| ParagonDireRaccoon |
My experience is some classes get either more or less interesting to play, and some top off at certain levels. For example, fighters are lot of fun to play for the first four levels- almost any build can be effective, and fighters do a lot of damage. Spellcasters start out interesting and get more interesting. My observation is that d20 and PF design combat around miniatures and grids (and combat works very well using minis and a grid), but the downside is that combat-focused classes tend to get abilities that are confined to grid-based combat, and spellcasters get spells that have effects outside of the confines of grid-based combat as well as spells that work in grid-based combat.
I usually play a cleric, wizard, or paladin- my old gaming group that I played with for 17 years had default roles we played, so I enjoy these classes and play them effectively. Mixing things up sometimes didn't work out in that group, I played a rogue in Savage Tide end became the front-line melee combatant because the player trying out front-line melee combatant wasn't very effective. My experience is that paladins can be fun at low levels and can really shine at medium levels, I haven't played a paladin past level 12. Clerics are fun at all levels, a druid generally has more options at a given level. The difference between druids and clerics increases at high levels, druids have a great spell list and wildshape and an animal companion (I've never played a druid with the domain option). Clerics have a lot of customization with domains. Sorcerers are great at medium levels, I've never played a sorcerer past level 8 though (campaigns end kind of randomly, we took turns GMing and the GM picked the game to run). Spell selection affects sorcerers a lot, but bloodlines grant a lot of customization. Fighters fall behind both full and partial casters fairly quickly after level 6 or so, the ability to affect both combat and non-combat situations with spells adds a lot of versatility to casters.
Does anyone else have thoughts or experience they'd like to share? The Extraordinary and Supernatural ability thread has a great discussion on how to make the game work better for martial classes, I don't want to risk derailing that thread. Ideally all classes should get more interesting as the game goes on, but some classes become less versatile. Since moving I haven't gamed much, I should be able to game a bit over the summer so I should have more observations by the end of summer.