling Combat Feats in the New Paths Compendium
I think feats like that help a lot.
The way Spells scale up as the wizard grows more powerful has always bugged me. He gets access to more powerful spells any way, but at the same time his existing spells get better.
Meanwhile the Fighter types just progress along their feat chain by another step.
It's probably why I like a lot of alternate magic systems out there. Most of them require a Wizard to put in more oomph if he wants to get more out of a spell than it's initial level of power. Doing things like Locking the Damage of spells based on what Level Slot they are in not only curbs the power scaling but would also trim the spell lists down a little.