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To respond to Charon's Little Helper, most adventuring parties are smart enough to find a nice spot to hide a rope trick in, and pull up the rope once they all enter.
Sure, invisible or divining foes can set up an ambush, yet that is true anywhere.
1. You can't pull up the rope once they all enter. From the spell description - "The rope cannot be removed or hidden.".
2. Yes - that's true somewhat of any time that you rest in a dungeon. Hence the disadvantage of doing so, whether by Rope Trick or in a closed room. (Though at least in the room you can at least see the doors open.)
Might you add another of the original drawbacks [namely, spells are easily disrupted and require the aid of a guardian to use reliably when enemies are approaching] as well?I'd rather force the caster to wrestle with the one biggest original drawback of being a caster (crazy good spells, but only a few) and let him deal with having to be fairly frugal than let that narcoleptic little bastard nova his way through every other encounter. :P
Sure, he's only gonna be wrestling a little. But at least it's something the martials can point to and say, "See that? In this fight, you didn't have any fireballs left and would've been squashed like a bug. We are meaningful and valued members of this team!"
There's that and "d4 hit dice". :)
I'd rather force the caster to wrestle with the one biggest original drawback of being a caster (crazy good spells, but only a few) and let him deal with having to be fairly frugal than let that narcoleptic little bastard nova his way through every other encounter. :P
Sure, he's only gonna be wrestling a little. But at least it's something the martials can point to and say, "See that? In this fight, you didn't have any fireballs left and would've been squashed like a bug. We are meaningful and valued members of this team!"
Then your caster player realizes that druids and clerics have 9th level spells too. They are more than capable of holding their own while still being able to nova. Remember, fighter ain't got nothing on the dinosaur riding a dinosaur. Especially when one of the dinosaurs can start summoning dinosaurs when the going gets tough.
Eh I figure it really doesn't matter if their hit dice are d4 or d6, one HP per level isn't going to change much. It's their stamina and reliability that are under fire.
It does when there's no Toughness, no FCB, no Con bonus bigger than +1, no "-10/-Con score" unconscious-but-alive space, and you have to roll every single level.
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Remember, fighter ain't got nothing on the dinosaur riding a dinosaur. Especially when one of the dinosaurs can start summoning dinosaurs when the going gets tough.
I feel like there is a joke to make here and I am just 1% too classy to make it.
This is why I dislike dinosaurs.
To respond to Charon's Little Helper, most adventuring parties are smart enough to find a nice spot to hide a rope trick in, and pull up the rope once they all enter.
Worth mentioning that you can't pull the rope in, in pathfinder.
It's been 6 years, people. Gotta retain those updated spell descriptions eventually.
This is why I dislike dinosaurs.
Big Cats can do basically the same thing.
Dinosaurs are just cooler, though.
This is why I dislike dinosaurs.Big Cats can do basically the same thing.
Dinosaurs are just cooler, though.
Heh. We'll have to disagree on that. Just never really cared for dinosaurs -- I blame three kids and too many land beyond time movies. :)
Couldn't help it, I was in the generation when that series first started.Heh. We'll have to disagree on that. Just never really cared for dinosaurs -- I blame three kids and too many land before time movies. :)This is why I dislike dinosaurs.Big Cats can do basically the same thing.
Dinosaurs are just cooler, though.
Ah yes, sorry about that. "Big big big big water ..." Gah. It's a nightmare that doesn't go away..
Eh I figure it really doesn't matter if their hit dice are d4 or d6, one HP per level isn't going to change much. It's their stamina and reliability that are under fire.It does when there's no Toughness, no FCB, no Con bonus bigger than +1, no "-10/-Con score" unconscious-but-alive space, and you have to roll every single level.
Con bonus +2, actually.
:)
But remember damage inflicted was a lot less, too.
Seriously though, the restriction on non-martial's hit points, as well as limits on their Strength, were two of the essential balancing paradigms done away with in 3E.
just another of the long list of stuff taken from Melees.
==Aelryinth
If you used the Simplified Magic variant from unchained, do you think the longer adventuring days would become much more of an issue to wizards and cleric?
If you used the Simplified Magic variant from unchained, do you think the longer adventuring days would become much more of an issue to wizards and cleric?
Possibly,
However, simplified spell-casting is such a hatchet job on having non-scaling spells. I know the designers had limited space and couldn't rewrite every spell in the game.
Inferior to how D&D 5e did it. To have non-scaling spells they need to be more powerful and you get less of them.
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If you used the Simplified Magic variant from unchained, do you think the longer adventuring days would become much more of an issue to wizards and cleric?Possibly,
However, simplified spell-casting is such a hatchet job on having non-scaling spells. I know the designers had limited space and couldn't rewrite every spell in the game.
Inferior to how D&D 5e did it. To have non-scaling spells they need to be more powerful and you get less of them.
What? The non-scaling spells option was limited spellcasting not simplified.
What? The non-scaling spells option was limited spellcasting not simplified.If you used the Simplified Magic variant from unchained, do you think the longer adventuring days would become much more of an issue to wizards and cleric?Possibly,
However, simplified spell-casting is such a hatchet job on having non-scaling spells. I know the designers had limited space and couldn't rewrite every spell in the game.
Inferior to how D&D 5e did it. To have non-scaling spells they need to be more powerful and you get less of them.
Oh yes, you are correct. Sorry.
Simplified spell-casting is the spell pool optional rule. Have you created a spell-caster character with it yet or played with this rule?
Is there a big difference? At a glance it seems to be providing versatility to spell-casters.
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Oh yes, you are correct. Sorry.
Simplified spell-casting is the spell pool optional rule. Have you created a spell-caster character with it yet or played with this rule?
Is there a big difference? At a glance it seems to be providing versatility to spell-casters.
It reduces the amount of spells a mid or high level prepared caster has, since they only get their top 3 levels as normal, then then the rest of their spells come from the pool. You have some flexibility with lower level spells since you no longer need to prepare them, but you only get 2-6 lower levels spells in a day rather than ending up with 8 per spell level.
My answer to the thread title is: Yes.
Caster-martial disparity is greatly reduced if the caster players can be persuaded to adopt the attitude: "I must conserve my best spells because we'll probably have to fight harder battles later on." So I'll cast a Glitterdust in the first round to blind a couple of enemies, then resort to my wand of magic missiles now that the battle is weighted in our favor, and after the battle we'll heal with a wand or a couple of channel energies.
However, this only applies if:
The adventure is focused on combat encounters.
The GM can create a situation where the party feels they cannot afford to rest, despite the existence of casters with teleport spells, etc.
The GM makes sure there are enough encounters that the casters are forced to conserve resources. That might mean eight at low-ish levels, and twelve plus at high-ish levels, since spells-per day goes up and up. These encounters should mostly be fairly easy so as to not force the casters to resort to using their best spells prematurely.
The players don't just burn through their spells regardless and then the martials all die in battle due to lack of support.
The caster is not a pet-class, damage-dealing wildshaper, or similar, who can contribute damage all day.
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I'm not glass, but I'd hazard a guess that he meant 4e lasted longer than 3.5 (2003-2007) and 3.0 (2000-2003), and isn't counting those as one edition.
How do you compute that fourth "lasted longer" than '3.x'?
Exactly. My claim was that it lasted longer than either of the previous Wizards' editions, rather than both of them added together.
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glass.
2007?!
*looks at clock, sees 2015*
I feel so very, very old.
Back on topic though..
The adventure is focused on combat encounters.
The GM can create a situation where the party feels they cannot afford to rest, despite the existence of casters with teleport spells, etc.
The GM makes sure there are enough encounters that the casters are forced to conserve resources. That might mean eight at low-ish levels, and twelve plus at high-ish levels, since spells-per day goes up and up. These encounters should mostly be fairly easy so as to not force the casters to resort to using their best spells prematurely.
The players don't just burn through their spells regardless and then the martials all die in battle due to lack of support.
The caster is not a pet-class, damage-dealing wildshaper, or similar, who can contribute damage all day.
I'd counter this a bit.
Only combat encounters? When the peaceful troll wants a contest of arm-wrestling to give the party information, or when the party needs to communicate over wide distances, that's another spell eaten up. The arcane toolbox is a big one, and while a wizard won't always have something, a clever one doesn't just load up on 'kill my enemy dead' spells.
I've seen wizards do this. Load up entirely on combat spells or selfish buffs (flight for me, but not thee) and find themselves unable to contribute to the party in certain situations.
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If the situation is truly time sensitive, then even teleport won't help.
Damsel: "Rescue me, Mario!"
Hero: "I need to get more fireflowers! I'll be back tomorrow!" *pop*
Villain: "..I'm as disgusted by this as you are."
I'm being fascetious here, but popping back to nap stack for 4hrs might end up in you failing in your objective.
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Encounter design is a guideline, not a rule. As a player you get paid in xp for encounters, more encounters equals more xp. Getting put in for involuntary overtime might get you killed, admittedly, but there are recourses available to you (such as running away, or supergluing the DM's fingers to his bestiary.) The assumption that you're only due four CR appropriate encounters or whatever the math works out for different ones, is a bogus bit of meta-gaming. You deal what's there. The world cares not for your WBL or Encounter charts.
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Martials don't necessarily need spell support. They might have magical equipment that can handle that sort of thing. I've been DMing and playing since 2e and 'guard the wizard' is always a top priority for the fighter then 'defend and support the tank' is for wizards (clerical spellcasters are different obviously).
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Pets can contribute, but with the exception of the summoner (who is built around his 'pet') said pets tend to not be as good without boosting. Some might not even be able to hit opponents.
If the situation is truly time sensitive, then even teleport won't help.
Damsel: "Rescue me, Mario!"
Wizard Mario teleports damsel to safety. The end.
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If the situation is truly time sensitive, then even teleport won't help.
Damsel: "Rescue me, Mario!"
Hero: "I need to get more fireflowers! I'll be back tomorrow!" *pop*
Villain: "..I'm as disgusted by this as you are."I'm being fascetious here, but popping back to nap stack for 4hrs might end up in you failing in your objective.
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Encounter design is a guideline, not a rule. As a player you get paid in xp for encounters, more encounters equals more xp. Getting put in for involuntary overtime might get you killed, admittedly, but there are recourses available to you (such as running away, or supergluing the DM's fingers to his bestiary.) The assumption that you're only due four CR appropriate encounters or whatever the math works out for different ones, is a bogus bit of meta-gaming. You deal what's there. The world cares not for your WBL or Encounter charts.If the world really doesn't care for your WBL/Encounter charts, the party winds up facing a whole lot of completely trivial fights and then gets completely curbstomped in one round by something way out of their league without warning. Even sandboxes require GM work to keep things balanced. It's just that the tends to be more in making sure the players get adequate info so they can do their part of the job.
Especially in conjunction with your first point - if popping back to nap means you fail your objective, then the GM can't set up more encounters than you can handle. Sure you can run away (maybe - fights go fast and escape isn't always viable), but then the Damsel dies anyway.
As players, you should avoid Metagaming to figure out what you're likely to face, but as the GM, you can't. Metagaming is your job. The players have to be able to trust that you're not putting them in a no-win situation.
GM adventure design and NPC management is a game of brinksmanship and adaptability.
Some folks in this thread have been discussing the CR and ECL system as if it were a straight jacket, where 'if you have more encounters, then they will all be inconsequential' or the like.
Its not entirely true.
Some stuff should be hideously beyond the character's wheel houses. Monsters don't stop existing because they level up, nor spring into existence when they can be handled.
That being said, a DM's job requires him to look at his party, look at the monster and suss out their actual values and threat capabilities.
As an example, when I know the party is going to encounter something 'fresh' I'll boost it. Similarly, the villain's motivations, capabilities and activities need to be taken into account.
In my fascetious Mario example, I'm talking about the ridiculousness of 'time sensitivity goes away because of teleport.' Where the party wizard runs dry and this gets treated as if its the most terrible thing ever. Its a nonsensical view.
If I have to defeat a bad guy who is going to do something terrible (like lets say marry her against her will, or sacrifice her) then I can't very well just zip back home. If you blew your spells on an earlier encounter, or a decoy, or a complication, suck it up, get your rays of frost ready and man up.
Also, I might know precisely that the wedding is happening in the Temple of Fireantistan (with reception to follow on the Dark Ant Hills of the Abyss), but if I've never been there, I can't reliably teleport in, meaning I still have to get in to save her.
That being said I've seen such "inspired" magical-enabled tactics as 'lets burn down the building and resurrect the person we came to rescue' as well.
Unpredictable encounters make the party have to weigh their options when threats present themselves, its like the old CRPGs with their Fight, Flee, Item, menus.
If a player snarks at me, and in my years pretty much just one has, about 'improper' encounter design, I take a moment to examine, but usually conclude that the RAW and math for the encounter designs were built on predicates that don't hold true.
...please don't ask me to diagram that sentence.
Anyway, I've said this before on these forums but the CR system is built on the concept of a four man party comprised of a single cleric, rogue, fighter and wizard.
This is because CR is a resource consumption abstraction designed to help us better eyeball what might be appropriate challenges. But, its a guideline. It still falls to the DM to really design his encounters.
If CR really came true, our proposed party of 4, 4th level characters can therefore engage a CR 4 threat and they (abstractly) consume 1/4 of their available resources. Resources are spells, hit points, once a day abilities, etc.
The CR system though, is itself an abstraction, a guideline.
The party might tear through an equivalent CR encounter with no difficulty. They might then get their butts kicked by a low CR encounter.
From my own DM experience, a lot of monsters are over CR'd because certain abilities (like DR) get over-weighted. As an example: A Monster with DR 20/magic seems scary until you realize that his DR is functionally useless against a fifth level party who has magic weapons (even if just a +1).
Similarly, a monster with a toxin requiring a Fort DC 14 save is laughable if its a CR 12 beastie. Even if you argue it could hurt the squishier guys, it has to get to them.
And given that a lot of high CR monsters are also huge, or bigger, means that the players can easily kite the jerks or duck into smaller corridors, behind doors or the like leaving the large monster with little to no recourse but to growl, prod at them, and die.
A DM needs to eyeball this sort of thing (as their party might not be four man, might not have the four holy classes, and might have other stuff that changes their own mathematics). Environment, player capabilities also need to be taken in.
There's no formula for this. Mathematics and statistics will not serve thee. Find another discipline to assist.
Also, strict following of the CR system (and WBL) and the proposed encounter design destroys world verisimilitude. The bad guys can't form adventuring parties because a similar sized adventuring party falls outside of the CR system (a 10th level party of 4 PCs vs 4 PC-equipped 10th level NPCs is CR 14 or ECL+4, which is classified as beyond epic.) Does this mean that the PCs should never fight an enemy party of equals?
Does this mean the enemy general is always spacing his stuff out?
Hell, even in situations where heroes bypass earlier rooms or defenses, they might come flooding in at them at a later point (noise, being summoned, etc). Is it 'unfair' if the PCs suddenly find themselves dealing with an entire level of a dungeon at once because they made too much noise? You might end up with a ridiculously high ECL just from people acting like people.
Slavish adherence to a system designed as a guideline, is madness.
+1 to everything Spook said. By default, ECL+4 is an even fight; anything less than that is weighted in the PC's favor.
Heh. In the Paizo adventures, you can see spots where fights SHOULD link up for a much higher ECL encounter, but the links often aren't called out.
@ thejeff - I suspect I have more faith in my players than you do in yours. =P Even if the fight is a genuine threat on paper, the players still have the advantages of (1) there's 4 or 5 of them scheming vs. me alone and (2) they've had months or more to learn their characters inside and out, while I'm running the foes for the first time, and thus probably won't be able to play them to their fullest.
And that's also when you also get to find out how scary some of your PCs really are. It can be pretty cool.
Pulling from my 4E campaign, I had an amazing example of this when I pitted my L19 party against a L30 foe (a drow spellcaster who had the powers of a great wyrm red dragon, because 4E monster reskinning was fun and easy until WotC ruined it =P). The party's actual goal was to just survive for a few rounds (they'd take a beating, but I knew they could endure it - the party had fantastic healing and damage prevention), until a rather significant ally would come in as a reinforcement and draw off the L30 into a duel that would end in a draw at best (so that the party could fight and defeat the L30 later). (The powerful ally was the immortal ancestor and mentor of one of the PCs; the ally had been avoiding battle to avoid revealing to the enemy he was still around.) Anyways, due the level difference, the foe was theoretically invincible - the PCs needed 20s just to hit her.
To my utter flabbergasting, they beat her. It took a lot of stuff working just right, but they did it. (Though it did make the fight with the solo monster they were actually there to engage much more interesting, because they'd blown damn near every daily they had facing the Daughter of Fire.) I kind of stopped making presumptions about what my players couldn't handle after that =P
@ glass -
And yes, power design at the release of 4E really did boil down to most (not all, but most) powers just being reskins of each other. It took the Powers books (and PH II) to fix that and start giving the classes some real flavor. I remember reading through Divine Power, and realizing that the paladin and cleric classes hadn't been fully written up until that book came out. (I was playing a paladin at the time. Divine Power functionally introduced previously missing class mechanics.) 4E shipped with unfinished classes, and that probably tainted a lot of first impressions of the game.
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No, CR isn't an ironclad rule. It's a guideline.
You always had to do something similar, even in systems without such guidelines, it's just that you had to rely only on GM experience to do so.Yeah, not slaughtering the PCs generally violates world verisimilitude. Live with it. TPKs in the name of verisimilitude isn't good thing. You can put stuff the party can't deal with out there, but you've got to give them a way to avoid or escape.
And no, the party shouldn't be fighting actual equals - because they will die far too often. The world and adventures need to be stacked in the parties favor, because they're supposed to win.
I was trained as a DM to believe the party is supposed to be challenged, not always win. If they go in fighting to find every opponent with nerfbats, they have no real victories.
This is skewing a bit off-topic though.
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Though a discussion of CRs and encounter design is honestly more interesting than yet another caster/martial disparity thread.
Some folks in this thread have been discussing the CR and ECL system as if it were a straight jacket...
Since I'm pretty sure you're not referring to part of a tuxedo, it's actually a 'straitjacket', all one word, and spelled exactly like that (i.e. "I'm in desperate straits!").
For your future information ;)
==Aelryinth
@ Atarlost - If the game was purely about luck, that would be the case, yes.
And yes, if you throw an actually-challenging encounter at a low level party, you have good odds of killing them all, since low level characters are fragile and easily squished.
At higher levels? Nah. Not if the players know what they're doing. If anything, the main prohibition against running challenging fights at high levels is the time they take, not the threat they pose. If every fight is a life-or-death throwdown, the pace of the game drags down like crazy.
I'll run speed bump fights when I want to just test stuff and keep the game moving forward, while keeping an eye out for running a real fight later.
was i mistaken? I only played 4e a few times but I did put in a LOT of studying into the character options before those games. isn't everybody on roughly the same 'powers known' and 'powers per recharge period [At will / Encounter / Daily] cycle?EDIT: another point that distinguishes my game from 4E is the limitations. In 4E everybody got the same number of powers on the same basic uses chassis.Why is this particular bit of b%%%#&+@ so persistent? It is not remotely close to true, yet it gets trotted out literally every time 4e gets mentioned.
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glass.
Up through PH II, yes. PH III introduced psionics (all of your powers at at-wills, but you can use power points to upgrade them to encounter or daily level strength. Or was it two levels of encounter level strength, and you later had dailies... I'll need to fish out my books to look, and I don't feel like doing that at this moment.
With Essentials, a lot of classes actually got demoted to only having at-wills, or having at-wills and a single encounter that could be used repeatedly (that just amounted to doing increased damage on a basis attack).
Essentials tried to make 4E run more like 1E, at the cost of jettisoning most of what made classes interesting in 4E.
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Some folks in this thread have been discussing the CR and ECL system as if it were a straight jacket...Since I'm pretty sure you're not referring to part of a tuxedo, it's actually a 'straitjacket', all one word, and spelled exactly like that (i.e. "I'm in desperate straits!").
For your future information ;)
==Aelryinth
Corrections gleefully accepted. I could try to argue that CR is an overly formal thing, and should only be used in appropriate situations to try to recover my earlier mis-spelling? ;)
As a DM, I don't build in 'solutions,' I present problems. And as a DM, I tend to like meat grinder style dungeon crawls.
I'm also a fan of spectacle and having heroes recant tales of when the three heroes destroyed the dark Narzugon, his erinyes lieutenants and 54 lemures when they were a meager level 12 and out numbered twenty to one warms my heart. The lemure situation did result in the party being very proud, but also resulted in the paladin player starting quite a few convos by looking at me and going "...54 lemures...'
I actually have a low kill count for a DM of my age, and most of those kills are misadventure rather then outright damage.
In the current PF game I'm running the barbarian has been killed by...a symbol of death trap, a failed save against another death effect, and a decapitation (thanks to the crit deck). All forts.
The only ones I've actually slain with actual damage were the party's rogue (full attacked by an /at CR/ graveknight) and the bard (perforated by arrows from zen archer erinyes), both of whom were only dead for about six seconds thanks to breath of life.
Credentials thus established. I reaffirm that longer adventuring days involve a wide variety of innocuous encounters, dangerous encounters and potentially threatening encounters. And bosses shouldn't always be in the last room.