I know from personal experience that Ashiel *can* be convinced. You just actually have to provide evidence and ensure that the evidence provided is valid.
Simply stating things as if they were fact does not work to convince Ashiel; this is the largest reason why one may falsely conclude that she won't be convinced or change her mind.
She won't be convinced because I believe she is logically consistent.
The arguments that make ranger tier 3 are the same arguments that would make rangers a good enough frontliner/combatant that the cleric couldn't just take over the role even with severe investment.
It's just the same argument with a different coat of paint.
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I know from personal experience that Ashiel *can* be convinced. You just actually have to provide evidence and ensure that the evidence provided is valid.
Simply stating things as if they were fact does not work to convince Ashiel; this is the largest reason why one may falsely conclude that she won't be convinced or change her mind.
She won't be convinced because I believe she is logically consistent.
The arguments that make ranger tier 3 are the same arguments that would make rangers a good enough frontliner/combatant that the cleric couldn't just take over the role even with severe investment.
It's just the same argument with a different coat of paint.
If she's *wrong* she will admit as much provided proper evidence is given.
What it feels like you're alluding to here is that she is right, but you don't want to admit you're wrong so you'll just give every excuse in the book to say that you're also right (with enough house rules).
I don't get it.
I know from personal experience that Ashiel *can* be convinced. You just actually have to provide evidence and ensure that the evidence provided is valid.
Simply stating things as if they were fact does not work to convince Ashiel; this is the largest reason why one may falsely conclude that she won't be convinced or change her mind.
She won't be convinced because I believe she is logically consistent.
The arguments that make ranger tier 3 are the same arguments that would make rangers a good enough frontliner/combatant that the cleric couldn't just take over the role even with severe investment.
It's just the same argument with a different coat of paint.
If she's *wrong* she will admit as much provided proper evidence is given.
What it feels like you're alluding to here is that she is right, but you don't want to admit you're wrong so you'll just give every excuse in the book to say that you're also right (with enough house rules).
I don't get it.
I stated why I think rangers are tier 3 in her games and not mine. If your games resemble hers more than mine, then I am most certainly wrong when it comes to your games.
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I stated why I think rangers are tier 3 in her games and not mine. If your games resemble hers more than mine, then I am most certainly wrong when it comes to your games.I know from personal experience that Ashiel *can* be convinced. You just actually have to provide evidence and ensure that the evidence provided is valid.
Simply stating things as if they were fact does not work to convince Ashiel; this is the largest reason why one may falsely conclude that she won't be convinced or change her mind.
She won't be convinced because I believe she is logically consistent.
The arguments that make ranger tier 3 are the same arguments that would make rangers a good enough frontliner/combatant that the cleric couldn't just take over the role even with severe investment.
It's just the same argument with a different coat of paint.
If she's *wrong* she will admit as much provided proper evidence is given.
What it feels like you're alluding to here is that she is right, but you don't want to admit you're wrong so you'll just give every excuse in the book to say that you're also right (with enough house rules).
I don't get it.
That feels like a cop out. We aren't discussing personal games with changing house rules, we're discussing the game as written.
If your answer is "in my home games, it different," then why are you even arguing the subject? And why wait until after the argument has gone back and forth many times before you even bring up that you're talking about home games and house rules rather than the game as written? It feels like you're either deliberately trying to lead people on or your using it as an excuse to avoid admitting an error. There is a third option, but I prefer not to assume it despite a plethora of advice otherwise.
So my biggest issue with the whole caster martial disparity thing is every single time someone brings it up they immediately follow it up with some assanine complaint as to how thier characters aren't as cool as this comic book guy or that anime character so while I strongly agree with the fact martials need some stuff that paizo seems to refuse to make feats and the like for I adamantly do not wish to be lumped in with... those people.
Should I ever want to pound back a few ludes and chase it down with absinthe enough to play anything vaguely anime like theres exalted for that. When I want to get my comic book fix I have Heroes Unlimited or Mutants and Masterminds for that.
When I'm playing pathfinder or any D&D clone <Save earthdawn which has perhaps the only everyone uses magic even martials flavor i have ever enjoyed> I want Trad fantasy. I do not want my fighter jumping 60 feet or flying under his own power. I twinge a little at some of the barbarian rage powers until I remind myself his rage isn't always just anger or adrenaline but sometimes is being ridden by totemic spirits. Basically if it's not something you can flavor the magic out of I'm not interested.. Thats actually my big problem with Path of War is even the non magical disciplines aren't that non magical and they leave a bad taste in my mouth for it.
You want a martial that uses magic to cheat the laws of reality with magic ? Thats cool. Go ahead and find a way to do it, but I want my fighters to be Stone Cold Steve Austin style victory through badassdom and not some big eyes small mouth weeaboo crap, I'm all for making the fighter moar erserm but for effs sake can we keep the fix's in the martial wheelhouse and not yank someone elses tropes?
I stated why I think rangers are tier 3 in her games and not mine. If your games resemble hers more than mine, then I am most certainly wrong when it comes to your games.I know from personal experience that Ashiel *can* be convinced. You just actually have to provide evidence and ensure that the evidence provided is valid.
Simply stating things as if they were fact does not work to convince Ashiel; this is the largest reason why one may falsely conclude that she won't be convinced or change her mind.
She won't be convinced because I believe she is logically consistent.
The arguments that make ranger tier 3 are the same arguments that would make rangers a good enough frontliner/combatant that the cleric couldn't just take over the role even with severe investment.
It's just the same argument with a different coat of paint.
If she's *wrong* she will admit as much provided proper evidence is given.
What it feels like you're alluding to here is that she is right, but you don't want to admit you're wrong so you'll just give every excuse in the book to say that you're also right (with enough house rules).
I don't get it.
That feels like a cop out. We aren't discussing personal games with changing house rules, we're discussing the game as written.
If your answer is "in my home games, it different," then why are you even arguing the subject? And why wait until after the argument has gone back and forth many times before you even bring up that you're talking about home games and house rules rather than the game as written? It feels like you're either deliberately trying to lead people on or your using it as an excuse to avoid admitting an error. There is a third option, but I prefer not to assume it despite a plethora of advice otherwise.
You didn't read my post or even my reasons. Do that before you start griping at me. At least I actually read her posts.
I have read all the posts in this conversation, but It looks like you're getting really angry at me for pointing this out, so I'm just going to stop engaging and let others decide for themselves.
Ashiel is a Him, not a Her, btw.
==Aelryinth
Ashiel is a Him, not a Her, btw.
==Aelryinth
Thank you. I think I get that wrong a lot. Sorry, Ashiel.
Ashiel is a Him, not a Her, btw.
==Aelryinth
Ah my bad.
Maybe something like throwing a javelin so hard you can crash a Dragon into the earth? Or grabbing an enemy mook and forcing them to be the target of a spell?
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To gather some ideas from another thread I think the issue of anime/comic prowess martials is that Pathfinder ranges from more down to earth action fantasy to high magic plane-hopping stuff but both are not on par with each other in terms of usefulness. Its hard to believe all the classes even survive on the same planet. Given the kinds of magic that gets thrown about even as 1st level spells you expect magic to be way more prevalent and wizard/cleric kings being the norm. Heck magic items seem pretty much everywhere, so there's enough casting around to make the world really weird. But the games assumptions still pit us within medieval stasis and have the classes that live in it.
Basically magic is too high magic to realistically be in the same world as martials if we're going to try to say that they are the same level. Having Weeaboo Fightan Magic from martials is what we would expect if people who are our equals are capable of creating a universe. If The wizard's bar was lower, not by a lot but getting rid of a number of godlike power spells and converting them to artifact-like options, then things wouldn't be so bad. But as it stands Spellcasting and magic in Pathfinder live in this state where magic is entirely too mundane for a class like fighter to even exist, and at the same time not around enough so we still have people living in medieval villages. Every town seems to have at least one magic weapon but nowhere is some kind of box a wizard made to make things stay cold or a vacation spot in the wizard's school's new dimension. If you are a Fighter you are default the 'normal' guy who gets by with manpower alone and you're expected to figt things that at level one can wreck an entire platoon with vines that spring from the ground and get away. And nothing exists to protect you from this because it would be less fun for that guy if you had a tin foil hat that ACTUALLY blocks people from your brain instead of just moving some numbers up so you have 20% less of a chance of getting brain violated at the expense of it making your dumb, derped and ugly. (Apparently no one thought to just make helmets with lead in it but I guess that wouldn't work unless it was 15,000 gold.) As powerful as normal magic is you should at least have some minor magic on hand to deal with this junk. Just a little magic, like in Fighter School you have to learn a few lvl 0 or 1 spells to tide you over when there's giant cannibals, mind control fairies, frickin things that LITERALLY make universes for fun, and not just one 'The Devil' but an entire race of them that are prevalent enough to spawn half-devils all over the place. This world is insane with magic and you're the one guy that's not allowed to? At that point if I were living in such a world I'd apply to wizard school at my first opportunity or lift weights until I can bench press a castle because that's the only way I'll possibly stay alive if I don't even get some bit of magic that can actually defend me against stuff like that.
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Agreed, Malwing!
If this were more "Trad fantasy," spell-casters would have far fewer spells they could cast per day, and usually at some sort of cost to themselves (fatigue; health; etc.)
[movie trailer V.O.] In a world where Charm Person is a standard thing...
... you'd expect that even your most run-of-the-mill merchant would have a ward or charm of some kind to thwart that kind of magic to prevent the abuses GMs routinely see players attempt with that 1st level spell!
With "magic, magic everywhere!", counters to the abuses of that magic would also exist.
Enter The Fighter. These guys should be resistant to magic, forcing casters to rely on their own hired muscle to handle the other guy's hired muscle while they try to warp reality to suite their needs of the moment.
But as it stands Spellcasting and magic in Pathfinder live in this state where magic is entirely too mundane for a class like fighter to even exist, and at the same time not around enough so we still have people living in medieval villages. Every town seems to have at least one magic weapon but nowhere is some kind of box a wizard made to make things stay cold or a vacation spot in the wizard's school's new dimension. If you are a Fighter you are default the 'normal' guy who gets by with manpower alone and you're expected to fight things that at level one can wreck an entire platoon with vines that spring from the ground and get away.
When I read anything this extreme on either side of the disparity debate I immediately want to join the other side.
Level One Druid: "Aha! I have wrecked this entire platoon by entangling them for one minute (Reflex partial)! And now I'll get clean aw..." (Twenty arrows are fired at him. He dies.)
More like
20 level one soldiers vs 1 level 1 druid and 15 level one soldiers.
1 entangle is enough to turn the tide for victory more than 5 Soldiers.
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One issue is how irrelevant lower cr creatures get. You never really get to experience your fighter mowing through an orc horde because the encounter is too boring for a GM to throw at you. By the time you are a high level fighter, life seems to be about nearly dieing after trading blows with a worthy foe, or being ignored after hard cc ties you up.
Another problem is that the iconic martial, the fighter, is nearly the worst martial in the game.
But as it stands Spellcasting and magic in Pathfinder live in this state where magic is entirely too mundane for a class like fighter to even exist, and at the same time not around enough so we still have people living in medieval villages. Every town seems to have at least one magic weapon but nowhere is some kind of box a wizard made to make things stay cold or a vacation spot in the wizard's school's new dimension. If you are a Fighter you are default the 'normal' guy who gets by with manpower alone and you're expected to fight things that at level one can wreck an entire platoon with vines that spring from the ground and get away.When I read anything this extreme on either side of the disparity debate I immediately want to join the other side.
Level One Druid: "Aha! I have wrecked this entire platoon by entangling them for one minute (Reflex partial)! And now I'll get clean aw..." (Twenty arrows are fired at him. He dies.)
Honestly I'm actually not sure what happened in regards to the enemy's stats. We were a level 1 in a PFS game and someone invisible cast entangle which did not make him visible, and I guess bad rolls made it hard to get out and by the time we got him visible he went into the un penetrable bushes(First time I realized Druids can do that) and got cover from our attacks and left. Also entangle has a huge area which didn't help when another non invisible group showed up and started shooting arrows at us. The Barbarian got stuck and died and I left because I didn't the Archer Fighter was almost dead and the only one left was still stuck in the entangle and had no ranged attacks.
Sorry if it feels like I'm exaggerating in my example but that was my first encounter with the entangle spell and would have ended in a TPK if I didn't run away and thus technically survive.
someone invisible cast entangle which did not make him visible
Just to note, if the Entangle actually included any of your party in its radius, that should have counted as an attack and broken invisibility. (Since you were level 1, I'm going to assume you weren't going up against greater invisibility.)
Entangle does cover a huge area, though, yes.
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Agreed, Malwing!
If this were more "Trad fantasy," spell-casters would have far fewer spells they could cast per day, and usually at some sort of cost to themselves (fatigue; health; etc.)
[movie trailer V.O.] In a world where Charm Person is a standard thing...
... you'd expect that even your most run-of-the-mill merchant would have a ward or charm of some kind to thwart that kind of magic to prevent the abuses GMs routinely see players attempt with that 1st level spell!
With "magic, magic everywhere!", counters to the abuses of that magic would also exist.
Enter The Fighter. These guys should be resistant to magic, forcing casters to rely on their own hired muscle to handle the other guy's hired muscle while they try to warp reality to suite their needs of the moment.
Its like Harry Potter weird. Think about it. Charm Person at first level and what that implies is the same as those kids that sell pretty much Charm Person potions as some kind of gag gift when I'm pretty sure that such a thing was responsible for creating the supervillain. After that wouldn't you, I don't know, make something to defend against stuff like that? Or at the very least let kids sell it to each other?
Imagine being a Fighter in a world like that. You'd fear for your safety. The little kids are casually charming each other and harboring obviously evil people that are actively being trained in an art that can eventually literally destroy the world without assistance. I'd kill them all or learn some defensive magic.
someone invisible cast entangle which did not make him visibleJust to note, if the Entangle actually included any of your party in its radius, that should have counted as an attack and broken invisibility. (Since you were level 1, I'm going to assume you weren't going up against greater invisibility.)
Entangle does cover a huge area, though, yes.
I'm just relaying the experience, I never saw it's stats. Eventually he did become visible from attacking someone but went into a wall of bushes and we lost him.
Maybe something like throwing a javelin so hard you can crash a Dragon into the earth? Or grabbing an enemy mook and forcing them to be the target of a spell?
Yeah this sort of stuff exactly... This game is largely about tropes for me. I was badass fightin man as a PC to be able to hold his own without magic even if most people can't. Honestly, I really liked a lot of the 'meta attack' feats in the book of overpowered feats or whatever where you took a BAB hit to add riders to your attacks. Alternately just better rules for things like harpoons which as currently stand couldn't function to bring in food or maybe more in depth called shots so that you can target wings to prevent flying or temporarily disable hands to ruin somatic casting gestures for a few rounds or minutes. Things that let him temporarily stab the SLAs out of monsters because as the supreme master of the battle field he knows where that nerve cluster/BS magic mcguffin organ is. The unchained stamina system was a cute idea but it was to conservative and limited in scope. If something like that could be made to get the right balance of not awful with not completely redonkulus I'd be all for it. I can suspend mydesbeleif to a degree but eventually at some point you have to stop backing the car over it again and again to let it recover.
Though to be honest in my games this is rarely an issue as often since my usual playgroup doesn't have as much of the new school 'everyone has to contribute to everything all the time.' or the entitled 'I put to much work into this chracter for him to die.' mentalaties I see on boards a lot. Seriously, I'm glad you have ten pages of backstory on your dude and all... Good on you. I do the same things but if they get gacked ? Whatever. Thats part of RPGs. It also doesn't hurt that I'm the most Optimization oriented and I find full casters to be so brutally boring that I haven't played one since 3rd edition didn't need a decimal point.
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As for 'big eyes small mouth weaboo crap' I suggest you take a look at the actual western mythology which spawned 'traditional fantasy' that you hold dear.
Take a look at Cuchulain or Herakles, these are upper mid-level to lower high-level martials. Thor [I'm not talking about the comic character] is a very high level martial.
Cuchulain was the incarnation of a god who was also (the same) god's son by a mortal. So he's the demi-god incarnation of a god.
Heracles is the son of Zeus (the king of gods) and a mortal ... though the mortal also had some divine blood due to being the granddaughter of Perseus (also a son of Zeus).
Thor is a god.
Invoking their feats to justify power levels of non-divine martials is a bit of a disconnect.
More like
20 level one soldiers vs 1 level 1 druid and 15 level one soldiers.
1 entangle is enough to turn the tide for victory more than 5 Soldiers.
Under Pathfinder rules archery will win most low-level battles in the open. At long range the average level 1 fighter will kill a level 1 enemy within four rounds. So the two armies will see each other, and in less than a minute one or both sides will be completely devastated. There aren't many long range spells a low-level caster can use that will make much of a difference.
In less open conditions, a single caster supporting some martials can make a big difference. But magic & martials winning by working together as a team is the game rules working as intended.
(Obviously, this is about low levels. A competent tenth level wizard is likely to wreck a mundane army without them getting a shot off.)
As for 'big eyes small mouth weaboo crap' I suggest you take a look at the actual western mythology which spawned 'traditional fantasy' that you hold dear.
Take a look at Cuchulain or Herakles, these are upper mid-level to lower high-level martials. Thor [I'm not talking about the comic character] is a very high level martial.
Cuchulain was the incarnation of a god who was also (the same) god's son by a mortal. So he's the demi-god incarnation of a god.
Heracles is the son of Zeus (the king of gods) and a mortal ... though the mortal also had some divine blood due to being the granddaughter of Perseus (also a son of Zeus).
Thor is a god.
Invoking their feats to justify power levels of non-divine martials is a bit of a disconnect.
What is divinity to you?
In my own games I outright declare a character level 17 or over to be a god, and bring the martials up to that level alongside the casters who already got there.
In the context of those myths, divinity is generally the result of your birth. That is, if you're the child of two gods, you are a god. If you're the child of a god and a mortal, you're a demi-god. If you're the child of two mortals, you're a non-divine. That being said, I'm sure with a couple thousands of years of myths, I'm sure you could find an exception.
As for 'big eyes small mouth weaboo crap' I suggest you take a look at the actual western mythology which spawned 'traditional fantasy' that you hold dear.
Take a look at Cuchulain or Herakles, these are upper mid-level to lower high-level martials. Thor [I'm not talking about the comic character] is a very high level martial.
Cuchulain was the incarnation of a god who was also (the same) god's son by a mortal. So he's the demi-god incarnation of a god.
Heracles is the son of Zeus (the king of gods) and a mortal ... though the mortal also had some divine blood due to being the granddaughter of Perseus (also a son of Zeus).
Thor is a god.
Invoking their feats to justify power levels of non-divine martials is a bit of a disconnect.
What is divinity to you?
In my own games I outright declare a character level 17 or over to be a god, and bring the martials up to that level alongside the casters who already got there.
Therein lies the real question. What makes up a divine being? Is it simply a matter of levels or is there more to it than just that?
For me, pointing out that someone in a story (myth, comic, anime, etc) has X power doesn't translate as well to a game setting like Pathfinder. Batman has been shown in wildly varying ways over the years, routinely getting over his head fighting minor bad guys in one issue while defeating Martians in another.
Characters in stories have the power of "Whatever makes the story better". It doesn't translate well to what we do unless it just big pool of PC powers called "Do whatever you want."
The stories and myths are a nice thing to look at and a reference point for things we might like, but trying to say that Heracles is X level with Y powers is a bit misleading.
More like
20 level one soldiers vs 1 level 1 druid and 15 level one soldiers.
1 entangle is enough to turn the tide for victory more than 5 Soldiers.
Under Pathfinder rules archery will win most low-level battles in the open. At long range the average level 1 fighter will kill a level 1 enemy within four rounds. So the two armies will see each other, and in less than a minute one or both sides will be completely devastated. There aren't many long range spells a low-level caster can use that will make much of a difference.
In less open conditions, a single caster supporting some martials can make a big difference. But magic & martials winning by working together as a team is the game rules working as intended.
(Obviously, this is about low levels. A competent tenth level wizard is likely to wreck a mundane army without them getting a shot off.)
The relevant text from entangled
"akes a –2 penalty on all attack rolls and a –4 penalty to Dexterity. An entangled character who attempts to cast a spell must make a concentration check (DC 15 + spell level) or lose the spell."So with bow attacks every entangled soldier is -4 to bow attack rolls and has -2 AC.
I would even possit that 1 druid with entangle and 10 soldier mooks with bows are more effective than 20, possibly 30 normal mooks
1. The entangled dudes fail at attacking back
2. Breaking out is not 100% at level 1
3. Breaking out takes a turn
The Druid group has a hugggggge advantage just thanks to a single spell.
Entangle also has a much better range than most archers are anything close to accurate at.
I generally subscribe to The Alexandrian's view of level expectations.
Essentially, you're looking at 6th level for an Aragorn type character. By the time you're in the high teens, you're definitely at least a demigod in terms of power level (though not necessarily in game terms).
By that standard, mythology involving demigods is a perfectly good standard of comparison for a high level character. And since casters are already there...
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So someone like Samurai Jack then?
Enter The Fighter. These guys should be resistant to magic, forcing casters to rely on their own hired muscle to handle the other guy's hired muscle while they try to warp reality to suite their needs of the moment.
It's 'suit' their needs of the moment.
A 'suite' is a nice hotel room, pronounced 'sweet."
"This sweet suite suits me."
Just so ya know.
==Aelryinth
Lots of stuff
I don't know the fancy breaking stuff up to reply individually magic that you do so I'm gonna try this in order as best as I can.
First off people earn respect starting from zero with me. I don't call out individuals and I don't namecall but people who do things I dislike are never going to get smiles and handshakes from me. I wear my disgust on my sleeve. That being said no one is in any way obligated to care about what I say either I'm just unable to shut my mouth so I chime in on things.
Instead of restricting the levels what we do is find the big problem points such as spells, class features or feats that over or under perform and we modify them. My houserule pamphlet for this game at this point is something like three spiral notebooks. Most of it however is hot fixes and official recognition of obvious problems makes me happy and cannon fixing of these problems are even better.
As for the Path of War, Let me first explain my stance on magic. Magic ? Magic is magic. Psionics are magic, SLA's are magic, Dragons ability to fly and other square/cube law funzies like giants? Also magic. Magic is any form of BS that allows someone or something to do the blatently impossible. Now some of this like most spell effects are big flashy i summon fire and rain doom upon my enemies and this is blatent BSing at its best. No one argues it's impossability and for caster types this is fine. For martials it's to much for me. Your milage might very you might like it I don't.
No Steven James Anderson the man who plays the character is a expert with a useful perform skillset. In the narrative of wrestling however Steve Austin is one of the toughest meanest rattlesnakes who ever lived. You're mixing the man and the myth here.
At this point I should point out I have my Bachlors in Myths and Folklore. You're examples of highlevel martials aren't human. Herc's a demigod, the hound of ulster is an incarnation of Lugh <who also happens to be his pappy.> You want you high level martials to be gods ? Well. I can't tell you how to have fun but I can tell you I have little common ground with your use of the word. Having read what you've said over the past twenty odd pages of this discussion what we want is antithetical to each other. You want martials to be just as godly as casters and I want them to be more along the lines of Beowulf or Hiawatha. To put it another way You want martials to be from the Eddas and I want them to be from the Sagas.
I don't care about 'Narritive control' like the ability to make pocket dimensions, crash down castles, talk with the gods, or anything else that doesnt have a relevant problem solving application. So long as mechanicly where it matters the two are on equal footing in what they can deal with at least more then how they deal with it <IE if it's a flying foe the wizard casts fly where the fighter shoots it in the wing and grounds it.> I'm happy.
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That's fine, but not really helpful for convincing people who like martials not being magic.
It's just saying "Martials get magic around X level, without any real justification needed because that's when characters start becoming demigods".
And pointing at examples of figures who were divine from the start doesn't even help with that. Examples of figures who really did start out as normal humans and got up to beating up demigods just by being more skilled and tough and generally badass would be far more convincing.
Personally, I'm fine with martials getting weeaboo anime style abilities. Or comic book type powers. I don't need (or even really want) the "you're turning into a god" justification. If I did, I'd want that reflected in the fluff, not just the power levels. I'd want in-game events to do it.
It's not about magic at all, though. It's about what sort of power level martials should be at in certain level ranges. How that's achieved is, in my mind, irrelevant. When it comes down to it, levels 11+ in Pathfinder are rather in a world of their own compared to most fantasy I've seen, and the benchmarks a lot of people seem to apply to martials. (Though, for whatever reason, it's totally cool for casters to do anything at all.)
Who cares if the reference demigods were born with a divine spark? Their pre-teen years aren't being used as any sort of benchmark. The beginnings are different, but through some method the demigod and a high level character have come to equivalent power levels. That's the only comparison I'm trying to make. Pick any two random CR 15 creatures. Their fluff is almost certainly very different, but because they're both CR 15, we expect them to be approximately the same difficulty for a party. Same thing.
And, again, Pathfinder kind of skews power levels compared to most fantasy and mythology that I've seen. A level 20 character is equivalent to a demigod or weak god in a lot of mythology, but the Pathfinder gods are far more powerful than that. In game, your high level characters are not actually demigods or gods, but that's only by virtue of the fact that Pathfinder raises the bar for what being a god means.
Thor, Hercules and Cu Chulainn all have the god thing going for them, which means they get some uber template strapped onto them granting major stat bonuses for badassness.
Of the three, Cu Chulainn is actually the one that displays the highest level of 'skill'...he can catch and throw a basically unblockable spear with his toes in midair. Thor and Hercules are basically famous for feats of strength beyond mortal possibility. Cu Chulainn is just inhumanly skilled and can go berserk...really, really berserk.
==Aelryinth
Enter The Fighter. These guys should be resistant to magic, forcing casters to rely on their own hired muscle to handle the other guy's hired muscle while they try to warp reality to suite their needs of the moment.
It's 'suit' their needs of the moment.
A 'suite' is a nice hotel room, pronounced 'sweet."
"This sweet suite suits me."
Just so ya know.
==Aelryinth
Or - ya know - just a typo...
Again, tone down the attacks though. The entitlement mentality has nothing to do with this discussion.
It's not an attack. It's a statement of opinion as to why my group seems to have less fallout from caster vs martial issues. We know the disparity exists and each take some amount of personal responsibility in not letting it become an issue in our games.
An attack would be to say all you *put appropriate derogative term here* clowns need to die in a fire. Which I most definitely didn't do.
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Ok, regarding the demigod heroes. Every time someone brings up Cuchulain or Heracles or Gilgamesh, somebody feels they have to point out that that they are gods/demigods and thus are a poor comparison to "mundane" martials. Here's the thing, though, "mundane" martials simply are not capable of operating at the same level as casters. As Mal said, fighters simply wouldn't exist in a world where magic users can learn how to create personal planes of existence and command archangels. If you want a 17th level fighter to be anywhere near a 17th level wizard's league, you need martials to be having warp spasms and literally wrestling gods into submission. If you want your martial to be completely mundane, real world applicable (first thing, you're already out of luck due to how HP works) you'd best be ok with never playing about level 6 or so.
I think, when using mythology as an example of martials, people are way, WAY too hung up on the origins of these characters rather than the abilities they display. There is a reason why many (if not most) of the big heroes from Greek mythology are semi-divine, because mortals pale in comparison. The few mortals who get top billing in Greek myths are there because of things that don't really translate well to pathfinder. Sure, Odyssius was a pretty sharp dude who had an army to command...but he would be absolutely massacred by a 10th level wizard. Heracles, on the other hand, could throw a tree at him like a spear.
If you want some Western heroes that are not divine, how about Pecos Bill or Paul Bunyon? Completely mortal, but still have crazy abilities. I guess that's not "traditional" though (as if the Pathfinder wizard is).
If you're really, really married to the idea of a pure martial and you have some sort of hang up about so-called "realism," Pathfinder is not really the game for you unless you put some serious blocks in place.
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An attack would be to say all you *put appropriate derogative term here* clowns need to die in a fire. Which I most definitely didn't do.
Or suggesting that one has to be impaired to play a character with "anime" style abilities, or using derogatory terms like "weeaboo" to describe people who might enjoy it. Also, while you are welcome to your opinions, I don't see how you can't be aware that you're being pretty dang antagonistic in your presentation.