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One thing you hear from people is an expectation to reach a certain level of usefulness in a party. I'm not really sure where and when this started. Sometimes ia gets so extreme that you would think the game should only contain class AB and C because of their supposed usefulness. We don't encounter this in our groups. We don't have a criteria that all characters must meet in order to be considered useful. There are many options to choose from that enable you to come up with all sorts of combinations. Now before you say it runs the risk of getting other PC's killed, the designers felt this wasn't an issue because we have plenty of options that are not optimal in any way, but they do contain flavour.
Certain classes are tougher than others, but if that's all that mattered, then that's all would show up to games which we all know doesn't happen. People give out about the Fighter, Monk, and Rogue and claim these classes aren't useful when compared to certain other classes but I think this is a bit unfair. How do these classes stand up to the monsters in the Beastiary is really where some of these criticisms need to be bases around. Now I can tell you we sometimes pick optimized builds, or builds based around teamwork, and sometimes around pure concept.
As far as I can tell, all classes when working together can end encounters so why the need to indulge in overkill? How hard do you need to kill something, dead is dead? What's the point in having abilities that way more than exceed the needed DC?
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It depends entirely on the campaign, and the playstyles of the players.
In a fairly casual game, at 6th level you can totally play a monk 2/druid 2/sorcerer 2 with Skill Focus (basketweaving) and still feel like you're contributing. Sometimes I really like to play in those types of games, where I have that kind of freedom to play whatever I want.
In a meatgrinder like the Age of Worms, you need a totally optimized hunter-killer team in which each member works with every other like a swiss watch -- if you want to have even a 50/50 chance to avoid a TPK. There's no room there for casual stuff, or "flavor-only" choices. Sometimes I really, really enjoy games with that level of brutal tactical challenge.
Many games are in between those two endpoints, and that's okay, too. The key is that everyone needs to be on the same page before you get started.
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The thing is, Shallowsoul, 90% of your posts start from the standpoint that only the monk/druid/sorcerer game is allowed, and that everyone else is "wrong." Try to accept that people have different playstyles, and that it's entirely possible for a game to support both endpoints and everything in between. The fact that it currently works for only one end -- the one you prefer -- doesn't mean you get to disenfranchise every other point along the spectrum.
Using the sports analogies above, it's like you're trying to disband the NBA (or, in this case, prevent it from being formed in the first place) because you think it somehow prevents kids from playing nerf basketball in their driveway. It doesn't.
In any game a character's effectiveness falls on some sort of curve. When you compare Pathfinder to another game I believe Pathfinder's distribution would appear pretty tight, especially since players almost always have in-game ways to work around their weaknesses. It just so happens that classes like the Rogue seem to fall on the lower end of that distribution.
Within Pathfinder communities people tend to forget that the difference in power between characters could be much worse if they were playing another ruleset. They also tend to focus on RAW and crunch, because, honestly, that's the only stuff you can have a real discussion about.
This often results in players comparing classes based on combat performance and numbers rather than non-concrete fluff, roleplay and "fun". Heated arguments can break out that deem one class or another sub-optimal, weak, broken, overpowered, or whatever.
This is a good thing. Remember, these arguments hardly ever stop someone from rolling a class they want to, but quite frequently bring to light problems a class might actually have. Developers see these discussions, DMs too, and they can make errata or house-rules to help even the playing field if they so choose.
Hardly anyone argues that sub-optimal classes should be removed from the game.
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Well, here's the thing, if three characters are all equally effective and the fourth much less so...that fourth player is very likely to have less fun, since their character feels less powerful and competent. The game isn't competitive in the sense that the PCs fight, but it does have a certain amount of inherent competition for spotlight time, and if one person is getting less of that in most areas (or even just one important area like combat) they're probably gonna feel left out...and not being effective in one or more commonly occurring areas is likely going to result in precisely this.
That's not universally true, but it's a pretty typical attitude to have. Now, it's worth noting that the reverse problem (of one character being notably more effective than the rest) is at least as bad, probably more so, but both are still problems.
At it's heart, this is what all the optimization arguments tend to boil down to: Everyone in the party should be about equally optimal to maximize everyone's enjoyment. Whether that's a high or low level of optimization is almost irrelevant (though a certain very basic degree of optimization is useful to avoid getting frustrated by the game's difficulty), but it being relatively equal among the PCs is very relevant indeed.
So, now we come to Classes. If you're playing a mechanically sub-par class in a group where others aren't doing so, and you're not a fairly significant degree better than them at optimization, you're almost certainly going to wind up with a less effective and competent character than the other players have...and all the problems listed above suddenly come into play. It's not an insurmountable problem, but it's a very real one. And that's a large part of why this argument comes up.
Additionally, for many home games the GM will calibrate the threat levels to the party, and one sub-par (or overpowered) character can really throw that calculation off and make challenges either too easy or too hard for everyone else. Contrariwise, if using published material (which has a set difficulty), every weaker character decreases the party's odds for survival and success, which makes things less fun for quite a few people.
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They also tend to focus on RAW and crunch, because, honestly, that's the only stuff you can have a real discussion about.
This often results in players comparing classes based on combat performance and numbers rather than non-concrete fluff, roleplay and "fun".
The big issue with roleplaying, fluff, and fun is that they're all the sorts of issues where there's not much to discuss beyond "this is what I personally like." What qualifies as fun is going to vary massively from person to person. Not to mention that most of what makes a game fun is a matter of interacting with the other people at the table, rather than anything to do with the game system.
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In anywhere other than a PFS scenario, the onus is on the GM to give every player their opportunity to shine.
Not entirely. If someone creates a character with a particular skill set, you as a GM should absolutely do what you plausibly can to make that relevant...but if three of the PCs put some investment into being good in a fight, and the fourth is just awful at it, it's not your responsibility as a GM to make him suddenly effective in that situation. Especially since that's not fair to the other players, who actually invested in being good at that.
And it's very possible for a character to literally not be as good as other characters in the game at anything. What do you as a GM do to make him feel useful then? Screw the other characters?
A GM should absolutely work to make spotlight time relatively equal between characters, but they can't be held entirely responsible for the fact that some characters are vastly more effective than others (well, except inasmuch as they can veto characters or suggest they be modified...but that's a very different solution from the one you're advocating).
If you're looking for some mythical game system where every character is perfectly balanced, it's the one where the players are all playing the exact same class and no builder choices are available. Trouble is.. there aren't that many folks who want to play that game.
Perfect balance is indeed effectively impossible. A greater degree of balance is still both a worthwhile and achievable goal, though. Perfectly achieving a goal doesn't need to be possible for striving to be a good idea.
The more differences you are going to have between characters in the form of choices, the more you're going to have to compromise away from your ideal of perfect balance.
That doesn't actually necessarily follow, it really depends on the way the system is designed. Mutants and Masterminds 2E or 3E, while by no means perfect, is both more combat-balanced and allows for a wider variety of character types than Pathfinder. It has other issues, but rather definitively proves this particular point to be objectively false.
It's not even a goal worth pursuing if you want character diversity, but differing levels of power should not mean that certain players become relegated to the role of bystander.
That's a very specific play style you're advocating, there. Anyone who enjoys verisimilitude would disagree, and that includes me. A useless character who's only effective because of GM fiat would not be fun (either to play, or simply to have in the party) for me as a player, and would strain my suspension of disbelief as well.
Now, having any player reduced to the role of bystander is obviously a horrible idea and to be avoided, but it's better avoided by having those players make effective characters (with some help, if they need it) than by the GM jumping through hoops to make otherwise incompetent people somehow useful.
It's up to the DM to address that, not the ruleset, for reasons I've listed above.
And again, not really. Rules exist to make the GM's job easier, as much as anything else, and making characters inherently more balanced is an excellent example of such a 'making life easier' rule.
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It's up to the DM to address that, not the ruleset, for reasons I've listed above.And again, not really. Rules exist to make the GM's job easier, as much as anything else, and making characters inherently more balanced is an excellent example of such a 'making life easier' rule.
Not to mention that most GMs only have so much time/energy to spend on GM-ing. A more balanced ruleset means the GM spends less time playing balance police, and more time designing encounters, running encounters, planning out the story, running roleplay, and everything else s GM needs to do.
The biggest issue is that as a GM I'm not going to a run a Dragon like it's an idiot, or give players a victory just because they are the players. I roll my dice in the open and it would looks awfully suspicious if the Dragon suddenly decides not finish of the biggest threat, or if the poorly optimized character suddenly can land a blow when everyone knows it shouldn't. "Giving each player a moment in the spotlight" has always read to me as "Let the player succeed regardless." Chances to succeed at something are fine, but mine are evenly distributed and require you actually succeed at them and if someone else's character can succeed on it, well that's how the rain falls. Thus it is a problem when the best "Fighter" is not likely to be the Fighter class.
Edit: Ninja'd by Deadmanwalking.
@ Anzyr, you can still roll in the open and play enemies realistically against gimped "flavor" PCs; you just need to ramp down the challenge level. Put 4th level PCs in a 2nd level dungeon and the basket weavers can still pull their weight. It's even easier if you design your own adventures, as I generally do.
That said, I enjoy running hardcore balls-to-the-wall optimized games as well, if not more -- but a Three Stooges game can be fun for a change.
Ramping down the challenge level is "nerfing" the campaign. I don't see any value to beating a game on very easy mode and I suspect my players would agree. If there is way to give an even challenge while still catering to characters that cannot manage the even challenges without being pitying to the characters that cannot manage I for one am willing to learn.
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Ramping down the challenge level is "nerfing" the campaign. I don't see any value to beating a game on very easy mode and I suspect my players would agree.
In a one-off like that, the goal isn't necessarily to overcome challenges ("beat the game"), so much as it is to just try out goofy combinations that you know won't work in a non-nerfed game. I wouldn't want to play like this all the time, but it can be a nice break every once in a while, when everyone is in the mood for it.
If there is way to give an even challenge while still catering to characters that cannot manage the even challenges without being pitying to the characters that cannot manage I for one am willing to learn.
See above -- you can't "mix-and-match." You can't have Michael Jordan participating in the neighborhood kids' pickup game of HORSE. You can't have little 8-year-old Joey from down the street playering center in the NBA playoffs. These [/i]don't work.[/i] But NBA players in the playoffs works, and little Joey can play with little Freddie and little Stevie and still have fun, too. Joey isn't "nerfed" for his game; he's playing a different game, with different expectations.
That means you keep two seperate sets of PCs, if you want to be able to switch back and forth.
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@ Anzyr, you can still roll in the open and play enemies realistically against gimped "flavor" PCs; you just need to ramp down the challenge level. Put 4th level PCs in a 2nd level dungeon and the basket weavers can still pull their weight. It's even easier if you design your own adventures, as I generally do.
That said, I enjoy running hardcore balls-to-the-wall optimized games as well, if not more -- but a Three Stooges game can be fun for a change.
Yeah, I agree with this. If you have a whole party of equally suboptimal folks, you can just run them through an adventure with APL-1 or -2 as the average encounter level (or whatever). Ditto for highly optimized groups in the other direction.
The point is for them to be equally effective, not for that to inherently be any particular level of effectiveness.
Ramping down the challenge level is "nerfing" the campaign. I don't see any value to beating a game on very easy mode and I suspect my players would agree.
That's very possible, and very legitimate. Every group plays differently after all.
If there is way to give an even challenge while still catering to characters that cannot manage the even challenges without being pitying to the characters that cannot manage I for one am willing to learn.
It's pretty simple, IMO, at least if doing a homebrew game (as discussed above). If doing an AP or other published adventure, it's quite a bit trickier, but you could start them at 2nd level and keep them one level over the recommended ones fairly easily, and that's a pretty good start, which doesn't involve soft-balling the opposition at all.
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One thing you hear from people is an expectation to reach a certain level of usefulness in a party. I'm not really sure where and when this started. Sometimes ia gets so extreme that you would think the game should only contain class AB and C because of their supposed usefulness. We don't encounter this in our groups. We don't have a criteria that all characters must meet in order to be considered useful. There are many options to choose from that enable you to come up with all sorts of combinations. Now before you say it runs the risk of getting other PC's killed, the designers felt this wasn't an issue because we have plenty of options that are not optimal in any way, but they do contain flavour.
Suboptimal but flavorful doesnt mean useless. Obviously there is not hard and fast rule about how useful a character needs to be, but we also know that adventures are in general a volunteer group of experienced (hehe, get it?) people who regularly travel into life or death situations. If someone is an expect basket weaver, that isnt going to shine on their resume for the group to take them into the deadly dungeon of murder death kill.
Certain classes are tougher than others, but if that's all that mattered, then that's all would show up to games which we all know doesn't happen. People give out about the Fighter, Monk, and Rogue and claim these classes aren't useful when compared to certain other classes but I think this is a bit unfair. How do these classes stand up to the monsters in the Beastiary is really where some of these criticisms need to be bases around. Now I can tell you we sometimes pick optimized builds, or builds based around teamwork, and sometimes around pure concept.
Actually, the fighter can stand up quite well to most monsters. If the only criteria that we judge is how well it kills monsters, the fighter is off the list. The issue is that other classes/concepts can kill monsters as well or nearly as well as the fighter AND do other stuff.
There are 2 kinds of 'power' in game. There is combat power (ability to kill monsters) that if done right, any class can achieve. And then there is narrative power. This is the ability to change the situation both on the small scale and the big scale. Those 3 classes that are often on the list of 'not good enough' classes dont have much narrative power.
Fighters rogues and most monks are unfortunately for whatever reason grounded in reality in the game. They have to act within the situation that the party is encountered with. Characters with magical and supernatural abilities get to change that situation.
For instance, lets take an example from a game I played in last weekened. The party comes across a group of gnolls behind a palisade wall shooting at them with bows from the end of a 100ft hallway. The situation is a multiple turn slog through a hallway while the gnolls shoot at the party. The barbarian and rogue can only run down the hallway and try to get over the wall by climbing/jumping to attack the gnolls.
The wizard hastes the party. Suddenly a single charge gets the barbarian across the 100ft gap. I the party witch enlarged the barbarian on the previous turn, meaning he can attack the gnolls at the top of the 10ft wall with his reach weapon. Because of the 2 casters the situation we were presented with has now changed. On my witches turn I cast glitterdust, blinding 2 of the gnolls. Once again the situation has changed. Not only are 2 gnolls nearly out of the fight for at least 1 turn (if they make the save on their next turn) but the rogue can sneak attack them from range now.
Neither the barbarian nor the rogue could have overcome those circumstances directly like that. They would have had to go through it. Thats what power really looks like in this game. Effectively the ability to change the story to your benefit.
At mid to high levels, characters with narrative power can do more then change the situation, they can change the story. Think of lord of the rings during return of the king. How much easier would that have been if Gandalf just dominated Denathor and had him order his troops to prepare for battle and call for aid immediately?
Heck the whole journey would have been real easy if elrond knew greater teleport. He had already been to mount doom. Pick up Frodo, Pop, drop ring, pop, story over. Thats narrative on the big scale.
As far as I can tell, all classes when working together can end encounters so why the need to indulge in overkill? How hard do you need to kill something, dead is dead? What's the point in having abilities that way more than exceed the needed DC?
Again this goes back to the whole, these are experienced people going into deadly situations. You take the most effective people with you. Its like a navy seal team saying, well we can probably achieve the mission with just our side arms, so thats good enough right? Nope, they bring specialized weapons, plastic explosives, grenade launchers, and air cover from helicopters and gunships. Why? Because your life is on the line. You most assuradely want overkill. You want so much overkill there never was a fight.
So why on earth would a party accept someone who has devoted their life to basket weaving, but is hand with a sword, then the guy who can warp reality to his will while turning into a giant bear to eat the bad guy's face? If I was going to go into a dungeon I sure as hell wouldnt pick the basket weaver as my backup.
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really...at the end of the day it comes down to the social contract between players and the GM.
Some groups run combat heavy killfests...other groups may spend an entire session doing nothing but diplomacy roles. Some GMs run meatgrinders where PC's should expect to encounter high CR threats above their level, while in other other games such encounters are nonexistent. Some groups have super high system mastery and will build characters using material from 4 or 5 obscure books. Another group will be happy with the core rulebook and don't spend any time optimizing said characters.
Really...at the end of the day it's about finding a group that fits your playstyle, and not to fly off on a badfunwrong tangent when you encounter people that don't play the game the way you do.
Hrm, throwing low CR stuff wouldn't work with my GMing style, but that's because I use a progression of a difficulty. A low levels I'm very careful with fights since they tend to be rocket tag and death isn't recoverable, at mid levels I'm fine with throwing above CR stuff, since death is recoverable and the fight won't be as "swingy", and at high levels multiple challenging encounters is a-ok. And the final encounter is a CR 25 but not a single boss even if there is a BBEG.
For my E6 campaigns, they are done sort of West Marches style, with the CR of each area gradually increasing as the players progress "west". Final Encounters in these are "only" CR 20.
You can still have APL+X encounters instead of APL+N, you just need another scaling factor to account for less than fully-optimized PCs. APL+X-Y as opposed to APL+N-Y, if you like.
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Hrm, throwing low CR stuff wouldn't work with my GMing style, but that's because I use a progression of a difficulty. A low levels I'm very careful with fights since they tend to be rocket tag and death isn't recoverable, at mid levels I'm fine with throwing above CR stuff, since death is recoverable and the fight won't be as "swingy", and at high levels multiple challenging encounters is a-ok. And the final encounter is a CR 25 but not a single boss even if there is a BBEG.
For my E6 campaigns, they are done sort of West Marches style, with the CR of each area gradually increasing as the players progress "west". Final Encounters in these are "only" CR 20.
I feel you, man. My homebrew game was mostly made up of APL+2-4 CR encounters, with several of them per day (and was loads of fun).
But however you do things, you can pretty easily just drop the CR you're using by one or two (maybe three if people are really unoptimized) to compensate for low optimization thresholds. On the other hand...it sounds like your group would have to seriously put effort into making unoptimized characters, which is likely more trouble than it's worth.
I, at least, am not suggesting you do this, just noting how it works and pointing out that you theoretically could.
EDIT: Basically ninja'd by Kirth.
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Well, here's the thing, if three characters are all equally effective and the fourth much less so...that fourth player is very likely to have less fun, since their character feels less powerful and competent. The game isn't competitive in the sense that the PCs fight, but it does have a certain amount of inherent competition for spotlight time, and if one person is getting less of that in most areas (or even just one important area like combat) they're probably gonna feel left out...and not being effective in one or more commonly occurring areas is likely going to result in precisely this.
That's not universally true, but it's a pretty typical attitude to have. Now, it's worth noting that the reverse problem (of one character being notably more effective than the rest) is at least as bad, probably more so, but both are still problems.
At it's heart, this is what all the optimization arguments tend to boil down to: Everyone in the party should be about equally optimal to maximize everyone's enjoyment. Whether that's a high or low level of optimization is almost irrelevant (though a certain very basic degree of optimization is useful to avoid getting frustrated by the game's difficulty), but it being relatively equal among the PCs is very relevant indeed.
So, now we come to Classes. If you're playing a mechanically sub-par class in a group where others aren't doing so, and you're not a fairly significant degree better than them at optimization, you're almost certainly going to wind up with a less effective and competent character than the other players have...and all the problems listed above suddenly come into play. It's not an insurmountable problem, but it's a very real one. And that's a large part of why this argument comes up.
Additionally, for many home games the GM will calibrate the threat levels to the party, and one sub-par (or overpowered) character can really throw that calculation off and make challenges either too easy or too hard for everyone else. Contrariwise, if using published...
Define effective in your statement.
The default way Pathfinder is set up shows a casual game. There is no recommended section on top builds. There is no section telling you what to stay from and what to take.
The problem I see is the game getting changed encompass a higher power style of play. In my opinion, the classes aren't created with a power level in mind, I believe they are born out of a concept the designer had and they just ensure the class isn't broken. There is no class or concept that is useless.
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It depends entirely on the campaign, and the playstyles of the players.
In a fairly casual game, at 6th level you can totally play a monk 2/druid 2/sorcerer 2 with Skill Focus (basketweaving) and still feel like you're contributing. Sometimes I really like to play in those types of games, where I have that kind of freedom to play whatever I want.
In a meatgrinder like the Age of Worms, you need a totally optimized hunter-killer team in which each member works with every other like a swiss watch -- if you want to have even a 50/50 chance to avoid a TPK. There's no room there for casual stuff, or "flavor-only" choices. Sometimes I really, really enjoy games with that level of brutal tactical challenge.
Many games are in between those two endpoints, and that's okay, too. The key is that everyone needs to be on the same page before you get started.
If you bring your hunter-killer to a casual game, everyone will hate you for it because you're trying to play a different game than they are. It would be like a bunch of kids playing nerf basketball in the driveway, and you ask if Michael Jordan can be on one of the teams. Sure he can, but unless he totally gimps himself, he'll ruin the game.
If you bring your monk/druid/sorcerer to the AoW slugfest, you're going to get the whole party killed -- it would be like replacing Michael Jordan with one of those little kids from the neighbor's driveway, and still expecing the Bulls to still win the playoffs.
Could it be that Age of Worms has a problem in that it's too difficult? I don't think any module was built with the intention you must optimize the hell out of a character just to survive.
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There is no class or concept that is useless.
But some classes may perform better than others, even in their intended roles, and some classes may fit some concepts better than others, even other class's concepts. YMMV, though some facts are objective. Remember, even the commoner can be useful and definitely mechanically playable, that doesn't mean you should use them as a bar or play them.
Well it was okay for the developer of course isn't really a great rebuttal to someone's opinion. It doesn't really suggest a solution so much as tell them to shut up and deal with it, which of course, isn't helpful in itself so much as aggravating.
Could it be that Age of Worms has a problem in that it's too difficult?
NO -- for many groups, that was a feature, not a bug. AoW and Shackled City were immensely popular (per Vic Wertz in 2006, "Shackled City is selling consistently, and well. And we're very, very pleased with the pretty much universal critical acclaim it has garnered.") I haven't played SC personally, but I've been told that for a 4-person party it requires much the same level of optimization as AoW.
So try hard to understand that some groups really, really like that kind of a challenge, even if you personally do not. You don't get to unilaterally declare that no one else is allowed to.
There are many concepts that are useless, but uselessness is determined by campaign. In a campaign about basketweaving everyone can dump their phsyical scores, max their INT and the casters can use their spells to beat everyone at it. In such a campaign, those who do not improve their basketweaving ability will be quite useless.
Likewise, when the campaign is about an epic fantasy quest, being solely focused in Basketweaving will make the character useless. For example, V's partner is a baker and thus completely unsuited to fighting angry mother dragons. V's partner thus is useless in the OotS story, which explains why V's partner is not a protagonist.
However, I assume most campaigns are about epic fantasy quests and thus usually effective equals the ability to overcome CR appropriate encounters, without being a resource sink.
Could it be that Age of Worms has a problem in that it's too difficult?NO -- for many groups, that was a feature, not a bug. AoW and Shackled City were immensely popular. Get it through your head -- some groups really, really like that kind of a challenge. You don't get to unilaterally declare that they're not allowed to.
I think that's why I don't find the "under CR" solution effective for the way I play. I personally have never played games on easy mode, when a normal difficulty is available and I routinely play them on hard mode. (But not Dante Must Die mode, I just can't hack that.) I enjoy challenge and hate effortlessly mowing down enemies to reach the next part of the story.
I think that's why I don't find the "under CR" solution effective for the way I play. I personally have never played games on easy mode, when a normal difficulty is available and I routinely play them on hard mode. I enjoy challenge and hate effortlessly mowing down enemies to reach the next part of the story.
Anzyr, for the same reason you don't put a party of 3rd level PCs through a 12th-level dungeon, you don't put under-optimized PCs through an APL dungeon. A party consisting of a monk, a rogue, and a mystic theurge can play an APL-1 dungeon as written and experience an extreme hard-mode tactical challenge; it gives you a chance to play those classes (which otherwise you might not), without steamrolling or getting face-stomped in the first encounter.
The problem is that, assuming equal optimization, you can't play those classes alongside druids, clerics, and wizards that way, unless you make the characters be all different levels, which hardly ever works out well.
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Define effective in your statement.
The default way Pathfinder is set up shows a casual game. There is no recommended section on top builds. There is no section telling you what to stay from and what to take.
The problem I see is the game getting changed encompass a higher power style of play. In my opinion, the classes aren't created with a power level in mind, I believe they are born out of a concept the designer had and they just ensure the class isn't broken. There is no class or concept that is useless.
This is mostly accurate. Paizo devs especially favor concept over balance. That doesnt mean balance doesnt exist or doesnt matter, it just means it wasnt a priority.
But that doesnt mean it shouldnt be a priority, or that it doesnt create issues. You would have to go out of your way to make a character is literally useless (though its possible). The issue lies when you compare relative usefulness.
If for instance the druid with his barded big cat companion is a better combined fighter then the fighter, where does that leave the fighter in the party? WHere does that leave the fighter class? How does the dm give the fighter his moment in the sun if the druid and his cat kill most things before the fighter can even get into combat? If the druid is leaps and bounds ahead of the fighter how does the dm challenge the druid without overwhelming the fighter?
And thats generally the issue, its not that there is some minimum amount of usefulness that is required, the game can always be adjusted. its that everyone pretty much needs to be equally useful. Otherwise the dm cant really adapt. And yes you can and should play to a concept first, and mechanics second most of the time in pathfinder. But some people's concept is to be the ultimate killing machine (see every summoner build), which sort of makes it hard to play in the same game with the guy who wants to be the very best basket weaver in history.
If AoW is exceptionally difficult for some classes, then aren't those players potentially getting exactly the extra difficulty they asked for? It feels more like the issue is about perceptions of relative performance, and less about simply the level of difficulty.
The problem is that the same level of difficulty is found at different character levels, based on class. In an ideal world, a 13th level monk would contribute just as much as a 13th level cleric, for example, and each would represent an equivalent drain on or source of party resources. So when you picked up an adventure that's a challenge for 13th level characters, or one that's easy for 13th level characters, you'd know what level of difficulty to expect.
But that's not true. Instead you almost need a matric of class vs. level, with an "effective character level" for every possible combination -- but no such chart is provided in 3.X/PF (it was in 1e, even if it was a bit off a lot of the time). Instead, 3.0/3.5/PF claim that a sorcerer 5/druid 2/rogue 2/monk 5 is equal to a druid 13, for example -- a claim that's absolutely absurdly not true.
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So are bards considered an underpowered class?
I have a bard for PFS whose first feat was Skill Focus (Perform: Comedy). He's level 3, and the one and only time he's ever done HP damage to an enemy, he was hitting a skeleton with a wand of Cure Light Wounds. Nobody has ever complained about him being too weak. Somehow, his +16 bluff and intimidate (using Versatile Performance with Perform: Comedy) and at least +7 in every knowledge skill, along with just bringing and using a cure wand, are enough to be useful even in relatively combat heavy adventures.
Class strength =/= DPR. Inspire courage is an insanely valuable ability. So are the bard's spells and skills. And by RAW a dedicated Diplomancer can break the game almost as easily as a wizard.
Class strength =/= DPR. Inspire courage is an insanely valuable ability. So are the bard's spells and skills. And by RAW a dedicated Diplomancer can break the game almost as easily as a wizard.
Agreed, bards can do quite alot, and in fact have one of the prime examples of narrative power, the ability to alter the thinking (via spell or skill or both) of an npc.
In a no magic setting, Fighter and rogue out shine any classes because most of their abilities won't work. Didn't stopped me playing a druid with no spells. I was good with a large megaloceros as my ride/friend, I was good at tracking and no one tracked me. Poison was powerful in the game because there are no magic to get rid of it, but I didn't care at all because poison doesn't work on me.
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Define effective in your statement.
Um...standard dictionary definition? Basically, able to achieve level-appropriate goals they set out to achieve fairly reliably.
The default way Pathfinder is set up shows a casual game. There is no recommended section on top builds. There is no section telling you what to stay from and what to take.
That's true to some degree...but if they really didn't want optimization to be a thing at all, the entire game design philosophy would be different.
The problem I see is the game getting changed encompass a higher power style of play.
Uh...corebook wizard or Druid are still the most powerful things in the game. Books after the corebook (which needed to be backwards compatible) have taken a somewhat different route than the corebook did, but I'd argue it's in favor of balance (good, middle of the range classes few people argue are either too weak or too strong), not generally higher power level per se.
In my opinion, the classes aren't created with a power level in mind, I believe they are born out of a concept the designer had and they just ensure the class isn't broken.
Class concepts are indeed clearly just a 'That would be awesome.' sort of thing...but they then work pretty hard to ensure things are relatively balanced. That's what playtests are for, just for example.
There is no class or concept that is useless.
Well, not useless, no. But less useful? Certainly.
Fighters are good at doing damage, but not notably better than Barbarians or Slayers, and both of the latter are also good at other things (Saves, Skills, etc.)...which Fighters aren't. Rogues are good at skills, but worse than Bards or Investigators, and also worse than the aforementioned classes at combat and lack spells as compared to them as well. And so on and so forth.
Note: This pretty much only applies to corebook classes. Paizo's done a good job of not making completely overshadowed classes since then.
So are bards considered an underpowered class?
I have a bard for PFS whose first feat was Skill Focus (Perform: Comedy). He's level 3, and the one and only time he's ever done HP damage to an enemy, he was hitting a skeleton with a wand of Cure Light Wounds. Nobody has ever complained about him being too weak. Somehow, his +16 bluff and intimidate (using Versatile Performance with Perform: Comedy) and at least +7 in every knowledge skill, along with just bringing and using a cure wand, are enough to be useful even in relatively combat heavy adventures.
As Kirth notes, DPR and effectiveness are not the same thing. Bards are excellent and effective characters almost universally just from having good spells, excellent skills, and Bardic Performance. A combat Bard is probably more optimal, but effective and optimal are not synonyms either.
The default way Pathfinder is set up shows a casual game. There is no recommended section on top builds. There is no section telling you what to stay from and what to take.That's true to some degree...but if they really didn't want optimization to be a thing at all, the entire game design philosophy would be different.
Not wanting something is not the same as not caring about something. I suspect highly optimized games are 'as far divorced from the basic PF premise' as no magic games are.
That said, I agree with Kirth. Older editions used different XP thresholds to differentiate between the differences in class power. With 3e multiclassing, that's not feasible, as there is no reasonable way to measure the differences between a barbarian 1/monk 1/paladin 3/sorcerer 5 and a 10th level cleric. (and all the other combinations in between.)
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Not wanting something is not the same as not caring about something. I suspect highly optimized games are 'as far divorced from the basic PF premise' as no magic games are.The default way Pathfinder is set up shows a casual game. There is no recommended section on top builds. There is no section telling you what to stay from and what to take.That's true to some degree...but if they really didn't want optimization to be a thing at all, the entire game design philosophy would be different.
Highly optimized games, sure, but games where the Wizard knows to invest heavily in Int and the Barbarian does the same with Str and grabs Power Attack are pretty standard, even if optimization doesn't go that far beyond that.
And Rogues and Fighters fall behind other classes in the same roles even in that sort of game (unless they optimize a lot more heavily, anyway).
there is no reasonable way to measure the differences between a barbarian 1/monk 1/paladin 3/sorcerer 5 and a 10th level cleric.
I almost want to use the conceot of non-associated class levels for monsters, so that a Bbn 1/Monk 1/Pal 3/Sor 5 would be treated as a 7th level character.
A first level magic-user wasn't equal to a 2nd level fighter, nor was a 7th level fighter on par with an 8th level wizard.
It kind of looks like the sort of thing that different xp costs should do, but it didn't really work that way. Thieves being a level ahead most of the time was about the only thing that looked right.
Thus my original disclaimer, "...even if it was a bit off a lot of the time."
there is no reasonable way to measure the differences between a barbarian 1/monk 1/paladin 3/sorcerer 5 and a 10th level cleric.I almost want to use the conceot of non-associated class levels for monsters, so that a Bbn 1/Monk 1/Pal 3/Sor 5 would be treated as a 7th level character.
I have a feat in my home game, 'multiclass' which allows you to count as 1/2 your other class, and a magic rating system. It somewhat smooths out the progression for reasonable multiclass concepts, but it isn't going to help Morgan Ironwolf or anyone that multiclasses similarly.