This is a game that is supposed to have all the players take a center stage and being effective without the plot contriving itself to shift the spotlight. It's not about a main character and his sidekicks (it might be but the system should allow everyone to be main by default), and players should not be obligated to play second fiddle.
So it's bad form if the Wizard gets to be Dr. Strange while the Fighter the most it gets is Daredevil or Taskmaster and not Hulk or Hercules because "muh realism". All of this while the bestiary throws against you the likes of Thanos, Ultron and Loki
Sure, but lot of variants are really bad.
Unless you just, variant into wizard.
So some extent I'm starting to think that threads like this are pointless, particularly on these forums. If we're still here we've either;
1: Decided that there is no problem.
2: Resolved the problem ourselves.
3: Picked up one of the multitudes of third party materials that solved the problem whether it makes casters more reasonable (Spheres of Power) or made martials that are more unreasonable (Path of War)
Threads like these mostly turn into this circle of describing and re-describing the problem in the hopes that Paizo will disrupt their own status quo, because Third party already has solutions and those solutions mean that we don't have to resort to rewriting the game ourselves and in a lot of cases work out pretty easily into the game. I started playing Pathfinder in 2011. I bought my first third party product in 2013, which included all the Talented line consisting of the Talented Monk, Fighter, Rogue, and Cavalier, plus feats of multiclassing. I haven't had real class imbalance problems since and along with other things the gap just doesn't exist anymore. Solutions are out there so if we're still having these discussions to the point where there are two identical threads on the first page, that means we just aren't taking them, which means we're just trying to get Paizo to make a 'Mega-Martial' product that honestly we'll probably never see and you know it. So I feel like these threads are an exercise in insanity. Unless we're holding out for a Pathfinder Unchained 2, that features some kind of Physical Prowess or Maneuver system.
Varient multiclass options are a godsend for fighters. Yes everyone can do it. But everyone else basically gives up half their feats. Fighters have plenty of those laying around.
With Rogue Genius Games' new VMC book you can give up all of your feats to virtually gestalt. A fighter that does this loses the least because they still have 11 combat feats. Also human Warpriest.
Well, in a sense everything we complain is pointless because a few forum posts won't ever guide a company. I just like to think pointing out other systems, homebrew, and 3PP supplements would help those who really don't know what to do.
Like for me, if Paizo published a Revised Action Economy that did anything different from the (bad) core combat rules then a lot of my issues would be solved. The system advertised that the end result would be something like RuneQuest's (good) combat system that supports magic and melee extremely well and any style of combat has benefits and drawbacks, but instead left in all the same actions, including full attacks while not doing anything to break up actions or change the action economy in any way.
Is that a hypothetical or how you felt? Because if its how you felt about the new unchained action economy it brings up another point of differing ideas towards even non-paizo solutions because for me the revised action economy is starting to become my only action economy. There are a lot of little design choices in it that just made combat faster and made things more meaningful. On the other hand most complaints that I've seen is that it isn't consistent with the action economy before it, that some classes can no longer get all their attacks and make a swift action, that reactions absorb a lot of things making them a very dire choice. So the revised action economy can be either not different enough, too different, or just right.
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I think the new action economy system is pretty poorly designed... For Pathfinder.
It's not necessarily a bad system, but it doesn't mesh well with the mechanics of the game. It could work... It just doesn't.
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How? What is so different between move, action, swift and 3 actions?
Well there's a lot of assumptions that get changed. Out of the differences I noticed.
1. Reactions and how they work simplifies things in several ways. It compartmentalizes immediate actions, readied actions, and AoOs into the same thing which means that once you determine initiative order it rarely changes meaning that I don't have to shuffle around initiative order when someone readies an action. Also this means that characters are limited to one out of combat action barring AoO builds. This means that keeping track of swifts to maintain your immediate actions isn't a thing. All this cumilates to a lot less action resource counting than I thought considering that I rarely see immediate actions.
2. Each action equating to an attack with simple penalty from lvl 1 doesn't look that different but for me and my players it leads to less confusion and reiterating how iterative attacks work and when they come up. You don't gain iterative attacks you just have them throughout your career
3. In the same realm this has made TWF so much easier to explain. TWF is one of the things that I never see new players do because I have to explain it over and over again and have players that need to double check how it works.
4. Speaking of TWF, since full attacks are basically three separate actions this means that attacking with two weapons can happen on the first attack action and you can still move.
5. Once immediate actions and swift actions became separated I started seeing more immediate actions. Swift actions are generally pretty powerful because normally its a once a turn mana pool with most classes needing it to function in a round.
6. It obsoletes some feats. This is generally a bad thing but it culls some feats that had no business existing in the first place. Spring Attack and it's relatives are the prime example. Pathfinder Unchained doesn't give a way to deal with it but me and players agreed to just delete the feat altogether which meant less feats in the way for interesting effects and nobody really missed the added effect of bypassing AoOs because it led to interesting decisions opened up other effects. The most dear thing hit was Arcane Strike which hasn't been used since using the new action economy, so nothing has been done about it. Its also one of the few things that function only on the turn that it was activated so it may just be ignored or used primarily by reach gishes.
7. Contrasting to obsoleted feats, some feats opened up more. Mobility is more welcome because there's more incentive to move, turning it into less of a feat tax and along with Spring Attack being gone, Whirlwind Attack gets some actual use.
8. Speaking of moving, moving makes your attack 1/3 less good instead of up to 3/4 less good so players are more willing to do it. Martials quickly became caster chasers when it came to dealing with enemy casters, as they could very easily run 60 ft and get an enemy caster within one-shot range.
9. There's a clear progression of action value. You would figure that the normal action economy is Full>Standard>Move>Swift=Immediate>Free but I think it was the right call to equate swift and move actions because that's about the right power level. It makes action conversion from other material easier to do.
10. Its all around easier to explain. This doesn't seem like much but seriously imagine trying to get into the normal action economy with someone who hasn't played any RPGs ever or 10 year olds, then try the revised action economy as I have. Seriously one is a lot smoother than the other. And the smoother one isn't the one where there's a standard action(which can be an attack action but isn't an attack action which will eventually make trying to make Vital Strike extra confusing), a full round action (which eats your other actions but your 5ft step, swift action and Attacks of Opportunity), swift actions, move actions(which you can do with a standard action but these aren't equal so you cant do two standard actions by giving up your move action, that's called a full round action and does not allow you to do two Vital Strikes), immediate actions (which is a swift action but not), and a five foot step, (which is a free action that is conditional upon not moving. Not move action because that's different from moving.) One results in 10 year olds learning the game and the other results in grown men that will flip me off and demand to play 5th edition instead.
Compared to the bad things;
1. Not getting your swift action and all your attacks is not a good idea when the game turns into rocket launcher tag because you want to do as much as you can in one turn and losing a whole attack will slow you down.
2. Some of the actions given in Pathfinder Unchained just don't work. This mostly involves the Magus and spellstrike. I had to house rule on that one but no one has disagreed with the house rule I put in place.
3. Some things aren't explained. Namely Vital Strike which is logically 2 acts, but sucks so could be 1 act in which it becomes broken.
To me the losses and the lack of polish is acceptable. A few house rules and a clarification and it has taken over my games for its ease of use. Even my wife plays easier with the revised action economy and that's saying a lot, because she sucks at the crunch of the game. Like REALLY sucks, so I got sold on that aspect alone. And more importantly its pretty easy, fun and fast.
To clarify, I don't think the revised action economy is a martial solution I'm just making a case for how its different in reply.
Oh, it doesn't actually solve any functionality problems besides making moving more desirable. Its just makes things easier. I do think that it's a much better design than the normal action economy but Lemmy is right that it suffers integration snags but for me the amount of negative snags are miniscule compared to what I consider benefits and the negative snags are kind of easy to handle with a few house rules.
Judging from responses I'll guess that other most other people here on the boards or at the very least most other people posting in their thread don't feel that Fighters jumping up hundreds of feet in the air to attack stuff is at all silly or out of theme. Does jumping actually allow you to move faster than your speed though?
I understand that Paizo could make new rules to say that if you're a jumping Fighter you can teleport through solid objects, create multiple “after image” duplicates of yourself which confuse enemies like Mirror Image, or become immune to energy damage because a sheathe of supercharged atomic material surrounds you due to your supersonic speed and heroic nature. Is there already a rule which allows you to move faster than your speed by jumping though, or would that be something new too?
The rules actually specifically disallow jumping from letting you exceed your movement speed.
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There's clearly a coyote vs road runner disparity.
So some extent I'm starting to think that threads like this are pointless, particularly on these forums. If we're still here we've either;
1: Decided that there is no problem.
2: Resolved the problem ourselves.
3: Picked up one of the multitudes of third party materials that solved the problem whether it makes casters more reasonable (Spheres of Power) or made martials that are more unreasonable (Path of War)
What if I want the problem solved by Paizo without getting third party material involved?
What if I want the problem solved by Paizo without getting third party material involved?So some extent I'm starting to think that threads like this are pointless, particularly on these forums. If we're still here we've either;
1: Decided that there is no problem.
2: Resolved the problem ourselves.
3: Picked up one of the multitudes of third party materials that solved the problem whether it makes casters more reasonable (Spheres of Power) or made martials that are more unreasonable (Path of War)
"which means we're just trying to get Paizo to make a 'Mega-Martial' product that honestly we'll probably never see and you know it. So I feel like these threads are an exercise in insanity. Unless we're holding out for a Pathfinder Unchained 2, that features some kind of Physical Prowess or Maneuver system."
Theoretically Paizo has decided that there is no problem because even with Unchained they aren't going too far out of their status quo. And making materials fly and teleport is way past that status quo.
Now I can respect that in the sense that I don't have a problem with casters until the players go online and optimize them so I'm guessing there's enough scrub players enjoying the game that have a harder time dealing with materials with too much AC or Damage. I've GMed entire parties of casters that had a hard time with spaced out looks or a sneaky martial because wielding a caster right is kind of hard. I can imagine leaving things up to third parties and house rules being more sound because otherwise you get the Crane Wing problem where you have complaints about it just wrecking the gamne despite wizards still being PFS legal.
But the point is that I don't think Paizo is going to solve the problem to our satisfaction. At best some unchained thing will come out that grants pseudo magic available to anyone but I don't think it would be too far past the power of most feats. Especially after how old the system is. Expecting a change big enough to make Fighters match teleporting then is, I think, unreasonable.
@Malwing: I don't feel these posts are an exercise in insanity. They're an opportunity to: verify if I am understanding the rules correctly; and how to home-brew things that don't work for me and my table.
You, and a handful of others, have helped promote the SoP supplement. For combat, ToB and PoW, which I was not aware of prior to coming to these boards.
I don;t expect Paizo to change the system for me. But there are some system mechanics that are a problem, and this is one source for them to take note and see what, if anything, they might improve or fix.
That's what it all comes down to: how to improve my experience with this system.
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I've been reading a lot of xantia lately (Battle through the Heavens, Coiling Dragon, Desolate Era).
They've all got remarkable things in common.
1) martial arts are always a way to power, and the purest one. At lower levels, MAGIC is better then martial arts.
2) at higher levels, magic and martial arts are basically all the same thing, but the improvement of speed means magic you never get spells off, so everything becomes about fighting skill, either ranged or martial.
3) at certain levels, if you reach them, you can fly. Period. You just can. You step through a boundary into a new level, and you can fly.
at lower levels, it takes specific forms/spells that are hugely valuable to lower level characters to be able to fly.
4) Monsters are more powerful then characters of the same 'level'. Since they have higher stats, that's appropriate.
5)Lifespans increase as you get more powerful. This is just a byproduct of leveling.
6) Societies are VERY different. Because Colt didn't make all men equal, time + training does, there is no 'rule of law'. There's who is strong, and dictates to who is weaker. If you are stronger, it is perfectly within your rights to seize power from weaker people and take it for yourself. Conversely, if a stronger person force/family leans on you, you either acquiesce, or you fight, and probably die.
This means there is no 'legal' force. There is military and para-military forces attached to organizations, be they empires, clans, houses, schools or acadamies. There are no police to investigate crimes, no impartial judges, no judiciary. There's only you, your friends and family, and basically all justice is grudges and vigilante reckoning when the time comes.
7) "Levels scale". THe xantia do a very good job of illustrating the wealth curve. What is hugely valuable at lower level is worth less then dust at high level. A mighty foe in the beginning is something you dispose of with a wave of your hand at high level. Mundane armies are not threats to the truly powerful. It takes the concentrated efforts of hundreds, if not thousands, of lesser characters to be threats to the mighty...who simply start picking them off one by one if they rely on tactics like that.
8) The worlds 'level up': The great adventure zone for low levels is revealed to the be the backwater 'fringe zone' with little true wealth, still trying to develop and advance itself.
The great central cities of the initial Empire are likewise revealed to also be limited, because they don't have the wealth or history of the central empire behind them.
The empire itself is revealed to be one of the smaller, limited lands, and the rulers minor figures on the world/continent/plane.
The world itself is too small, and you have to leave it behind if you truly want to advance.
9) Mighty figures in one context are common or trivial in another context.
10) the secrets of the universe are everywhere, and potentially anyone can access them. But those who have access to wealth and early training, just like in the real world, have the advantage over those who do not. But they are the road to power, and magic is not the 'only' way to get there.
11) Genius only gets you so far. Time and hard work are themes over and over again, as appropriate for a martial arts-centered culture. Genius lets you 'figure out' how to do stuff. You still have to train, train, train.
12) Super-strength, super speed, invulnerability, expanded senses are all 'side effects' of advancing in level, you get them automatically, although there is variance in them as you do depending on what you train.
13) A difference of 1-2 levels is generally insurmountable without some real tricks up your sleeve. It would be like a level 12 has VERY little chance of actually taking on a level 14.
-------------------
Of the Xantia, Coiling Dragon probably does the best job of showing the scaling.
low level people, 1-3, are just peasants.
4 are elite warriors.
5 are exceptional warriors.
6 is the highest a person without special martial art techniques can generally advance, with exceptions up to 8 for those with exceptionally powerful physiques.
7 - is the minimum 'potential' that elite schools want to test someone to.
8 - is a mighty general
9- is the highest level you can be and still be mortal.
Sainthood - You learn ONE secret of the universe, and the natural laws descend and raise you to Sainthood. You are now unaging, can fly VERY fast, and can basically tear apart mortals effortlessly.
10- Demigodhood - You fully comprehend ONE Law of the universe. You can now manhandle most Saints effortlessly, fly even faster, see things hundreds of miles away, draw power from faith, etc.
11 - Godhood - You know at know at least two physical Laws completely. You treat Demigods like they were Saints.
12 - Highgod- You know all the physical Laws of one Element.
13 - Paragon/Emissaries - You've fused the different physical laws of one Element into a greater understanding, increasing your power. A god Paragon can kill normal Highgods. In CD, this is a 'danger rating' of One to Seven Stars, called 'Fiends' or 'Spectres' or 'Angels' or whatnot, depending what Realm you are in.
14 - Highgod Paragon - You've fused ALL the Laws of one Element into a Complete Understanding, and developed Paragon Will, and are essentially unbeatable even by the most magically gifted Paragons.
15 - Sovereign - You are the living representation of one of the Physical Laws, with literally world/sun smashing power.
The book goes into the change of viewpoint of the characters, especially regarding time. Taking a break of centuries or thousands of years is nothing, it's just time, once they become immortal. The implications of immortals constantly being generated by the mortal planes and the need to 'get rid' of them by the constant development of a martial 'strong eats weak' universe is a central theme. The jarring shift of moving from being a Saint/Demi-god on the mortal plane and advancing to the higher planes where you are now the equivalent of a peasant is jarring. 'Divine Beasts' that could rule empires of magical beasts are raised as cattle. Unbelievable amounts of mortal wealth are worthless; legendary treasures are as common as dirt; things you strived to reach by gargantuan effort are traded like common items. 'Magic' is just an extension of the Laws, and so anyone can that can use the Law regarding it, can use magic, so nobody uses spells.
The ability to bind/control magical beasts is very powerful early on, and gets less and less so, until it becomes a mere afterthought at higher levels, just a way of getting a fairly sturdy mortal follower without having to spend time training them. Thus, Summoning and Binding are strong at low levels, where magical creatures are strong, and useless/non-existent at high levels, where they don't scale.
It's a good read, and a good story. Spending hundreds of years training just to fuse 'one' Law to the others of an Element. Some Gods spend millions of years trying to do so and advance their rank, and never manage to reach it.
It reminds of the Epic Rules, and the city they had at the end (Called Union), with level 21 Fighter-types as the average city watchman. There was a huge uproar at the very idea...these guys could be Emperors on normal worlds, but were just cops here?
Well, yeah! Because empires are boring, and in that city, Epic people were everywhere. 'Peasants' were level 8+. It was an Epic City, where stuff could be had no human Empire could possibly have.
Only, it didn't have any of the 'automatic' stuff that Xantia assumes you get crossing a threshold...flight, extra lifespan, etc. Stuff normally only awarded to spellcasters in 3.5.
==Aelryinth
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Xianxia, Xiantia, whatevah. It's the next step past Wuxia.
Yeah, funny how they like to use a ten level system. :o Catering to the video gamer generation.
They can also sense one another's levels accurately, and 'levels' are just like Valences...you don't just grow in power smoothly, you 'jump' from one level to the next, there's an actual rise in power/potential represented by a level.
In PF, that's caster level and gaining access to a whole new slew of spells. But on the martial side...eh, you can't really 'see' it, and the invisible benefit of saves, hp and BAB are shared by all classes, so it doesn't really mean much, especially when there are so many ways to raise TH, saves, HP and the like that the 'fixed elements' of leveling really are looked down upon.
In Coiling Dragon, 'level 10' are Saints, who basically dominate the mortal world, since they are basically unbeatable by mortals. Saints, in turn, tend to cluster around the rare gods, who use them as disciples and intermediaries to the mortal world while they spend centuries or millennia in training, trying to advance their understandings, and never interact with normal mortals.
In CD, one Highgod Paragon is sufficient to drag an entire covered continent off the ocean floor bigger then Asia, and start seeding it with life. That's a Seven Star Fiend, and later in the story, every major character the MC is interacting with is one of these or MORE POWERFUL. Gods and Highgods that can obliterate cities and Empires are at best 'line troops' in the fighting of the immortal realms!
==Aelryinth
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Coiling Dragon has one another interesting variant, and that's that the Higher Realms are 'more solid' then the mortal ones.
So, on mortal realms, Highgods can sense things thousands of miles away effortlessly, zip across continents almost instantly, raise them from the sea, etc.
On the higher realms, awareness of the area becomes sharply limited and harder to manipulate, so the scale of things you can do as a God takes a drastic turn downwards. Saints who can crack space with blows in the mortal realm have no such power to do so in the Infernal Realm, and only the best Gods do.
Likewise, only Paragons and Emissaries have the power to crack space in the even more 'solid' Planar Battlefield where Highgods+ do battle for the attention of Sovereigns, senses are again curtailed back, etc.
==Aelryinth
The main reason why I feel Martials do need better things is well, how powering up works for Martial vs Caster.
Every time a book comes out with a new spell, all casters pretty much get upgraded that have those spells on their class list. All of them. It doesn't cost them much even if they're not a Cleric or Druid, even if they're not a prepared caster. A few thousand gp, and they could have the spell even as a spontaneous caster thanks to pages of spell knowledge.
For fighters, they'd have to rebuild their character to take advantage of new feats as that is the source of their power. And too often what ends up happening is situations where you need a half dozen skill points in this skill and that skill, combat expertise, dodge, mobility, Improved unarmed strike, and 13 int, 13 cha.. And then they can do something that would really help them out with using absolutly none of the feats or stats listed. Or they'd be able to do something that many GMs allowed them to do in the first place.
This is why I'm really digging things like Martial Flexibility, and feats like Dirty Fighter, where you count as having a number of stats/feats/etc for the purposes of prereqs.
I'd still go a step further with having feats that rank up based on Skill points, stats, bab, or other feats/class features. Kinda like the skill trick feats for example.
So that Two-weapon Fighting for example gives you attacks once you meet the pre-reqs for the higher level feats like improved two-weapon fighting and greater two weapon fighting. It would still keep them out of reach for the lower bab casters but fighters would be able to adapt to fighting in almost any situation,
If we port over base Marvel Stats, Thor has Str 100+ in terms of benching weight, which works out to a Str Score of 65 or so.
Because of the multiplier advance for str scores (x2 every 5 points) for 3E, that means that most superstrong heroes of the Marvel Universe have Str scores from 50-75.
So, yeah, huge gap in physical capabilities.
32 is the ability to lift one ton over your head. So 42 is 4 tons, 52 is 16 tons (Spiderman Str), 62 is 64 tons. Mrs. Marvel would be about a 63, while your Class 100's are 65+.
So, there's a big difference in scale just from allowed stats. Xantia assumes a fantastic warrior is probably going to have a 30 Str by level 6 or so, and be able to wrestle with an Ogre with class levels.
==Aelryinth
Well, you can easily double 'level six' to Twelve, scale from 1-20, and bing, it all fits in nicely. The top end of Coiling Dragon magic wasn't that much better then 9th level spells, all told. Except for the teleport stuff. There has been VERY little teleport stuff, and the only one that mentioned it even being possible was a one-shot item in Desolate Era. "Teleporting" largely isn't possible, and even the short-range stuff is just 'fast movement'.
But it means shoving back certain other magical effects taken for granted at low level back to mid/high levels, particularly flight, and then really downtoning the relative power of other stuff, such as summons, as level goes up (typically by only having one Summon possible at a time).
I could easily see Beowulf as about 12th level as the legends make him. Which is about what 6th level was in Coiling Dragon, although he's not punching stone or anything, he was still capable of superhuman stuff.
==Aelryinth
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If spells worked like feats:
Fireball would have a prereq of Flaming Sphere
Flaming Sphere would have a prereq of Spark
Charm Person would have prereqs of CHA 13 and 1 rank of diplomacy
Cure Serious Wounds would have prereqs of 5 ranks of Heal and Cure Moderate Wounds
Summon Monster 2 would have prereqs of Cha 13 and 3 ranks of Knowledge Planes.
False Life would have prereqs of Con 15, Tougness, and 3 ranks of Knowledge Religion
and so on
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@Malwing: I don't feel these posts are an exercise in insanity. They're an opportunity to: verify if I am understanding the rules correctly; and how to home-brew things that don't work for me and my table.
I disagree, mostly because that's not whats normally going on. Otherwise we'd be in the House Rules subforums. A number of us have done so. I have my own ongoing project. There are things like individual feats to and things like that where we can complain about and ask for change but we're on these threads going as far as wanting martials to get encounter bypassing abilities equal to flying and teleporting.
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I disagree, mostly because that's not whats normally going on. Otherwise we'd be in the House Rules subforums. A number of us have done so. I have my own ongoing project. There are things like individual feats to and things like that where we can complain about and ask for change but we're on these threads going as far as wanting martials to get encounter bypassing abilities equal to flying and teleporting.@Malwing: I don't feel these posts are an exercise in insanity. They're an opportunity to: verify if I am understanding the rules correctly; and how to home-brew things that don't work for me and my table.
I can agree with this. I feel like some of the things that people want are leaving D&D, which is what Pathfinder is, behind. A lot of people want to bring martials up, and I can agree with that to an extent, but it seems like very few want to bring casters down.
I think that's where the problem lies. Magic has always been powerful at higher levels, but I can't remember it being anything like it is now. There were limits and checks. A lot of those are gone now. Each book causes more creep, both laterally and vertically.
I understand that this game is about wish fulfillment. We want to be badass and do amazing things, but that goal post keeps getting pushed further and further back.
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I disagree, mostly because that's not whats normally going on. Otherwise we'd be in the House Rules subforums. A number of us have done so. I have my own ongoing project. There are things like individual feats to and things like that where we can complain about and ask for change but we're on these threads going as far as wanting martials to get encounter bypassing abilities equal to flying and teleporting.@Malwing: I don't feel these posts are an exercise in insanity. They're an opportunity to: verify if I am understanding the rules correctly; and how to home-brew things that don't work for me and my table.
I can agree with this. I feel like some of the things that people want are leaving D&D, which is what Pathfinder is, behind. A lot of people want to bring martials up, and I can agree with that to an extent, but it seems like very few want to bring casters down.
I think that's where the problem lies. Magic has always been powerful at higher levels, but I can't remember it being anything like it is now. There were limits and checks. A lot of those are gone now. Each book causes more creep, both laterally and vertically.
I understand that this game is about wish fulfillment. We want to be badass and do amazing things, but that goal post keeps getting pushed further and further back.
In regards to checks and balances removed from casters, to some extent this was to increase fun. Thats kind of a guess because I wasn't really active during previous editions but from my understanding it was along the lines of Wizards getting a d4 hit die and barely any spells which I can understand not being fun. At 10 Con you're looking at 61 average HP instead of 82 at lvl 20 making wizards easily in one shot range at all levels and having way fewer spells to protect yourself would suck no matter how powerful they are. So that's where we are now. I think this coincides with the reluctance of bringing magic down. Magic is strong because it's MAGIC and it does fun broken things and otherwise what really does a Wizard DO that's not a spell? Its one thing that I take every conversation like this back to Spheres of Power, because it does more things just not at once, so you have the situation where its more fun while reducing the general power level.
Another part of it is that super powers are almost always spells and spells go deep into super powers. But there's a hole in the game that doing even magical physical prowess stuff isn't really represented. The tropes with physical prowess super powers fall neatly into Fighter and Barbarian but never are you at the point where you can throw boulders from 200 ft away or choke holding dragons.
As a side note I am working on 'Swole Feats' utilizing the Stamina Point system in Unchained and building off of the design of Rune magic from Kobold Press' Deep Magic and plan to post in the homebrew subforum along with the stamina-based scaling feats I was working on.
And the most spell-laden characters would average 1 spell per level [with a bit of front-loading at level 1] whilst having to fulfill those prerequisites.Yeah, but those spells would have to be at-will for a comparable example. I think I can somehow deal with that. It'd be even more strong than the current system. Do you really want that? No, I didn't think so.
Really? I can think of several feats which have limited uses per day, so spells would not need to be unlimited uses. And you get more spells per level than you do feats, so you are already at multi use.
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I.suggest people look at the rogue multiple sneak attack thread for reasons why martials cant get nice things.
People were legitimately saying sneak attack was too powerful... figure that out..,
Bringing up Sneak Attack:
One of the alternatives I thought up for Sneak Attack was simply subbing scaling Minor Magic from 0-9th level spells instead of Sneak attack.
In other words, the Rogue would have 3 SLA's of spells from 0-9th level instead of SA, the 'magical Rogue', with a VERY different flavor from any other spellcaster.
Then adjust his Talents and pare back anything which enhanced skills or SA, as those would be the domain of no-magic ROgues.
==Aelryinth
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Really? I can think of several feats which have limited uses per day, so spells would not need to be unlimited uses. And you get more spells per level than you do feats, so you are already at multi use.And the most spell-laden characters would average 1 spell per level [with a bit of front-loading at level 1] whilst having to fulfill those prerequisites.Yeah, but those spells would have to be at-will for a comparable example. I think I can somehow deal with that. It'd be even more strong than the current system. Do you really want that? No, I didn't think so.
Imagine if the amount of spells you got was inversely proportional to the amount of feats you got. Using Wizards as an example, they get 4 bonus feats and 40 spells. This means that a fighter should get 44 bonus feats. Currently the Figher gets 11 bonus feats so this means that 1 feat is about as powerful as 4 spells or at least should be. The numbers get screwy when spontaneous casters are involved along with arcane schools but thats a number I can get behind. So...
So lets round that down and give fighters 2 bonus feats a level and playtest it.
Or we can develop combat feats so that they are as powerful as 4 spells.
Or we can be more conservative, since they are supposed to be at-will and make each combat feat have 4 tiers of ability.
This has been my take on it so far. Been working on Physical Prowess feats to go along with it as I mentioned above.
My fighter build gets a combat Technique and a training technique at every little, plus per level stuff. Techniques generally being twice as strong as feats, and scaling by level.
All of it is better then the default fighter.
Still not overpowered. Might move him into low Tier 3, or a high 4. Spells just give that much flexibility and versatility.
==Aelryinth
Really? I can think of several feats which have limited uses per day, so spells would not need to be unlimited uses. And you get more spells per level than you do feats, so you are already at multi use.And the most spell-laden characters would average 1 spell per level [with a bit of front-loading at level 1] whilst having to fulfill those prerequisites.Yeah, but those spells would have to be at-will for a comparable example. I think I can somehow deal with that. It'd be even more strong than the current system. Do you really want that? No, I didn't think so.Imagine if the amount of spells you got was inversely proportional to the amount of feats you got. Using Wizards as an example, they get 4 bonus feats and 40 spells. This means that a fighter should get 44 bonus feats. Currently the Figher gets 11 bonus feats so this means that 1 feat is about as powerful as 4 spells or at least should be. The numbers get screwy when spontaneous casters are involved along with arcane schools but thats a number I can get behind. So...
So lets round that down and give fighters 2 bonus feats a level and playtest it.
Or we can develop combat feats so that they are as powerful as 4 spells.
Or we can be more conservative, since they are supposed to be at-will and make each combat feat have 4 tiers of ability.
This has been my take on it so far. Been working on Physical Prowess feats to go along with it as I mentioned above.
Still won't help because despite being rarer, feats are not as powerful as spells.
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Do martial characters really need better things?
Ye gods, yes.