Magi and Alchemist strut in throw a few spells around to tip the odds in their favor and then full attack everything to death.
Wizards and sorcerers tip the odds and then use their magic to further crush opposition.
Bards buff themselves to nigh fighter levels, but also buffed everyone else in the party an equal amount so they don't seem like the lords of combat they are. They also sport odds tipping magic.
The mortals try to get in position hoping that their caster buddies can tip the odds in their favor, or they just stomp through the encounter. The latter tends to be boring from a GM perspective so it happens less often.
and that is just on the arcane side of things.
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Uh, what does a martial based class have to do with a spellcaster casting spells? Just because one class can't do something another can doesn't mean that it is "more powerful"Who is more powerful?
- Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson
- the President of the United States(Choose one.)
Dude I think Dwayne is the tooth fairy now. He could take out anyone with that level of access to people's bedrooms.
The Rock OP needs nerfs.
The POTUS is only OP with a spineless UN. The UN in our reality doesn't let the POTUS get away with BS interpretations of treaties and whatnot. He's no more powerful than Dwayne (who can block one attack per turn, that needs nerfed. Too Strong)
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Uh, what does a martial based class have to do with a spellcaster casting spells? Just because one class can't do something another can doesn't mean that it is "more powerful"Who is more powerful?
- Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson
- the President of the United States(Choose one.)
Dude I think Dwayne is the tooth fairy now. He could take out anyone with that level of access to people's bedrooms.
The Rock OP needs nerfs.
The POTUS is only OP with a spineless UN. The UN in our reality doesn't let the POTUS get away with BS interpretations of treaties and whatnot. He's no more powerful than Dwayne (who can block one attack per turn, that needs nerfed. Too Strong)
Never before have I seen so much social commentary on so many topics in so few lines. God bless you, take this favorite.
A spellcaster at higher level doesn't have 15 minute days, ever. You have access to so many spell slots which allow you to address situations that most casters are better in most regards than a martial character. You just need to put a small amount of effort into magical resource management and think how much effort to I have to exert to get through this encounter with positive HP.
After all, health is really only relevant in combat at high level play since casters have many items and spells to buy them time to heal themselves and the rest of the party. Though, martials are definitely more consist, which makes having 1-3 in a party of 4-6 useful. The martial characters ensure that the casters can do their shit so that the martials can do their shit better, it's simple. The only real way to stretch a caster's resources at higher levels is to make them participate in five or more combats a day, consistently, which means most of your days just consistent of combat.
I've started to appreciate mid level play more as I've participated in DND and Pathfinder games, simply because it feels like the sweet spot of balance between martials and casters that leads to less conversations about power discrepancies and more fun conversations about the game.
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Do I even need to mention how crucial Dispel Magic is beyond 10th level? Oh, it doesn't come up often, but when you need to cast it, you NEED to cast it, either that or run away because you can't hit the BBEG even on a nat 20 due to displacement combined with absurd AC boosting spells.
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Chester the Cheetah: It aint easy, bein' cheesy
Wizard: Says you....
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The only real way to stretch a caster's resources at higher levels is to make them participate in five or more combats a day, consistently, which means most of your days just consistent of combat.
Somewhat off topic, but I know PF is supposed to be based around 4-6 encounters a day, but I've found the sweet spot to be 8-13. Even then the casters pull out ahead, but do a little more resource management, and it lets the martials shine more. I think the 4-6 encounter days are laughable at best as far as making people manage resources at all. It also really helps bring the Nova classes (alchemist and magus) in line.
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Do I even need to mention how crucial Dispel Magic is beyond 10th level? Oh, it doesn't come up often, but when you need to cast it, you NEED to cast it, either that or run away because you can't hit the BBEG even on a nat 20 due to displacement combined with absurd AC boosting spells.
I've played through APs where that never happens. Optimized martials with buffs always seem to be able to keep up with enemy ACs. Spells like True Seeing can overcome Displacement, or you can just overwhelm it by attacking them enough times. Dispel Magic seems like a '50% chance of negating one enemy action, 50% chance of nothing happening' spell.
The only real way to stretch a caster's resources at higher levels is to make them participate in five or more combats a day, consistently, which means most of your days just consistent of combat.
I don't think the last part of that sentence is true. If I make you fight ten combats one day, and each takes ten rounds, that's still only ten minutes of the day spent in battle. Anything could happen in the other 23 hours 50 minutes.
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Do I even need to mention how crucial Dispel Magic is beyond 10th level? Oh, it doesn't come up often, but when you need to cast it, you NEED to cast it, either that or run away because you can't hit the BBEG even on a nat 20 due to displacement combined with absurd AC boosting spells.I've played through APs where that never happens. Optimized martials with buffs always seem to be able to keep up with enemy ACs. Spells like True Seeing can overcome Displacement, or you can just overwhelm it by attacking them enough times. Dispel Magic seems like a '50% chance of negating one enemy action, 50% chance of nothing happening' spell.
True Seeing only works until Mind Blank becomes available, then it's back to square one.
Your character's days might not be only combat, but your sessions will be.The only real way to stretch a caster's resources at higher levels is to make them participate in five or more combats a day, consistently, which means most of your days just consistent of combat.I don't think the last part of that sentence is true. If I make you fight ten combats one day, and each takes ten rounds, that's still only ten minutes of the day spent in battle. Anything could happen in the other 23 hours 50 minutes.
Days and sessions can be independent from one another. You could have a day that lasts five gaming sessions involving ten battles, and dozens of role-playing encounters.
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As levels go up, the level of encounters becomes more dangerous.
The sweet spot for me has always been levels 7-10, the party is competent enough to handle interesting foes, but still has things outside of its capability.
When you hit high level play (mid level usually ends around 12), you graduate to situations where you don't get your daily allotment of kobolds, or manticores, and you're now cleaving through huge, really dangerous ECL+4 and +5 encounters, but usually only a single one.
Now, this being said, I've seen wizards who take the opposite approach to the tried and true DM approach of attrition. I've seen wizards literally stand by, thumb firmly implanted in their behinds, because they didn't want to 'waste' spells on peons, or their spell compliment was entirely anti-caster focused (one player of mine in the past accused me of poor encounter design because he never encountered a single high level wizard (he did get attacked by hordes of mid level ones) upon which to unleash his carefully netdecked build).
The 'I'm too important to act' wizard generally doesn't earn fame and applause from his party.
Conversely, I've seen wizards expend themselves blasting, bypassing and ripping through the attrition encounters so that their martials and divines show up to a final encounter almost fresh as daisies.
Spellcasters have spells that improve their movement, assist with skills, bring in help, but there's a notable caveat to most of these.
Most, not all, of them are temporary.
The non-summoner who claims he can use summoned monsters to build his house will notice that rather rapidly, the summons have work days that are far shorter then fifteen minutes. Invisibility spells might be handy in the dungeon or in close situations, but when you really need to stake out a location on the fly (like say to investigate whats happening in a warehouse at night), you're going to want a rogue for it (ropes hanging out of space are kind of suspicious, and you can only scry on people not locations).
Arcane spells do incredible things fast, but they (in general) have trouble when 'fast' isn't good enough to accomplish the goal.
Recover Shipwreck can save months of time in dry dock, yeah.
Invisibility lets you hide for minutes somewhere.
Make whole saves some time at the anvil.
Also, speaking from personal DM experience, arcane casters have trouble when they're kept on their toes. Deprived of downtime to scribe spells, make items, put things in their spellbook, they start feeling harried.
I had a campaign where the party was constantly on the move following up on rumors of their foes' activities (said foes had time tables), where they basically only stopped in a location long enough to heal up, grab supplies and hit the road again.
The wizard was tearing his hair out.
Also, routine attacks during the night (even if spotted by the guards) disrupt arcane casters considerably. I've seen wizard players demanding the party let them have their beauty sleep while the party was fighting for their lives against nocturnal attackers because they didn't want to lose out on the chance to memorize their spells.
Another fun DM thing to do is the bait and switch telegraphing. I've seen arcane casters have trouble when they misinterpreted (either their fault, or my intentional gm-dickery) what was waiting for them. One came loaded for harpies he could fireball only to find fiends who were immune to fire, one came expecting rogues with low will saves and ran into vermin who straight up didn't care about his charms, the giant bone things turned out to be bone /golems/ not skeletons, etc, and since they didn't have the right flavor of blasty or bypass they had a rougher time of it, whereas the martials just shrugged and whalloped things.
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Another fun DM thing to do is the bait and switch telegraphing. I've seen arcane casters have trouble when they misinterpreted (either their fault, or my intentional gm-dickery) what was waiting for them. One came loaded for harpies he could fireball only to find fiends who were immune to fire, one came expecting rogues with low will saves and ran into vermin who straight up didn't care about his charms, the giant bone things turned out to be bone /golems/ not skeletons, etc, and since they didn't have the right flavor of blasty or bypass they had a rougher time of it, whereas the martials just shrugged and whalloped things.
So when the universe conspires to lie to them, casters have trouble. Good point.
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Ask yourself these questions: if 20th level full casters are capable of dealing with any situation, why are there still problems in the world (the world being whatever game universe you're using)? Why is there not just a dozen 20th level casters stopping every problem before it even becomes a problem? Why do adventurers even need to exist in your world?
When you answer those questions to your own satisfaction, you will see why high level casters don't just automatically win everything.
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Yes, nobody is denying that if you go out of the way to kick over the caster's sandcastle and piss in his Cheerios, he's going to have a rough time. But the same is true of ANY class.
IMO if you're resorting to "I'm going to fix the problem by making sure you never have spells to begin with" you've already conceded that you lost and are now running damage control.
And it's at that point you have indirectly encouraged the REAL shenanigans. The Demiplane creating, Simulacrum abusing shenanigans that only pure Fiat can prevent, in an attempt to make sure when they DO have spells they're specifically geared towards making the GM's gaming experience as much of a chore as theirs is.
Ham fisted attempts to make sure the caster can never contribute is fun for nobody, and at best masks the actual issue. It misses the point, and frustrates everyone involved when a simple OOC discussion can mitigate the worst of it while a permanent solution is worked on.
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Ask yourself these questions: if 20th level full casters are capable of dealing with any situation, why are there still problems in the world (the world being whatever game universe you're using)? Why is there not just a dozen 20th level casters stopping every problem before it even becomes a problem? Why do adventurers even need to exist in your world?
When you answer those questions to your own satisfaction, you will see why high level casters don't just automatically win everything.
For the same reason that the entire planet isn't populated by nothing but Shadows and Wraiths, who hit small towns and created armies of themselves to descend on other villages and towns until there were just too many for even higher level threats to deal with.
Because there wouldn't be a plot otherwise.
I can honestly say I as a GM do not want to prep 8-13 fights every day. Besides the fact that there is other non-combat stuff I'd want to do, that would take forever. Hell, one fight already takes 90 minutes in this system if you're lucky.The only real way to stretch a caster's resources at higher levels is to make them participate in five or more combats a day, consistently, which means most of your days just consistent of combat.Somewhat off topic, but I know PF is supposed to be based around 4-6 encounters a day, but I've found the sweet spot to be 8-13. Even then the casters pull out ahead, but do a little more resource management, and it lets the martials shine more. I think the 4-6 encounter days are laughable at best as far as making people manage resources at all. It also really helps bring the Nova classes (alchemist and magus) in line.
Same.
I'd much rather be throwing 4 to 6 higher CR (ECL +1/+2) encounters at an optimized party, or customize the monsters to make them more difficult than as presented in the bestiary, and hope that those can soak a similar amount of resources that 8 to 13 encounters would soak.
It's less work for me as a DM, means that the story can progress faster than if I had more encounters, leads to an equal amount of xp, and helps to prevent me running out of environment and CR-appropriate enemiesm, or needing to stat up NPCs. Though, I'm also a DM/Player who would rather die than have to face the 6th group of goblins today.
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Another fun DM thing to do is the bait and switch telegraphing. I've seen arcane casters have trouble when they misinterpreted (either their fault, or my intentional gm-dickery) what was waiting for them. One came loaded for harpies he could fireball only to find fiends who were immune to fire, one came expecting rogues with low will saves and ran into vermin who straight up didn't care about his charms, the giant bone things turned out to be bone /golems/ not skeletons, etc, and since they didn't have the right flavor of blasty or bypass they had a rougher time of it, whereas the martials just shrugged and whalloped things.So when the universe conspires to lie to them, casters have trouble. Good point.
That's the thing though. Wizards (and in this case, spellcaster almost always means wizard since sorc spells are narrower) are reliant on preparation, when you remove from them their metagamey requirements for that preparation, they start preparing less like they getting ready for the 'ice level' and more like they're getting ready for adventuring, which means their spells are more balanced and less of the 'I have an app for that.'
The situations presented were organic. Heroic parties shouldn't routinely get weeks and weeks of downtime. They have things to do typically that require them to, well, go do things, as opposed to sit around on their duffs chugging ale. And in the above situations, they could have sat on their duffs letting the wizard scribe spells into his book, but they didn't want to let their foes have time to do things unopposed.
Similarly, the party's ability to gain information on a situation should not be game-guide perfect. To my knowledge, no real spells exist to give the party knowledge of the complete layout of a dungeon complex, its entire population, the entities who dwell within, or so forth, with any form of overwhelming precision. Scry is limited to people, people you know about. If the party has to go into some unknown dungeon of mystery, populated by God knows what, and God knows who, the situation becomes somewhat trickier to accomplish.
I'm admittedly also the same kind of jerk who's had a party in the mountains follow up on rumors of a belligerent white dragon, and show up with cold resistant spells and equipment, only to discover a pink eyed albino red. But again, the clerics, rogues and fighters of the party find themselves significantly less put out by sudden changes like this as the rogue rarely 'runs out' of roguishness, the cleric doesn't run out of healing, and the fighter typically doesn't run out of muscle.
Most APs however, do telegraph themselves. Reign of Winter is practically custom built for 'endure elements (cold)' and 'burn the hell out of you' fire spells. Wrath is almost wall to wall fiends. Skull and Shackles is almost all low will save monsters and pirates. Etc.
I think one of the major issues of 3e and Pathfinder was, in their urge to forever put the 'crossbow wizard' to bed, they inflated the amount of spells an arcane spellcaster has available. If I had a fix, my fix would be to cut the amount of daily spells but I know this is an unpopular opinion as nobody wants to play the Incredible Archmage who can do only twenty monumentally impressive things each day and then needs to break out his crossbow.
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The Cleric never runs out of healing? Yes, yes he does. Limited Channels (which don't heal a whole lot in the first place past low levels) and limited spell slots means his healing is very limited indeed, especially if he wants to actually have fun instead of doing nothing but patching ouchies all day with every one of his spells.
And I'll tell you the Fighter runs out of muscle and the Rogue runs out of rogueishness (though it's not worth very much anyway, so you might as well let him) really damn quick when the Cleric is out of healing.
That's the thing though. Wizards (and in this case, spellcaster almost always means wizard since sorc spells are narrower) are reliant on preparation, when you remove from them their metagamey requirements for that preparation, they start preparing less like they getting ready for the 'ice level' and more like they're getting ready for adventuring, which means their spells are more balanced and less of the 'I have an app for that.'
The problem is, the balanced spell list is A.) Probably the best regardless and B.) still problematic.
It's not like Fly and Invisibility are niche spells here. They're both quite useful in a ton of situations.
Ditto most of the other arcane staples. Stinking Cloud, Create Pit, Reverse Gravity, Black Tentacles...the list goes on and on with spells that are useful (and more than useful) against a wide variety of foes. Icy Prison works on basically everyone and it's one of the best spells in the game because of it. Even creatures immune to ice aren't free from its ability to essentially paralyze (but better, since it encases creatures immune to paralysis too) or entangle, though they miss out on the damage portion and are "merely" taken out of the fight for MINUTES PER LEVEL unless someone rescues them.
I think one of the major issues of 3e and Pathfinder was, in their urge to forever put the 'crossbow wizard' to bed, they inflated the amount of spells an arcane spellcaster has available. If I had a fix, my fix would be to cut the amount of daily spells but I know this is an unpopular opinion as nobody wants to play the Incredible Archmage who can do only twenty monumentally impressive things each day and then needs to break out his crossbow.
This is the exact opposite of a good solution though. Making them capable of breaking the game less times per day is not making them less gamebreaking, it's making them gamebreaking less OFTEN.
Hell, nerf spells enough (at least to the point that their PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER becomes not quite phenomenal and nearly cosmic) and you could get away with bumping spells per day considerably. More fun for most, but less power to f~$% things over with.
Because wizards can create a paradise with infinite copies of Jessica Alba. Or whatever person/being they want. So... rampant hedonism.Ask yourself these questions: if 20th level full casters are capable of dealing with any situation, why are there still problems in the world (the world being whatever game universe you're using)? Why is there not just a dozen 20th level casters stopping every problem before it even becomes a problem? Why do adventurers even need to exist in your world?
When you answer those questions to your own satisfaction, you will see why high level casters don't just automatically win everything.
Fix'd.
(I mean, how else are they supposed to nab all of those delicious traits?)
:D
The Cleric never runs out of healing? Yes, yes he does. Limited Channels (which don't heal a whole lot in the first place past low levels) and limited spell slots means his healing is very limited indeed, especially if he wants to actually have fun instead of doing nothing but patching ouchies all day with every one of his spells.
And I'll tell you the Fighter runs out of muscle and the Rogue runs out of rogueishness really damn quick when the Cleric is out of healing.
The Ranger who's invested in a sack of wands of cure light wounds doesn't tend to run out of (out-of-combat) healing.
I find that relying on CLW wands to heal the party adds up really quick. If you have a party with, say, a Barbarian and an Anti-Paladin on the frontlines getting pounded all day long, you chew through CLW and Infernal Healing wands like nobody's business. And in-combat healing isn't even an option with them, and that's needed sometimes.
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The Cleric never runs out of healing? Yes, yes he does. Limited Channels (which don't heal a whole lot in the first place past low levels) and limited spell slots means his healing is very limited indeed, especially if he wants to actually have fun instead of doing nothing but patching ouchies all day with every one of his spells.
And I'll tell you the Fighter runs out of muscle and the Rogue runs out of rogueishness (though it's not worth very much anyway, so you might as well let him) really damn quick when the Cleric is out of healing.
That's the thing though. Wizards (and in this case, spellcaster almost always means wizard since sorc spells are narrower) are reliant on preparation, when you remove from them their metagamey requirements for that preparation, they start preparing less like they getting ready for the 'ice level' and more like they're getting ready for adventuring, which means their spells are more balanced and less of the 'I have an app for that.'The problem is, the balanced spell list is A.) Probably the best regardless and B.) still problematic.
It's not like Fly and Invisibility are niche spells here. They're both quite useful in a ton of situations.
Ditto most of the other arcane staples. Stinking Cloud, Create Pit, Reverse Gravity, Black Tentacles...the list goes on and on with spells that are useful (and more than useful) against a wide variety of foes. Icy Prison works on basically everyone and it's one of the best spells in the game because of it. Even creatures immune to ice aren't free from its ability to essentially paralyze (but better, since it encases creatures immune to paralysis too) or entangle, though they miss out on the damage portion and are "merely" taken out of the fight for MINUTES PER LEVEL unless someone rescues them.
I think one of the major issues of 3e and Pathfinder was, in their urge to forever put the 'crossbow wizard' to bed, they inflated the amount of spells an arcane spellcaster has...
I'm not arguing the wizard's capability to do his job of crowd control and assisting everyone. We're arguing the question of the OP which is the table-experience vs online message board experience regarding spellcasters and their supposed supremacy.
Like the OP, I am cognizant of the rationale, but presumably like him, I've never seen this 'supremacy' in action.
Invariably, something just doesn't click for the wizard, or the wizard's grand plan is reliant on the actions of the entire party, which is the ideal outcome since that's how the game is supposed to work.
Again, all of my evidence for this is anecdotal, but that's precisely the grounds of this discussion. Observations of blue water table experience versus the online forum 'spellcasters make all other classes unncessary' arguments or the execrable 'I have to humble my wizardly awesome to allow the party to do anything' stuff.
When I've seen spellcasters try to do the 'I am a party to myself' thing, they end up overextended, their vaunted spells fail them or fail to sustain them for the periods required, preparation issues arise, they have difficulties because they don't get enough sleep or time to scribe what they have to scribe, and so forth.
I find that relying on CLW wands to heal the party adds up really quick. If you have a party with, say, a Barbarian and an Anti-Paladin on the frontlines getting pounded all day long, you chew through CLW and Infernal Healing wands like nobody's business. And in-combat healing isn't even an option with them, and that's needed sometimes.
It's about 270GP per 100HP. It's a valid option, depending on WBL assumptions and party makeup. If your GM is pressuring you into fighting ten combats a day, it's probably the best option, since it saves your cleric spells for in-combat healing and other emergencies.
Yes, but when you need to heal 100 HP every combat between the two guys, you burn off charges way quick.
I'm not saying it's a bad option, just saying you're probably going to end up using one or two of your spell slots to patch the big boo-boos first.
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One thing I think needs to be pointed out is the whole 15 minute workday argument is getting weaker and weaker every day in pathfinder. Its no longer a spellcaster issue. MOST classes rely on a limited number of per day abilities that when they run out the class performs significantly less effectively then before. 1/2 bab casters are the biggest culprit here. But a paladin out of smites and lay on hands, a barbarian out of rage, cavalier out of challenges, a monk or ninja out of ki all have a desire to rest and get those resources back. Its really just the fighter and rogue, and maybe the ranger that dont get seriously effected by running out of resources. And usually those classes still rely on the ones that have those limited spells (as mentioned, a fighter at low hp without anyone to heal him will be less gung ho about moving forward).
And at the same time, some of the biggest cultprits in the 'casters dominate' problem are just as able to deal with that running out of resources as everyone but the fighter. A druid still has 3/4bab, medium armor and a big pouncing tiger, when he's out of spells, and thats assuming he doesnt have any wildshape left which lasts an hour per level so once he has like 2 per day, its more of a concious choice not to be wildshaped.
The summoner is also 3/4bab, with light armor, and has his rediculous body guard around all day long. And if by chance his body guard gets taken down, he has long duration standard action summon spells to spare.
Classes like the magus, the inquisitor, the bard, and the alchemist, all have that peak resource using power, but often have enough martial prowess where if they really are out of resources they can still contribute. Same thing with clerics and oracles.
Its really just the wizard and sorceror who are disproportionately troubled by a long adventuring day, and the fighter and rogue who are not troubled by it.
Forcing people to do beyond the recommended amount of emcpimters per day doesnt 'fix' the problem anymore unless you always have a fighter cleric, wizard, rogue in the party. If your party is druid, summoner, ninja, bard, it has the opposite effect.
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DM's running an enemy intelligently or not has no effect on what the casters are capable of. Even at the earliest of levels, Wizards can toss out a Sleep and effectively kill the majority of enemies in an encounter. No amount of smart play would stop that.Unless they decide to not all stand right together. Then you can get one, or maybe at best two.
Or, like in the game I am running where the players are second level.
- Sleep only affects 4HD of opponents. That is, two NPC's.
- Half of the NPC's hit to date have made their saves.
- Not everything is vulnerable to sleep.
- Players have been unable to cast Sleep when needed the most without hitting other players.
And this is in a published AP, not homebrew.
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A paladin out of smites still has a good bab, a shield, and a sharp pointy sword.
A cavalier still has a horse, lance and armor.
Monks still have fists.
Ninjas and rogues still have flanking.
A barbarian without rage (which I've never seen since the smart ones usually invest in rage empowering rage powers) still has high strength, oodles of hp and a big gribbly implement.
They essentially still have the stuff they had for ages before 3e and Pathfinder started giving them presents to make them feel cooler (a good thing!) and people started mistaking the cool stuff for the real reason the class exists.
And I still live by the mistaken belief a party's composition should be the fighter-cleric-rogue-wizard combo.
I say mistaken because the past 3e-PF games I've seen have had much more diverse combos (although the lack of a real honest to goodness melee martial in one group is causing trouble for them since they're finding themselves tank deprived as their synthesist summoner, beat stick that he is, just can't lock down enough of an area or deal big enough blows to damage resistant enemies with his multiple attacks.
I just don't see why you'd ever willingly subject the Fighter/Rogue/Wizard/Cleric combo on yourself. I dislike playing ALL of those classes.
Question. This is important to know, can this spell be affected by Permanency?
To my knowledge, it cannot be made permanent. It has instantaneous duration and makes no mention of the permanency spell.
If you want "forever-silver" make your stuff out of mithral.
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A paladin out of smites still has a good bab, a shield, and a sharp pointy sword.
A cavalier still has a horse, lance and armor.
Monks still have fists.
Ninjas and rogues still have flanking.
And a druid without spells still has 3/4 bab, probably still has wildshape, and a badass tiger buddy.
A summoner without spells still has his extra planar monster.
An alchemist without infusions sill has his bombs, when he's out of bombs, he probably still has normal alchemical weapons that he adds int to damage to and a host of useful skills.
My point is the gap isnt as clear as it was 10 years ago. Its hard to argue a druid isnt a 'caster' but a barbarian out of rage is probably at a bigger disadvantage then a druid or summoner out of spells.
'Casters' are no longer just a commoner with a crossbow if they run out of spells. Or at least they dont have to be. Pathfinder has slowly been shifting most classes towards the 'peak' power curve that relies on limited use abilities. Because honestly, forcing one group of characters to either not use or run out of their resources and be useless, while when they do use those resources they are vastly superior to the other group is a stupid way to balance classes. Either everyone should have 'peak power', or no one should. Using that as a balancing point is bad design.
And thankfully it seems in general paizo agrees. Everything they have added to the game is not an 'all day' class. All of them have limited use abilities, which puts them on a similar schedule to casters. Do they absolutely need those abilities? No. But those are generally the parts that players like about the class, so they are inclined to follow a similar pattern of taking on 3-5 encounters a day and then resting.
A barbarian without rage (which I've never seen since the smart ones usually invest in rage empowering rage powers) still has high strength, oodles of hp and a big gribbly implement.
They essentially still have the stuff they had for ages before 3e and Pathfinder started giving them presents to make them feel cooler (a good thing!) and people started mistaking the cool stuff for the real reason the class exists.
That 'cool stuff' is what makes the classes most effective, and often most fun. So saying they dont really 'need' while true, is more or less meaningless. The point of the game is to have fun. People generally have the most fun when they are using their 'cool stuff' and not when they are playing a glorified npc class.
And I still live by the mistaken belief a party's composition should be the fighter-cleric-rogue-wizard combo.
I say mistaken because the past 3e-PF games I've seen have had much more diverse combos (although the lack of a real honest to goodness melee martial in one group is causing trouble for them since they're finding themselves tank deprived as their synthesist summoner, beat stick that he is, just can't lock down enough of an area or deal big enough blows to damage resistant enemies with his multiple attacks.
Whether that setup is your preference or not isnt really the issue. The issue is that the game, no longer depends on that model, and many if not most parties wont follow it. So arguing that a 'solution' to a 'problem' works because it works on an outdated model of what a party looks like is a meaningless argument. Its time to move past how many encounters a class can work through in a day and start looking at how well each class performs within its area of expertise at its best. That is where the problem needs to be addressed.
If you have 2 children, and 2 toys, and one toy is really awesome, and one toy is ok but not that fun, you dont resolve the issue by telling the child with the awesome toy he only gets to play with it half the time, and the other half he has to do chores. You give both children equally appealing toys.
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Aww, but I like the classic party. I don't see how anyone would 'suffer' for it, to be honest.
Still, points are well made, the current design zeitgeist is the 'everybody gets limited toys per day' angle, as an attempt to make the vancian system work without having us with the crossbow wizards of old. Again, I can't say its an entirely bad situation (I remember playing a 2e wizard and going through whole days of adventuring without launching a spell because it was just too damn useful to 'waste') but it starts to result in a same-is-same feeling, when I believe the DnD-PF dynamic should be built on classes acting differently.
One of the core concepts I've always grown up with was the idea that you should always have the ethic of 'if only I was a...' when you encounter situations.
By this conceit, The wizard should have parts where he wishes he was a fighter, the fighter should want to be a rogue sometimes, the cleric should want to be a wizard at times, etc. It kind of descends into an "aquaman has to have canals" situation though when used improperly.
The current zeitgeist though is that this limits and interferes, and hell, sometimes the party doesn't have those guys so developers try to make people have more special stuff to play with.
That being said, this discussion doesn't speak to the OP's target discussion of why on forums people speak of intense caster supremacy, when he (and folks such as me) don't see this supremacy in actual table play.
To address that, we need to not look at it as forumites. Instead of taking the proposal that 'casters are intrinsically superior' as an axiom, we should instead address the actual question up for debate here.
The current arguments seem to be boiling down into (and these may be simplification). If anyone can better sum up the universe of our discussion, its definitely welcome.
The caster disparity (here represented by the forum spellcaster displaying superiority not displayed by the blue-water tabletop spellcaster) occurs because...
"DMs are innately limiting casters."
- DMs are intentionally nerfing the class by using opponents immune to magic, counter-schroedering the wizard, etc.
"Caster supremacy is over-emphasized on forums."
- Casters are assumed to always have necessary spells/prep time/resources/sexy smelling colognes etc available.
"Casters in tabletop only appear to not have supremacy because they 'allow' the other players table time."
"Everyone is really a caster now, and its not so much caster supremacy as generalized inferiority of a given class."
"Perhaps older edition hueristics/DMs result (Spook is primarilly a 2e style DM, OP states he runs more 1e) in campaigns were the caster supremacy of a more 'modern' ethos don't come through as much."
- We need to be careful to avoid the belief that newer is intrinsically better when discussing this.
Additionally, the term 'caster' is undefined and I think might also cause a little confusion here. We should probably try to shore up what we're all referring to. So far we seem to have the following options all being bandied about.
- Arcane casters (wizards, sorcs, bards, etc)
- All magic-users (clerics, bards, rogues with minor magic, etc)
- Just wizards. (This is where I live since generally caster supremacy seems to be tied to wizard 'I have a spell for everything' stuff).
- Classes that have consumable abilities (barbarians, paladins, wizards).
Ask yourself these questions: if 20th level full casters are capable of dealing with any situation, why are there still problems in the world (the world being whatever game universe you're using)? Why is there not just a dozen 20th level casters stopping every problem before it even becomes a problem? Why do adventurers even need to exist in your world?
When you answer those questions to your own satisfaction, you will see why high level casters don't just automatically win everything.
For the same reason that the entire planet isn't populated by nothing but Shadows and Wraiths, who hit small towns and created armies of themselves to descend on other villages and towns until there were just too many for even higher level threats to deal with.
Because there wouldn't be a plot otherwise.
That's my point. People who complain that casters only suck by GM fiat need to understand that casters only exist by GM fiat. You have no place for a wizard unless you have a GM to run a world that has wizards in it. At that point you should realize that the story is more important than your shenanigans. There is a reason you don't see a lot of the nonsense that people bring up here during actual play. Only a real dick goes out of his way to break the story.
A level 1 sorc with the color spray spell, which can usually affect at least 3 opponents and often end a combat by itself, takes an opponent out if they don't save.
A 15' cone getting three foes and no friends in it? Unlikely. And then the level 1 sorc has to be within 15' (aka "a move") of three guys who just might make their save and if even one does= dead sorc. And it's very likely one will save, maybe two.
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That it does, my friend. That it does. Take me, for example. (To the loony bin.)
Short trip, my friend, short trip. :-)
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Diversity = Win
A simple wizard or cleric in your ranks will make any adventurer group, well better at adventuring.
You could build a fighter with 18 INT and have him study days and days for the secret entrance of the next dungeon he's about to explore, or have the Cleric cast stone shape to create a way in.
You could spend 4 rounds trying to get into flanking position of a big bad guy with your rogue to deliver a sneak attack, or have the Sorcerer cast invisibility on you and go in and remove his heart in a very surgical manner.
You could try to shoot the shadows coming at you from the walls with your plain longbow or have the paladin cast bless weapon on you.
You could stay insane for the rest of your life after having been hit by a powerful curse or have the druid cast heal on you.
You could invest a ridiculous amount of skill point in use magic device and hope that this time you will be able to cast a level 3 spell from that scroll you found last game, or have the wizard take care for that for you while you spend your time doing your job.
Don't see spell caster has the competition, see them as something that complete your team of adventurers, even a high level a caster is always better off with his buddies, a level 20 fighter can take most challenges head on with a cleric that got his back. A level 10 Monk getting help from a level 3 wizard can pretty much fight anything. Spell-casters are meant to be power multiplier, by themselves they rock, working in a team they can change the world you are adventuring in. Pathfinder is a team game, take the time to discuss strategies before heading into your next adventure, if you play a martial or a caster type character be ready to be amazed.
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Aww, but I like the classic party. I don't see how anyone would 'suffer' for it, to be honest.
No Wizard ever liked having to use his crossbow, in any edition of the game. Some did it with less protest then others, but the fact is that forcing one player not to use his abilities (either by a need to conserve or actually running out of them) isnt a good way to even the playing field.
Still, points are well made, the current design zeitgeist is the 'everybody gets limited toys per day' angle, as an attempt to make the vancian system work without having us with the crossbow wizards of old. Again, I can't say its an entirely bad situation (I remember playing a 2e wizard and going through whole days of adventuring without launching a spell because it was just too damn useful to 'waste') but it starts to result in a same-is-same feeling, when I believe the DnD-PF dynamic should be built on classes acting differently.
I dont agree with pathfinder moving towards the same is same. You can have abilities that feel and behave differently while they hold to a same general faremwork. And thats really the biggest part of the issue, everyone needs to be playing the same game. That includes how they need to use or conserve resources. Because creating conflicting goals in the party via mechanics isnt good design.
One of the core concepts I've always grown up with was the idea that you should always have the ethic of 'if only I was a...' when you encounter situations.
By this conceit, The wizard should have parts where he wishes he was a fighter, the fighter should want to be a rogue sometimes, the cleric should want to be a wizard at times, etc. It kind of descends into an "aquaman has to have canals" situation though when used improperly.
The current zeitgeist though is that this limits and interferes, and hell, sometimes the party doesn't have those guys so developers try to make people have more special stuff to play with.
My preference is generally the opposite. I usually build characters that can perform more then one 'role'. Classes that mix the traditional 4 roles are without exception my perference. Because I prefer to have something cool and useful to do in as many situations as possible. Part of this comes from my preference for flexibility, and wanting to be able to participate, another comes from my group's dynamic where we dont always have the same group of characters each session due to scheduling issues. But all the same, its unusual for my characters to have an 'if only I was a [blank] moment very often in a session.
That being said, this discussion doesn't speak to the OP's target discussion of why on forums people speak of intense caster supremacy, when he (and folks such as me) don't see this supremacy in actual table play.
To address that, we need to not look at it as forumites. Instead of taking the proposal that 'casters are intrinsically superior' as an axiom, we should instead address the actual question up for debate here.
....
Additionally, the term 'caster' is undefined and I think might also cause a little confusion here. We should probably try to shore up what we're all referring to. So far we seem to have the following options all being bandied about.
- Arcane casters (wizards, sorcs, bards, etc)
- All magic-users (clerics, bards, rogues with minor magic, etc)
- Just wizards. (This is where I live since generally caster supremacy seems to be tied to wizard 'I have a spell for everything' stuff).
- Classes that have consumable abilities (barbarians, paladins, wizards).
For me 'caster' means a character with significant supernatural abilities. Because though the wizard shines in some circumstances, there are lots of other kinds of characters with similiarly flexible tool kits that work differently then the wizards.
For instance, a druid, has a pretty robust spell list, but he also has this wealth of other abilities. He has a rather tough animal, which if put together and equiped a certain way is an effective front liner in his own right. In addition to that he can spontaneously summon crittors that are useful in all sorts of situations, and since he already is good at dealing with animals, this can mean more then just fighting. Judicious use of the handle animal skill can make summon natures ally a shockingly useful spell.
In addition to that they have what may be the single most useful ability in the game, wildshape. Its a combat buff, or a mobility buff, or a stealth buff, or any number of other super useful things.
I put summoners in this same category, their spell list is potent, their eidolon is extremly powerful AND versatile, and they can in a pinch summon all sorts of crittors to help them out.
An alchemist has infusions which make for some good utility/buff magic, he has bombs that can both be damaging and provide battlefield control (with the right mutegens), if he uses new swift alchemy rules from the alchemy manual he has a whole host of alchemical weapons, poisons, and remedies that can be available at hand relatively quickly. And he has a mutegen which can turn him into a mini hulk.
The list goes on, but the point is that they have several different avenues to do things beyond what is 'normal' via supernatural means.\
The next definition that is necessary is what 'supremacy' means. And I think this is the biggest problem that often comes up in these kinds of conversations. What does it actually mean to dominate? I mean a raging barbarian can often oneshot cr appropriate foes. Is that dominant? Why is that better or worse then something a wizard can do?
I think there are a couple areas in which power is demonstrated, and they are based on how a given character's abilities perform in the following areas:
1. Ending encounters (primarily combat encounters) by eliminating opponents, either by incapacitation or death - Here martial resources are close to as good when at their peak as magical/supernatural resources(at least before level 12 or so where most people play the game). Sure the wizard can drop everyone in a pit, but the reach weapon barbirian with powerattack and cleave can wipe out just as many bad guys (probably). This will probably come down to system mastery.
Often people who dont see a disparity in the power structure focus on this form of power. They see the barbarian do a billion damage with his big axe and say, where's the problem? The problem is in the other areas.
2. Flexibility of use: How many situations can the ability be used in. Obviously this is hypothetical, since in a given adventure only the situations that are presented matter. But it is still an important area to be considered. Spells in general, because they are low investment (its very easy to switch around spells in general, and you get access to lots of them even as a spontaneous caster), highly flexible (there's basically a spell to do anything you can think of at this point), and highly effective (depending on the spell level there are very few limitations placed on how much of an impact spells can have) are supreme here.
As many have mentioned, there are some common conceits of always having the 'perfect' spell for the job that are often used in this argument. But thats not really necessary. There are lots of spells, and supernatural abilities that are universally (or nearly universally) useful. And when a character with significant supernatural abilities is presented with a challenge, he almost always can apply more of his abilities to overcoming that challenge then a mundane character. So long as that challenge goes beyond, walk up to enemy, stab enemy to death (thats covered in section 1).
Need to sneak past the guards? Well you could use the stealth skill, or you could turn invisible, and be nearly guaranteed to sneak bye. Or you can turn into a bird, and fly in a window. Most of a barbarian's or fighter's skill set wont be useful here, but the druid, wizard, and summoner all have very useful options here. And you might say, well thats only if the wizard has invisibility prepped, but lets be honest, invisibility is useful in all sorts of situations including fighting. And the investment the wizard made to know and have access to invisibility is WAAAAY less then the rogues investment of his skill points, feats and magic items into stealth to get an equivalent effect.
3. Narrative power. This one is the big one that often gets ingnored. This is the power to not only overcome a challenge, but to change the circumstances it is presented in. Characters with significant supernatural abilities get to sit in the dm seat for a bit and literally bend time and space to their will.
This is both on the small scale and the big scale. On the small scale, we look at encounters, if you are ambushed on a shakey rope bridge with enemies on either side of you shooting arrows. The fighter can pull out a bow and shoot back, the rogue and make acrobatics rolls to make his way to one end and stab someone. The Wizard casts fly and calmly floats above the battle attacking with offensive magic, the druid turns into a bird and does something similar, the cleric casts air walk and charges the enemy. All of these in a small way or big way change the nature of the encounter to something that is more advantageous. They are no longer caught in dangerous terrain cornered and pinned down, they are basically now fighting on open ground in a featureless area.
Then there is the big scale, where you literally shape the story. The big example is always lord of the rings. If Elrond knew greater teleport, the trilogy was 3 pages long. Pick up hobbit, greater teleport (maybe resist fire for good measure before hand), drop ring, greater teleport. Yay its party time!
But there are others even at relatively early levels. Is there an evil advisor manipulating the dull witted king from behind the scenes? Well you could spend months doing favors and making diplomacy checks, or you could use a spell to make the king your besty and talk him into firing that jerk. While the normal skill, has limitations on how effective it can be, magic, doesnt have that limitation. Enchantment magic can do leaps and bounds more then even the highest bonus in social skills, because it can CHANGE the situation you are in.
Glitter dust.1 standard action blinding the glazrebeau and 1 of the CR 9's. Only a 50% success rate and yet it cut their damage to pretty low levels with the front liner Demon having a 50% miss chance on all attacks. Beyond that, the rogue now had instant sneak attack against two enemies.
No feats to fiddle with bothering to feint, no dealing with having to get into melee and worrying about getting hit. Instant sneak.
So the demons in the background fly to the top of a cliff and start dancing instead with their primary damage source gone.
Very good uses of two great spells. Two things- you do know that you get a save every round vs the blindness, right? So all they had to do is fly up a bit, no sneak attack then- use screech and come down a round or two later.
Also Grease is a short range spell so I hope the top of that cliff was only some 40' away? Also, it's only 100' boom radius and 15 D6 for three Vrock, and it's not once a day. Once they got interrupted (and great use of Grease!) they could restart a round later just by moving 10' or so away.
And, who ended up actually killing the demons?