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I love the BoNS. I prefer the Paladin and the Ranger over the Fighter. I want *MY* martials leaping around and getting cool supernatural abilities.
But, since those options are available to me, I am perfectly happy to let those who REALLY want a 100% Mundane dedicated but plain vanilla kill-bot have their Fighter. They get one class, I get 29. CHOICES.
Because- as I have shown- this debate isnt about Martials vs Spellcasters. I have shown that martial classes get scads and loads of Supernatural & Spell-like abilities- and even get spells, too.
What it's about it taking that one last 100% mundane/ex class away from those who want that option. Because that option is badwrongfun and thus they arent allowed to have it.
Why cant they have their one 100% Mundane dedicated but plain vanilla kill-bot?
Paladin and Ranger aren't martials. They have scads of supernatural abilities, spells, and are specifically empowered by divine forces.
Cavaliers, Fighters, Rogues, Gunslingers, Samurai, and to a certain extent, Ninja and Monk are martial classes; that is, classes expected to do their job without the aid of "mystical" powers. Ninja was a Rogue fix that essentially grafted on pseudo-magic, and the Monk's big fix, Qinggong, again, addressed his issues by saying "trade anything that doesn't work for magic". Of the remaining martial classes, the ones that are closest to being balanced with the capabilities of their casting peers are the ones who have things that look and act like magic. The Gunslinger targets a defense that exists to allow low BAB casters a chance to connect with their crazy spell, the Cavalier gets a magic horse and buffing capabilities, and the Samurai can shrug off all manner of effects. Those abilities help to keep them viable and break away from a linear progression lacking in narrative capabilities. The Fighter is the poster child for these issues because he's so incredibly 1 dimensional, and because he wasn't actually balanced to his peers to begin with.
Isn't the Slayer the definition of a killbot? Also, weren't killbots incredibly dumb, with a high loss rate (especially to friendly fire) against anyone who isn't Zap Brannigan?
Another factor is that high skilled casters do not dominate every encounter. They put in just enough resources to win each encounter.
@DrDeth: first, I don't think you're going to find one class / multi-class / PrC combo that will fit even 1/5th of those options into their repetoire. Second, and I may be mistaken in my impression of others beliefs on this, paladins aren't really the sorts of martials we're talking about here. Fighters, rogues, monks, cavaliers, etc, things with maybe a splattering of the supernatural but don't do spellcasting. As such, third, this is more about how spells are basically all upside with no real drawbacks (other than it tends to limit the list of class features you get, that is). Fourth, I don't think you thought that much about some of these examples. Let's look at Cloud Step, for instance: requires 2 feats, monk only, maxes out at 50' of move at level 20, can't end move in mid-air. Hardly the same thing as flight, right?
I AM glad to see another BoNS lover here, though. The hate that book gets is just wrong.
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That is something some players want, but not all. Not everyone believed the Book of 9 Swords (or whatever the exact name was) was the way that all martials should go. Not everyone wants or is comfortable or want their martials leaping about streaming energy like a kung fu movie.The game has laid out what a fighter is, and what many posters are asking is to toss all that out and make it into something that is very foreign to many eyes for the same of making them do the same sort of thing that wizards can do.
I love the BoNS. I prefer the Paladin and the Ranger over the Fighter. I want *MY* martials leaping around and getting cool supernatural abilities.
But, since those options are available to me, I am perfectly happy to let those who REALLY want a 100% Mundane dedicated but plain vanilla kill-bot have their Fighter. They get one class, I get 29. CHOICES.
Because- as I have shown- this debate isnt about Martials vs Spellcasters. I have shown that martial classes get scads and loads of Supernatural & Spell-like abilities- and even get spells, too.
What it's about it taking that one last 100% mundane/ex class away from those who want that option. Because that option is badwrongfun and thus they arent allowed to have it.
Why cant they have their one 100% Mundane dedicated but plain vanilla kill-bot?
There are a number of points to make against this combat.
1. They absolutely can have their '100% Mundane' character. That 100% mundane character should get 100% mundane ways to alter the story in the way everyone else can. Numerous examples have been cited.
2. Those 100% mundane characters are still in everyones game. Ultimiately they end up as a yardstick. How many times have we seen 'x replaced the rogue' threads in relation to the ninja, urban ranger, the investigator, the alchemist, and the slayer?
The ninja pretty much got nerfed in the playtest (no free use once per day of ki abilities) because of how it outshined the rogue. Those 100% mundane characters have an influence over the 75% mundane characters. Where as every time a spellcaster comes out, the comparison is against the wizard, cleric or druid. And everyone is like 'he needs more to make me want to play him instead of a wizard'.
3. The classes all need to play the same game. The 100% mundane end up dependant on outside forces to do their job. Which may or may not present themselves. The class doesnt stand on his own and needs either the other players or the campaign world(the dm) to make up for his deficiencies.
In a party with a synthesist summoner, a druid and an alchemist who doesnt have the infusion discovery, there are challenges that are a minor inconvenience to those 3 characters, but impassable to a 100% mundane character after like 8th level.
The evil dragon has the princess in his grasp, see's the heros and takes off flying. In 2 rounds he's 300ft in the air.
The synthesist flies after him, of course he has wings. The druid turns into a giant bird, does the same. The alchemist drinks a extract of fly, same deal. The fighter...shots an arrow twice while the dragon is in range, then runs slowly after them sadly wishing he got to participate.
One of those characters is playing Game of thrones, the other 3 are playing anime superheroes. And again that doesnt mean the fighter has to be able to jump 1000 feet in the air. But he should have proper recourse simply because he is an x level fighter. Maybe fighters at x level get a pegasus mount. Maybe fighters at x level get an ability to shoot flying creatures out of the sky (and not the literally laughable fly check currently required to avoid such an effect). Maybe his tactical knowledge gives him foreknowledge of the situation and he is actually waiting on the cliff 300 feet up. Maybe the fighter throws a grappling hook onto the dragons leg, climbs up it and fights the dragon from its back. The point is he should have the tools regardless of the campaign setting to deal with the situation.
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Another way to look at it:
Say the game is composed of 6 basic parts:
Exploration - A
Direct Damage - B
Durability - C
Social - D
Transportation - E
Control - F
A given class is assumed to have basic competency in that task, whereas the highest and lowest you can reasonably go is +/- 3, because any lower and you're basically a commoner, and any higher and the game starts breaking down. When you start evaluating those premises, you might end up with something that looks like this:
Level 1 Human Fighter *** Level 1 Human Wizard
A+1, B+3, C+1, D-1, E, F-3 *** A+2, B-2, C-2, D+1, E, F+3
They're basically balanced, with the same basic competencies, though in different areas. The Fighter has a -1 in Social because he decided to dedicate his limited skill points to Exploration skills like Climb, Engineering, Perception, and Swim, which he gets a +1 in because he's human and had enough resources to actually invest something. The Wizard decided to go color spray over magic missile, so his direct damage is poor but can get by, and his alck of armor and low hp means his durability is down as well. But then we get to higher levels....
Level 10+ Human Fighter *** Level 10+ Human Wizard
A, B+3, C, D-3, E-3, F-3 *** A+3, B+3, C+3, D+2, E+3, F+3
Whoa! What happened?!?!
The Wizard now has enough spells and resources at his disposal that he can competently and consistently place in the top tiers of every aspect of the game. This isn't Schroedinger's Wizard, this is Cody, Mike, Morgan, Steve, Concerro, and numerous other player's Wizard. It's not even that hard to do.
Meanwhile, the Fighter's investment in Exploration has gone from giving him an edge to just barely allowing basic competency. He lacks forms of detection capable of piercing now common obscurations and obstacles. He's still the best direct damage dealer, but his durability is down because his poor saves are now a major factor in his over-all survivability. His lack of resources to invest in the Social aspect of the game has caught up to him and he now has nothing meaningful to contribute there, Transportation is no longer walking or riding a horse but involves teleportation, planar travel, and flight, so he's fallen way behind there, and with the exception of a single highly specialized build requiring a specific race, archetype, and splat book materials, he never had any control abilities to begin with.
If you do this same basic rough comparison against other classes, you'll see that most of them will have +'s in at least 2-3 areas of the game at all levels of play. The Ranger has A+2, B+2, C+1, D, E(+1), F-1 at most levels of play, with control and transportation varying a bit by build.
EDIT: Another related note. As levels go a up, a single encounter may require more and more of those basic competencies to bypass. You may find that direct damage is sufficient at level 1, but by 5 you may also need durability; by 10, transportation is also probably a factor in every encounter; by 15, encounters may be insurpassable without adding control into the mix.
And this, my friends, is why fighters and rogues cannot have nice things...Being able to cut through a mountain isn't magical. It is however awesome. And I would like my martials to be awesome.I'd beg to differ on that. Cutting through a mountain is pretty darn magical, or supernatural, or godly. Awesome sure, but it is beyond what even a really good guy with a sword should be doing IMO.It is not. It is just a diferent view on the game they would like to play, and a diferent view on what constitue a "nice" thing.
Of course, without crazy stuff the martial coudl not compete agaisnt caster at mid to high levels, but I blame on how crazy caster becomes.
Then play a E6 game..
If you are playing a high level game, you are leaving the world of remote reality and going to a world that is over the top and rediculous...
Or perhaps you play an adaptation of mutand and mastermind or something.
See, equally arbitrary statement.
Except that, as it stands, the 100% mundane (i.e. fighters and rouges and such), are the ones out of place. At high levels, the game is a super hero/demi-god fest. Your up against creatues that are near divine (Cthulhu... I am looking at you) and the harbinger of gods themselves (Yay! Tarrasque). If you are wanting to play a completely mundane and boring guy... your in the wrong area. E6 is designed for that kind of play... E6 exists FOR the guy who wants to be mundane. Forcing the fighter to become mundane even at high levels just drains the fun for the guys who ACTUALLY play high levels for the guys who are, quite honestly, better off playing low level campaigns (not that there is anything wrong with low level campaigns, they are just different...)
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And again that doesnt mean the fighter has to be able to jump 1000 feet in the air. But he should have proper recourse simply because he is an x level fighter. Maybe fighters at x level get a pegasus mount. Maybe fighters at x level get an ability to shoot flying creatures out of the sky (and not the literally laughable fly check currently required to avoid such an effect). Maybe his tactical knowledge gives him foreknowledge of the situation and he is actually waiting on the cliff 300 feet up. Maybe the fighter throws a grappling hook onto the dragons leg, climbs up it and fights the dragon from its back. The point is he should have the tools regardless of the campaign setting to deal with the situation.
Kolokotroni gets it. 100% spot-on. And when people say "he can already do this stuff," we mean that getting it really needs to be hard-coded into the rules, so that he gets it as part of the game, not "he may or may not get thrown this stuff as a bone by the DM in contravention of the rules because everyone feels sorry for him."
Still people post their "X isn't balanced against Y" arguments with no justification as to why X should be balanced against Y other than "because X isn't balanced against Y". 14 pages, folks. You'd think at least one of you would be able to give me a compelling reason to care about class balance instead of treating its importance as self-evident. This is particularly egregious since the OP and others don't see the imbalance have much effect in table play.
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Personally I advocate that there should be an "Advanced Skill Guide" type book, utilizing new rules that allow certain skills to emulate certain "supernatural" (typed Ex though) effects with enough ranks (like acrobatics working as feather fall or climb acting as spider climb) because your freaking awesome at them. Also create feats that key off skill ranks and grant some cool things and archetypes for classes that create more "rogue-ish" type guys out of everyone.
Well... this would help the skill guys anyway... fighters... not so much sadly... unless the fighter got an archetype granting lots of skill points xD
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Kindly note that in pretty much every iteration of powered heroes vs mundane heroes, the mundane heroes are far, far more skilled in more areas and deeper then the powered heroes. There are exceptions (Reed Richards), but I doubt that anyone will argue that on the Avengers, the smartest and most skilled members are generally the ones without super powers.
Captain America in particular - his knowledge of tactics, vehicles, weapons, stealth/infiltration and such things is way above that of his teammates.
Batman is the second or third smartest person on the planet, and has a skillset nobody else in the Justice League comes close to.
Because that's what mundanes do...they train and learn stuff. Powered guys develop powers.
And that's why your mundane classes like the Rogue and Fighter should have tons of ancillary skills that even the smartest wizard can't measure up to.
==+Aelryinth
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Still people post their "X isn't balanced against Y" arguments with no justification as to why X should be balanced against Y other than "because X isn't balanced against Y". 14 pages, folks. You'd think at least one of you would be able to give me a compelling reason to care about class balance instead of treating its importance as self-evident. This is particularly egregious since the OP and others don't see the imbalance have much effect in table play.
If X can't perform in the same arena as Y, that becomes not fun for X because now he's been reduced to a spectator. If X has to consistently go hat-in-hand to Y or Z in order to keep up with the story, that often isn't fun for X. If X is only capable with dealing with 20% of the challenges and Y is handling the other 80%, or if X feels like Y's lackey because all he ever does is bat clean up, that also probably isn't fun for X.
People want X to be able to play all the way through the same game as Y, because it's a cooperative game. Most people like to know that they're a critical and essential member of a team, not the team's slow cousin. Teamwork is equals banding together to become more than the sum of their parts, not 3 people holding themselves back so the 4th doesn't feel bad.
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Still people post their "X isn't balanced against Y" arguments with no justification as to why X should be balanced against Y other than "because X isn't balanced against Y". 14 pages, folks. You'd think at least one of you would be able to give me a compelling reason to care about class balance instead of treating its importance as self-evident.
Probably has to do with a level 20 Rogue in neither favorable or unfavorable terrain is the same CR as a 20th level Wizard or Arcanist.
Why should x be balanced against y?
Well when you work in a team, you generally expect everyone to put forth the same degree of expertise and effort as you. A caster simply puts out more than a noncaster. A Caster simply contributes more to a campaign than any noncaster. Impossible scenarios like needing to get to the other side of the world in a few hours becomes probable with magic and possibly easy.
Basically if everything in the campaign is a result of the casters in the party working their magic, noncasters are going to feel pretty inadequate when they realize it.
Noncasters don't get features that allow them the same or even close to the level of narrative agency that casters do. And that's kinda what it boils down to. The player of the caster gets more say in what happens in the campaign than the player of the noncaster.
Blahpers
The balance is important to those of us who use published material.If a party of X level will have similar capabilities no matter the make up it is easier to write material that will work for it.
Because some times non casters (me) fell side lined by casters and something casters (again me) side line martials. I want go all out with caster and still let the fighter have fun at the table.
If you run published material blind without looking into it and adapting it to fit your group, then yeah, I can see some issues. That'll happen anyway, though, regardless of how balanced you make the classes. Party size and makeup will have a huge effect.
If players feel sidelined, my advice is for such players to talk to their GMs. That should not happen, period. Class imbalance is no excuse--it's the GM's job to provide the opportunity for a good time for the players. Asking Paizo to modify the core game because a GM won't own up to his or her responsibility isn't the way to go about it.
Personally I advocate that there should be an "Advanced Skill Guide" type book, utilizing new rules that allow certain skills to emulate certain "supernatural" (typed Ex though) effects with enough ranks (like acrobatics working as feather fall or climb acting as spider climb) because your freaking awesome at them. Also create feats that key off skill ranks and grant some cool things and archetypes for classes that create more "rogue-ish" type guys out of everyone.
Well... this would help the skill guys anyway... fighters... not so much sadly... unless the fighter got an archetype granting lots of skill points xD
Hear, hear! It's crazy that a character with 20 ranks in Acrobatics and a +10 bonus in the skill can roll a natural 20 after getting a running start...and fail to clear a 15' tall fence. This is a character who theoretically eats demons for breakfast and arm wrestles with demi-gods. Skills should be allowed to do awesome stuff with enough ranks.
Still people post their "X isn't balanced against Y" arguments with no justification as to why X should be balanced against Y other than "because X isn't balanced against Y". 14 pages, folks. You'd think at least one of you would be able to give me a compelling reason to care about class balance instead of treating its importance as self-evident. This is particularly egregious since the OP and others don't see the imbalance have much effect in table play.If X can't perform in the same arena as Y, that becomes not fun for X because now he's been reduced to a spectator. If X has to consistently go hat-in-hand to Y or Z in order to keep up with the story, that often isn't fun for X. If X is only capable with dealing with 20% of the challenges and Y is handling the other 80%, or if X feels like Y's lackey because all he ever does is bat clean up, that also probably isn't fun for X.
People want X to be able to play all the way through the same game as Y, because it's a cooperative game. Most people like to know that they're a critical and essential member of a team, not the team's slow cousin. Teamwork is equals banding together to become more than the sum of their parts, not 3 people holding themselves back so the 4th doesn't feel bad.
If X can perform equally well in the same arena as Y, then there's really no difference between X and Y. There's nothing to differentiate X from Y. There's no need to shore up each other's weaknesses and bolster each other's strengths any more. Essentially, all the myriad reasons to cooperate drain away leaving only "because 2X > X". That's not the kind of game Pathfinder was designed to be.
As the OP demonstrates, clearly a lot of fighter and rogue players do feel like valuable contributions to the team. Why is that?
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Asking Paizo to modify the core game because a GM won't own up to his or her responsibility isn't the way to go about it.
For some people, telling the DM it's his responsibility to make up for everything the game system promises, but fails to deliver, is worse. Because generally no one is paying the DM for his services, but they are paying for game rules.
Asking Paizo to modify the core game because a GM won't own up to his or her responsibility isn't the way to go about it.For some people, telling the DM it's his responsibility to make up for everything the game system promises, but fails to deliver, is worse. Because generally no one is paying the DM for his services, but they are paying for game rules.
The system makes it very, very clear that the GM has both the privilege and responsibility to adapt the game to suit his or her table. That's not just a feature of Pathfinder; it's a feature of the entire medium. You cannot play Pathfinder like a deterministic board game and expect it to work at 100% for everybody. If you expect it to work that way, please do not GM. You'll only do the player community a disservice.
Edited for clarity
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Still people post their "X isn't balanced against Y" arguments with no justification as to why X should be balanced against Y other than "because X isn't balanced against Y". 14 pages, folks. You'd think at least one of you would be able to give me a compelling reason to care about class balance instead of treating its importance as self-evident. This is particularly egregious since the OP and others don't see the imbalance have much effect in table play.
X should be balanced against Y because the game assumes it is. The game rules say that a 15th level Fighter is the same challenge as a 15th level wizard. It isn't. Not only are you playing a whole different game between the fighter and the wizard, but you are also playing a different game between different types of wizards and you are playing in a completely different challenge setting. At the same CR. Now, this illustrates one of two things:
The CR system should not consider classes to be roughly the same as eachother, and is broken because it does.
The class system should make classes roughly equal, and is broken because it doesn't.
Now, before someone says something, I am speaking of broken as "bad for the game", not "OP", and I'm not saying balance should be achieved perfectly and completely, just that it should get to the point where it is comparable. If wizards are slightly stronger then fighters, but fighters still have ways to challenge wizards, that's fine. But as is, at moderately high levels, this isn't true.
If X can perform equally well in the same arena as Y, then there's really no difference between X and Y. There's nothing to differentiate X from Y. There's no need to shore up each other's weaknesses and bolster each other's strengths any more. Essentially, all the myriad reasons to cooperate drain away leaving only "because 2X > X". That's not the kind of game Pathfinder was designed to be.
As the OP demonstrates, clearly a lot of fighter and rogue players do feel like valuable contributions to the team. Why is that?
No one is saying that the fighter and rogue as they stand cant contribute to the team. No one. Its about the degree of contribution. Its about where that contribution is felt. Its about the kinds of situations the character can contribute to.
And we already have an x=y situation with 3/4 of the classes in the game.
How exactly doe the fighter bolster the druids strengths? Or cover his weaknesses? How does the rogue do this for the summoner? What about the blood rager? How does the fighter cover the blood ragers weaknesses?
That bolster his strengths and cover his weaknesses is one sided in anything but the traditional fighter, cleric, rogue, wizard party.
Is there still a need for teamwork? Yes, but its not in the 'he cant do his job if i dont do x' way. Its in the 'we are both doing cool things that synergize together to help us achieve our goal' way.
Still people post their "X isn't balanced against Y" arguments with no justification as to why X should be balanced against Y other than "because X isn't balanced against Y". 14 pages, folks. You'd think at least one of you would be able to give me a compelling reason to care about class balance instead of treating its importance as self-evident. This is particularly egregious since the OP and others don't see the imbalance have much effect in table play.X should be balanced against Y because the game assumes it is. The game rules say that a 15th level Fighter is the same challenge as a 15th level wizard. It isn't. Not only are you playing a whole different game between the fighter and the wizard, but you are also playing a different game between different types of wizards and you are playing in a completely different challenge setting. At the same CR. Now, this illustrates one of two things:
The CR system should not consider classes to be roughly the same as eachother, and is broken because it does.
The class system should make classes roughly equal, and is broken because it doesn't.
Now, before someone says something, I am speaking of broken as "bad for the game", not "OP", and I'm not saying balance should be achieved perfectly and completely, just that it should get to the point where it is comparable. If wizards are slightly stronger then fighters, but fighters still have ways to challenge wizards, that's fine. But as is, at moderately high levels, this isn't true.
CR is not relevant to this discussion. We're talking about PCs. PCs do not have CR. CR and character level do not measure the same thing. On top of that, CR is notoriously imprecise even as measure of danger to the player. If you want to wax on about that, I'd love to--it's a pretty much impossible problem to solve, but it's fun to try. But the game makes no promises that every level X character--or every CR X monster, for that matter--is identical. The closest is comes is, "Here are the default rules for, e.g., what CR a party with APL X can handle and how much XP to give out. Adjust these to fit your table."
Asking Paizo to modify the core game because a GM won't own up to his or her responsibility isn't the way to go about it.For some people, telling the DM it's his responsibility to make up for everything the game system promises, but fails to deliver, is worse. Because generally no one is paying the DM for his services, but they are paying for game rules.
It's actually not possible to run a game RAW. So a good GM is absolutely essential for the game.
Paizo made a card game that allows you to run through APs without a GM.Asking for improvements to the game is not unreasonable, but by the very nature of having a GM means that they are expected to fill in holes and adapt the game to their own story and party.
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Asking Paizo to modify the core game because a GM won't own up to his or her responsibility isn't the way to go about it.For some people, telling the DM it's his responsibility to make up for everything the game system promises, but fails to deliver, is worse. Because generally no one is paying the DM for his services, but they are paying for game rules.The system makes it very, very clear that the GM has both the privilege and responsibility to adapt the game to suit his or her table. That's not just a feature of Pathfinder; it's a feature of the entire medium. You cannot play Pathfinder like a deterministic board game and expect it to work at 100% for everybody. If you expect it to work that way, please do not GM. You'll only do the player community a disservice.
Edited for clarity
Adapt the game to taste, yes. Every dm should do this. He should not have to adapt the game so it works. The dm makes the story, he shouldnt HAVE to make up the game system. Its an option, but shouldnt be required
Ok I'll bite. How is it impossible to use the rules as written? Why must the rules be disregarded for the game they are meant to govern to function?
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If X can perform equally well in the same arena as Y, then there's really no difference between X and Y. There's nothing to differentiate X from Y. There's no need to shore up each other's weaknesses and bolster each other's strengths any more. Essentially, all the myriad reasons to cooperate drain away leaving only "because 2X > X". That's not the kind of game Pathfinder was designed to be.
That's a bunch of nonsense. Asking for equivalent capability is not the same as asking for the same capabilities. I honestly find it a little offensive when people try to undermine conversations with false equivalencies. If we're to take what you're saying as gospel we may as well start letting 5 year olds play in the NFL, because obviously their ability to pick up a ball and drop it means they're exactly the same as Russell Wilson.
It seems like Pathfinder the way you think it was designed to be is 3 super-heroes pushing 1 paraplegic around in a wheelchair, and I don't believe that is how it was intended to be played. I can replace a Fighter, or a Rogue, with almost any other class and the group will be better for it. If that class happens to have access to spells and supernatural abilities, even more so. That shouldn't be the case.
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And again that doesnt mean the fighter has to be able to jump 1000 feet in the air. But he should have proper recourse simply because he is an x level fighter. Maybe fighters at x level get a pegasus mount. Maybe fighters at x level get an ability to shoot flying creatures out of the sky (and not the literally laughable fly check currently required to avoid such an effect). Maybe his tactical knowledge gives him foreknowledge of the situation and he is actually waiting on the cliff 300 feet up. Maybe the fighter throws a grappling hook onto the dragons leg, climbs up it and fights the dragon from its back. The point is he should have the tools regardless of the campaign setting to deal with the situation.Kolokotroni gets it. 100% spot-on. And when people say "he can already do this stuff," we mean that getting it really needs to be hard-coded into the rules, so that he gets it as part of the game, not "he may or may not get thrown this stuff as a bone by the DM in contravention of the rules because everyone feels sorry for him."
Which is what I agreed was a good idea (and have even done and am still doing). The problem is the extremes on both sides (they are great and need no help versus let them be super powered). A little moderate thought on both sides (ala what Kirth and Kolokotroni were suggesting) would go a long way. Wouldn't take much more than a chapter in a hardback, maybe a Campaign Guide like Inner Sea magic or whatever.
@Simon: Not a new parent, although my four year old was pummeling me with trains when I wrote that so it may have coloured my words.
In any case, I may be alone over here but I'd love to see casters ramped back a bit as well as martials raised up. I'm a fan of restrictions on casters and putting the godhood off for mythic/epic/super high level play.
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Right you are, and I'm ashamed of myself for the misspelling. Thanks!But Barclay was a great all-around player.Barkley. The Barclays Center is where the Brooklyn Nets play.
As you should be!
BRING THE DODGERS BACK TO BROOKLYN!!!!!!!
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Every time I see this thread, I wonder what strange world some people game in where their enemies never make a single save vs spell, beat the spellcaster on initiative, or make a reasonable attempt to fight back against spellcaaters. I also wonder why every fight to prove a point on either side is balanced near perfectly to make the proponent win.
Paladin and Ranger aren't martials. They have scads of supernatural abilities, spells, and are specifically empowered by divine forces.
Cavaliers, Fighters, Rogues, Gunslingers, Samurai, and to a certain extent, Ninja and Monk are martial classes; that is, classes expected to do their job without the aid of "mystical" powers. Ninja was a Rogue fix that essentially grafted on pseudo-magic, and the Monk's big fix, Qinggong, again, addressed his issues by saying "trade anything that doesn't work for magic". Of the remaining martial classes, the ones that are closest to being balanced with the capabilities of their casting peers are the ones who have things that look and act like magic. The Gunslinger targets a defense that exists to allow low BAB casters a chance to connect with their crazy spell, the Cavalier gets a magic horse and buffing capabilities, and the Samurai can shrug off all manner of effects. Those abilities help to keep them viable and break away from a linear progression lacking in narrative capabilities. The Fighter is the poster child for these issues because he's so incredibly 1 dimensional, and because he wasn't actually balanced to his peers to...
Yes, they are Martials. Sure, on the Wizard to Fighter scale where Wiz is a 10 pure caster and a fighter is a 1 pure martial, they are maybe a 4, but their spellcasting is a side note. Heck, I am playing a Warrior of the Holy Light Paladin in PF and he has no spells at all- and is quite decent (the bard-like buffs are very nice in a party without a bard). I mean, unless you are going to have a system where it's "Fighter>>>> all other classes" then in that case why even use the term "Martial" when what you mean is "Fighter"? It's not black and white- there are many shades of grey.
(I also consider the Inquisitor to be a "martial class" and even the Magus, but I admit cheerfully that's arguable. But in the end what they do is mostly lay down hurt with a weapon, not a spell- but yeah the Magus can cast Fireball, so they are more or less 100% perfectly 50-50, they are the divide. )
Now yes, many of the martial classes do have supernatural abilities. Only one that doesn't is the Fighter (there could well be some minor Fighter archetype somewhere that has a couple, I dunno).
The Fighter *IS* one dimensional. That's a feature- not a bug. People who like playing a fighter often choose him for exactly that reason. Let them.
So if the argument is that Fighters can't do many of the things spellcasters can do without help or magic items- yep. But that's what a certain dedicated group of Fighter players want. To them- that's a Good Thing.
For everyone else, there's a graduated system of martial to spellcaster, each adding more and more supernatural abilities, spells, etc. There are lots of choices. CHOICES.
Now if the Fighter was not so popular, was not one of the most popular classes, not enjoyed by thousands of players- then yes, there'd be a need for a "fix".
If there wasnt that carefully graduated system of adding in supernatural abilities and spells, allowing a player a wide variety of CHOICE then there'd be a problem.
Want more supernatural & spells? Go for Paladin. What is stopping you? Or ranger. Or Magus. Or quigong monk.
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