Great Stuff
Some pretty awesome suggestions there. A few of them are similar to some of the house-rules I'm play-testing with my friends. The other is stuff I'll certainly consider adding to my own games.
:)
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Fewer rests and more enemies per encounter, smarter encounters forcing the use of tactics. The uses per day is the limiting factor magic, if you do not force magic users to wisely chose wisely then they will own the field. But force the magic users to make choices on when to use their spells, if they go all nova and destroy the first 3 encounters then encounter 4 through 10 will get very hard.
Make sure to keep better time so things like Recent Casting Limit/Rest Interruptions rules come into play. Keep them on the run so there is not a chance to rest a full 8 hours if need be.
I personally do not see the issue with disparity as long as you are not 3 encounters and out. It think things like Pathfinder Society suffer from this issue because the limited amount of time and little carry over between sessions.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Fewer rests and more enemies per encounter, smarter encounters forcing the use of tactics. The uses per day is the limiting factor magic, if you do not force magic users to wisely chose wisely then they will own the field. But force the magic users to make choices on when to use their spells, if they go all nova and destroy the first 3 encounters then encounter 4 through 10 will get very hard.
Make sure to keep better time so things like Recent Casting Limit/Rest Interruptions rules come into play. Keep them on the run so there is not a chance to rest a full 8 hours if need be.
I personally do not see the issue with disparity as long as you are not 3 encounters and out. It think things like Pathfinder Society suffer from this issue because the limited amount of time and little carry over between sessions.
I think you misunderstand the C/MDisparity.
It is not "the wizard has enough fireballs to out-damage the fighter".
It is "the same things that are obstacles for fighters at 1st level (such as chases, walls, environmental effects, and dangerous overland travel) continue to be obstacles for fighters at 20th level; meanwhile, wizards stop being challenged by all those things and instead move on up to truly fantastic obstacles, which the fighter only gets to engage if the wizard brings him along."
The issue is one of narrative agency and the ability to keep being involved even when the story gets "fantastic". Your advice seems sound as long as the only stories you try to tell involve wave after wave of HP-sacks that do nothing but trade full-attacks, but I'm looking for a bit more roleplay in my roleplaying games.
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Cranefist...let us paraphrase for you.
"I recently played a 6th level martial. I put 15 in his Charisma and spent a 'general feat' on Skill focus: Diplomacy." I then bought a magic item and used some skill points on a non-class skill to buy disguise ranks.
I marginalized the hell out of the wizard, who obviously didn't know his spells could be used to do what I had to pay to do, and even had more skill points then I did.
In low level group fight, I did just as good as any other melee, because in AP's full attacks dominate, and archery is the only way you can full attack all the time at low levels, so I was an archer!
I'm sure I could fail Will saves half the time like a fighter, but I could play 10 other classes and fail them half as often or less, so I did.
A year or two ago I had another martial. I spent some of my money on a cloak of dimension door, and two general feats on step up and combat reflexes. He'd appear next to the enemy, WAIT TIL THE NEXT ROUND (since he had no actions left after Dimension Door) unless they tried to retreat, and for some reason my DM didn't full attack me to death until it was my turn again and I could full attack, while my wizard buddy still hadn't decided on any effective courses of action, possibly because I was in the middle of the enemy he wanted to fireball or Web or Evard's Tentacles or COnfuse or whatnot."
Compare what you wrote to what the experienced people are actually reading.
==Aelryinth
Fewer rests and more enemies per encounter, smarter encounters forcing the use of tactics. The uses per day is the limiting factor magic, if you do not force magic users to wisely chose wisely then they will own the field. But force the magic users to make choices on when to use their spells, if they go all nova and destroy the first 3 encounters then encounter 4 through 10 will get very hard.
Make sure to keep better time so things like Recent Casting Limit/Rest Interruptions rules come into play. Keep them on the run so there is not a chance to rest a full 8 hours if need be.
I personally do not see the issue with disparity as long as you are not 3 encounters and out. It think things like Pathfinder Society suffer from this issue because the limited amount of time and little carry over between sessions.
I think you misunderstand the C/MDisparity.
It is not "the wizard has enough fireballs to out-damage the fighter".
It is "the same things that are obstacles for fighters at 1st level (such as chases, walls, environmental effects, and dangerous overland travel) continue to be obstacles for fighters at 20th level; meanwhile, wizards stop being challenged by all those things and instead move on up to truly fantastic obstacles, which the fighter only gets to engage if the wizard brings him along."
The issue is one of narrative agency and the ability to keep being involved even when the story gets "fantastic". Your advice seems sound as long as the only stories you try to tell involve wave after wave of HP-sacks that do nothing but trade full-attacks, but I'm looking for a bit more roleplay in my roleplaying games.
He's also misjudging importance.
if the wizard novas to dominate 3 encounters, the party is done. There aren't going to BE ten encounters, unless the party is stupid. The party is going to retreat to fight another day, so there might be another encounter or two without the wizard at full, and then they'll be back tomorrow.
If there MUST be ten encounters, the wizard can change his tactics. More wands, more scrolls, more crowd control. But there also better be a LOT more healing on hand, since you're just exchanging wizard spells for bags of hit points.
==Aelryinth
Narrative flow means absolutely nothing. Pathfinder Story Time is not how the rules work out. 'I can do these actions, then my turn is done.' This is how it works.
That you have GMs that are bending over backwards to include you, and you don't realize it, is not the baseline of the game.
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If you're facing 10 encounters a day, they are either mostly comprised of APL-1 or 2 and not actually taxing a casters resources that much, or they are so contrived as kyrt says that it shattered suspension of disbelief that the party would continue to adventure in such environments. If you have to make every campaign a desperate Mad Max fight for survival, there is something very wrong.
Nothing, it isn't really a big deal. Some classes are better than others? So what? Everybody's on the same team anyways. I could see balance being a huge concern for say, competitive games. Like fighting games and mobas. But for this? Nah man, the fighter is on the same team as the wizard. Why should the fighter care if he's theoretically worse off in the long run? That dude's gonna help him out!
Because, if the Fighter/Rogue/Monk can be reliably replaced with a summoned monster/large cat/dude who casts spells and does everything better than they do, why would you want to be one?
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I can see your game now.
"I run up and hit the wizard."
"Oh, he is 36 feet away so you have to make a charge attack, but there is 5' of difficult terrain so you didn't account for so your charge is a double move. I clearly marked the difficult terrain here. The wizard is going to cast quicken blah blah and use quick draw to get his wand to blah blah."
And I can see your game now.
"I run up and kill the wizard."
"Okay, he's dead. You've saved the princess and the country. Please describe your victory parade."
As you can see, you can do anything if you are just narrating your actions.
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Nothing, it isn't really a big deal. Some classes are better than others? So what? Everybody's on the same team anyways. I could see balance being a huge concern for say, competitive games. Like fighting games and mobas. But for this? Nah man, the fighter is on the same team as the wizard. Why should the fighter care if he's theoretically worse off in the long run? That dude's gonna help him out!Because, if the Fighter/Rogue/Monk can be reliably replaced with a summoned monster/large cat/dude who casts spells and does everything better than they do, why would you want to be one?
And why would you want one of those in your party? Both in and out-of-character.
There are various reasons that can be made. People in Lord of the Rings looked up to Gandalf for being the greatest dude ever (at least lore wise) and were cool with chilling with him. People chill with Superman in the justice league all the time and Batman is generally considered the coolest one by most fans regardless of power disparity. And not once does Gandalf or Superman look down on the others for being inferior in terms of abilities. He sees them for what they can do as extremely valuable allies in their respective parties.
This is a roleplaying game. Story comes first, the stats and abilities are just that, numbers. If you can't think of a reason as to why a wizard would want to chill with a rogue then the narrative element in the game isn't nearly flexible enough.
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This is a roleplaying game. Story comes first, the stats and abilities are just that, numbers. If you can't think of a reason as to why a wizard would want to chill with a rogue then the narrative element in the game isn't nearly flexible enough.
Or maybe the rules don't support the narrative you want. Gandalf doesn't look down on the others because the rules of the Middle Earth campaign support them being equally valuable. Same with Superman and Batman, although DC has to jump through extreme hoops to justify why anyone stands with Superman. But the Pathfinder ruleset does NOT support the narrative like you say it does. And you tacitly acknowledge that when you say that you need to put story first over rules.
If you are not playing by the rules, you are not playing Pathfinder. Therefore discussion that is not about Pathfinder, has little value in this...
Rule Zero Son, Play the game how you want. That's the real pathfinder - not the intellectual masturbation of shoehorning narrative into a grid system. It is more Pathfinder than what you are talking about.
If the rules are giving you a problem, like wizards are too strong, you need to gloss some things over or improvise.
yes, little grasshopper, we realize you are not playing Pathfinder.
As this is a rules-based forum for Pathfinder, little grasshopper, could you find another place to comment?
==Aelryinth
I just never thought it was a big deal ever. It's why I never like these threads. Everybody's on the same team and everyone playing should be mature about this. Who cares if the rogue can't stand toe to toe with the super summoner and his rampaging eidolon? You're on the same team for one, and there's no saying a rogue cannot be awesome despite his unequal power level. This kind of thing happens all the time in stories. It's literally the point of the ring of power being found by supposedly weakling hobbits. They overcome such insane trials as halfling rogues against insane foes way stronger than them.
And lol on Gandalf being on the same level as the fellowship. He's way tougher.
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Here's the deal: Nobody likes being the benchwarmer on the team. Nobody. It's not a matter of being able to stand toe-to-toe with Bob the Summoner, it's that Bob can completely replace you without any serious amount of effort on his part, and THEN still do his job as well, without missing a beat.
Here's the deal: Nobody likes being the benchwarmer on the team. Nobody. It's not a matter of being able to stand toe-to-toe with Bob the Summoner, it's that Bob can completely replace you without any serious amount of effort on his part, and THEN still do his job as well, without missing a beat.
Yeah but no ones a bench warmer in this game. Everybody plays a part, like in a no cut team like cross country. It's not like in football where there are backups who may never play at all.
Here's the deal: Nobody likes being the benchwarmer on the team. Nobody. It's not a matter of being able to stand toe-to-toe with Bob the Summoner, it's that Bob can completely replace you without any serious amount of effort on his part, and THEN still do his job as well, without missing a beat.Yeah but no ones a bench warmer in this game. Everybody plays a part, like in a no cut team like cross country. It's not like in football where there are backups who may never play at all.
And you never see Gandalf's power except in one or two scenes where he's going up against things of equal power.
LoTR is NOT Pathfinder.
==Aelryinth
Here's the deal: Nobody likes being the benchwarmer on the team. Nobody. It's not a matter of being able to stand toe-to-toe with Bob the Summoner, it's that Bob can completely replace you without any serious amount of effort on his part, and THEN still do his job as well, without missing a beat.Yeah but no ones a bench warmer in this game. Everybody plays a part, like in a no cut team like cross country. It's not like in football where there are backups who may never play at all.
I wish you were right, but, unfortunately without HEAVY house rules, you're not. The Rogue is completely abnegated by the presence of more than a dozen Archetypes and even Traits that do everything he's useful for, and then go vastly beyond that. The Fighter is done better as any class other than Fighter, except Monk and Rogue, and the Monk (My favorite class, btw) has effectively been taken out back and shot, repeatedly.
Here's the deal: Nobody likes being the benchwarmer on the team. Nobody. It's not a matter of being able to stand toe-to-toe with Bob the Summoner, it's that Bob can completely replace you without any serious amount of effort on his part, and THEN still do his job as well, without missing a beat.Yeah but no ones a bench warmer in this game. Everybody plays a part, like in a no cut team like cross country. It's not like in football where there are backups who may never play at all.And you never see Gandalf's power except in one or two scenes where he's going up against things of equal power.
LoTR is NOT Pathfinder.
==Aelryinth
Sure but it's a fair story comparison imo. Not necessarily a rules one sure.
I wish you were right, but, unfortunately without HEAVY house rules, you're not. The Rogue is completely abnegated by the presence of more than a dozen Archetypes and even Traits that do everything he's useful for, and then go vastly beyond that. The Fighter is done better as any class other than Fighter, except Monk and Rogue, and the Monk (My favorite class, btw) has effectively been taken out back and shot, repeatedly.Here's the deal: Nobody likes being the benchwarmer on the team. Nobody. It's not a matter of being able to stand toe-to-toe with Bob the Summoner, it's that Bob can completely replace you without any serious amount of effort on his part, and THEN still do his job as well, without missing a beat.Yeah but no ones a bench warmer in this game. Everybody plays a part, like in a no cut team like cross country. It's not like in football where there are backups who may never play at all.
You're not wrong, but the thing is I don't think it matters. For reasons I said before. Note that I think that the devs should try to balance things, but I think it's too late for that because they already succomed to power creep when the second wave of classes and archetypes themselves started coming in.
It's a lost cause at this point anyways, nothing short of a new edition couldn't fix imo. D and d has always been like this anyways in all editions, some classes are just better. And in my mind that's ok. Most of the time my favorite characters in fiction and pcs are unomptimized or even sucky. Because they role played and did things in such cool and memorable ways. That's much more important to me than the numbers and abilities that a guy can do. It's what you do with what you've got that counts.
And I think I'll leave you guys with that. Sorry if I came off as rude. This is just how I see it.
Wow this thread blew up all of a sudden! I wonder what everyone came up with? I'll probably have a lot of useful things to steal for my own house rules!
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Or that could happen?
I'd like to put out a reminder that this thread isn't about the existence of martial/caster disparity but tips, house rules or third party products that mitigate it whether its small like a gentleman's agreement or something big like rewriting the whole system or anything in between. I wanted the thread to be proactive because arguing the existence or degree is in thousands of other threads. Pathfinder has it's own macrocosm to deal with but each table is it's own microcosm where some problems are more pronounced or rules are more literal or more ignored. Lets not start insulting each other's microcosm and lets deal with ways that we can make the macrocosm serve our own microcosms better.
For example I see a lot of major adjustments in this thread. I personally believe that my own house rules have a lot of changes but they are low impact in terms of playing differently or make use of Paizo alternate rules to make the game less alien and easy to use to accommodate players that find the game complex and because I don't want to go through the work of rewriting too much. Now some of the changes in this thread get drastic to the point of almost rewriting the game or making things more complicated. Those suggestions aren't for me but I appreciate seeing them because there are things to pick out that are easy to use and more to my sensibilities and it shows that they saw a real or perceived problem and did something about it. They shifted the game a little bit or a lot to make things fun for them.
And that's the whole point. Fun. We are asking each other in this thread, how we made martials more fun and see if there are any good ideas that we can adopt.
Weird. Saw a pile of comments right away after I posted my stuff and erroneously thought it was people talking about my ideas...
Hey! At least Lemmy thought it was pretty cool. Wasnt all for naught.
I liked the original point of this thread. Lots of other places to hash out whether it should be fixed or not. This thread was for ideas people had that agreed a fix was needed.
:P
Edit after seeing Malwing's post.
Yeah, my suggested changes are pretty sweeping and expansive. Rewriting entire sections of the game kind of thing.
I'd like to think that once co plete, itd be simple in implementation for the most part, but the getting there and learning it all would be quite a bit of work.
Some basics like the saves, ac and attack bonus changes are simple though, and could do wonders to item dependency.
Weird. Saw a pile of comments right away after I posted my stuff and erroneously thought it was people talking about my ideas...
Hey! At least Lemmy thought it was pretty cool. Wasnt all for naught.
I liked the original point of this thread. Lots of other places to hash out whether it should be fixed or not. This thread was for ideas people had that agreed a fix was needed.
:P
Your ideas were very thought out. Some I would leave behind because as I mentioned before I'm a big fan of low work houserules. I do have to ask if you have a complete list of condensed feats and skill tricks. I ask because I have my own list of condensed feats and I'm trying to hit all the important ones that are super annoying.
Your ideas were very thought out. Some I would leave behind because as I mentioned before I'm a big fan of low work houserules. I do have to ask if you have a complete list of condensed feats and skill tricks. I ask because I have my own list of condensed feats and I'm trying to hit all the important ones that are super annoying.Weird. Saw a pile of comments right away after I posted my stuff and erroneously thought it was people talking about my ideas...
Hey! At least Lemmy thought it was pretty cool. Wasnt all for naught.
I liked the original point of this thread. Lots of other places to hash out whether it should be fixed or not. This thread was for ideas people had that agreed a fix was needed.
:P
I havent had a chance to get really deep into that yet. Ive got a number of skills rewritten and some major feats condensed, but was currently working on specifics of a new combat system instead.
All in my spare time.. Slow goin. Got three kids and working fulltime.
Ill post em up later when i have more time to myself again. =D
Want a grittier campaign with less power creep and so called class disparity? I have had some good results with the following simple system.
1.) Use a stat build system, keep points within a sane range. This keeps players on an even playing field.
2.) Use a static number for hit die results (high or low average) This rewards those players who invest in con, and avoids dice cheating.
3.) Let players play whatever pc class or classes they want until 4th level. Even encourage power gaming up to this point, because things are about to get rough.
4.) After 4th, all players can only advance as Adepts or experts. Thats it.The game plays out very differently from this point on.PCs tend to cling together and work together better because their world just became a very scary place! And the good part is they still have the skills and basic spells to survive.
5.) Be sure to be aware of your pcs adjusted CR, and it's also a good idea to make disposable magic items like potion/sscrolls readily available for purchase to fill in the gaps of useful spells/abilities.
6.) Avoid the temptation of adding the npc warrior class to the above options, unless you want a campaign dominated by a martial type
My biggest thing is that I actually enforce the rules on spellcasters - I want to see your spell lists, you better have your material component bags, you need to actually buy your costly material components, I enforce the limitations written actually into the spells themselves, that sort of thing.
I do this, and I killed the 15 minute work day. finding a good spot to rest in my games is very difficult when your in a dungeon.
I also made sure that people understood that no man is an island. everyone does their job.