So I just picked up the melee toolbox and here are my thoughts on it.
There are some more versatile options, good artwoork, some new weapons and armor, a few new spells.
So I read through the book and all though I love getting more options big or small I just felt the book was hugely on the small side for me. There was nothing whiz bang about it imho.
And it made me feel some of the text in the book alluded, that martial classes are just there to let wizards kill things.
"Dedicated spellcasters and archers can appreciate the excitement of engaging an enemy and understand the virtues of a well-planned assault, but they often need someone else to force the foe into close combat to prevent such threats from reaching them.
Also a lot of things in the book are based around the "teamwork" feats which imho is broken already.
I was hoping for this book to be "the book" to bring martial classes maybe not on par with spell casters, but a bit more balanced. Cause past lvl 10 Skills and Combat Maneuvers don't mean a whole lot.
Sure there are certain builds to min/max damage or some crazy combo that's amazing for martial classes, but I don't want to go that route every time I play just to keep up. I just feel that martial classes need a boon of some kind.
The Unchained book is coming out next month and that may bring some stuff, but just seems like some other classes are getting the nerf bat and some more options that may or may not be impressive.
What I am basically trying to say is can Martial Classes get a Companion or Handbook that makes them on par or close to with the Spell Casters?
I understand the mentality that casters should just get everything cause oooo magic. Just seems like a holdover from D&D 3rd edition.
Things like that aren't really the goal of Player Companions. Sure something somewhat broken may show up every once and a while but if we see something that brings martial classes closer to casters in versatility or power I don't think we'd see it in a Player Companion.
Unchained might do it, considering that the point of the book is to express crazy ideas that they wouldn't normally do. I'm very curious about the 'fatigue pool'.
If you want something that drags up the power level or versatility of casters I'd recommend looking at some third party books.
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"Power creep" is a very serious problem for tabletop developers. Its what wrecked 3.5 for most people. The developers constantly trying to add "whiz bang" into every book, and resulted in every publication containing more powerful stuff than the previous books. Anyone who's played 3.5 in its end years will remember how EVERYTHING was ridiculously overpowered, there was almost no point in playing anymore.
Paizo tries very hard not to do this, offering new options but not necessarily "better" options. While there are many examples where they tripped up on this goal they still do a very good job with it considering.
"Power creep" is a very serious problem for tabletop developers. Its what wrecked 3.5 for most people. The developers constantly trying to add "whiz bang" into every book, and resulted in every publication containing more powerful stuff than the previous books. Anyone who's played 3.5 in its end years will remember how EVERYTHING was ridiculously overpowered, there was almost no point in playing anymore.
Paizo tries very hard not to do this, offering new options but not necessarily "better" options. While there are many examples where they tripped up on this goal they still do a very good job with it considering.
It's obviously just a coincidence that every time they "trip up" it's a caster option (Sacred Geometry, for example), not a martial one.
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It's obviously just a coincidence that every time they "trip up" it's a caster option (Sacred Geometry, for example), not a martial one.
I've noticed this too. My guess is the dev's like to play casters and that unintended bias slips into their decision making. (But seriously what were they thinking with Sacred Geometry...)
Honestly if you are looking for a melee buff I might suggest Inner Sea Combat for some great variety (rangers especially).
If you really want tip the scales though Pathfinder Unchained has upgraded Monks & Rogues & Tweaked the Barbarian.
It introduces a stamina system to give your melee feats more umph.
They simplified/nerfed the Summoner & also included a few tweeked sub-systems for casters to slow their power curve a tad.
Correction, it buffed the Rogue, provided an extensive Brawler archetype, and nerfed the Barbarian.
I can see how the Monk can be interpreted that way. Don't have much experience with the Brawler but a quick comparison does show some overlap.
The new Barbarian was easier for my players to get down. I'm fairly certain the DPS is less but it saves a lot of time, math, questions & accidental death. The rage powers seemed to get a tad better.
Correction, it buffed the Rogue, provided an extensive Brawler archetype, and nerfed the Barbarian.nerfed barbarians? Not dex to damage barbarians, who happen to have sweet ACs.... ;)
Not to mention that most players I know would gladly trade that extra +1 to damage that you would have gotten if your rage were a Strength bonus for the wickedly nice revised rage powers that the barbarian has.
Not to mention that most players I know would gladly trade that extra +1 to damage that you would have gotten if your rage were a Strength bonus for the wickedly nice revised rage powers that the barbarian has.Correction, it buffed the Rogue, provided an extensive Brawler archetype, and nerfed the Barbarian.nerfed barbarians? Not dex to damage barbarians, who happen to have sweet ACs.... ;)
Man, all those wickedly good powers that...don't exist sure are great.
Animal Fury is improved.
Auspicious Mark would be great if it were more than once per day.
Half of the Stances are pure garbage. The other half in many caes probably aren't worth a Move action to activate, though Accurate Stance is the exception.
So by extension, most of the Rage Powers that rely on a Stance being active are garbage as well, such as Bleeding Blow.
Most of the new Rage Powers are pretty lackluster, with the addition of a few gems (Sharpened Accuracy is one). But also with the LOSS of a few gems (Witch Hunter and Spell Sunder being the two shining examples. Witch Hunter makes the garbage Powerful Stance feel small in the pants).
Paizo has shown they didn't learn their lesson on optional abilities that only work once per day. It ruined 90% of Rogue Talents and was refreshingly absent from Rage Powers up to now.
No, it wasn't.
The Barbarian and Paladin are where martial characters SHOULD be in power level. Nerfing it is like giving a smart kid a -10 handicap to all his test scores to make it fair for the dumb kids.
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Look at it this way. If you don't make it fair to the dumb kids, all the dumb kids will be trying to become smart kids. And you'll end up with one single martial class that's the be all and end all, etc. etc. etc. Either you keep the class diversity and fix the barbarian, or throw the whole ecosystem down the toilet and everyone plays barbarians... rinse, lather, repeat until all classes are gone and the wizard remains... alone... all powerful... looking out of his tower's window... sad...
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Look at it this way. If you don't make it fair to the dumb kids, all the dumb kids will be trying to become smart kids. And you'll end up with one single martial class that's the be all and end all, etc. etc. etc. Either you keep the class diversity and fix the barbarian, or throw the whole ecosystem down the toilet and everyone plays barbarians... rinse, lather, repeat until all classes are gone and the wizard remains... alone... all powerful... looking out of his tower's window... sad...
Yea but before that we get; Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes... The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!
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Look at it this way. If you don't make it fair to the dumb kids, all the dumb kids will be trying to become smart kids. And you'll end up with one single martial class that's the be all and end all, etc. etc. etc. Either you keep the class diversity and fix the barbarian, or throw the whole ecosystem down the toilet and everyone plays barbarians... rinse, lather, repeat until all classes are gone and the wizard remains... alone... all powerful... looking out of his tower's window... sad...Yea but before that we get; Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes... The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!
Yesssss....
That's the wizard's anger phase yes.
Apparently after he goes through that, he will be sad... then accept who he is... THEN DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN!!! MUHAHAHAHHAHA!
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"Class diversity" should not be the be all, end all goal to the point that you are actively making classes MORE POORLY DESIGNED to further.
The solution to the dumb kids is to tutor them until their grades are better, not hit the smart kid in the head with a baseball bat until he's brain damaged to the same level as the others.
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On the topic at hand, I agree with Rynjin. I never found the Barbarian to be broken, though it that might stem from the fact that nobody I play with tries to break any class.
I ran a game one time where three Etins attacked the party while they were in the forest, and between the druid and the summoner in the party, the Barbarian just left the fight altogether and waited at the wagon for two team mates to finish the fight. Those same two players had to let the poor barbarian fight stuff later in a dungeon while pulling their punches so she could have a turn to do something.
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"Class diversity" should not be the be all, end all goal to the point that you are actively making classes MORE POORLY DESIGNED to further.
The solution to the dumb kids is to tutor them until their grades are better, not hit the smart kid in the head with a baseball bat until he's brain damaged to the same level as the others.
The wizard begs to differ (bashes apprentice on the head some more)
Edit: but seriously, are you still on that weird holy crusade to somehow lobby for any kind of martial class (be it barbarian or paladin) to ever, ever equal a wizard a high levels? come on! they're not useless (in fact the wizard needs muscle around him to impress the ladies, and to instill a Matt LeBlanc kind of gasp/admiration/fear within the ladies) but it's a classic cornerstone of this game that the geeks beat the jocks in the end... and that the old wizard advisor really pulls the strings of the puppet fighter king... Merlin? King Artur?
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A roleplaying game is about teamwork.
It's about people coming together to accomplish amazing things together, and to account for each other's faults.
If I had a choice of companionship for low levels, I'd choose a martial over a caster any day. Why? Because they're BETTER at low levels than the caster. Yes the caster does damage/heals, but they'd be eaten alive without physical prowess to aid them.
Later on, that's when the caster power curve streaks skyward with the speed of 20,000 winged Lamborghinis. Because caster power curves are DELAYED.
Do late-game martial characters do damage? Of course.
But what do you against incorporeal? What do you do when you need a certain damage type to handle an enemy? Or maybe you can't kill someone, so you have to use magic to coerce them? Yes, a martial class can do this. But can they do all of it? No. Casters can.It's not about some stupid dumb kid/smart kid analogous situation. No, it's about where each class fits into a collaborative power curve.
This same tired "power curve" nonsense is what's holding the game back.
Passing the baton so that one type of class shines at lower levels and one type of class shines at higher levels just leaves half of everyone frustrated at any given time.
It's stupid design, and it baffles me why anyone defends it. The power curve should increase at roughly the same rate for everyone, not level off for one type of class and rocket to the stratosphere for the other after a while.
Because the latter case DESTROYS collaboration. Once the casters hit their stride, there is no further collaboration required with the martials. It could be argued at low levels that full casters need martials (though even then its iffy. I take it you've never played a Cleric with a decent Str score?), but not at high levels, because power curves. Collaboration should not be a temporary necessity before you achieve real ultimate power (and you can too!), it should be something you need from 1-20, because otherwise what's the point of having adventuring parties and different kinds of classes if one type of class becomes obsolete later?
It's just laziness. The designers of D&D couldn't be arsed to even ATTEMPT to keep the two balanced, but different, they just decided "Magic stronk" and rolled with it. Then Pathfinder rolled around to capitalize on 3.5's success, so of course they didn't change it.
There's no upside to these separate power curves. A power curve is already supposed to exist with the level system, there doesn't need to be a separate one where each class gets more or less from each level it gains.
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Throw a few golems at a high level party once in a while to remind them why they have a yellow lab... err... a fighter in their midst. :)
Other than that, people accept the fact that the wizard rules at high level because that's how the game was designed originally. Not necessary lazy design: it's just how it is. I'm sure there's games out there where casters are somehow equal to martials, but I don't really have time or desire to play anything else than Pathfinder, so I guess I'm ok with the way things are. More than ok I think, as I'm one of those that has defended the vancian magic system in the past. Anytime someone uses another system it never really sticks. I find that there's a certain satisfaction in "casting a 4th-level spell" but find that "just spending more magic points for a more powerful spell" just doesn't do it for me.
With the proper gear, a high level fighter can still be fun to play, but I agree that you need a player that understands and accepts the fighter's limitations in order to move past the power differential. If the player cannot accept it, tell him to take the second exit towards Paladintown. Paladins were designed to operate as lone wolves (horse friend, few spells and resistances and fixes that let him go longer) but they forgot along the way that you needed a Charisma of 15 or 17 to qualify into the class originally... put back the stat tax unto these guys and you'll see their appeal go down for a lot of people.... back in 2nd Ed, by the time you were done paying the Wisdom and Charisma tax for the pally, you usually ended up with a character with two bad physical stats and a ridiculous intelligence...
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Also, a great advantage of the martials is when a long adventuring day hits the fan. See the wizard squirm when he runs out of spells. I recently joined a campaign where the DM is 100% adamant in not stopping the day after one, two or three fights, and the whole group operates like a navy seal strike team - my wizard constantly whine and complain that "he needs rest" so that he can replenish his spells. But the entire group keeps plowing ahead and I'm relying on my measly wand of magic missile the rest of the day. They gave in to my whining one night, and the DM bombarded us with 2 encounters overnight, therefore no rest for my wizard... :)
In terms of APs, we often see an encounter table in the Appendix, but it is rarely integrated in the AP. The AP should call for say, 20% chance for a random encounter every hour in dangerous territory... That would significantly raise the usefulness of martials. This is really what they're for at high levels if you think about it! (wizard keeps his biggest spells in reserve and manage most encounters with magic items and lower level spells, putting more reliance on martials and clerics' healing; then BAM! hits that BBEG with his biggest spells)
A full caster is full of trade-offs:
She can decide battles on your own, but will run out of powerful spells over multiple encounters.
She can blast away many opponents from a distance, but is screwed if one of them comes close.
She has many options, but her player has to dig through all the spells.
She can be prepared for everything, but being catched unprepared really hurts.
She is a rockstar on higher levels, but has a hard time on lower ones.
A martial is much more solid, tending to be average. Both groups appeal to different kinds of players, as it should be in such a game. And they complement each other well.
The main issue is probably that some players are overly focused on their personal success, to the point where it hurts party success. At lower levels the martial might rush away from the caster to engage and kill as fast as possible, leaving behind a vulnerable caster. At higher levels the caster might engage with all her offensive spells, leaving behind an unbuffed martial. In both cases working together would be more efficient, but for that you have to communicate and trust. As a GM, I'd penalize BOTH sides for being overly egocentric - Purple Dragon Knight's golems are a good approach here.
It's not about being Golarion's next super star, it's about being the A-Team...
It's not about being Golarion's next super star, it's about being the A-Team...
If all the classes were balanced toward making a group the A-Team, the game would be much better.
You can get it with some class configurations. A party of Slayer, Inquisitor, Alchemist, Barbarian is the A-Team: Everybody brings something cool to the table, and none of the above really truly outshine the other in every aspect.
But the "standard" party configuration (which I never see, but many people apparently continue to use) of Fighter/Cleric/Wizard/Rogue is more like some really weird team configuration for the Justice League.
You have Green Lantern (Wizard) and Martian Manhunter (Cleric)...teamed up with a one-trick pony like Apache Chief (Fighter) and Jimmy Olsen (Rogue).
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But the "standard" party configuration (which I never see, but many people apparently continue to use) of Fighter/Cleric/Wizard/Rogue is more like some really weird team configuration for the Justice League.
You have Green Lantern (Wizard) and Martian Manhunter (Cleric)...teamed up with a one-trick pony like Apache Chief (Fighter) and Jimmy Olsen (Rogue).
That's because together these guys are better than the sum of their parts. (but you can't really bring god-like beings like Green Lanterns into your example; their pathfinder equivalent is probably some epic/mythic/god-like being of CR 30+)
The four classic classes are meant *to work together*.
The fighter is usually not versed in magic and can easily be fooled and manipulated, but backed by a wizard and cleric, he's a bastion of defense AND can do devastating things.
The rogue has his weaknesses too, but enhanced by a wizard's greater invisibility and made mobile via air walk, he's a magnificent threat to most enemies. When facing foes with true seeing, he can still shine by flanking with the fighter, 'cause that guy can stay up front more than 4 or 5 rounds due to his AC and wiz/clr boosts...
The cleric can't really pump out the damage properly, so if he's smart, he spends his time making sure the rogue and fighter stay in the upright position. He can bring people back from the dead: nuff said.
The wizard is extremely vulnerable to most environmental factors, and he probably spends more than a few moments each day dreading things like monster grappling him and pretty much everything that can make him sweat or shiver. He needs the big guys so he can sleep at night and nerd out in the morning. He can make them into very effective scouts, sentries, attack forces and provide ways for them to overcome obstacles. He can provide damage from behind the ranks very effectively. He's the party's utility belt and the bazooka you can use to begin or end a battle.
Martian manhunter is a druid. Obscene power AND extreme versatility.