I'm adding 6 and 7 TarkXT and adding diving the future in general.1. Curing permanent or lethal Magical curses/diseases - mummy rot, stone to flesh, feeblemind etc.
2. Binding invulnerable enemies such as the tarrasque into sleep or imprisonment.
3. Teleporting to other planes of existence.
4. Reaching places otherwise unreachable except by magic - cysts underground
5. Communicating with the dead
6. Raising the dead (most common so far I think)
7. Communicating with your God (rather than God communicating with you)
8. Diving the future.
A good and useful list. I'd personally adjust your 3rd point to be more about transportation in general, since flying/teleporting into particular locations and not just other planes is really useful/something martials find hard to do.
I suggest adding something along the lines of 'being able to shrug off or ignore many magical effects' from enemies. Eg Protection from Energy is pretty basic for casters, and negates many monsters' ability to harm characters yet martials struggle with that too.
And Divination in general, not just about the future. Makes scouting out the enemy by eg rogues with skills superfluous - even more so than casting invisibility.
Personally I think fighters and rogues play very differently - therefore a gestalt class of these would be too powerful for my campaigns. It may be worth trying though. Is a swashbuckler not there for a precision fighter.
In can see what you mean, but the idea is the list is of things that can't be accomplished by mundane means. Resisting spell effects, resisting energy, scouting ahead can all be achieved either without spells. By the right race, feats, or equipment.
Travelling long distances can be accomplished through normal methods.
Most other Divinations can be duplicated apart from detecting magic I guess. So that's point 10. Any others?
Unaided flight should be in I think, as PC wings are fairly rare. Adding Point 9!
I think magic items that mimic spells should be considered spells for the purpose of the exist, wands, potions, helm of teleport, ring of invisibility etc. magic items with static effects I probably wouldn't include. The idea isn't to strip all magic out of the game just party casters and easy access to NPC casters. Otherwise magic weapons and armour etc that Martials do have access to have to be taken out as well and it becomes pointless.
1. Curing permanent or lethal Magical curses/diseases - mummy rot, stone to flesh, feeblemind etc.
2. Binding invulnerable enemies such as the tarrasque into sleep or imprisonment.
3. Teleporting to other planes of existence.
4. Reaching places otherwise unreachable except by magic - cysts underground
5. Communicating with the dead
6. Raising the dead
7. Communicating with your God (rather than God communicating with you)
8. Diving the future (possible but requires DM fiat - existing prophecy, tarot etc)
9. flight (possible with flying mounts but rare)
10. Detecting Magic emanations (rare racial ability, drow etc)
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You can't do that CWheezy, its not possible by the rules.
Edit:
Unless you have either Metamagic Mastery: Wish or Magical Lineage: Wish anyway. Then it is arguably possible.Yes, it is, and you don't require anything you list above. All you need is a way to end up with about a 55 str which is actually not hard to do on a temporary basis.
At least if you are a spellcaster.
Once again you demonstrate that you don't actually understand what things in game actually do.
I once used it to craft an entire plane from my flesh.
What's more godlike than creating your own jungle paradise world from your own blood?
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Can we please skip the utterly pointless arguments about weird obscure rules.
It's not about one feat or one spell or one of anything.
Focus on solutions, not proving someone wrong on the internet.
EDIT:HWalsh - I would like to read what you have to write about challenging casters by using the rules as written, the campaign setting, and good encounter design. Rather then bringing it up point by point, and arguing here, why don't you write up a comprehensive list, and post in in a new thread dedicated to balancing the game through campaign and encounter design. I think you would get more useful responses, and it would not be a derail that generates arguments and hostility we would all like to avoid.
Can we please skip the utterly pointless arguments about weird obscure rules.
Fine, fine.
Still proud of it though...
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You can't do that CWheezy, its not possible by the rules.
Edit:
Unless you have either Metamagic Mastery: Wish or Magical Lineage: Wish anyway. Then it is arguably possible.There is a way to do it via some shenanigans with a level 20+ possibly. Something like having every possible strength buff you can think of and potentially shape shifting (Form of the Dragon) or maybe you can try some shenanigans with a Cleric casting restoration then holding the charge and then readying an action to touch attack the Wizard after the casting of blood money drops him by 51 Strength so he's not paralyzed so he can complete the Wish spell.
Though that is some SERIOUS levels of breaking the game that no sane GM would ever, or should ever, allow.
Magic Jar a great white whale, give any strength boost, 50+ strength, done. Literally 1 'trick', by rules legal, and it's not super hard to find a whale. I could pull this off at 9th level, whale has a will save of +8, my base save is 17 before anything else (assuming just enough intelligence to cast a 5th level spell), it's not hard to spam magic jar on a whale considering I'm about to reshape its body to make my kingdom.
As stated before, you're not really aware of the disparity since these are your arguments. Personally, I'm not sure what you get from coming into a thread of people who are aware of this disparity and saying "It's not real, stop talking about it, talking won't solve anything!" Personally, I thought your statements about 'worldbuilding with magic' were interesting, and I'll probably go into greater depth on that idea later, but for now, I think you should take more time to try and understand the issues that are being discussed instead of complaining that there's threads about this stuff.
I'm adding create your own plane of existence to the list but would prefer we never mention it again!
1. Curing permanent or lethal Magical curses/diseases - mummy rot, stone to flesh, feeblemind etc.
2. Binding invulnerable enemies such as the tarrasque into sleep or imprisonment.
3. Teleporting to other planes of existence.
4. Reaching places otherwise unreachable except by magic - cysts underground
5. Communicating with the dead
6. Raising the dead
7. Communicating with your God (rather than God communicating with you)
8. Diving the future. (Possible but requires DM fiat, pre-existing prophecy, tarot etc)
9. Flight (possible with flying mount but rare)
10. Detecting a magical emanations (possible with some racial abilities e.g. Drow)
11. Creating your own plane of existence
In can see what you mean, but the idea is the list is of things that can't be accomplished by mundane means. Resisting spell effects, resisting energy, scouting ahead can all be achieved either without spells. By the right race, feats, or equipment.
Travelling long distances can be accomplished through normal methods.
Most other Divinations can be duplicated apart from detecting magic I guess. So that's point 10. Any others?
Unaided flight should be in I think, as PC wings are fairly rare. Adding Point 9!
I think magic items that mimic spells should be considered spells for the purpose of the exist, wands, potions, helm of teleport, ring of invisibility etc. magic items with static effects I probably wouldn't include. The idea isn't to strip all magic out of the game just party casters and easy access to NPC casters. Otherwise magic weapons and armour etc that Martials do have access to have to be taken out as well and it becomes pointless.
1. Curing permanent or lethal Magical curses/diseases - mummy rot, stone to flesh, feeblemind etc.
2. Binding invulnerable enemies such as the tarrasque into sleep or imprisonment.
3. Teleporting to other planes of existence.
4. Reaching places otherwise unreachable except by magic - cysts underground
5. Communicating with the dead
6. Raising the dead
7. Communicating with your God (rather than God communicating with you)
8. Diving the future (possible but requires DM fiat - existing prophecy, tarot etc)
9. flight (possible with flying mounts but rare)
10. Detecting Magic emanations (rare racial ability, drow etc)
I'm not sure that you should allow equipment to bypass the things that you need casters to accomplish - it seems like the same thing to me?
Feats and class abilities are fair enough - but are there many beyond being a superstitious barbarian that prevent magic harming you?However, it leads onto the capability to craft custom/ideal magic items. One of the major ways of having the right magical effect available is to make it, rather than rely on the GM providing it. Which removes one of the ways of preventing one's carefully made campaign being by-passed too easily...
Yeah but you don't need to be a caster to craft magic items.
You don't need casters in the party or even currently alive in the game world to have magic swords. This isn't a discussion of magic v normal world. It is caster / martial disparity. Removing common items that don't mimic spells is unreasonable.
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The whale is tricky as you then need a way to cast Form of the Dragon with no hands, ability to speak or manipulate material components.
The Taiga Giant is a pretty good choice with a starting stat of 31 and a +10 will save.
Still and silent spell, we've pushed blood money up to a 3rd level spell, this isn't terrible even at 9th level. Also who says we need form of the dragon, we're at 50 strength, we need 1 more strength boost. Ring of internal fortitude should be enough (magical items reshape to their wearer), a +2 str belt works, hell even Bull's Strength is enough for us.
For material components, eschew materials if any spell we're using has any, and Blood Money doesn't have a material component. Really, whatever spell we're blood moneying shouldn't either since we're replacing it with blood money, so yeah, still/silent it and you're golden.
Taiga Giant involves boosting str by 20, Great White Whale involves boosting strength by 1. I'd become a huge whale making my own demiplane myself, although Taiga isn't a terrible secondary option.
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Wish has verbal and somatic components and while you turn your blood into material components if you cant hold onto them they are going to spill all over the floor.
A rod wont work as the whale has no way to hold it.
Hm, is there any reason why a whale couldn't use a silent/stilled Alter Self? The only stat adjustments are positive as listed by the spell, so that should push us to 52, and we now have hands to use everything as per normal.
Seems like a perfect solution to me.
Edit: If we were godless monsters and just wanted to make one whale suffer to be our wish bank, why not use Anthropomorphic Animal on it. Now it can talk, has hands, can manipulate things, can't move (no land speed) so we don't have to worry about it doing anything, everything it needs aside from a mother's love. At 11th we can make it permanent, and now we have nature's saddest creature to punish whenever we want wishes or any expensive material component.
It sounds super evil, but still viable.
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The real risk is that it escapes and destroys downtown Tokyo.Edit: If we were godless monsters and just wanted to make one whale suffer to be our wish bank, why not use Anthropomorphic Animal on it. Now it can talk, has hands, can manipulate things, can speak, everything it needs aside from the love of nature. At 11th we can make it permanent, and now we have nature's saddest creature to punish whenever we want wishes.
It sounds super evil, but still viable.
Since it loses all forms of movement aside from land speed, and has no land speed, it has no chance of breaking out. Hell, it'd have to walk on its hands to move itself, which while hilarious, is probably not nearly as dangerous as you would expect.
EDIT: So free material components with 4 spells
Magic Jar
Anthropomorphic Animal
Permanency
Blood Money
All possible by 11th level (due to permanency)
And at 17th level, free wishes with one additional spell
Wish
Find some way to give it permanent air (Bottle of air in its mouth? Necklace of Adaptation, etc) and shove it in an extradimensional space for whenever you feel like defiling nature, and bam, free wishes.
Before Teleport, the wizard cast Phantom Steed.
On a final note if you cast phantom steed before teleporting doesn't that count as teleporting a further large creature? How many people can you fit in a bag of holding? The largest is just over 6ft X 6ft X 6ft that's little more than a 5ft square?
I was not clear. I meant that before the wizard (actually a magus/arcanist hybrid) learned the Teleport spell to provide fast travel for the party, he had provided better travel for the party by casting Phantom Steed.
On the subject of needing fast travel otherwise you fight 2nd level bandits?? I'm not sure why this is necessary. The DM says 'you travel to xxxx' it takes four days. Of course there are bandits on the road but none give your more than pause for thought. Teleport is very rare in fiction - normally people walk, ride or perhaps fly (rarely).
The entire third module of Jade Regent, The Hungry Storm, could be summarized as, "The party travels for three months over the northern tundra and polar ice cap to reach the continent of Tian Xia. They have minor and major encounters on the way." The minor encounters give the flavor of the road. It is a travel module, the major encounters are side quests, so it ought to feel like travel!
At the beginning of the third module of Rise of the Runelords, the GM gave us a few encounters as we traveled three weeks from the city of Magnimar to the town of Turtleback Ferry. We bought horses. We dodged a cockatrice on the road. Three bugbears attacked in the night. We had a side quest in Sanos Forest to rescue a gnome village. We could have just taken a boat up the river and avoided all of that, but by choosing the open road, we chose to have minor encounters.
The players and the GM could make an agreement: hey, we are walking for a month, but let's skip the encounters that have nothing to contribute to the main plot. Our characters walk because they are too clueless to find a more comfortable mode of transport, not because we want adventure on the road. But ordinarily, I like to give the players local flavor, even if the local flavor is bandits.
If the party stops for a day to recover then the adventure doesn't stop the DM says you rest for a day and then carry on. In most case I've seen the party would stop anyway if a character had to blow all their spells for the day on healing.
In my games, people react to what the party does. For the most part, resting for a day makes no difference. But sometimes it does. For example, in Fortress of the Stone Giants the party was repeatedly harassing the fringes of the stone giant army and running away before the rest of the army could reach them. The first night, they camped nearby. A stone giant patrol searching for them found them. The following days, they ran away by teleporting to a comfortable inn in Magnimar for the rest of the day. The wizard among the stone giants finally figured it out, scryed on the inn, and teleported a counterattack to the party in Magnimar. That counterattack was a great encounter, fun for the players. But after it, they stopped the half-hearted measures and went on full-force attack rather than mere harassment. I show the players that the situation is serious by having serious reactions to their actions.
The stone giant raiding sounds like a blast. That said how much more fun would it have been if the PCs were on horses and retreating to a base camp they had needed to create themselves rather than instant travel to a comfortable inn and warm soup.
I think teleport is only necessary if the adventure contrives to make it so by accelerating a deadline.
I think teleport is only necessary if the adventure contrives to make it so by accelerating a deadline.
My character who doesn't want to walk through kilometers of death, disease, no shelter, and bad weather disagrees.
Ok. But that is a choice for comfort, not because iit is needed to make an adventure work. I like to drive a car but there are other ways of getting about. You are not useless without it.
Anyway this thread of solutions became seriously derailed with great white whale ambergris!
Any other cases where only a spell will do, for the list?
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I'm adding create your own plane of existence to the list but would prefer we never mention it again!
1. Curing permanent or lethal Magical curses/diseases - mummy rot, stone to flesh, feeblemind etc.
2. Binding invulnerable enemies such as the tarrasque into sleep or imprisonment.
3. Teleporting to other planes of existence.
4. Reaching places otherwise unreachable except by magic - cysts underground
5. Communicating with the dead
6. Raising the dead
7. Communicating with your God (rather than God communicating with you)
8. Diving the future. (Possible but requires DM fiat, pre-existing prophecy, tarot etc)
9. Flight (possible with flying mount but rare)
10. Detecting a magical emanations (possible with some racial abilities e.g. Drow)
11. Creating your own plane of existence
This isn't about if magic can fix things, it's about how Martials can contribute to the situations as well. People feel that Martials need built in abilities to match casters in order to have as much narrative power. For purposes of this thread, I've even put aside my general "meh" response to this thing in order to contribute. Let's not mess the thread up with a misunderstanding of what is being asked. Magic will fix magical problems. The question is can Martials solve those problems in a world where magical problems exist.
My solutions won't satisfy the folks who believe it needs to be an inherent ability, but here they are.
1. Curing disease - go to church, fixed. Probably they've done some wet work for the church to start with so can call in a favour or two to get this sorted. Problem over come. Narrative continues. Obviously, if you had the right type of caster this could have been done in a day or so, but then anyone who took UMD as a skill and prepped scrolls could do it too.
2. No one knows how to do this to the Tarrasque, or similarly rare and powerful creatures. I'd suggest no single caster is capable of such things and no group of casters either. I'd suggest artefact level gear and places of extreme power are needed. Research to find them, retrieve them then use them. All able to be done by non casters as well. Also, at high levels the defences against this getting solved would stop magical means from easily doing it too, otherwise it would be widely known at this stage, don't you think.
3. Gates, areas of coterminance, find a friend, use UMD, ally from the plane being travelled too that collects the group to take them their. All of those are possible, and in many campaigns probable, so you don't need a caster in the group to overcome it.
4. Why is the underground thing only reachable by magic? Can it be located by tunnelling creatures with tremor sense. If so, problem solved. Catch one and train it using handle animal. It tunnels there for you. Or use an adamantine pick and dig using phenomenal strength and endurance to do it in amazingly fast time. However, if you deliberately stated that the area cannot be reached except through magic then is a somewhat contrived example to stimey any balance. I could just easily say that an area is only accessible for those with no magical ability at all, as the area literally sucks the arcane power from creatures entering, killing them easily. How does your caster overcome that. Areas like that are just as likely in a high magic setting.
Answer the others soon.
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Gillarius, using iPad so can't quote the exact statement. However, in your post you stated "carefully constructed campaign"
I think a carefully constructed campaign has already accounted for the various ways casters can do stuff to "mess up a campaign". Quotations used to show what you said, not for sarcasm etc, in case that is unclear.
I think part of the purpose of discussing this is to show GMs the type of issues high level comes with and lets them prepare situations to tell the story they want.
2. No one knows how to do this to the Tarrasque
It's funny to me that you actually think that.
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Wrath. I'm sorry I think you misunderstand the purpose of this list. It is about understanding what narratives a martial character can't engage in so that when writing adventures this can be taken into account. Therefore the list is very much relevant to a thread about mitigating the potential for martial/caster disparity.
This is a common sense list. Of course a martial can succeed if he goes to another caster for help- that defies the whole point though. Likewise with items that mimic spells like helm of teleport, spells scrolls or wands etc. You are basically a surrogate caster in those circumstances.
All the suggestions you make for finding tremor sense creatures, coterminous planes etc all require DM fiat to make them work. Without DM fiat or very strange circumstances generally the items on the list are unavailable to non-casters.
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I'm adding create your own plane of existence to the list but would prefer we never mention it again!
1. Curing permanent or lethal Magical curses/diseases - mummy rot, stone to flesh, feeblemind etc.
2. Binding invulnerable enemies such as the tarrasque into sleep or imprisonment.
3. Teleporting to other planes of existence.
4. Reaching places otherwise unreachable except by magic - cysts underground
5. Communicating with the dead
6. Raising the dead
7. Communicating with your God (rather than God communicating with you)
8. Diving the future. (Possible but requires DM fiat, pre-existing prophecy, tarot etc)
9. Flight (possible with flying mount but rare)
10. Detecting a magical emanations (possible with some racial abilities e.g. Drow)
11. Creating your own plane of existence
Continuing.
5. Communicating with the dead. Ouija board, ghosts.6. Raising dead. Go to church. Interestingly, in a campaign that's immersive, I'd think gods would be pretty selective in who they raised with their power. Fluff wise, the God is allowing his/her power to reach into the realm of Pharasma and pluck a soul from the waiting line, possibly upsetting Pharasma. The God would want to make sure the person was worth it from his/her perspective. Again, this points to my idea of setting trumping rules every time.
7. Any one can communicate with their God. It's called prayer. However, only very high level clerics can force their God to answer them. This is an invalid situation since arcane casters can't do this either.
8. You've already answered this in terms of Narrative power. Use a tarrow, or throw the bones etc. interestingly, Golarion killed the God of prophecy, yet it still allows divination magic to work. That's either a clue to what happened, or something they're not pushing in order not to upset whole groups of players and story lines.
9. Flying is easy to get at high level for everyone. There's so much gear and mounts that let this happen that it really is a non issue. Also note, if a caster is the only one (maybe two) in a group flying, they become Insta targets for every enemy with ranged ability, since they're not getting cover etc from their companions. Painting a big target on ones self is not a very good idea for most casters.
10. Goggles, divining rod, magically sensitive creatures (like the Canary for gas pockets idea). The bestiaries don't list critters that are no good in combat pretty much. I'd like to think in a world filled with magic that certain creatures exist that are capable of sensing magic yet are not dangerous at all. Some diminutive beetle that vibrates near magic auras etc. this last one definitely falls into fiat range, I'll give you that. Still pretty cool idea though for fleshing magical campaigns out.
10. Yep, this one is pure caster domain I reckon. Martials just conquer some one else's.
My solutions won't satisfy the folks who believe it needs to be an inherent ability, but here they are.
Eh, I'm not one of those.
For the most part I think some of the stuff should just not be available to pc's.
Other things should come about as a result of specialization while other lesser things are available.
Things that require the kind of high level magic necessary to say, raise the dead or defeat a powerful kaiju, should be left as plot devices.
That';s kind of where the press towards the middle is attempting to achieve. Bring people up, bring others down and make success an argument of each person having one or two tools of relative equivalence, rather than one person stating they should walk and the other them a ride on their helicopter.
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2. No one knows how to do this to the TarrasqueIt's funny to me that you actually think that.
Please enlighten me to this method, when the book itself says no one knows.
I suspect you think you have some clever range of spells designed to "beat" the Tarrasque, but that one simple line in the book in its background is Carte Blanche for every DM to say. "Your plan failed epically" . "But why," screams the player, desperately checking rule books and obscure combinations. "No one knows" replies the DM, looking at his reference to the Tarrasque.
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Wrath were not just talking about arcane casters, otherwise raise the dead wouldn't be on the list.
You're not listening but that may be cause you are still writing. You are again using DM fiat to fill gaps. I'm fine with that - but you at least need to acknowledge that this is what you need to do if you include these plot devices
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My solutions won't satisfy the folks who believe it needs to be an inherent ability, but here they are.Eh, I'm not one of those.
For the most part I think some of the stuff should just not be available to pc's.
Other things should come about as a result of specialization while other lesser things are available.
Things that require the kind of high level magic necessary to say, raise the dead or defeat a powerful kaiju, should be left as plot devices.
That';s kind of where the press towards the middle is attempting to achieve. Bring people up, bring others down and make success an argument of each person having one or two tools of relative equivalence, rather than one person stating they should walk and the other them a ride on their helicopter.
Yeah, I can get behind that idea. The worry I have Tark, is that giving more tools to classes further exacerbates what plots can be run, not fixes it.
If everyone can now easily travel vast distances without issue, then you have removed travel adventures from your games. The trick is to work out what narrative you want to use, and then determine how come every class would need to follow it. Having natural consequences or in game reasons for spell x or ability y won't just bypass it is actually good for story telling. It keeps large numbers of plot devices available, rather than removing them.
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Wrath were not just talking about arcane casters, otherwise raise the dead wouldn't be on the list.
You're not listening but that may be cause you are still writing. You are again using DM fiat to fill gaps. I'm fine with that - but you at least need to acknowledge that this is what you need to do if you include these plot devices
Yeah, I was typing.
I just disagree with the restrictions your placing on solving these problems. Good plots and well built campaign worlds have various methods of doing everything you've asked, outside the basic rules set.
The rules are a guide for what players can "attempt". The campaign setting adjusts the success rate of those attempts in a consistent and world appropriate way.
Every article I've ever read on adventure design and campaign building stars pretty much what I've said.
If you go back an read posts you will see that is the opposite of what this list is trying to accomplish. Travel magic is not on the list precisely because it can be accomplished through normal methods.
I am trying to work out what circumstances/abilities are exclusively the province of casters. I'm not saying you can't overcome these through story means, NPC casters, ancient magic items or giving players the ability to mimic casters through scrolls etc.
I actually think the list is relatively small and Martials can achieve most narrative ends that casters can. But inacknowledg there are definitely areas where a DM has to go out of his way to make this work.
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Take a look at the spell Imprisonment. It is not a "lol, I killed the tarrasque spell", but this isn't about combat. It is about the ability to seal unkillable things away for 1 000 of years so that the next adventuring group has a "sealed evil in can" to unleash upon the world.
Check the Tarrasque. Your spell is touch, requires will save and has SR. Tarrasque ignores it by the rules.
Even if it doesn't, DM can just say. "Your spell fails to work. It turns out arch Magus Ineptus von Castalot tried this very same thing 300 years ago during the last Tarrasque rampage. He died and the creature rampaged for 5!more weeks before mysteriously disappearing" then he points to section that says "no one knows"
Sooooo off topic. Though there is an argument that because the spell changes the tarrasque size and because it is immune to polymorph magic it wouldn't word. Just and argument.
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It actually has a touch AC of 5 and a will save of +12, so it is hardly immune. More like very, very susceptible.
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This isn't something that should be a common occurrence and if it IS happening then this is EXACTLY what Rule 0 is there to stop. So, your argument, more or less, is that it can be done if the GM is insane.
Hmmm, no. You're argument was "Its not possible using the rules". I'm just refuting that argument with facts
Do you want me to explain it more? Succubus boon is not a problem btw, that is what simulacrum is for. I know you are getting mad because you are learning things bout the game, but its ok to say "Wow i didn't know that!" instead of "Extreme twinkery!!!" like that has any meaning
So how about this... I'm just bowing out.Its poor form to lie imo.
Also, its twice now you have said wrong things and not addressed that fact.
No. I have. The GM, in those situations, should say "No."
That is the point. That is what a GM does. That you can't understand that is on you. I'm sorry if you grew up in a world with GMs who always said yes to everything, but the point is we all know, based on the spell that nobody, especially the designers, expected people to abuse stacking to use Blood Money, a spell PCs aren't even supposed to have access to in the first place (It was from an AP) to bypass a restriction put in place.
Yes Walsh, we understand that your fix is to throw away every rule that displeases you and doesn't conform to your idea of what "Papa Walsh's Magical Story Time" should be. I'm sorry that you grew up in a world where people told you that all you have to do to be right is repeat yourself over and over with your eyes closed and your hands over your ears. I'm sorry you don't see the value in an earnest discussion about how the game can be improved for people who don't share your cavalier attitude towards rules and structure. I'm sorry you never learned that when a person of integrity says they're going to bow out, they do it. I'm sorry you've chosen to be a blight on any thread that seems to address martial/caster disparity so you can perpetuate a flame war you see as inevitable.
Mostly I'm sorry that I keep letting your sophomoric posts irritate me when I should just ignore you and focus on the positive aspects of the thread and conversation.
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Sword, if I get your point, you're making a list of plot devices that story writers need to consider as easily accomplished by casters of the right type and preparation. However if they're not in the group then other methods need to be added to play the scenario.
Is that what you're after?
So what I did was basically give suggestions on how to make sure you can run the scenario so any class can complete it, not just ones of specific types and preparations.
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It actually has a touch AC of 5 and a will save of +12, so it is hardly immune. More like very, very susceptible.
Agreed, and SR 36 is easily over come at levels your fighting it.
Getting in range to touch it is risky, but doable.
Reading of the words "small sphere" is ambiguous. If it means it makes the Tarrasque become small and fits in the sphere of small size, then that's a polymorphing effect and stops it.
If it means small sphere in terms of relative size to the creature, then yeah this one works.
Interesting.
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If you go back an read posts you will see that is the opposite of what this list is trying to accomplish. Travel magic is not on the list precisely because it can be accomplished through normal methods.
I am trying to work out what circumstances/abilities are exclusively the province of casters. I'm not saying you can't overcome these through story means, NPC casters, ancient magic items or giving players the ability to mimic casters through scrolls etc.
I actually think the list is relatively small and Martials can achieve most narrative ends that casters can. But inacknowledg there are definitely areas where a DM has to go out of his way to make this work.
I, personally, don't know how big a fan I am of counting being able to use a scroll as a mitigating circumstance. Essentially, you're still saying you need a caster (someone has to scribe that scroll), they just don't actually need to be present to solve the problem for you, assuming certain levels of literacy and a good ability to "fake it 'til you make it" (UMD).
That being said, I've always been a big fan of the idea of divorcing certain magics (wish, long range teleportation, overland flight, true resurrection, etc.) from spell lists entirely and instead changing them to rituals that anyone with appropriate knowledge of ritual casting (maybe a feat?) can use. These would all be adjusted to extended times unsuitable for combat casting, and you could even leave certain elements of the rituals solidly within the GM's purvey; for example, an interplanetary teleport ritual could require a handful of dirt or equivalent substance from the destination planet, something that the party generally wouldn't have access to unless the GM put it in the campaign.
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Something I wanted to ask here; does anyone think that anyone above T3 is needed in an AP? Like any of them, or are there certain ones that require that level of narrative power more than others?
To shorthand, T3 is effectively 6th level casters/sphere casters as far as I have been lead to believe/TOB or POW martials/other things of that caliber.
I really feel like keeping all players at T5-T3 would help solve a lot, since from what I've seen, higher than that almost feels like NPC levels of needed narrative control. As I've said before, Paizo hits it out of the park on T3 design, so much so that I think full casters are almost superfluous to the system.
I've been thinking of doing something for a while of making a 6th level caster version of wizard and cleric, although witch and oracle probably need it more due to them having a more interesting narrative niche.
Really a 6th level caster wizard could be interesting, maybe continuing to give them higher level slots, but not learn any spells of those levels, so they're just metamagic fillers.
Overall, if we cut arcanist/cleric/druid/oracle/sorcerer/witch/wizard and replaces them with their 6th level caster counterparts, the game and the level of play would seriously increase. Really it seems what spheres and POW were aiming for, a solid inclusion at the T3 level that would help balance the game. I believe 9th level casting isn't needed in this system, maybe lower a few spell levels to make sure we're still getting some of the more important thematic spells, but everything else? It's just too much to have in the hands of players.