If you take away a significant part of wealth / ability to get magic items, you hurt melees more. Casters still have their build-in magical abilities. Melees get even less options to choose from, wheras they could buy some item-based magics to open up options in game that dont center around "I full attack".
If you really want to power down the magical power in your campaign, ban Fullcasters and replace them with the closest 2/3-casters.
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A lot of setting-specific things can be done to adjust the martial/caster disparity...but that's just the problem: they are setting-specific and thus do not work as general solutions in kitchen sink Golarion.
I'll make one small point about martial/caster disparity: the most unbalancing power of the magic-using classes is their versatility, and it is really only the prepared full casting classes that are able to wholly exploit the magic system. When the wizard, cleric and druid disappear...the greater part of the problems with Pathfinder's magic system go with them.
Hey guys,
Let's get this out of the way first - Casters are more powerful than Martials because Magic. There is no way around it; you are moving lines in the sand, but not changing anything.
So with that as the context (and the acceptance that trying to completely get rid of it is a fools' errand), does having a wide selection of magic items available increase or decrease the martial/caster disparity?
Depends on the types of magic items. Magic weapons and armor, for example, are absolutely necessary even for moderate level martial types, but are largely irrelevant for wizards. Potions are often the only way that martials can get spell effects when they need them.
Wands and rods are generally caster-only schticks.
Wondrous items are in the middle, but if you allow crafting, casters can typically get them at half price, which enhances the M/C disparity.
Similarly, I run a comparatively low-magic campaign. The general guidelines I've given my players is "If it's over +1 or about 3000 gp, you have to either find it or build it yourself". To this, my Wizard player immediately asked "Will we have enough downtime to build", which I guaranteed there would be between adventures (and I think this is fair). To this, he invested in a few Crafting Feats and some specific spells that he'd want to use to build things...
Yeah, that's pretty much guaranteed to make sure your casters dominate. The martials can't get the toys they need and the casters will roll their own.
As a general rule, poor magic item availability hurts martials more than casters. Let's say, for example, your party needs to fight a flying creature that never has to land --- actually a pretty common scenario at middle to high levels.
A caster can:
a) take one of several crafting feats and craft an item/potion/wand with fly
b) just memorise fly
c) potentially use a class ability to fly (eg witch hex)
d) hire a caster to cast fly
e) hire a flying creature
A pure martial can:
a) hire a caster to cast fly
b) hire a flying creature
Note how the worst possible options are the options available to martials. By removing the item availability you are removing a full 1/3rd of their options (and their best option at that) compared to 1/6th of a full caster's options and not even the best one.
This same logic holds for items that provide buffs. Protection from evil, or freedom of movement, for example.
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Pathfinder was designed with WBL as a feature. That means that, yes, magic items - and their availability - is "baked in."
As for the disparity between martials and casters: items become less necessary as a caster levels up (less - they still need some), but more necessary to your martial characters.
Pathfinder was designed with WBL as a feature. That means that, yes, magic items - and their availability - is "baked in."
However, to some extent this can be addressed by carefully adjusting item availability on a per-item basis.
Maybe +2 swords are as common as muck, but metamagic rods are nonexistent.
How much of that is negated due to the Law of Supply And Demand mentioned above? Specifically, the idea is that there are going to be considerably more magic items geared towards martials than there will be magic items geared towards magics simply (a) there are more martials to buy stuff than magics and (b) a magical person can always just make their own, so there will be less of those things on the market?
Not much, if you dig down another level. Sorcerers have more disposable cash simply because they don't need to spend on the weapons/armor simply to stay competitive.
As well, that magical person will typically have to expend resources to be able to easily/consistently build their own things. That becomes one more resource that would have gone to something else that gets redirected. The Resistance cantrip doesn't seem very necessary until you need to make your own Cloak of Resistance.
Actually, with only a +5 for a missing spell, the resistance cantrip still doesn't seem very necessary. The Craft DC for a cloak of resistance is 5+CL or 10, which becomes 15 if you don't know the spell. A wizard with a single point in Spellcraft can take 10 on that check and succeed. A sorcerer who didn't dump int needs two points.... still not that difficult.
First of all i agree that metamagic rods are too cheap (and staves on the other hand are way too expensive) but also some metamagic feats are too weak (or rather situational) to warrant a feat slot.
Anyway to your problem, i agree with the others, not letting the martials buy stuff while still letting full casters exist and take item crafting feats is really ruining your martials.
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I've actually seriously considered similarly lowering the availability of any magic item that can't easily be used by pure martials, including Wands.
<snip>So I'd like some thoughts? How much is the disparity between Martials and Casters something that becomes "baked in" due to the items being available?.
Welcome to 1st edition AD&D in which caster-based items (aside from scrolls) were very rare on the random magic item tables and martial items and potions were fairly common.
The magic item tables were designed to generate equipment for martial characters (weapons and armor) fairly frequently along with consumables (scrolls and potions). Everything else was a lot less common, particularly wands and wizard-oriented items (robes, bracers of armor, etc). That was described as intentional and served as part of the balance between fighters and wizards. 3e, with easy magic item creation and purchase, completely turned away from that model. I think the 3e designers were probably responding to the way customers wanted things to work - but it did have consequences. PF has at least made efforts to give martial characters access to magic item creation without being a spellcaster, but the assumption of magic items on demand is still powerful enough to accentuate full caster power. I can totally get behind banning metamagic rods if a GM wants to do that to rein in caster power.
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How would you analyze this in reference to Bracers of Armor, which is something that a spellcaster will definitely want but (Monks aside) wouldn't really be a product most martials would want?
The listed CL of bracers is 7, so you need to make a DC 12 spellcraft check to make that, or DC 17 if you don't have the necessary mage armor spell. For a starting wizard, that's 10 (take 10) + 3 (Intelligence) + 1 (1 rank of Spellcraft) + 3 (class skill), so you could do that out of the box. A sorcerer would need to find four ranks of Spellcraft to be able to make that, which is still not especially challenging. (And mage armor is itself a useful spell...)
I'm of the opinion that permanent caster-focused items should be more common, precisely because there are more casters to make them. If every fifth level mage is wandering around with a set of self-made bracers, then every junk shop is going to have dozens of used bracers from long-dead or -retired wizards. And at that point the question will be "do I want to go to the trouble of spending all week making myself a set of bracers, or just pick one up?" It's not a choice of McD's vs. In-and-Out. It's a choice of "do I want to spend all day in the kitchen, or just have someone send in a pizza?"
I also want to toss out that there is an implicit GM controlling aspect to this - time. I have told my players there will always be <X> amount of time between what is basically the chapters of the story, but <X> is something the GM controls. There's a huge difference between having 18 days downtime...
That's generally the method that most GM's use to rein in potentially out-of-control casting. The problem with that is that, after a while, it breaks verisimilitude. It makes sense that if there's an emergency on Monday night, you may only have until Tuesday morning -- or even Monday midnight -- to fix it. But once Wednesday rolls around, you should be back to a normal, peaceful, pastoral life.
The new rules about crafting while adventuring just make that worse. All right, sure, it will take two months for Frodo to walk from Rivendell to Moria. But Gandalf can get in two hours of crafting in camp each night, so he's had enough time to make a 15,000 gp magic item while Frodo has had..... a bad case of blisters.
Anyway to your problem, i agree with the others, not letting the martials buy stuff while still letting full casters exist and take item crafting feats is really ruining your martials.I'm uncertain where this is coming from. While there are some pretty harsh limits, the specific idea is that magical stuff for martials would be considerably more available than magical stuff for magics.
That's not what you said earlier. You suggested the limitation was price-based ("If it's over +1 or about 3000 gp, you have to either find it or build it yourself").
This is obviously a boost to casters, since they can find it or build it themselves, while martials can only find it.
You mean the worst part. Sorcerers, Oracles and Arcanists are still full-casters with worldbending ultimate power at their fingertips, they just can't adjust which worldbending mojo they have on a day to day basis. [And they're stuck a level behind, which sucks for them next to the prepared casters but next to any other class...]
Actually, arcanists can, if I remember correctly.
With that in mind, I would counter that by saying that there really aren't that many 5th level mages out there as compared to 5th level Fighters or Rogues.
Do not go down that route.
If you do, you'll discover that your party will ROFLstomp everything once they hit about 5th level, because there won't be any high-level casters that can present them with a challenge.
It's the "why are all the city guards 12th level" issue all over again. Because if they weren't, the party of 12th level sociopaths that just rolled into the city would leave only a smoking post-apocalyptic ruin at their back when they leave, that's why! In a mostly low-level world, running high-level adventures becomes nearly impossible.
ETA: it's a problem in Star Wars, too. Jedi are both powerful and rare. This means that a Jedi PC can only be stopped by a Jedi NPC, which means that you end up with thousands and thousands of Jedi mooks, which means they're not rare.
Look at KOTOR to see how that works. I love the game, but, Shelyn's ----!, I must have killed thousands of Sith during gameplay.
A lot of setting-specific things can be done to adjust the martial/caster disparity...but that's just the problem: they are setting-specific and thus do not work as general solutions in kitchen sink Golarion.
I'll make one small point about martial/caster disparity: the most unbalancing power of the magic-using classes is their versatility, and it is really only the prepared full casting classes that are able to wholly exploit the magic system. When the wizard, cleric and druid disappear...the greater part of the problems with Pathfinder's magic system go with them.
You mean the worst part. Sorcerers, Oracles and Arcanists are still full-casters with worldbending ultimate power at their fingertips, they just can't adjust which worldbending mojo they have on a day to day basis. [And they're stuck a level behind, which sucks for them next to the prepared casters but next to any other class...]
You also forgot the Witch and Shaman in your list of prepared full casters.
You're right that it is also necessary to dispense with Arcanists, Witches and Shamans in order to truly purge the prepared full casters. The thing is, once these classes are gone, a lot of the problems with casting just sort of...logically drift away.
Why would there be scrolls with no prepared casters? Well...there wouldn't be, or if there were, they'd be relics of ancient civilizations and basically only usable as one-shot items (this is how it works in my games - Scribe Scroll is not a feat). Without scrolls, Sorcerers and Oracles are quite unlikely to wield "narrative-breaking power" with any real regularity as their best spell options are more general spells. I mean...the Sorcerer may end up taking Teleport eventually once he's got a wad of 5th level spells, but the opportunity cost of taking it early in his career is quite high, and I really don't have an issue with 16th/17th level Sorcerers being able to Teleport (it's the 9th level Wizard who screws things up in my experience).
You also need to remove the crafting rule by which crafters don't need to know the relevant spells/feats in order to craft items which have them as requirements. In a world of only spontaneous casters, suddenly crafting specialty items becomes considerably more difficult and less useful to the crafter, but making a +5 sword/shield/cloak of resistance is just as easy as it ever was. Your sorcerer can still craft a rod of whatever...but now he has to already have the feat first. Finding another crafter to make and sell you one...well, that's not so easy.
Oh, and reform Summon spells to only summon a single type of whatever per spell, rather than a huge list of possible beasties.
...I think that about covers (at least the magic part of) how I achieve some modicum of balance while keeping full casters in the game.
Anyway to your problem, i agree with the others, not letting the martials buy stuff while still letting full casters exist and take item crafting feats is really ruining your martials.I'm uncertain where this is coming from. While there are some pretty harsh limits, the specific idea is that magical stuff for martials would be considerably more available than magical stuff for magics. Why would that ruin the martials? Everyone can get a +1 Longsword. That Ring of Craft Magic, though, is something that you're literally going to have to get over the dead body of some Sorcerer.
First of all the Ring of Craft Magic, while a very very weak item, costs 12000gp while a +1 sword costs 23XXgp (the XX represents the cost of the weapon) so they aren't the same thing.
Anyway to your question:
It doesn't matter if martials will be able to find stuff more easily, the stuff that you are going to have available for anyone (up to 3000gp) means that nobody is going to be able to buy anything serious anyway; but casters can get crafting feats and make things and while martials can do the same they have to expend more resources and end up being a lot worse at crafting than a caster.
That's why you (with the rules you are thinking) you are just punishing the martials more than the casters.
Crafting feats are actually very powerful feats and that's because they effectively increase your wealth and wealth is power in this game, a full arcane caster with craft wondrous item and craft rod (if metamagic rods were allowed) has pretty much double the wealth of a martial who just buys stuff unless the martial almost always gets his items by loot and nevers buys while the caster never does and has to craft them, in which case they are again equal. Of course in order for this to happen you will have to get A LOT out of your way in order to tailor the treasure for the martials (including doing things like "this cloak of resistance +2 doesn't work for anyone who can cast spells"). Even if you do follow the suggestions found in ultimate campaign and you *somehow* limit the profit from crafting feats to 50% of wealth you will still have issues unless you do the "martials always find exactly what they need while casters never do".
The world, as you level up, assumes you have magic. It assumes you have some way to hit that incorporeal, or that dragon flying 100 ft outside of your reach, or in some cases, the ability to traverse planes.
But only casters get these abilities.
There is nothing in any story that assumes you have with you a fighter, or any other martial, that casters simply cannot replicate with their own class features (Summon Monster X, for example).
This is why there is such a disparity. Martials are required to have casters help them. But casters can completely ignore the aid of martials. For those people who say they wish to play a "team" game and are glad that some roles are necessary, why then can the martial role be so easily neglected? Is it still a "team" game when 1 member of the team is absolutely useless?
A world with zero magical items makes the game literally impossible for a martial character. But for a full caster, or even most partial casters, that's just Mondays.
Anyway to your question:
It doesn't matter if martials will be able to find stuff more easily, the stuff that you are going to have available for anyone (up to 3000gp) means that nobody is going to be able to buy anything serious anyway; but casters can get crafting feats and make things and while martials can do the same they have to expend more resources and end up being a lot worse at crafting than a caster.
That's why you (with the rules you are thinking) you are just punishing the martials more than the casters.** spoiler omitted **...
Whoawhoawhoa... that 3000 gp guideline is basically "What's in the magic store". What you FIND is something different, and based on the power level of the enemy.
I used as a previous example the likelihood of finding a Belt of Physical Might vs a Headband of Alluring Charisma. That was actually a situation I had. The baddies that my PCs have fought have largely been grunts with a "Name" boss that hasn't been a full spellcaster yet (though, admittedly, the Big Bad is a Sorcerer). As such, the best conventional item available was that B.o.P.M..
So the 3000 gp limit isn't applying to their enemies (and as such their loot); it's a practical guideline for what you can find at Magic Mart.
Yes, that's what i said, that's what is going to punish the martials.
What, i think, you don't get is that the loot that is either found as treasure or taken from the enemies belongs to everyone and not just the martials, to use your example that belt of STR+2 belongs to the whole party, which means that the fighter has 1/4 and the wizard has another 1/4.
The world, as you level up, assumes you have magic. It assumes you have some way to hit that incorporeal, or that dragon flying 100 ft outside of your reach, or in some cases, the ability to traverse planes.
But only casters get these abilities.
There is nothing in any story that assumes you have with you a fighter, or any other martial, that casters simply cannot replicate with their own class features (Summon Monster X, for example).
This is why there is such a disparity. Martials are required to have casters help them. But casters can completely ignore the aid of martials. For those people who say they wish to play a "team" game and are glad that some roles are necessary, why then can the martial role be so easily neglected? Is it still a "team" game when 1 member of the team is absolutely useless?
A world with zero magical items makes the game literally impossible for a martial character. But for a full caster, or even most partial casters, that's just Mondays.
Story time but since it's something that happened during the 6th book of Jade Regent i will put it in spoiler.
After our group finished jade regent, i (jokingly) said that the wanna be diabolist elf wizard could take the palace and defeat the regent and his retinue without the rest of the party if he took a week or two to prepare (time which we had) and get a few high CR devils (via greater planar binding) to help him and his "pet" immolation devil (through the true name arcane discovery).
It's fair to say that the guardians of the palace were mostly brutes and the regent was a lvl 15 samurai and his retinue was a CR 16 oni (brute), a lvl 15 ninja (useless) and a lvl 15 oracle of ancestors (the only real threat).
Some of this can be dealt with by using the automatic bonus progression.
There's an option for having no magic items at all and you get automatic bonuses 2 level earlier.
Some of this can be dealt with by using the automatic bonus progression.
There's an option for having no magic items at all and you get automatic bonuses 2 level earlier.
That's sort of what my group was doing anyway as a home-brew since I was running a low-magic campaign.
A lot of setting-specific things can be done to adjust the martial/caster disparity...but that's just the problem: they are setting-specific and thus do not work as general solutions in kitchen sink Golarion.
I'll make one small point about martial/caster disparity: the most unbalancing power of the magic-using classes is their versatility, and it is really only the prepared full casting classes that are able to wholly exploit the magic system. When the wizard, cleric and druid disappear...the greater part of the problems with Pathfinder's magic system go with them.
You forgot arcanist..
But again, EVERYONE wants the big 6. Cheap physical belts still help casters (belts of con and dex anyone?), cloaks of resistance are staples for everyone. Mental stat boosters also shaft the poor fighter and rogue (dat will save...) if they are too expensive. Amulets of Natural Armor are very commonly needed all arpund, ans bracers of armor are a must for monks...
The only things you can REALLY change that will.not just completely screw things up are weapons, armor, and meta magic rods. Even wands are hard to i.increase since martials depend on the wand of cure light wounds. Unless you want to FORCE someone to play a "HEALER", at which point you just create more resentment and motivatr people to ditch the fighter for disposable summons aince he forces other people to play other thing or os prohibitively expensive...
Are +1 swords a class feature of the Fighter? Do they get enchantments as they level up? No? Then incorporeals are impossible to hurt for a Fighter with no access to magical items.
As for Dragons, +1 swords and +1 Bows do little against Dragons that are run intelligently. Most bows have a range of 110 ft, if you're lucky. Dragons have a fly speed of 200 ft or more, combined with Flyby Attack and 100 ft breath weapons.
Many of them can also cast spells, which is not something the Fighter has any inherent resistance to, and once again desperately NEEDS magic to shore up (Cloak of Resistance). Which is really a huge point when you think about it, saves do not go up nearly as fast as certain Monster DC's can go, unless you have access to magic and magic items.
Spells can also help with issues of survivability, so a full caster with the proper spells can almost definitely have a better AC than a Fighter with no magical items, on top of better saves, and a vast array of other defenses (Displacement, Mirror Image, Contingency, etc.).
But yeah, I will concede that most non-dragons go down to a well made Archer, but that only proves that the only way to be even halfway effective in a higher level fight, is to focus entirely on a single combat style. Attempting to hit things with a sword with no inherent access to pounce or even higher movement modes is almost impossible without magic, unless enemies are played like suicidal idiots.
But again, EVERYONE wants the big 6. Cheap physical belts still help casters (belts of con and dex anyone?), cloaks of resistance are staples for everyone. Mental stat boosters also shaft the poor fighter and rogue (dat will save...) if they are too expensive. Amulets of Natural Armor are very commonly needed all arpund, ans bracers of armor are a must for monks...
The only things you can REALLY change that will.not just completely screw things up are weapons, armor, and meta magic rods. Even wands are hard to i.increase since martials depend on the wand of cure light wounds. Unless you want to FORCE someone to play a "HEALER", at which point you just create more resentment and motivatr people to ditch the fighter for disposable summons aince he forces other people to play other thing or os prohibitively expensive...
Actually, if you just made wands more expensive and potions cheaper, that would help balance things. Fighters don't need CLW wands and in fact would prefer CLW potions, but they're not cost effective. Doubling the price of all wands would allow fighters all the potions they need, but wizards would still prefer wands for the action economy -- and be willing to pay for it.
Actually, if you just made wands more expensive and potions cheaper, that would help balance things. Fighters don't need CLW wands and in fact would prefer CLW potions, but they're not cost effective. Doubling the price of all wands would allow fighters all the potions they need, but wizards would still prefer wands for the action economy -- and be willing to pay for it.But again, EVERYONE wants the big 6. Cheap physical belts still help casters (belts of con and dex anyone?), cloaks of resistance are staples for everyone. Mental stat boosters also shaft the poor fighter and rogue (dat will save...) if they are too expensive. Amulets of Natural Armor are very commonly needed all arpund, ans bracers of armor are a must for monks...
The only things you can REALLY change that will.not just completely screw things up are weapons, armor, and meta magic rods. Even wands are hard to i.increase since martials depend on the wand of cure light wounds. Unless you want to FORCE someone to play a "HEALER", at which point you just create more resentment and motivatr people to ditch the fighter for disposable summons aince he forces other people to play other thing or os prohibitively expensive...
Not quite true... you need 50 potions to match a single wand. Unless you conpletely ignore encumbrance or give everyone a Bag of holding early AND reduce the price of CLW potions to next to nothing... they will NEVER favor the potion. Also, potions are no better in combat (AoO to.use it..)
But again, EVERYONE wants the big 6. Cheap physical belts still help casters (belts of con and dex anyone?), cloaks of resistance are staples for everyone. Mental stat boosters also shaft the poor fighter and rogue (dat will save...) if they are too expensive. Amulets of Natural Armor are very commonly needed all arpund, ans bracers of armor are a must for monks...
I feel you on a lot of that; one other variable in this conversation is the thought that Magi are spellcasters that want that Belt of Physical Might as well.
With that said, I just can't see a Wizard that demands that B.o.P.M. instead of the Fighter having it. That seems like a good way to find yourself on your own... which, depending on the caster, isn't THAT big of a problem.
The only things you can REALLY change that will.not just completely screw things up are weapons, armor, and meta magic rods. Even wands are hard to i.increase since martials depend on the wand of cure light wounds. Unless you want to FORCE someone to play a "HEALER", at which point you just create more resentment and motivatr people to ditch the fighter for disposable summons aince he forces other people to play other thing or os prohibitively expensive...I think we see the problem with the system when we say someone is "forced" to play the Healer. It's a viable party role that is often played by a Wand of Cure Light Wounds. Remove that, and SOMEONE needs to be able to heal.
Interestingly, though, you may note from varying spots in this thread that I've basically houseruled away the "Disposable Summons" and "Cure Light Wounds as a Party member Role", which means you have MUCH more of a need to be able to have people play these roles. As I mentioned before, when a Magic Item renders a party role or class feature useless, I see the problem as the Magic Item, not the Role. Anything that lets the non-spellcasters (or certain more specialized characters like, say, a Life Oracle) have a bigger, more...
The thing is, 2E used to be very much "you NEED a thief and a HEALER"... and people complained...
Nobody likes being told "I know ypu want to play a battle cleric but we need a healer so you need to be the fighters personal band aid". That rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, That is why healing options are everyqhwre ans trapfindingis so easy to.get. so people dont have to be forced into a role because "the game is designed this way or u die"
I could dig a setting where CLW potions cost 10-20 gold a piece.
even that is pricy compared to a wand. You are lookin at 500-1000 gp to match a wand of CLW...
A wand of CLW which costs 750I could dig a setting where CLW potions cost 10-20 gold a piece.even that is pricy compared to a wand. You are lookin at 500-1000 gp to match a wand of CLW...
I was lookin highend. Lol sorry. But yeah, 10gp could work but you still jave the issue of running around with 50 potions. Depending on your GM that weight can start adding up at lower levels. And its just much more messy a solution than the happy stick.
NOW WHAT YOU COULD DO is make a system like Path of Exile pc game.
In the game, potions are more like staffs. They got charges and different vials restore certain amounts. The vials recharge over time. But at that point you are making things even more complicated simply for the sake of the martial who cant heal.
Your other option is to give everyone fast healing equal to con mod. But this.fast healing only triggers out of combat, so OOC you have no need for healers or heal sticks. This.would be simple and benefit beefy martials.
One thing you could also do is make a.suppressed version in combat. When in combat your fast healing slows to 1/2 con mod.
This way martials really CAN go all day and it benefits the really beefy martials. Also, it makes being a HP tank doable. Now granted, a interesting side effect is that Kineticists suddenly get VERY tanky,,.