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* The problem is that magic gives PCs power to bypass some types of narrative ...The concept of "bypassing narrative" is another one that makes no sense at all to me. The PCs are the protagonists of the story. If they don't do it, it wasn't the "narrative" in the first place.
If a GM prepares and expects wilderness encounters between the known location of a BBEG and known party of PC teleporters, then the GM is trying to tell a story other than one the players are helping to create.
... which doesn't make it not a conflict, or not an issue. The game master role is actually called the "Storyteller" in some RPGs, and there is a strong tradition dating back to the 70s that the overall narrative is the responsibility of the GM, while the players are playing roles within the larger narrative.
So, having identified this conflict,... how do you resolve it? Fundamentally, the GM has two choices -- to allow the PCs to use teleport, or to disallow it. As a general rule, I think that it's less fun for the group for the GM to disallow things that the rest of the group demonstrably wants (and often amounts to an abuse of authority).
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Well, teleporting "anywhere near" the lair will require a lot more than "several" traps. How much area do you think each trap covers?Problem is you are limiting yourself to the finite/minutia - the secured area should be "his realm", not every 30 x 30 patch.
Shrug. Then we're entering the realm of arbitrary GM fiat again. The spell you are looking for actually exists, it's called teleport trap, and it's a 7th level spell and covers a "one 40-ft. cube/level." If you're going to claim that the BBEG somehow has a much more powerful version of this spell at a much lower level, then you're arbitrarily screwing the casters again.
But more to the point, if you need to adjust your narrative this much to cover the possibility that someone is going to use a mid-level spell that's found in the core rulebook, then either the spell is way too strong or the narrative is way too weak.The simpleton response would be to attack DM competency or frame the whole thing as narrative.
Having or wanting internal consistency =/= controlling the narrative. False comparison.Teleport exists in various forms so it is logical that counters should exist for teleport in various forms. Cheap and easy counters.
Just because something should exist doesn't mean that it is necessarily cheap and easy.
Oh, and the bit about giving narrative power to martials via minions? I read it somewhere, of course. Specifically, I read it in the 1st Edition AD&D Player's Handbook. Here's the relevant passage about fighters:
When a fighter attains 9th level (Lord), he or she may opt to establish a freehold. This is done by building some type of castle and clearing the area in a radius of 20 to 50 miles around the stronghold, making it free from all sorts of hostile creatures. Whenever such a freehold is established and cleared, the fighter will:
1. [i]Automatically attract a body of men-at-arms led by an above-average fighter. These men will serve as mercenaries so long as the fighter maintains his or her freehold and pays the men-at-arms; and
2. Collect a monthly revenue of 7 silver pieces for each and every inhabitant of the freehodl due to trade, tariffs, and taxes.
Page 22, if you're interested.
The wording for "thieves" is similar except that they're not allowed to build a "stronghold," just a "tower or other fortified building of the small castle type," which seems a rather needlessly hairsplitting distinction to me. He's also allowed to "use his small castle type building to set up a headquarters for a gang of thieves."
"Magic-users" are allowed to construct strongholds, but they don't attract followers for doing so.
Exactly in what part was that stated?Well, If the DM have everything prepared (maps, stats, etc...) and the players teleport right in the worst place then the DM is not punishing anyone, and hte PC did not anything particularly smart.Agreed, and it's not even "punishing" the PCs to assume that a super-intelligent adversary (read "smarter than the players sitting at the table") has already guessed your oh-so-smart plan, and has set up a trap specifically for it. This is a perfectly legitimate way to emulate super-intellect.So the "smart" option that should be rewarded is to take camels in a slow walk across the desert, giving the BBEG more time to do whatever it is that they are up to, and then when you get there get horribly ambushed and die anyway because they had tons of time to prepare? How exactly does that fit with the notion that the PCs are the ones being scryed on?
Well when you said an "Super intelligent enemy that is smarter than the players should have traps about for when the party teleports to his lair/region/kingdom/whatever.."
If a enemy spellcaster can know you are going to teleport on him and have traps all over the place, then he should DEFINTELY know you are heading towards him... on camel back... weeks in advanced.
The only sure fire way to get to the BBEG with little detection would be via planar travel (something like Shadow Walk) since scry can't cross planar boundaries...
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Exactly in what part was that stated?Well, If the DM have everything prepared (maps, stats, etc...) and the players teleport right in the worst place then the DM is not punishing anyone, and hte PC did not anything particularly smart.Agreed, and it's not even "punishing" the PCs to assume that a super-intelligent adversary (read "smarter than the players sitting at the table") has already guessed your oh-so-smart plan, and has set up a trap specifically for it. This is a perfectly legitimate way to emulate super-intellect.So the "smart" option that should be rewarded is to take camels in a slow walk across the desert, giving the BBEG more time to do whatever it is that they are up to, and then when you get there get horribly ambushed and die anyway because they had tons of time to prepare? How exactly does that fit with the notion that the PCs are the ones being scryed on?
Well, the implication is that the superintelligent BBEG has figured out what the players are going to do -- a questionable assumption, but let's work with that. If the the Game Master is operating on that principle, then the BBEG will also know if the players' oh-so-smart plan is to ride camels across the desert. The possibility of surprise has been lost either way.
(N.b., this plan was actually discussed, in detail, in the Lord of the Rings. The Council of Elrond explicitly tried to guess what the Enemy would expect, and then worked very hard actively to deceive Sauron, to keep his eye on Minas Tirith and the armies of Gondor so that he didn't think to check his borders for incoming hobbits on foot. But this is also explicitly not a super-intelligent adversary, and in fact, Elrond is smarter than Sauron.)
So, given that the party has lost the element of surprise,.... what possible advantage is there to fighting their way across a desert in full view of the BBEG and arriving weakened from the travel and ripe for an ambush? The super-smart BBEG won't just sit there calmly and allow people to arrive on camel-back, either. He can spring a trap at a moment's notice on teleporters, but can't have a platoon of abyssal cavalry waiting for the camels with two weeks' warning?
If you're suggesting that teleporting in is a dumb move because the enemy can counter it -- well, if the enemy has perfect information (as assumed above), is more powerful than the PCs (as has also been assumed upthread) and is that much smarter than the party, then the only winning move is not to play. Tell the king to make a different, stronger, group to fight the BBEG because it's a suicide mission.
(Oddly enough, that's yet another thing that casters are very good at, better than martials. How many high level monsters would you like me to summon to beef up your group?)
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In direct response to what you wrote, Nicos,.... it's very difficult for a Game Master to have "everything prepared" and not to overlook something. The Pathfinder ruleset is very complex, and the number of potential spells and thus potential avenues for attack is huge. So, yes, if what you've got in your notes is "the BBEG casts teleport trap to cover the the entire internal area of his tower every 14 days, and any parties that attempt to teleport inside will be redirected to location C21," that's a legitimate, by-the-book use of a spell, no more problematic than if he used enervation in a fight.
That's not, however, what Auxmaulous seemed to be talking about in his use of anti-teleport magics. He got rather huffy when I pointed out that anti-teleport defenses are, by the book, very limited and therefore rather easy to bypass.
The problem with prepping everything ahead of time is that you're never as smart as the balor is supposed to be, and you don't have weeks, months, or years of planning (Sauron had how long to build Barad-dur?) to look for holes. ("Oh, %^&*, I forgot about the shadow walk spell, which teleport trap doesn't cover!") So it's also a quite legitimate GM style to wing it and act in response to the PCs plans, on the basis that the BBEG was probably smart enough to have thought of a counter. But if you're going to do that, you have to be fair to the PCs, which means, first, that any reasonable plan they come up with has to have a chance of working, and second, the smarter the plan, the better it should work, even if you don't like the plan they chose.
I've not yet seen an in-game reason why it's smarter to take the long road across the desert on camel-back than to teleport in. "Because you need to level-grind" is metagaming, in a pejorative sense. "Because otherwise I wasted all this time prepping encounters" is worse. A 9th level wizard who puts teleport in his spell book will expect to be able to use it for exactly the purpose for which it was designed -- to travel long distances and avoid any intervening encounters.
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You are aware that martials are much more gear dependent and GM dependent than casters right? And if your GM feels like being a knuckle-head and giving you trouble with finding spells you can just as easily play a Human Sorcerer... between The "shadow X" spells, the Human FCB, and Eldritch Heritage (arcane) you can very easily run around with nearly every spell you will ever need...Right up until the DM throws you into a situation where highly specialized spells are required, and you don't have them. The sorcerer has it's own limitations that a good DM can use without stretching anything or being arbitrary. In the end, I have yet to see a case where magic can flat out break a world or campaign unless the DM is willing to play along. Individual encounters or stories, yes, but any story that could be broken by magic probably wasn't a very good story to play at that level to begin with for a host of other reasons.
The point you are missing is that the GM has to go out of his way to shut magic down by changing the background of the story or contriving situations. That alone speaks to the power of magic. You don't have to plan or worry about so many "what if" scenarios for martials. If a GM has to actively oppose the caster then that is all that evidence that is needed IMHO.
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Any real solution should be to reduce caster narrative power. Players with narrative power are incompatible with the AP model.
Presuming a lack of player buy-in, yes.
If you want real narrative power you don't want to be playing a RPG. You want a grand strategy game. If you want narrative power and power progression you want a 4X game.
I don't know 4X, but I know the first two sentences are incredibly inaccurate, insofar as they attempt to describe me (which, in a non-specific use of the word "you" would include all gamers of similar ilk).
The last thing that should be considered acceptable is the GM trying to run strategy games for the rogue and fighter while the cleric and wizard complain that they aren't getting to play the game.
It's strange. This may be a nitpick or misreading of an intent (and if so, I apologize and would ask for clarification), but it seems like, at present, Fighters and Rogues are limited to Tactical choices: sure, they can plan strategies as much as anyone, but their abilities don't apply to strategies beyond individual tactical encounters. Casters, on the other hand, do have strategy-affecting power (if not strategy-making power) by virtue of the Conjuration school. Or Enchantment. Or Necromancy. Or Divination. Or even Illusion.
Again, if you're talking about something else, let me know: I'll gladly listen to what you mean.
Axe magic down to battlefield effects and returning debilitated characters to the status quo ante and you don't have to run strategy games on the side for half the party. Or if you want to run strategy games on the side everyone can play.
Ugh to axing magic down. I like the cool effects of magic. Creates all sorts of interesting things. Battlefield magic was how 4E presented magic, and it sucked for me as a player, and as a GM.
By the same token, I recognize that there is an easy imbalance between casters and martials in PF. There are lots of interesting solutions for these in this and other threads. Some games don't need the rebalancing. Some do. The system itself encourages the style that lends itself to a need to rebalance.
The point you are missing is that the GM has to go out of his way to shut magic down by changing the background of the story or contriving situations. That alone speaks to the power of magic. You don't have to plan or worry about so many "what if" scenarios for martials. If a GM has to actively oppose the caster then that is all that evidence that is needed IMHO.
Magic is definitely powerful; I have never denied that part. But it only breaks a campaign if the DM lets it. There are a lot of little things a DM can do within both the rules and the story itself to keep it from being abused. If the party wants to keep using teleport, then incorporate that into the story. This is admittedly harder to do for APs, but still perfectly doable without too much effort. I usually go with the idea that anything can be done once without too much repercussion, but if it becomes a routine tactic, the party will become known for it, and NPCs will respond accordingly. That, along with inserting a certain amount of magic regulation into the world usually handles the world aspect of the problem quite well. Couple that with a thorough reading and following of the spells and the magic system in general, and most of the problems people complain about never materialize.
In the end, good planning reduces most of the concerns over magic to the same level that worrying about martial tactics requires; magic is powerful, and always will be, but the counters to it are not that hard to develop while being believable if you start doing so from the very first adventure of a campaign. The real problem is that most DMs don't even think about it until the levels it starts to be a problem, at which point, trying to insert proper counters is really, really difficult.
I've not yet seen an in-game reason why it's smarter to take the long road across the desert on camel-back than to teleport in.
You assume that the characters know everything about the BBEG and his lair to know that they safely avoid that trip. I, as a DM, don't write adventures that way, nor, if I am using an AP, do I present the adventure that way. The trip is as much about recon and building up local allies as it is getting from point A to point B. The BBEG may well be prepared for a direct assault, but too arrogant to take the risk of infiltration via the servants quarters seriously. He also may well be assuming that most credible threats will simply teleport in, and not bother watching the desert to see what is happening down there. That approach may also give them an idea of how to stop others from simply taking the place of the dead guy and completing his plans. There are plenty of good in-story reasons for why such a trip is smarter; unwise shortcuts usually end up creating more problems than solutions in the long run.
The direct approach at times may be perfectly warranted, but just as often, it's a very bad idea. I tend to throw a mix of challenges at the party, and no two foes are going to react the same way. In some cases, the use of teleport may be the only way to solve the problem; in others, it may be the absolute worst idea. In all cases, a PC making assumptions that the magic solution will always be the best solution is likely to get burned fairly quickly. In the end, using teleport may be a shortcut across the desert, but they still have to get the necessary intel some other way if they don't want to find themselves in over their heads, and that will require more than just magic. If they choose to skip both the desert and the investigation, that's on them, and when they find themselves in over their heads, I as DM feel no compulsion to bail them out. In the end, I don't expect people to not use a spell they memorized, but I do expect them to understand that using it blindly is usually a very bad idea.
Some potential solutions that have been bouncing around in my head:
A: Magic used to have consequences. Or some magic did. Haste used to age you a year, Teleport risked leaving you half in stone, Shapeshifting risked killing you from sudden shock if you were forced back into your own shape. etc.
Bring back some of that, maybe not as final as the immediate death tho, For example, lets say Wish causes a permanent -5 to all your rolls. This can only be removed through time as your body recovers from the magic. BUT you can also cast it as a ritual by taking your time , say reduce the penalty by 1 per day of casting. So to cast a Wish without taking any penalty would take 5 days.
Kids, just say no to punching your friends in the face for playing with an xbox. Seriously. Penalties for using the abilities characters get with their class is a jerk move. Here's this awesome thing you can do, but if you use it, you will suffer.
If these spells are a problem change them, but its not just a handful of spells, its most of them. Its the very nature of spells thats the problem. Letting your friend play with your xbox one but punching him in the face for playing the newest game is not a solution. Its being a jerk.
B: Tone down some spells. For example, Simulacrum requires a piece of the living creature you want to simulate and you cannot simulate a unique being. No simulacrums of golems or the Terrasque.
Its not just some spells. Its the entire concept thats the problem. We could remove simulacrum from the game and it wouldnt change the fact that a wizard can fly, walk through fire, teleport, make someone your best friend, make someone your complete slave, turn into a dragon, warp space and time, create a giant pit, summon outsiders to fight for him, make himselve invisible, drop a bunch of rocks on someone, boost a specific skill of his choosing, set something on fire, turn stone into mud, pass through a solit wall, summon a bunch of tentacles to attack his foes, make someone bigger, make someone tougher, make someone faster, make someone harder to hit, make someone easier to hit, make someone smaller, turn a guy into a newt, and many many more things, all with the same character resources.
The flexibility and capability of spells as a whole is the problem. You either give non-magical class resources to match or you fundamentally change spellcasting to something different. Those are your choices.
C: Mundane solutions for magical problems. Back in 2nd ed, gorgons blood (the big metal bulls) mixed with mortar hindered scrying spells. Some metals made teleporting even more dangerous by increasing the chance of mishap.
Even in REAL WORLD culture some things are used to negate or hinder harmful magic. Maybe wrapping your hair around an iron nail and soaking it in holy water prevents (or grants a bonus against) [curse] effects.
It could work like Craft Alchemy making anti-toxin. Maybe a Knowledge Arcana roll to make a special talisman to grant you bonuses against [death] effects or Knowledge Engineering tells you that adding powdered horn from a goat born during the full moon to the foundations of a castle, increases the stones resistance to [earth] magics. etc.
Gear is not a solution to an inequity in classes. Gear/items are not a solution unless your class grants them to you. Every dm and every game has different ideas about the availability of equipment, magical, mundane, or alchemical. You cannot solve this problem with equipment.
And making spells less likely to succeed again doesnt address the problem. The only thing you can do is make the caster's stuff not work. Yes you can counter these things. That doesnt change the situation. The same way I can give an enemy a 200 AC, that doesnt mean the barbarian doesnt do alot of damage. You havent changed the relationship between the classes. The fighter cannot do anything that resembles scry, you have just made scry less likely to succeed. If you dont want a class ability to succeed in your game, dont have it in your game. But dont let players take it, and then make it not work because you dont like it or because you want to make a different player feel better about not having it.
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Best solution I've heard for this: Let the sidelined PCs' players take the parts of important NPCs.
The last thing that should be considered acceptable is the GM trying to run strategy games for the rogue and fighter while the cleric and wizard complain that they aren't getting to play the game.
Hmm,... let's see.
I want to play Superman.
I prepared to play Superman.
I get to play Commissioner Gordon.
That doesn't sound like a fun evening to me.
I think a better solution is "don't sideline PC's players. Not even then."
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Guys, it's easy.
If you think casters and magic is entirely overpowered, it's a simple fix. Just remove magical classes all together.
The simple reality is that at high level magic is going to surpass martial, that has always been true and likely always will be.
It may be a fix, but it's not simple, because some level of magical accomplishment is baked into the system. A party of level 20 fighters and rogues will not be able to handle a CR 15 marilith without magic. Indeed, without magic, I'm not sure how a level 20 fighter is supposed to be able to make the DC 25 Fort save against the marilith's unholy aura.
I think we're back to the various suggestions for E6, which is much more complicated than "don't allow magical classes."
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Shrug. Then we're entering the realm of arbitrary GM fiat again.Well, teleporting "anywhere near" the lair will require a lot more than "several" traps. How much area do you think each trap covers?Problem is you are limiting yourself to the finite/minutia - the secured area should be "his realm", not every 30 x 30 patch.
No - we are not. Not when we are asking game designers to include these options - not garbage options but viable ones - in the game. I know you're addicted to saying things like GM Fiat and Narrative - I'm talking about changing the actual rules in print.
The spell you are looking for actually exists, it's called teleport trap, and it's a 7th level spell and covers a "one 40-ft. cube/level." If you're going to claim that the BBEG somehow has a much more powerful version of this spell at a much lower level, then you're arbitrarily screwing the casters again.
No - not arbitrary, logical and consistent. Just looking for some consistency in the balance of various powers in the system. As it stands there are many powers/options with limited counters. That's how it is and its poor design.
Just because something should exist doesn't mean that it is necessarily cheap and easy.
Actually, when you have spells in the game that easily break the consistency and verisimilitude of the game world - yes, they should be easy. Why have castles when you have teleport? How does a small shop in a village counter a low level spell like invisibility? NONE OF THESE THINGS ARE EVEN GLOSSED OVER IN THE CORE RULES.
So yes - cheap and easy would be the logical way to go. Teleport should be for traveling in unsecured areas - not to the kings castle - which again should be reasonably warded. The problem is, the game is front loaded on detailing abilities like teleport but FAILS TO ADDRESS THE IMPLICATIONS OF SUCH A POWER EXISTING IN THE GAME WORLD. Bad design.
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So this
When a fighter attains 9th level (Lord), he or she may opt to establish a freehold. This is done by building some type of castle and clearing the area in a radius of 20 to 50 miles around the stronghold, making it free from all sorts of hostile creatures. Whenever such a freehold is established and cleared, the fighter will:
1. [i]Automatically attract a body of men-at-arms led by an above-average fighter. These men will serve as mercenaries so long as the fighter maintains his or her freehold and pays the men-at-arms; and2. Collect a monthly revenue of 7 silver pieces for each and every inhabitant of the freehodl due to trade, tariffs, and taxes.
Equals this?
Actually, as has been pointed out in other threads, there was a standard fix in 1st Ed, which is that martials were given narrative power of a different sort. Casters had high-level spells, martials had minons. So while the arch-mage would simply teleport everyone into the BBEG's castle, the master thief would instead just wave his hand and say 'make it so," and his scouts would provide him with a detailed map of the way past the traps. Or the High Justicar would dispatch his legions and lay siege to the BBEG's tower, and he'd only step in at at the gates of the tower.
LOLOLOLOLOLOL
So you actually played where your NPCs did all the adventuring for you, hahaha. That's rich.
Sorry, that isn't narrative control for martials. At least not in the way you are framing "narrative control" which is: "everyone needing to have super powers that create planes and change reality" - sort of narrative control. According to your own argument, all the martials would effectively be getting is more martial power (most at 0 level) and more mundane power/control - just via lower level via NPCs.
C: Mundane solutions for magical problems. Back in 2nd ed, gorgons blood (the big metal bulls) mixed with mortar hindered scrying spells. Some metals made teleporting even more dangerous by increasing the chance of mishap.
Even in REAL WORLD culture some things are used to negate or hinder harmful magic. Maybe wrapping your hair around an iron nail and soaking it in holy water prevents (or grants a bonus against) [curse] effects.
It could work like Craft Alchemy making anti-toxin. Maybe a Knowledge Arcana roll to make a special talisman to grant you bonuses against [death] effects or Knowledge Engineering tells you that adding powdered horn from a goat born during the full moon to the foundations of a castle, increases the stones resistance to [earth] magics. etc.Gear is not a solution to an inequity in classes. Gear/items are not a solution unless your class grants them to you. Every dm and every game has different ideas about the availability of equipment, magical, mundane, or alchemical. You cannot solve this problem with equipment.
And making spells less likely to succeed again doesnt address the problem. The only thing you can do is make the caster's stuff not work. Yes you can counter these things. That doesnt change the situation. The same way I can give an enemy a 200 AC, that doesnt mean the barbarian doesnt do alot of damage. You havent changed the relationship between the classes. The fighter cannot do anything that resembles scry, you have just made scry less likely to succeed. If you dont want a class ability to succeed in your game, dont have it in your game. But dont let players take it, and then make it not work because you dont like it or because you want to make a different player feel better about not having it.
Actually, this idea is worth unpacking.
First, you're right that the solution to fighters not being able to do enough is not to let wizards do less. If your car doesn't work properly, removing the battery from mine won't help.
Second, you're also right that gear or anything else available to everyone doesn't solve the class imbalance. If a fighter can buy immunity from curses with his Gondor Express card, so can a wizard.
But buried in his suggestion was something that might be effective, which is to make knowledge an effective form of pseudo-magic --- e.g., I may not be able to cast spells to fly, but because I'm Daedalus, son of Batman, I can make mundane wings that will give me that ability.
This would require a lot of reworking, because the classes that get an effective number of skill points (wizard, magus, bard) are also among the more powerful casters. So you'd need to completely re-jigger the skill system. But something like this is roughly how non-weapon proficiencies worked in first edition -- wizards could cast spells but couldn't do much else, while fighters could learn all sorts of other non-combat tricks. Basically, if Hedge Magic were a useful skill somehow restricted to tier 4 or below, that would help quite a bit.
Actually, as has been pointed out in other threads, there was a standard fix in 1st Ed, which is that martials were given narrative power of a different sort. Casters had high-level spells, martials had minons. So while the arch-mage would simply teleport everyone into the BBEG's castle, the master thief would instead just wave his hand and say 'make it so," and his scouts would provide him with a detailed map of the way past the traps. Or the High Justicar would dispatch his legions and lay siege to the BBEG's tower, and he'd only step in at at the gates of the tower.LOLOLOLOLOLOL
So you actually played where your NPCs did all the adventuring for you, hahaha. That's rich.
I played a game where the NPCs did all the boring grunt work for me, yes. That's what minions are for.
Sorry, that isn't narrative control for martials. At least not in the way you are framing "narrative control" which is: "everyone needing to have super powers that create planes and change reality" - sort of narrative control. According to your own argument, all the martials would effectively be getting is more martial power (most at 0 level) and more mundane power/control - just via lower level via NPCs.
Not at all. The point is that the martials, as well as the casters, have the ability in this case to "cut to the chase" and get to the part of the game that's actually fun. Neither the fighter, the rogue, nor the wizard want to traverse the forest to get to the BBEG's tower. Now, none of them need to.
Or forever if they don't have that spell in their books. Wizards may have the potential to learn every spell in the game, but that potential runs into very real constraints of time, availability, and resources. It costs money to buy spellbooks and scribe scrolls, and spell scrolls aren't going to be raining down like candy.All of those options make the wizard fun to play for a lot of people, but it doesn't really increase his ability to interact with the world.Erm... what? If a fighter wants a big hole in the ground, they get a spade and start digging. If a bard wants a big hole in the ground, they go round making social rolls to get people to help. If a rogue wants a big hole in the ground, they trick the bard and fighter into getting it done. If the wizard wants a big hole in the ground, they cast a spell that alters the shape of the ground.
What's the difference? Well, the wizard version takes six seconds of in-game time. Or maybe one day and six seconds, if they have to wait until tomorrow to memorise it.
A fifth level scroll like wall of stone is widely available for 1125 gp (basically any large town), according to the core rulebook. That's about 2% of the 46,000 a 9th level wizard should have according to the WBL guidelines. Assuming that the wizard didn't take the spell for free when she leveled up.
Anything substantially more restrictive than that is moving into house rule/arbitrary "screw the caster" territory.
Your wizard may be able to build a castle over a long period of time, but how is he going to hold the land it sits on?
Not relevant. It's not even clear that the wizard herself is the owner of the castle. Perhaps the Duke of Earl needs a castle built (and, of course, can't be stopped). This is simply a demonstration of how the wizard can "interact with the world" in a way that the Muggle cannot.
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It may be a fix, but it's not simple, because some level of magical accomplishment is baked into the system. A party of level 20 fighters and rogues will not be able to handle a CR 15 marilith without magic. Indeed, without magic, I'm not sure how a level 20 fighter is supposed to be able to make the DC 25 Fort save against the marilith's unholy aura.
Re-write the terrible save paradigm, that's how you fix it.
Then the Fighter doesn't need to go to casters with helmet in hand saying "I need this so I have a chance to win".Nothing to do with E6, 3.X has bad math.
Casters should be assisting/supporting non-casting classes - those classes should not require their assistance to survive. This is a 3.X problem.
Someone is seriously asking how a wizard is going to hold on a piece of land???
Heck, the Wizard would be one of the BEST at holding down a kingdom. Unlike a fighter he is actually intelligent and his spells would be at their most powerful when he can actually prepare stationary defenses at a single point.
How is a fighter going to defend from an attack at 2 gates? He can only fight at one at any particulair time. The wizard can easily drop a Prismatic Wall at one then move to the other and drop another Prismatic Wall on that one... or just create Walls of Iron to block off the gates... or create a giant pit at the entrance of the gate... or just summon some big nasties to watch them... or create simulacrum of himself to run both gates so he can literally be in 2 places at the same time.. I am sure you are getting the point here...
As I mentioned, way back in the beginning of this thread, IF you have a problem with spellcasters' ability to re-write the plot, restrict the number of spell schools or number of spells they have available.
I've been playing a spellslinger recently. It's quite annoying how weak they are compared to a normal wizard. Not only do they lack any school powers or arcane bond, plus no scribe scrolls, they also have 4 opposition schools. That's half the spells in the game pretty much out of bounds. And immediately my spellslinger can't do half the things that people keep listing and complaining about. YMMV, but that's an easy nerf to apply. It's also very frustrating when you're used to having more options.
In other game systems, this discrepency between casters and mundanes can be built in (Ars Magica: you play one of each, because mages are so much better) or spellcasting is very restricted (original Warhammer: don't bother being a wizard). D&D and Pathfinder try to accommodate both casters and mundanes at both high and low levels. Unsurprisingly, it fails to be perfect to some extent.
Re-write the terrible save paradigm, that's how you fix it.It may be a fix, but it's not simple, because some level of magical accomplishment is baked into the system. A party of level 20 fighters and rogues will not be able to handle a CR 15 marilith without magic. Indeed, without magic, I'm not sure how a level 20 fighter is supposed to be able to make the DC 25 Fort save against the marilith's unholy aura.
Or, in other words, it's not 'a simple fix' by removing caster classes. You need to remove the caster classes and rewrite some of the fundamental rule mechanics.
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Re-write the terrible save paradigm, that's how you fix it.It may be a fix, but it's not simple, because some level of magical accomplishment is baked into the system. A party of level 20 fighters and rogues will not be able to handle a CR 15 marilith without magic. Indeed, without magic, I'm not sure how a level 20 fighter is supposed to be able to make the DC 25 Fort save against the marilith's unholy aura.
Or, in other words, it's not 'a simple fix' by removing caster classes. You need to remove the caster classes and rewrite some of the fundamental rule mechanics.
Where did I say remove the caster classes from the game? Don't put words in my mouth please.
I have no problem with balanced, "actions-have-consequences" full casters in the game.
Fixing the save math =/= eliminate full casters in the game.
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What is a DM in that situation supposed to do? to reduce the BBEG power in order for the PC to win? IF that is the philosophy then the PC choises do not really matter. It is equally metagaming as to force the players to Level up first.
That's part of the reason I did away with XP in the home game. PCs level up when they successfully complete a mission/story arc. They can wander off the rails and have 10x as many encounters as I predicted, or they can do something clever I didn't foresee and bypass half the encounters I predicted, and neither one invalidates the end prep.
What is a DM in that situation supposed to do? to reduce the BBEG power in order for the PC to win? IF that is the philosophy then the PC choises do not really matter. It is equally metagaming as to force the players to Level up first.That's part of the reason I did away with XP in the home game. PCs level up when they successfully complete a mission/story arc. They can wander off the rails and have 10x as many encounters as I predicted, or they can do something clever I didn't foresee and bypass half the encounters I predicted, and neither one invalidates the end prep.
So much this!
Honestly the XP system only really works in dungeon crawls and video games... it feels way to gamey and create weird scenerios of "I only need 50 more XP to level up! Hey guys, lets go kill some stuff right quick!"
That's be an interesting trick to pull off since the example we've been talking about is a 9th level wizard, not a 19th level wizard mythic archmage. 9th level wizards are a lot more mortal and limited at that. And it just so happens that the orc horde attack occurs after he's used a good deal of his major spells in replacing the construction crew he was too cheap to hire.Someone is seriously asking how a wizard is going to hold on a piece of land???
Heck, the Wizard would be one of the BEST at holding down a kingdom. Unlike a fighter he is actually intelligent and his spells would be at their most powerful when he can actually prepare stationary defenses at a single point.
How is a fighter going to defend from an attack at 2 gates? He can only fight at one at any particulair time. The wizard can easily drop a Prismatic Wall at one then move to the other and drop another Prismatic Wall on that one... or just create Walls of Iron to block off the gates... or create a giant pit at the entrance of the gate... or just summon some big nasties to watch them... or create simulacrum of himself to run both gates so he can literally be in 2 places at the same time.. I am sure you are getting the point here...
It does not take a 19th level caster to cast prismatic wall... prismatic wall can be cast by a 15th level wizard...
Additionally, if the orcs attacked right after construction (i.e. literally the day the onstruction was finishes) the fighter is still doing damn near nothign also. He is still limited to defending one gate.
Furthermore, a wizard would not be so dumb as to not notice an army of orcs coming towards his castle to not set wards and defenses or to prioritize the construction of defensive positions and walls...
AN WAIT! THERES MORE! A wizard can take out more than a few of the orcs without dependind on his top spell slots. Let me guess, your the type of person who things a wizard NEEDS to use his top spell slots and that all his lower level spells are not worth anything? Create Pit is a low level spell you know...
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What is a DM in that situation supposed to do? to reduce the BBEG power in order for the PC to win? IF that is the philosophy then the PC choises do not really matter. It is equally metagaming as to force the players to Level up first.That's part of the reason I did away with XP in the home game. PCs level up when they successfully complete a mission/story arc. They can wander off the rails and have 10x as many encounters as I predicted, or they can do something clever I didn't foresee and bypass half the encounters I predicted, and neither one invalidates the end prep.So much this!
Honestly the XP system only really works in dungeon crawls and video games... it feels way to gamey and create weird scenerios of "I only need 50 more XP to level up! Hey guys, lets go kill some stuff right quick!"
Not exactly - XP also works in a game where xp per session or several sessions will not directly impact (raise a level) of your character. If you a ton of xp to get from 5 to 6 and it takes a couple of adventures to earn it, a few encounters missed or gained are not a big deal.
You run into these problems when the game design is 13.3 encounters at CR to get a level or when you assume (as APs do) that by this point in the adventure you will have gone from 3rd to an assumed 5th level.
If the gap was wider, with bigger story awards xp then individual encounters wouldn't mean as much. In a tighter system, where less xp is needed to gain a level then yeah, players are going to (need to) be chasing after every encounter.
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I've not yet seen an in-game reason why it's smarter to take the long road across the desert on camel-back than to teleport in. "Because you need to level-grind" is metagaming, in a pejorative sense.THe issue is that Absolutes fails. THe idea of teleporting to fight the BBEg is to avoid a lot of battels and to make killing the BBEG easier, but It is naive to assume it is always he best tactic or even a good tactic.
What is a DM in that situation supposed to do? to reduce the BBEG power in order for the PC to win?
At a level where teleport is an option, so is retreat. Indeed, retreat should always be an option, even at level 1, but that's a decision the players should be making based on their view of the situation.
I've still not seen an in-game reason why the long grind is going to be a better option that the commando raid. Yes, there's the possibility of getting ambushed by overwhelming force at the other end of the teleport, but that's also a possibility with the long overland trip as well. And in any realistic, internally consistent universe, the longer you give the BBEG to respond, the more likely he will be able to come up with an effective counter and overwhelm you. (This is hardly news. Any Sandhurst graduate will be able to point out that this is part of why Operation Market-Garden failed; the airborne troops -- the teleporters -- were able to succeed in their part of the operation, but the troops taking the long walk got bogged down because the Germans had time to respond,.... and that also gave them time to wipe out the airborne troops who were unable to retreat.)
If the GM finds that the party have bitten off more than they can chew, he should respond appropriately, and a single teleport spell doesn't change that.
But the key word is appropriate. He should also have the BBEG respond appropriately to the plan in the first place, and making up an imaginary and arbitrary restriction on the use of teleportation magic is not appropriate.
Where did I say remove the caster classes from the game?Re-write the terrible save paradigm, that's how you fix it.It may be a fix, but it's not simple, because some level of magical accomplishment is baked into the system. A party of level 20 fighters and rogues will not be able to handle a CR 15 marilith without magic. Indeed, without magic, I'm not sure how a level 20 fighter is supposed to be able to make the DC 25 Fort save against the marilith's unholy aura.
Or, in other words, it's not 'a simple fix' by removing caster classes. You need to remove the caster classes and rewrite some of the fundamental rule mechanics.
YOU didn't. The person upthread to whom we were both responding did:
If you think casters and magic is entirely overpowered, it's a simple fix. Just remove magical classes all together.
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Actually, this idea is worth unpacking.
First, you're right that the solution to fighters not being able to do enough is not to let wizards do less. If your car doesn't work properly, removing the battery from mine won't help.
Second, you're also right that gear or anything else available to everyone doesn't solve the class imbalance. If a fighter can buy immunity from curses with his Gondor Express card, so can a wizard.
Here is the thing. If the fighter had a class feature that was called gondor express card, that allowed him access to this stuff, great. The point is, he may or may not have that card. The wizard GETS HIS SPELLBOOK and access to at least 3+int+2 spells per level. The cleric gets all his spells. He just has to pray every day. The fighter's ability to do cool stuff shouldnt be dependent on whether or not there's a way for him to get access to specific materials, items, or wealth. If we are playing an adventure where the party is stuck in an empty wasteland with no towns, resources, or even plants/animals, the wizard is still a wizard, the druid is still a druid. In such a campaign (or if say your deep in some kind of underground...dungeon, with no contact with civilization to buy...gorgons blood) the fighter should still get his cool thing, whatever it is.
But buried in his suggestion was something that might be effective, which is to make knowledge an effective form of pseudo-magic --- e.g., I may not be able to cast spells to fly, but because I'm Daedalus, son of Batman, I can make mundane wings that will give me that ability.
That would in fact be awesome, particularly if we remove monetary costs. I would be totally down for that, except remember, wizards are better at knowledge. None the less it would go a long way towards making mundane means good again. I just imagine we would have people arguing that the materials to make those wings arent available in location x.
This would require a lot of reworking, because the classes that get an effective number of skill points (wizard, magus, bard) are also among the more powerful casters. So you'd need to completely re-jigger the skill system. But something like this is roughly how non-weapon proficiencies worked in first edition -- wizards could cast spells but couldn't do much else, while fighters could learn all sorts of other non-combat tricks. Basically, if Hedge Magic were a useful skill somehow restricted to tier 4 or below, that would help quite a bit.
I'll add that to my list im kicking around. Option 1, army, Option 2, theives guild, Option 3, engineering and alchemy tricks.
But the key word is appropriate. He should also have the BBEG respond appropriately to the plan in the first place, and making up an imaginary and arbitrary restriction on the use of teleportation magic is not appropriate.
This is where things get tricky. Depending on how you introduce things like this, it could be perfectly appropriate or a blatantly obvious block. In the world I'm developing, it would be completely appropriate because I've built those kinds of things into the world and players will be aware of those considerations long before they actually have an impact on the campaign. If the DM is scrambling to stop the derail, and introduces it as a stopgap measure, it could still be fine under the right circumstances and in the right group. It could also very easily be a complete disaster if it's clear it's a desperate stopgap measure.
All of this really gets to the heart of keeping magic from being an overwhelming force in a campaign or encounter; consideration for how the magic system can be disruptive really needs to be made for it before the potential problem spells come into play. Making up solutions on the fly can sometimes work, but a DM that fails to plan ahead on this critical aspect will be just as singed as the player being affected. Understanding that magic is part of the game and it's uses and limitations will need to be addressed at some point is absolutely crucial, and the sooner this is understood and addressed, the less of a problem it is. It's not a perfect magic system, but there are a lot of controls baked into the system and lots of ways to set up the story that can easily be incorporated into the story if addressed early on. If you wait until the party is actually using those spells, it will be a problem, no matter how good the DM is at incorporating on the fly decisions into the story. Managing expectations is the number one solution to containing this. In the early planning phases of the overall framework of a campaign, it does have more power than martials; that I will give people. In actual play and in designing actual encounters, it's power is significantly more limited if you laid the groundwork properly. This would be true of any magic system in any framework, though. If you don't take the time to understand how magic fits into the greater whole, it will always be a problem; if you do take the time in advance to understand how it fits, the problems usually disappear.
Neither the fighter, the rogue, nor the wizard want to traverse the forest to get to the BBEG's tower. Now, none of them need to.
The story does have to be constructed to make the journey relevant. If the journey isn't relevant, I'm probably going to mostly hand wave it even if they don't have access to the teleport spell. The spell doesn't actually give the caster that much more power than the martial, because I'm not going to make anyone sit through what I believe is time waster and not much else.
If, on the other hand, I know that the journey matters, and the party doesn't, and the party skips over it via teleport because they don't want to waste time on it, that's their decision and I am not going to hold their hand. That part of the story is still part of the campaign and still part of the assumptions made in designing the encounter at the end of the journey. It didn't suddenly disappear because the caster chose to bypass the journey; that spell did not change how the villain and other NPCs are set up in the world.
That is what takes narrative power away from spells and magic. It doesn't take nerfing the spells; it doesn't take nerfing the magic system. It takes running the world realistically and letting the PCs deal with the consequences of the prepared story whether or not they took the time to learn all of it before facing the big villain.
This would require a lot of reworking, because the classes that get an effective number of skill points (wizard, magus, bard) are also among the more powerful casters. So you'd need to completely re-jigger the skill system. But something like this is roughly how non-weapon proficiencies worked in first edition -- wizards could cast spells but couldn't do much else, while fighters could learn all sorts of other non-combat tricks. Basically, if Hedge Magic were a useful skill somehow restricted to tier 4 or below, that would help quite a bit.
This is actually the one area of the game I would completely change. Change skill point allocation to be based somehow on the attribute that drives each skill and put in skill tricks from 3.5. The thing I tried in one campaign that the players seemed to like was granting a number of skill points per attribute to skills for that attribute. For Con and excess points from Dex or Str, they became action points that could be spent in a number of ways to enhance the character's performance. It worked well in that it increased overall skill points for everyone while enforcing specialization of skills based on attributes. Wizards that dumped everything for Int could have a ton of knowledge skills, but would be severely limited in everything else. Even if a fighter didn't end up with a lot more skills than the default system, they still got action points, allowing them a bit more influence over the outcome of their actions, evening out their larger reliance on the dice for success. For those that wanted a simpler mechanic, but the same effect, averaging physical stats for points for physical skills, and mental stats for mental skills would work as well. Skill tricks, while I haven't had an opportunity to implement them personally yet, would have a similar effect; I really liked them in 3.5 and am working on converting and expanding on them for PF. The result of both of these is reducing the dependence on magic to begin with, making most of the problems there far less likely to develop in the first place.
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The point you are missing is that the GM has to go out of his way to shut magic down by changing the background of the story or contriving situations. That alone speaks to the power of magic. You don't have to plan or worry about so many "what if" scenarios for martials. If a GM has to actively oppose the caster then that is all that evidence that is needed IMHO.Magic is definitely powerful; I have never denied that part. But it only breaks a campaign if the DM lets it. There are a lot of little things a DM can do within both the rules and the story itself to keep it from being abused. If the party wants to keep using teleport, then incorporate that into the story. This is admittedly harder to do for APs, but still perfectly doable without too much effort. I usually go with the idea that anything can be done once without too much repercussion, but if it becomes a routine tactic, the party will become known for it, and NPCs will respond accordingly. That, along with inserting a certain amount of magic regulation into the world usually handles the world aspect of the problem quite well. Couple that with a thorough reading and following of the spells and the magic system in general, and most of the problems people complain about never materialize.
What if the party starts using mind blank to avoid divination spells, and lets no bad guys escape, and just to be clear nobody is suggesting they spam the same tactic over and over again. You don't need to do that with magic because you have to many options.
Also you introducing magic regulation into the world is exactly what I meant in my last post. You are going out of your way to specifically counter magic. That means it has more narrative power than martials do if you have to include artificial stop gaps.
You can't say X is equal to Y, if you have to actively opposed X to bring it down to Y's level.
If you could just run the story as it folds in a neutral setting with no special rules, and without GM fiating things then you could say magic did not have an advantage, but you are wanting to say "Well I can ___ to keep magic in its place, so they are equal."
IF X(magic)-2(rules to hold it in place)=Y(martials) then X has to be greater they Y.
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I believe this analogy covers all that needs to be said on the matter.
I knew what this was before I even clicked on the link, and barring God(the GM) taking those angels away that is pretty much a good description of how the game is.