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."
This does have to happen, you are quite correct, but there is a difference of the effect it has based on when this happens. Magic will always have an overbearing presence in the game system as a whole, but it does not have to have an overbearing presence in an actual campaign. If it comes down to magic destroying multiple encounters, than it's too late to contain it, and the DM may as well run with it. If, on the other hand, care is taken to incorporate many perfectly legitimate limitations (WBL, not guaranteeing access to every scroll and magic item in the book, etc.), than it is entirely possible to have magic users in a campaign that don't make the martials look completely useless without a lot of extra work overall by the DM. Trying to fight the reality that the magic system is a core system to PF and D&D is not going to get you anywhere. Nerfing the magic system in an attempt to create balance isn't going to help anyone and will probably piss off a fair number of people. Embracing it for what it is from the very beginning of campaign designing is necessary, but far from the multiheaded beast that some people make it out to be. Dealt with right, it's just one of many concerns that goes into designing a campaign, nothing more and nothing less.
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.For every analogy there is an equal and opposite analogy.
If you can't keep up with someone else's long term ability to build battleships locking tonnage in with something like the London Naval Treaty helps a lot.
If you don't think you can match what Reagan is prepared to spend on ABM technology the ABM treaty helps a lot.
If you're in a race and don't have a car while your competitor does making it a foot or bicycle race helps.
If you're putting together a pickup football game at a family reunion and one cousin is a starter at a major college team and nobody else is anywhere near him reducing the size of the team he's on or otherwise handicapping him helps.
Pathfinder, being a wargame, is more like a war or a sport than it is like a trip to the store for groceries.
The problem is that none of your analogies make any sense. Also, a given caster can do that just as well or even better as any equally given martial.
Wizards, witches, and alchemists have the intelligence to pull of skill ranks. By giving intelligence to martials you weaken their core areas. They have spells that actively negate the need for many other skills that martials have to invest in.
Sorcerers and oracles have the charisma to pull off face-based negotiations. This is only enhanced by magic that can negate other skills. They may be matched by paladins (though that's iffy)... but paladins also cast spells.
Clerics and inquisitors have the advantage of having great insight and understanding of people and events and the appropriate measure of responses. Inquisitors can even dump charisma and get by without it, netting more bang for their ability scores. Also, spells.
That means:
If you can't keep up with someone else's long term ability to build battleships locking tonnage in with something like the London Naval Treaty helps a lot.
Good thing, really, that you can summon a great deal more tonnage than anyone without spells, and you have either the skills or charisma (or can someone or something that does) to negotiate that treaty for you.
Alternatively, you can just... increase the amount of ships one side has (as GM).
If you don't think you can match what Reagan is prepared to spend on ABM technology the ABM treaty helps a lot.
Good thing that you have either the skills or charisma (or can summon someone or something that does) to negotiate that treaty for you.
Alternatively, you (as GM) can increase the access one side has to ABM technology.
If you're in a race and don't have a car while your competitor does making it a foot or bicycle race helps.
Good thing you can literally build your own car in a few minutes.
OR can alter the terrain so that a car no longer functions, forcing the race to go at your speed.
OR that you can ignore the race altogether and just go to the finish line.
The other option, of course, is to give both people cars.
If you're putting together a pickup football game at a family reunion and one cousin is a starter at a major college team and nobody else is anywhere near him reducing the size of the team he's on or otherwise handicapping him helps.
Hey, nice, so, like, you use reduce person on him or his team, and enlarge person (and probably bull's strength and bear's endurance) on yourself or something?
Alternatively, you could just... you know... increase your team or add to what you have.
Pathfinder, being a wargame, is more like a war or a sport than it is like a trip to the store for groceries.
This makes no sense, because it's not a "war" game.
It's oldest roots are in a war game - three-point-seven-five editions and two different game names ago.
Pathfinder is a role playing game with powers and abilities to facilitate that. Some of those powers and abilities are stronger than others.
They have special rules that go outside of the base rules for simulating warfare, if you want to: but that's not what, at the core, the rules are.
Even if it were a war game, the idea that there is a "war" between players and between classes is silly, at best.
EDIT: to make my points a little more clear and to respond more directly to the analogies as made.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Let me put it this way:
IF you like, you can and should feel free to nerf magic. It's true! You should. If that works for you and your style of gaming, that is awesome.
IF you like, you can and should feel free to buff martials. It's true! You should. If that works for you and your style of gaming, that is awesome.
As for me, I like the idea of buffing things. I like giving fun things to people. Maybe I like giving too many fun things or too much stuff. I dunno. It's fun for me, as GM, to give people shiny things.
I like the power of magic.
I don't really have many problems in my games stemming from magic.
I'm not everyone.
Hence: what works for me won't work for everyone.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The problem is that none of your analogies make any sense.
LOL! Relative merits of arguments to the side, I just wanted to mention that this sentence had me chuckling.
There's a Jack Vance book in which someone is trying to talk someone else into something, and the second guy isn't interested. To make sure he gets this across, his reply is, "The concept lacks all merit."
The problem is that none of your analogies make any sense.LOL! Relative merits of arguments to the side, I just wanted to mention that this sentence had me chuckling.
There's a Jack Vance book in which someone is trying to talk someone else into something, and the second guy isn't interested. To make sure he gets this across, his reply is, "The concept lacks all merit."
I say enough things that don't make sense enough of the time, that I'm not averse to people pointing this out to me.
Similarly, I'm not averse to saying that certain things don't make sense to me either.
I'm slow sometimes. :)
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?
No, that's not the point at all. The smart option in this case is to understand that BBEGs have just the same access to magic that PC's do. Not "superior", just the "same".
And this is why the horrible game-breaking power of "magic" simply isn't: because BBEGs use it too. And yes, that means a party will almost never get the drop on the BBEG. This is part of what makes them big and bad. The concept of "game-breaking" magic is a fallacy for this reason. It only "breaks the game" if the BBEGs don't get to use it.
Also - this is sort of an aside, but if the BBEG is smarter than the players and their characters, and has superior resources to the PCs, and has superior information to the PCs, then the BBEG losing the campaign is implausible. Given superiority in every way, the BBEG ought to win. So don't give the BBEG all that!
Right, not "superior", just equal.
As for getting PC's into the desert ...
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.
I'm not sure where you get your idea of what the 70's entailed, but in every game I played in the 70's, and in ever game in the 40 years since then, D&D/Pathfinder has been a collaborative storytelling effort. The game master provides the world and the adversity, the PCs provide the storyline therein. I agree that if you assume the GM is the storyteller and PCs are there to play "in" the GM's story, then yeah, there is a problem. That's not what I consider the same game I play though.
Back to the point -- if you want your PCs to go into the desert, you have to provide a valid reason for those PCs. This has nothing at all whatsoever to do with whether or not they can teleport -- it has to do with whether or not they have an actual reason to do anything. That's the GM's job. So let the BBEG have some of this "world-breaking" magic too, throw some misdirections at them, let them teleport into the desert, etc. It's really not that hard to provide real reasons for the PCs.
Again, if the only reason you want to provide is "I have to pass through here to get there", then you are NOT telling the story of a teleporting party. Get rid of teleport, or GM for different characters in a different game, or -- best of all -- provide a different reason to go to the desert.
The other option, of course, is to give both people cars.
Bingo.
The other notion I find a bit odd is the idea that any social restrictions on magic are "contrived", as if the only reason for social restrictions on magic is a metagame construct. In a world full of magic, with the strong possibility of being dominated by magic at every turn, of course powerful social morays arise to deal with it. Anything that prevalent, and that powerful will -- as part of a natural course of social development -- be part and parcel of social norms and rules. Not "contrived" in any way.
Jack Vance's wizards adhered to a strict code of non-interference in politics, enforced by the most powerful of their ilk. I'm sure Vance wasn't thinking "I'll have to put that in for game balance". Vance wasn't playing a game, he was telling a story, and in a story, those sort of restrictions make perfect, non-contrived, common sense.
The other notion I find a bit odd is the idea that any social restrictions on magic are "contrived", as if the only reason for social restrictions on magic is a metagame construct. In a world full of magic, with the strong possibility of being dominated by magic at every turn, of course powerful social morays arise to deal with it. Anything that prevalent, and that powerful will -- as part of a natural course of social development -- be part and parcel of social norms and rules. Not "contrived" in any way.
Jack Vance's wizards adhered to a strict code of non-interference in politics, enforced by the most powerful of their ilk. I'm sure Vance wasn't thinking "I'll have to put that in for game balance". Vance wasn't playing a game, he was telling a story, and in a story, those sort of restrictions make perfect, non-contrived, common sense.
It's not like parties actually care about social norms and rules most of the time. I'm sure they'll love a high-level NPC playing morality police for the better part of their adventure, though.
|
The other notion I find a bit odd is the idea that any social restrictions on magic are "contrived", as if the only reason for social restrictions on magic is a metagame construct. In a world full of magic, with the strong possibility of being dominated by magic at every turn, of course powerful social morays arise to deal with it. Anything that prevalent, and that powerful will -- as part of a natural course of social development -- be part and parcel of social norms and rules. Not "contrived" in any way.
Jack Vance's wizards adhered to a strict code of non-interference in politics, enforced by the most powerful of their ilk. I'm sure Vance wasn't thinking "I'll have to put that in for game balance". Vance wasn't playing a game, he was telling a story, and in a story, those sort of restrictions make perfect, non-contrived, common sense.
DM FIAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's not like parties actually care about social norms and rules most of the time. I'm sure they'll love an high-level NPC playing morality police for the better part of their adventure, though.
I'm not sure I'd call it "morality police". If you cross a horribly powerful wizard, you pay the consequences. Simple, believable, and perfectly reasonable. Also, no different from any other legal consequence.
DM FIAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:-D
The main problem I have with magic is 7-8-9th lvl spells.Past a certain point it becomes a game of "mother may I" or "how do I word this".
I have alot of houserules,but the primary in regards to magic and high level play was doing away with those spells.
here's my ruleset.(some of it)
ADVANCED SPELLCASTING.
In order to make magic more dynamic and customizable;and also to limit some of it’s narrative influence,the following changes are in effect.
· 7TH,8TH & 9TH level spells are BANNED.
Casters still receive the slots,but they may only be used for the preparation of spells modified by metamagic feats.
· Any CASTER whom,upon leveling,would gain access to a 7th or greater lvl spell selection ;That CASTER instead gains 1 FEAT which may be used only to buy Casting related feats* dm’s discretion.
This means that most prepared casters would receive the bonus feats on lvls 13,15,17; and Spontaneous casters at lvls 14,16,18.
Many of the metamagic feats are GREEN(2 FOR 1).So be sure to stock up.This means that most high level casters have their own unique casting style and many familiar spells may have additional effects.
I use alot of 2 for one feats in my games as well,(in case the text made you wonder.)
I have martial fixes as well but that's more extensive and would make the post super long.
Could be cool, if you wanted to share, and they're relatively simple.
(They might not work for everyone, but I like hearing these types of things.)
@Tacticslion -I sent you a PM with a link.It's a Blog with our groups current accepted mods.
Cool. Thanks! :)
It's not like parties actually care about social norms and rules most of the time. I'm sure they'll love an high-level NPC playing morality police for the better part of their adventure, though.I'm not sure I'd call it "morality police". If you cross a horribly powerful wizard, you pay the consequences. Simple, believable, and perfectly reasonable. Also, no different from any other legal consequence.
Yes, but there are a hell of a lot of people on this forum who object to paladins falling because they're behaving wrongly.
If they're not concerned about crossing a god, why should they respect mere powerful wizards?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The Paladin thing is always a bone of contention because people don't often agree 100% about what constitutes an evil action,and will argue their position with close to religious conviction.
Players often fail to recognize the difference between 'mere adversity' (this weeks flavor),and a legitimate institutionalized death threat.
Giving players abilities and expecting them not to use them when they are fighting for their lives in combat has to be some kind of psychological torture :)
Giving players abilities and expecting them not to use them when they are fighting for their lives in combat has to be some kind of psychological torture :)
I'm pretty sure some dudes in Switzerland agreed that it's a war crime, in fact.
I'm pretty sure some dudes in Switzerland agreed that it's a war crime, in fact.
I believe you're probably thinking of Belgium. The ICC is in Brussels. And I'm pretty sure if the ICC had its way, war itself would be a war crime. :-)
Here is what I think about spell. Increase cast time. Stronger spell takes more time to cast, weaker takes less. It's not only make low level spells and cantrips useful, but also allow other classes to be useful as caster can't cast spell without his team protecting him. Divine spells are fine for it's to save people, but arcane should take more time.
Zalman, I do give my BBEGs access to magic. Usually a level or two higher then the PCs. The do not auto win because they not only have to stop the PCs but to consider the rest of the world and whatever their goal is.
This has several ramifications under the current rules.
1. BBEG are always casters.
2. The game ends up feeling more like shadowrun.
3. A party of martials can not defeat the BBEG.Problems with magic in general include.
1. Travel stories are not possible beyond a certain level. (This might not be bad)
2. It is harder to get PCs to engage the story when they can short cut it. In the game it makes no sense that they would not shortcut it.
3. Martial classes feel useless once the wizard points out. If I just spend you WBL on a bound outsider it will fight better then you.
4. Published adventures rarely account for what PC magic can do to them. If they do a party that lacks these resources will not be able to play.Examples:
Underground lairs with stone walls. Any druid can easily scout the whole place with a little help from an arcane caster.
Permanent alarm spells are not all over the place.
Penetrating the strong hold with magic is almost never discussed.
Teleport trap and dimensional lock see little use.
Even and at upper levels many foes can not deal with invisible creatures.
Matthias, good points. Still, I feel that most of these represent problems with the adventure, rather than problems with the system. It is true that some stories are impossible beyond a certain level -- that will always be the case with any system, and I don't see a problem with it. The stories about low-level characters are never the same stories as those about high-level characters. Travel stories, for example -- still perfectly possible, just not a "low-level" travel story. Travel through some other planes, for example.
Likewise, a party of martials does not have the same adventures that a party of spell-casters has. There's no reason for the BBEGs faced by a pure martial party to have access to magic. Just like a low-level adventure involves walking across the desert while a high-level adventure involves teleporting, so a martial adventure involves defeating the martial BBEG.
Tell the right story for your characters, and these problems go away. Published adventures may fail to be the right story for your group (not surprisingly). Tell your own.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Matthias, good points. Still, I feel that most of these represent problems with the adventure, rather than problems with the system.
A system that encourages adventures with problems is a system with problems.
The problem here is that magic is sufficiently world-changing that it requires an extremely high degree of system mastery to design an adventure to be wizard-resistant. A high enough degree of system mastery that a lot of published Paizo modules don't manage to make that level, which suggests in turn that your average home GM is even less likely to be able to roll his own.
The other problem is that, while it may be obvious to those with a high degree of system mastery that high level adventures are different in type as well as degree than low level adventures, that insight isn't sufficiently spelled out, and a lot of home gamers don't realize that. I keep coming back to Lord of the Rings for a reason -- one of the most famous and iconic examples of fantasy literature is a low-level FedEx quest. But people want to believe that Aragorn, Gandalf, and so forth are the pinnacles of power, and hence people want to play LotR at high levels, which doesn't work with the Pathfinder system.
And, of course, the other problem with caster-martial imbalance is that if mostly-martial parties can only face mostly-martial BBEGs (or they'll get ROFLstomped), this eliminates another very powerful source of inspiration that motivates a lot of players, the Conan-style sword-sandal-and-sorcery adventure, where our mighty hero defeats the evil wizard by sheer talent and pluck, with a bit of flashy swordplay thrown in there. If Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser die instantly from a contingent spell as soon as they set foot in the bad guy's tower, that's an issue.
The problem here is that magic is sufficiently world-changing that it requires an extremely high degree of system mastery to design an adventure to be wizard-resistant. A high enough degree of system mastery that a lot of published Paizo modules don't manage to make that level, which suggests in turn that your average home GM is even less likely to be able to roll his own.
To be fair, the BBEG only needs as much system mastery to be wizard-resistant as the intruding wizard demonstrates. That is, it's a contest of system-mastery. And here I believe you have more correctly identified the real source of discontent with Pathfinder: it is a game based almost entirely on system mastery, to the point that the story must revolve around it. I don't disagree that this is a major problem (and why I prefer other games); I just don't think it's about magic per se.
And, of course, the other problem with caster-martial imbalance is that if mostly-martial parties can only face mostly-martial BBEGs (or they'll get ROFLstomped), this eliminates another very powerful source of inspiration that motivates a lot of players, the Conan-style sword-sandal-and-sorcery adventure, where our mighty hero defeats the evil wizard by sheer talent and pluck, with a bit of flashy swordplay thrown in there. If Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser die instantly from a contingent spell as soon as they set foot in the bad guy's tower, that's an issue.
This is a very good point, and well-demonstrated. Pathfinder does not tell this particular story very well at all. But then, Pathfinder has never been much of an S&S game (or S,S&S as you call it :-)). It could be made more accommodating of that sort of storyline, at the expense of other, more superhero or anime-type stories. But then, others would complain it didn't support anime stories well. This is an inherent flavor tradeoff, rather than an indication of system failure. Fortunately, there are other games that do S&S much better.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And here I believe you have more correctly identified the real source of discontent with Pathfinder: it is a game based almost entirely on system mastery, to the point that the story must revolve around it. I don't disagree that this is a major problem (and why I prefer other games); I just don't think it's about magic per se.
The first part isn't quite true. The problem is more than just the magic system, but it's not unique to PF or the 3.x chassis. D&D at its core has always to some degree been about system mastery and revolving around the magic system. They all break down in the same way at some point for the same reasons, most of them involving magic, with only some minor variation in the level it breaks down. Magic has always been at the center of the core setup and always will be; at some point, to keep going, the system requires some kind of magic or technology or similar system, and that aspect can easily take over the rest of the system if not controlled from the start. It's never been something a party could get away with ignoring until level 10 and suddenly find a good solution for it. Most of the stories that people want to tell with PF but can't weren't actually all that good with in earlier D&D editions either if people were running them largely as written in the book. When you're ignoring at least 1/3 of the book, you aren't really telling a story within the system laid out in that book. The only real change is that 3rd edition and PF made it significantly harder to ignore the book, forcing people to actually accept what the system actually was rather than what they wanted it to be.
D&D at its core has always to some degree been about system mastery and revolving around the magic system.
Can't really agree with you there. Yes, it's true to some extent in all versions of AD&D, but not nearly as much as in earlier editions as in later ones, and not true at all in OD&D, where there was hardly any "system" to master at all. D&D, by the way, was clearly created with S&S style stories in mind -- one only needs to look at Appendix N to see as much.
And then, all the things that curbed magic in the early versions of D&D have been eliminated in Pathfinder, 'cause, you know, it's not fair (or fun??) to players if they can't operate without restriction. I'm the opposite -- a game without restrictions on uber-powers is pointless, IM0, in fact, not a "game" at all.
I'm pretty sure some dudes in Switzerland agreed that it's a war crime, in fact.I believe you're probably thinking of Belgium. The ICC is in Brussels. And I'm pretty sure if the ICC had its way, war itself would be a war crime. :-)
I was thinking of the Geneva Conventions, bro. Those Belgians sound like alright dudes too though.
Stat the BBEG lair for the level of party they encounter, and quit moaning about how they bypassed the desert. :-) Any other approach would be horrifically adversarial.
I just want to say that, for as much as I appreciate your posts, I disagree with the bolded part.
You may well not have time, energy, effort, or focus to redo the whole thing, lowering the CR might adversely affect the story (destroying simulationist styles - even for the players).
Now, that said, if possible, it's a great idea to restat things.
It's just not always possible.
You otherwise make some nice arguments in said posts about how to handle the situation.
But yes, having built a gonzo magic system, it really behooves the designers to build the society that exists in conjunction with it from the ground up. Which is going to be hard, considering.
But having said that, if you're going to (re)build the society that exists in conjunction with the published PF magic system from the group up, it won't look like Golarion -- or any of the published material -- any more. Any group that sits down and expects to play something that looks and feels like "that Pathfinder game I saw at Nerdcon" will be horribly disappointed.
If you've got the luxury of involving your players in world-development from the beginning, you can make sure to get player input, suggestions, and buy-in at all stages so that everyone understands that teleporting into the BBEG's lair is generally a bad idea because game-reason-that-differs-strongly-from-Golarion. However, that's a luxury that generally no one has; most people play in the published setting, and the GMs who design their own world generally do so by themselves with at best minimal input from the players.
An alternative is to give the players a telephone book detailing exactly how your world works. I've never seen this approach be very successful, either. While it may be perfectly clearly expressed on page 316 that "teleporting into the BBEG's lair is not possible due to Argyll's Law of Tempo-narrative Instability," the players will neither read, remember, nor care about that rule.
The alternative, that I recommend, is to remember that it's just a game, that you're there to have fun, and that the only person who has fun when the GM is a passive-aggressive s.o.b. is that self-same GM. If the players are trying to teleport into the BBEG's castle, it's because they want to teleport into the BBEG's castle, because they think the game would be more fun if they skipped the travelogue.
And if this means the the world is not consistent? The group collectively thinks that an inconsistent world is more fun. If you want to create a completely consistent world in which you're in entire control of the narrative, I can put you in touch with an agent who specializes in F&SF. You can create your own narrative to your heart's content after the gaming session is over and you don't have four other people expecting to have fun in what is after all a group endeavour.
Really, the only gaming approach where teleporting shouldn't work is some kind of hard-core simulation where there is way more anti-teleportation effect than there is in pathfinder. So, house rules. And that's not unreasonable as a notion, but the players shouldn't be surprised OOC to find out that their options are suddenly shut down.
It's not really house rules. New spells can be created by anyone, by the book (page 219 of the Core Rulebook), and why wouldn't a BBEG trying to secure a stronghold create all sorts of new anti-teleportation wards? Indeed, players shouldn't even be surprised in character.
Wonderful analysis here, by the way, as well as in the rest of this post.
D&D at its core has always to some degree been about system mastery and revolving around the magic system.Can't really agree with you there. Yes, it's true to some extent in all versions of AD&D, but not nearly as much as in earlier editions as in later ones, and not true at all in OD&D, where there was hardly any "system" to master at all. D&D, by the way, was clearly created with S&S style stories in mind -- one only needs to look at Appendix N to see as much.
And then, all the things that curbed magic in the early versions of D&D have been eliminated in Pathfinder, 'cause, you know, it's not fair (or fun??) to players if they can't operate without restriction. I'm the opposite -- a game without restrictions on uber-powers is pointless, IM0, in fact, not a "game" at all.
D&D may have been designed as a S&S game, but it didn't stay that way for very long; it had the seeds for what it came to be later firmly, if inadvertently, from the beginning. From what I've seen of the earlier editions, they were so unstable, it was pretty much inevitable that more hard coded rules would be developed, making it harder to use anything by magic to drive story twists and overall plots. 3rd edition did with most of the limits earlier systems had on magic because most people were ignoring them by that time anyway for a wide variety of reasons. I'm not saying that the removal of the restrictions was all good, but it clearly wasn't all bad either; it was closer to being a formal recognition of which rules that players were choosing to use and choosing to ignore than anything else. Trying to act as though you can just plug simply those restrictions back into the game and everything will be solved is dreaming. All you'd be doing is reintroducing the problems that led to them being removed in the first place, and you would still have people complaining about the magic system and it's unfair weight on the system. The only real difference is that different people prefer different solutions; the base problem was there from the very start.
Stat the BBEG lair for the level of party they encounter, and quit moaning about how they bypassed the desert. :-) Any other approach would be horrifically adversarial.I just want to say that, for as much as I appreciate your posts, I disagree with the bolded part.
You may well not have time, energy, effort, or focus to redo the whole thing, lowering the CR might adversely affect the story (destroying simulationist styles - even for the players).
If you're running something strongly simulationist, then players who get in over their heads die -- and that's expected and accepted.
If your group doesn't expect and accept that bad decisions and/or bad luck are often fatal, then they're not playing as simulationist a game as you think they are.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Actual problem -- teamwork not required.
First Edition:
Fighter usually kill
Wizard nova when needed
Cleric heal and turn undead
Fighter usually protect Wizard
Wizard protect Fighter and Cleric with nova
Cleric keep others going
Mandatory teamwork! Good teach pimply youth.
Pathfinder:
past tenth level even sorcerer do all while flying invisibly
No teamwork needed.
Problem not spell list. Problem mages not like Raistlin coughing frail lungs out.
Really, the only gaming approach where teleporting shouldn't work is some kind of hard-core simulation where there is way more anti-teleportation effect than there is in pathfinder. So, house rules. And that's not unreasonable as a notion, but the players shouldn't be surprised OOC to find out that their options are suddenly shut down.It's not really house rules. New spells can be created by anyone, by the book (page 219 of the Core Rulebook), and why wouldn't a BBEG trying to secure a stronghold create all sorts of new anti-teleportation wards?
Because there are rules, or at least guidelines, about how new spells work. And the first guideline is to look at the existing spell list and make sure it's balanced.
Any spell that is better than teleport trap would therefore have to be at least seventh level and probably higher. Making it cover a substantially larger area, enough that you can't even teleport "near" the BBEG's stronghold, should be at least an 8th level spell.
If we're talking about a group of 9th level characters, they shouldn't be going up against an opponent capable of casting 8th level spells. (That caster is a CR+5 encounter at a minimum, not counting minions or environment.)
The alternative is that you're being horribly adversarial, to the point I'd consider it outright cheating. ("Oh, yes, he's developed a new first-level spell that does 10d6 of fire damage to every opponent within 1000 feet. Reflex save to reduce the damage to 9d6.")
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
All you'd be doing is reintroducing the problems that led to them being removed in the first place, and you would still have people complaining about the magic system and it's unfair weight on the system. The only real difference is that different people prefer different solutions; the base problem was there from the very start.
I've played OD&D, and every version since then, and it's never been my experience that the expansion of supermagic that is evident in Pathfinder was based on any sort of problem or instability within the system. It was, rather, a social phenomenon based on the differing attitudes towards gaming espoused by an emerging generation of players. The rise of popular retro-clones demonstrates the early game's continued feasibility even today. Of note is that in early editions it was very, very difficult to keep a magic-user alive long enough to gain any real power. This was both good for game-balance and narratively sound.
I do agree that trying to retrofit that into Pathfinder is a lost cause, given those aforementioned attitudes prevalent in the game's playing populace.
Actual problem -- teamwork not required.
First Edition:
Fighter usually kill
Wizard nova when needed
Cleric heal and turn undeadFighter usually protect Wizard
Wizard protect Fighter and Cleric with nova
Cleric keep others goingMandatory teamwork! Good teach pimply youth.
Pathfinder:
past tenth level even sorcerer do all while flying invisibly
No teamwork needed.
Problem not spell list. Problem mages not like Raistlin coughing frail lungs out.
Mandatory teamwork was as much a problem as it was a solution though, the same way that not needing teamwork at all is as much a problem as it is a solution. If I had to pick a happy medium, I would go with late AD&D and design an updated system from that. The concept of the restrictions are still there but there was an awareness in the community that the traditional implementation of most of the rules was starting to show severe weaknesses. I would love to see what Paizo would have done with PF if they had used that as a jumping off point instead of 3.5.
Actual problem -- teamwork not required.
First Edition:
Fighter usually kill
Wizard nova when needed
Cleric heal and turn undeadFighter usually protect Wizard
Wizard protect Fighter and Cleric with nova
Cleric keep others goingMandatory teamwork! Good teach pimply youth.
Pathfinder:
past tenth level even sorcerer do all while flying invisibly
No teamwork needed.
Problem not spell list. Problem mages not like Raistlin coughing frail lungs out.
I understand, but as much as people scoff at the idea, it is kind of 'un-fun' to be the wizard if anyone on your team screws up and a gentle breeze gets past them, because then your character dies. Cleric has armor and can heal, Fighter is Fighter. The Wizard back then had to rely on his party for survival to a much greater extent than anyone else, from the looks of it.
It also just makes sense to me that the bleedy magic-users as a whole would take extra special care to develop abjurations and illusions for themselves. That just seems like something someone who had 20 Int would do.
Stat the BBEG lair for the level of party they encounter, and quit moaning about how they bypassed the desert. :-) Any other approach would be horrifically adversarial.I just want to say that, for as much as I appreciate your posts, I disagree with the bolded part.
You may well not have time, energy, effort, or focus to redo the whole thing, lowering the CR might adversely affect the story (destroying simulationist styles - even for the players).
If you're running something strongly simulationist, then players who get in over their heads die -- and that's expected and accepted.
If your group doesn't expect and accept that bad decisions and/or bad luck are often fatal, then they're not playing as simulationist a game as you think they are.
Was this attempting to disagree what I was saying, clarify what I was saying, expand upon what I was saying, or ignore me and respond to Lucy, or something else?
('cause it looks an awful lot - almost exactly - what I was saying, to me, so I was curious.)
:)
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Because there are rules, or at least guidelines, about how new spells work. And the first guideline is to look at the existing spell list and make sure it's balanced.
Any spell that is better than teleport trap would therefore have to be at least seventh level and probably higher. Making it cover a substantially larger area, enough that you can't even teleport "near" the BBEG's stronghold, should be at least an 8th level spell.
There are some false assumptions here, the largest of which is that a spell to counter teleportation needs to be more powerful than teleport trap. Redirecting a teleport attempt is a much more powerful effect than, say, simply blocking a teleport attempt. Or a spell that blocks the scrying attempt that allowed the characters to teleport right into someone else's lair in the first place. Or a scrying misdirection, that leads to the characters' teleporting intentionally to the wrong location.
I could go on.
Bottom line is this: if a 5th-level spell is powerful enough to transport a party across the world to a specific location, then the "guidelines" for spell creation should allow for an equal-and-opposite effect by a spell of the same level.
Of note is that in early editions it was very, very difficult to keep a magic-user alive long enough to gain any real power. This was both good for game-balance and narratively sound.
It just felt like "off" balance to me in a different way.
To each their own, however. :)
Of note is that in early editions it was very, very difficult to keep a magic-user alive long enough to gain any real power. This was both good for game-balance and narratively sound.
Not to mention extremely unsatisfactory to a great many players that wanted to enjoy using magic without being flimsier than a piece of paper. So not very narratively sound if you're still losing the interest of a large number of the players at the table, and balance is still iffy at best, with the most likely result in both cases being that magic users finding ways to manipulate the system even further to get anything out of the game. It's unfortunate that the response was to completely swing the pendulum the other way and just accept the all the manipulations required before as a necessary part of the game. In neither case was the system particularly balanced and casters always had the upper hand in controlling narrative power because they always had firm spells and clear powers to feed off of, and known limitations they could learn to work around. To me, all 3rd edition did and what PF does is lay bare the underlying problems in the root system. Nothing more and nothing less. I personally like this because it means I can actually see the problem and fix it before it becomes an issue at the table. Others don't and that's fine, but I will never buy the argument that 3rd edition or PF created the problems; they were always there, even if they weren't always as visible.
Not to mention extremely unsatisfactory to a great many players that wanted to enjoy using magic without being flimsier than a piece of paper.
Yes, that is exactly the phenomenon I'm talking about, and it is a social issue, not a narrative one. The narrative value of magic being difficult and dangerous to use is repeated in almost every fantasy story ever written, from Lord Dunsany to J.K. Rowling.