Seriously now, how do you fix martial / caster disparity and still have the same game?


Homebrew and House Rules

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But it would give them more options while fighting, which is always nice. I imagine it hurts to take the trip line only to fight untrippable enemies...But if feats are freed to let them learn multiple lines this is less of a problem. It's frustating seeing spells improve in power / duration for no cost, but fighters need to take trees. Either let more feats scale naturally or make spell power increase via metamagic (or simply preparing a spell at a higher level)

Add in more skill points as a baseline & an expanded unlock system so that skills are more generally useful & ranks in them are more important than simple bonuses and fighters would be able to contribute more outside of combat as well.

So, if in this hypothetical world the unlocks could only be done with ranks put in skills when one levels in the relevant class (which'd probably be a nightmare to keep track of if multiclassing for more than one level), what about adding feats to add any skill as a class skill? Or two if one skill as class skill isn't worth a feat.

Also to be clear, my thought is that something akin to the current skill unlock system would become standard, available to every class as you put points in a skill (whether restricted solely to class skills or otherwise), and then a second unlock system could be put on top of that at the cost of a feat per skill like signature skill currently (made more available for rogues).


houstonderek wrote:

Vancian refers to the Jack Vance novels, since D&D casting has only superficially resembled it pretty much ever.

AD&D 1e didn't have the problems 3x/PF dies, since 3x casters are in "easy mode".

I was only around for a grand total of three games of 3.5 before playing Pathfinder so I can't attest to how D&D played before Pathfinder. However I was under the impression that a lot of points where casters get off easy in 3.X was because there were a lot of points where they were just unfun. For example having a roll of a d4 for life at first level, not even max the roll, so getting that phenomenal cosmic power at later levels was a rightfully gained achievement because you would have had to last that long to get it and in the meantime you had frightfully low amounts of spells for a lot of the game.

@Raltus I wound up condensing a lot of combat feats into one feat to deal with some of this, but it doesn't so much as solve any problems but makes room for new third party feats that do solve problems.

Liberty's Edge

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Atarlost wrote:
Malwing wrote:
That's the kind of thinking that perpetuates the caster problem in the first place.

You go to game with the system you have, not the system you wish you had. Unless you have time and creativity to homebrew everything from scratch. Digging the caster dominance out of Pathfinder and still having something resembling Pathfinder is impossible. Getting rid of all non-casters but arbitrarily calling some casters non-casters doesn't count and wouldn't preserve the feel of the game in any case unless you were already not using non-caster PCs, in which case you already don't have a problem.

Try some different system designed for low magic that comes bundled with a setting that doesn't assume high magic. If you restrict your search to d20 systems what you find won't be much less like Pathfinder than Pathfinder with all the magic requiring challenges ripped out.

houstonderek wrote:

Vancian refers to the Jack Vance novels, since D&D casting has only superficially resembled it pretty much ever.

AD&D 1e didn't have the problems 3x/PF dies, since 3x casters are in "easy mode".

Linear Fighter Quadratic Wizard complaints predate 3.0.

And Vancian doesn't refer to the Jack Vance novels. He did not use the system in his true novels. The Dying Earth books where it appears are short story collections. One is marketed as a novel, but incorporates previously published short works.

The system appears to be designed to create a similar effect to a mystery novel where the reader has the list of tools and is asked to ponder how they can be used to solve the problem. To work as such the story must be fit into a single spell preparation period. It's about setting up Chekov's Arsenal so the reader can wonder what on Earth you're going to do with the glaive-guisarme-glaive. Outside that inverted variation on the mystery genre spell preparation is just a nuisance setting detail to give lip service to because you're writing for the Forgotten Realms license but that...

Yeah, they started in 2e, when AD&D was "simplified", segments were removed, and a host of other changes.

1e magic users didn't cast on their action, they started casting on their action, and the spell went off some time later, usually around a segment per level later. 1st level spells went off quickly, for the most part, higher level spells gave everyone much more time to disrupt casting.

Most of the problems in the Dragon mag "Forum" section, or Skip Williams' Sage Advice, were solved by just using the rules. Problem is, a lot of people didn't want to have to think about anything once the hobby gained some popularity and non-war gamers started playing.

But, whatever.

When casting became a standard action, concentration checks became a thing, and moving 30' before or after casting was possible, a host of issues popped up. 3x made whatever issues were in 2e seem like nothing, frankly.


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In terms of the fighters being poor at fighting thing, I feel I may need to elaborate.

Basically, in D&D, fighting entails a lot more than just hitting things with sticks or occasionally being able to successfully trip or knock something over. While all of what I say now is true at low levels in one form or another it all becomes very obvious at mid to high levels.

1. Combat is very mobile. Moving around, using cover, dropping ranged attacks (which often do not target AC or target a greatly reduced AC) is something you have to deal with. If you cannot reach your target you are an observer rather than a combatant.

2. Offense comes in far more than physical attacks. There are way more things that will ruin and defeat you in short order through blasting you with energy damage or targeting various non-AC defenses than not.

3. Problem solving is a big part of combat. Fighting a clutch of wyverns is a loooot less harrowing when your party's ranger can make their party immune to poison for the next few hours. Fighters lack problem solving.

4. Having multiple ways to approach and solve an issue in combat is a virtue since counteractions are the name of the game. Playing a game of chess with a single piece, even a queen, is placing yourself at an extreme disadvantage. It's much worse when you're limited to a pawn.


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Ranishe wrote:
But it would give them more options while fighting, which is always nice. I imagine it hurts to take the trip line only to fight untrippable enemies...But if feats are freed to let them learn multiple lines this is less of a problem. It's frustating seeing spells improve in power / duration for no cost, but fighters need to take trees. Either let more feats scale naturally or make spell power increase via metamagic (or simply preparing a spell at a higher level)

There is very little that grapple/disarm/trip/sunder can do to really swing battles at mid to high levels. Ignoring that huge quantities of enemies are immune to them for various reasons, even things like Sunder isn't always particularly great against creatures that use weapons because the amount the weapon contributes to their overall power is frequently fairly small (because NPCs don't have the allotted wealth to have weaponry that greatly empowers them that is feasible without spending many rounds chipping away at one trinket, then the next, then the next).


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Atarlost wrote:
You go to game with the system you have, not the system you wish you had. Unless you have time and creativity to homebrew everything from scratch. Digging the caster dominance out of Pathfinder and still having something resembling Pathfinder is impossible. ...

Unless you consider caster dominance a requirement for the game to be called Pathfinder, I think that statement is rather silly.

There dozens of ways to severely limit casters power that affect a single sentence or paragraph of the rules. For example, no starting stat above 16 after racial adjustments, or full casters don't get bonus spells for high ability scores (like in AD&D). Making magic item crafting cost the price of the item. Make casting a save or suck spell or a 7-9 level spell take a full round action.
If you are willing to remove a dozen or so spells, and the quicken spell feat, that makes a significant difference. If you are willing to end campaigns at about 15th level, that also cuts off the part of the game where the problems get most sever.
There are literally hundreds of simple ways to even things out, which most people would barely notice. Casters are still going to have the narrative edge, that is baked into the system, but even that could be fixed with something like skill unlocks or feats 2.0.


Atarlost wrote:
Malwing wrote:
That's the kind of thinking that perpetuates the caster problem in the first place.

You go to game with the system you have, not the system you wish you had. Unless you have time and creativity to homebrew everything from scratch. Digging the caster dominance out of Pathfinder and still having something resembling Pathfinder is impossible. Getting rid of all non-casters but arbitrarily calling some casters non-casters doesn't count and wouldn't preserve the feel of the game in any case unless you were already not using non-caster PCs, in which case you already don't have a problem.

Try some different system designed for low magic that comes bundled with a setting that doesn't assume high magic. If you restrict your search to d20 systems what you find won't be much less like Pathfinder than Pathfinder with all the magic requiring challenges ripped out.

But what I'm arguing is that a lot of the problems to be solved can be solved by Spherecasters or badly made spellcasters in the context of Paizo adventure paths so I really don't think that having less diverse casters is as impactful as some would say. No homebrewing needed. Running or playing with groups that have no idea what they're doing and they still succeed in published adventures pushes this idea because I've played Curse of the Crimson Throne with only the Cleric as the full caster and nothing prepared that silver bullets a situation and it basically became trivial because of basic competence and minor casting.

Please don't suggest I try a different system. I've been through too many systems before arriving at Pathfinder. Any D&D isn't even my first or most played system. I'm versed enough in playing a bunch of RPGs.


Ashiel wrote:

1. Combat is very mobile. Moving around, using cover, dropping ranged attacks (which often do not target AC or target a greatly reduced AC) is something you have to deal with. If you cannot reach your target you are an observer rather than a combatant.

One thing that kind of bothers me but I never really address it are the spells that just target something or can have their point of origin be basically anywhere on the map making taking cover from spells not exactly a thing. How different would the game be if any spell that targeted something required an attack roll of some sort before saves?

Edit: Oh and I found the comic that encapsulates my problem with martials and high level play that illustrates why I think they need at least a little bit more super powers and why they aren't that great at killing.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

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Combat tricks are basically for use against other humanoid opponents, which NPC's the PC's will likely overpower.

Not so much against monstrous foes.

The easiest way to solve this problem is simply with the Expertise feat. It is supposed to make you a combat expert, right?

For a number of Combat Feats equal to your Expertise bonus, you gain a bonus to your CMB and do not provoke an AoO with them. So, announce the penalty to melee attacks and gain the bonus to your CMB, making you a maneuver specialist for the round.

There you go. All done. Ties in Expertise to fancy combat skill, it scales, AND you eventually get basically all the manuvers you want...for ONE feat.

Or, you know, you can gain the bonus to AC instead.

As a kicker, you can get rid of the Int 13 pre req and say: If your Intelligence is 13 or higher, you gain an additional Maneuver. Which now REWARDS a higher Int, but doesn't REQUIRE one.

==Aelryinth


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Irontruth wrote:
Athaleon wrote:
Irontruth wrote:
Aratrok wrote:

You're free to play your games however you like, but the system you're playing isn't 5e and telling people how great 5e is while describing something totally different isn't honest or helpful (wallets are at stake here!). It's mind caulked together with 5e as the title, but you are not playing the game that's for sale.

EDIT: The limits on undead are how many spell slots you want to dedicate to it. I did say hundreds not infinite. And I said nothing about buffs, though that's another black mark against martials; casters are strongly encouraged not to waste their time making them stronger with spells anymore.

For reference, a 15th level necromancer, using only one cycle of 8 hours, can maintain 90 undead with their spell slots, and can have infinite captured undead from other sources due to Command Undead.

Have you had this happen in a game? Or are you just theorycrafting?
"Have you ever seen an iron ball and a wooden ball fall at the same speed when dropped from the same height? Or are you just theorycrafting?"
If professional game designers need to test their rules, I don't see why being skeptical of anyone else is out of line.

I'm just tired of people dismissing "theorycraft" as invalid, especially when it comes to something as specific as "Do the rules say you can do this or not?". Playtesting is necessary, simply to get as many pairs of eyes scrutinizing the rules as possible. Trying to use playtests to answer specific questions is fraught with such problems as small sample size, wildly differing test parameters, and experimenter biases.


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I'm gonna chime in and say a lot of things would be a lot better if there were more people using "theorycraft" to head off issues in the system and people actually paid attention to it.

There were people who tried to explain that the math for combat maneuvers didn't work back during the PF public playtest (among other things that people frequently lament in Pathfinder). Despite the fact that the game is mostly math and combat maneuvers are entirely math, they were mostly ignored and told to just play the game and tell them about their experiences playing the game.

Fast forward to today where it's generally common knowledge on the boards that the math for combat maneuvers is broken and has always been broken. Fast forward to today where Fighters still suck and have no narrative power.

It's downright ridiculous to suggest that the best way to find most of the bugs is to play through multiple campaigns in the usually very limited timespan that public playtests go through. That's probably actually the worst possible way that you can playtest something.

When you're bugtesting a video game, you don't just casually play through the game doing the obviously expected things. You frequently do weird things, you test collision, you jump around in weird places, you flip through menus, you check for things that you would through experience know could produce buggy results if something wasn't right, you intentionally use abilities on creatures that the tooltips say they don't work on, etc. You test everything.

And the funny thing is, good theorycraft is generally right.


A friend has been running a pathfinder campaign for a while now with one major change - he eliminated full casters and pet classes/options altogether (except as NPC's and villains). Once that was done, balance became almost automatic and the game became far easier to adjudicate and plan for as a GM. If someone still wanted to play a full caster, he has allowed it, but with a 6 level spell progression similar to a Bard or Warpriest.

After some initial resistance, players turned out to be okay with it, because for most it ultimately comes down to enjoying the many, many options you do have rather than pining for the relatively few options you don't.


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Wiggz wrote:
A friend has been running a pathfinder campaign for a while now with one major change - he eliminated full casters and pet classes/options altogether (except as NPC's and villains). Once that was done, balance became almost automatic and the game became far easier to adjudicate and plan for as a GM. If someone still wanted to play a full caster, he has allowed it, but with a 6 level spell progression similar to a Bard or Warpriest.

I'm vehemently opposed to core mechanics that are only available to NPCs so unfortunately that wouldn't work for me.

I think cavaliers and rangers are getting shafted by that too.


Atarlost wrote:


There's a reason those are given to all casters, though. Restricting them to one sphere means that instead of a few gimpy classes you have a few gimpy classes and n-1 gimpy spheres where n is the number of spheres. Or worse, that the party doesn't have something that it needs to have to solve problems.

For instance, taking away detect magic means that it is no longer possible to identify magic items without casting identify. And I'd be surprised if they put identify and detect magic in different spheres anyways. There are other extremely important spells. Teleport makes the settlement rules not completely and totally screw over high level martials by letting them check multiple metropolises for magic items in stock and maybe get what they need. Protection from Alignment is required to prevent martials from being puppeted. If no one took whatever sphere those are in there's going to be a problem.

Before you can take away the casters' swiss army knife you need to alter the world so that nothing requires a can opener or a screwdriver or a pair of tweezers. That means throwing out most of the bestiary. That might be the best solution, but it certainly wouldn't be the same game.

You're mistaking a forest fire for an asteroid impact.

The fact that it's impossible to identify items without a specific set of capabilities is exactly the kind of thing Pathfinder strived to expunge from the system when converting from 3.5.

For me the ability to detect magic effects and magic items are precisely what the skill Spellcraft is for.

You don't need to annihilate the system to fix it. You just need to fix it.

Design direction has always strived to allow players to build their characters a massive variety of ways. Ideally I should be able to build a group of 4 fighters or 4 rogues and have roughly the same experience in terms of difficulty as 4 wizards or 4 druids.

4th ed. and other systems cut out the "essential" spells and turned them into class neutral abilities.

To me, the way spherecasting works brings it closer to what Pathfinder has been moving towards in the sense of simple resource pools to draw from to power abilities.

In addition it opens up further builds as it allows multiclassing to actually be feasible in that caster level goes up with every spellcasting class.


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Aelryinth wrote:

If my fighter and rogue can't cast spells, I see no problem WHATSOVER with casters never getting skill unlocks. If they want 'em, make em multiclass to pick them up and abandon their magical studies for a time.

i.e. casters have always had the cake and gotten to eat it, too. Time to put a stop to that.

I'd go so far as to say that the spellcaster's "skill unlocks" are their spells. Invisibility and Open Locks should be spells that grant temporary access to skill unlocks that have those effects.

The way I see a wizard vs a skilled character is the skilled character spends his time training to be very good at something specific, to the point that it's part of his nature, while the wizard trains at tapping into magical forces that grant him temporary access to these same powers.

Since a wizard has a greater range in versatility, it needs to be limited: it should come at a later level than the focused training, or it should typically be limited in how often it can be done (depending on the nature of the task).

If, instead, you have a focused spellcaster: he is effectively as limited as the trained counterpart in that he has a very small range of abilities that are thematic, then he should be able to get the same level of effect as the skilled character. He just uses a different source for his ability (tapping into a mystical source of power, instead of training at a skill).


Just play the game. Not everyone can be a Hall-of-Fame quarterback. Someone has to be the Wedge-Buster on Special Teams (I'm looking at you Fighter).


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HardMaple wrote:
Someone has to be the Wedge-Buster on Special Teams

Good job identifying the topic of the thread. We're trying to fix that.


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HardMaple wrote:
Just play the game.

That's what I'm trying to do.

Quote:
Not everyone can be a Hall-of-Fame quarterback in real life.

Fixed that for you.

Also - what is the point then of playing a game of make-believe if I can't imagine to be a Hall-off-Fame quarterback?


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Oh man I laughed at "only one player in this rp game can be awesome, sorry guys hope you ppicked right"


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Ashiel wrote:
Wiggz wrote:
A friend has been running a pathfinder campaign for a while now with one major change - he eliminated full casters and pet classes/options altogether (except as NPC's and villains). Once that was done, balance became almost automatic and the game became far easier to adjudicate and plan for as a GM. If someone still wanted to play a full caster, he has allowed it, but with a 6 level spell progression similar to a Bard or Warpriest.
I'm vehemently opposed to core mechanics that are only available to NPCs so unfortunately that wouldn't work for me.

I understand that position. Its been my experience however that when NPC's aren't rigorously defined by the exact same rules the players themselves have become intimately and exhaustively familiar with, the world they're gaming in suddenly becomes a much more magical place.


CWheezy wrote:
Oh man I laughed at "only one player in this rp game can be awesome, sorry guys hope you ppicked right"

I suppose it all depends on how one defines 'awesome'.

Someone got to learn to use the Force and be a jedi... someone else got to be the aristocrat, diplomat and leader of an entire rebellion, while someone else got to the rogue, the scoundrel who didn't have to play by the rules... to me, they all seemed pretty 'awesome'. And to be honest, the campaign wouldn't have been near as much fun or as exciting for all concerned without the gadget utility guy, the comic relief guy and the loyal side-kick guy either.

Sometimes its not about 'winning' the campaign, but rather enjoying the journey it offers.


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Wiggz wrote:
I understand that position. Its been my experience however that when NPC's aren't rigorously defined by the exact same rules the players themselves have become intimately and exhaustively familiar with, the world they're gaming in suddenly becomes a much more magical place.

I do think it's a very dangerous line between "it's more magical" and PC's are special beings that aren't allowed to break the rules. Most games I've seen separate PC's and NPC's mechanically have had a rather gamey nature to it (4e especially) or had the PC's are rather super special beings.


or you could get gud.
I made a fighter that focused on things like called shots, craft alchemy, and ranged weapons.
"oh you need to speak to cast, there goes your throat"
"oh look at those hands you don't have"
"oh there's a group of you, pellet grenade + alchemist fire + crossbow"
get fleet and run and when they give chase, run like a punk, hide then jump out and shoot them in the legs.
METAL GEEEEAR
just create a character who's got one good trick that can be used in several different situations (improved unarmed strike, catch off guard, and throw anything are usually pretty good).
I was like batman in justice league doom, and that's before I got ahold of magic items.

and a melee character with the disruptive feats and an 18-20 crit range + improved critical makes a great mage killer, especially as a rouge, we were part of a four man group, imaginatively called team mage-killer, and if you couldn't guess we killed lots of mages, who would sometimes for groups of mages higher leveled than us and would hut us down. 2 fighters and 2 rouges vs a sorcerer and 4 wizards, the mages lost most of their faces an limbs before casting a spell.

mind you we went based strictly on the rules in the book so when a stat got ridiculous we used it anyways, so even if it wasn't "realistic" if the dice said it happened, it happened.


Wiggz wrote:
CWheezy wrote:
Oh man I laughed at "only one player in this rp game can be awesome, sorry guys hope you ppicked right"

I suppose it all depends on how one defines 'awesome'.

Someone got to learn to use the Force and be a jedi... someone else got to be the aristocrat, diplomat and leader of an entire rebellion, while someone else got to the rogue, the scoundrel who didn't have to play by the rules... to me, they all seemed pretty 'awesome'. And to be honest, the campaign wouldn't have been near as much fun or as exciting for all concerned without the gadget utility guy, the comic relief guy and the loyal side-kick guy either.

Sometimes its not about 'winning' the campaign, but rather enjoying the journey it offers.

Except in Pathfinder the Jedi is also the best diplomat and the best rogue. So the people who showed up wanting to do those things just sorta sits there.


also with my tendency to be a bit on the chaotic stupid side I do enjoy sticking explosives on the enemies. honestly it just seems like there should be more thought put into peoples martial build.

and if your D/GM is cool with it there are plenty of cool 3rd party things.

then as mentioned before the is the mixed character.

my current character (a new campaign) is a level 1 wizard (fire elementalist)/ level 4 fighter, with a (super) meat cleaver (using the rules from the weapon master handbook) with a fire version of the ray of frost cantrip, and a couple of 3rd party feats, that let me set multiple people on fire with that cantrip, most characters catch on fire if you build your character right. and since my int is high I'm going to become a duelist and get the monkey style feat.


STORM-MONARCH wrote:

or you could get gud.

I made a fighter that focused on things like called shots, craft alchemy, and ranged weapons.
"oh you need to speak to cast, there goes your throat"
"oh look at those hands you don't have"
"oh there's a group of you, pellet grenade + alchemist fire + crossbow"
get fleet and run and when they give chase, run like a punk, hide then jump out and shoot them in the legs.
METAL GEEEEAR
just create a character who's got one good trick that can be used in several different situations (improved unarmed strike, catch off guard, and throw anything are usually pretty good).
I was like batman in justice league doom, and that's before I got ahold of magic items.

and a melee character with the disruptive feats and an 18-20 crit range + improved critical makes a great mage killer, especially as a rouge, we were part of a four man group, imaginatively called team mage-killer, and if you couldn't guess we killed lots of mages, who would sometimes for groups of mages higher leveled than us and would hut us down. 2 fighters and 2 rouges vs a sorcerer and 4 wizards, the mages lost most of their faces an limbs before casting a spell.

mind you we went based strictly on the rules in the book so when a stat got ridiculous we used it anyways, so even if it wasn't "realistic" if the dice said it happened, it happened.

I'd battle any character you made with a wizard you claim to be a "mage killer" I think the chances of victory at level 10 are zero for the warrior


CWheezy wrote:
STORM-MONARCH wrote:

or you could get gud.

I made a fighter that focused on things like called shots, craft alchemy, and ranged weapons.
"oh you need to speak to cast, there goes your throat"
"oh look at those hands you don't have"
"oh there's a group of you, pellet grenade + alchemist fire + crossbow"
get fleet and run and when they give chase, run like a punk, hide then jump out and shoot them in the legs.
METAL GEEEEAR
just create a character who's got one good trick that can be used in several different situations (improved unarmed strike, catch off guard, and throw anything are usually pretty good).
I was like batman in justice league doom, and that's before I got ahold of magic items.

and a melee character with the disruptive feats and an 18-20 crit range + improved critical makes a great mage killer, especially as a rouge, we were part of a four man group, imaginatively called team mage-killer, and if you couldn't guess we killed lots of mages, who would sometimes for groups of mages higher leveled than us and would hut us down. 2 fighters and 2 rouges vs a sorcerer and 4 wizards, the mages lost most of their faces an limbs before casting a spell.

mind you we went based strictly on the rules in the book so when a stat got ridiculous we used it anyways, so even if it wasn't "realistic" if the dice said it happened, it happened.

I'd battle any character you made with a wizard you claim to be a "mage killer" I think the chances of victory at level 10 are zero for the warrior

Level 10 is actually a pretty good time for a Fighter now because of Spellcut. SM probably isn't even aware of that feat, though.


Spellcut is pretty awful, ignoring how its prerequisites are off the wall (it takes 9 levels to learn how to do this, and Cut from the Air is a weaker version of Deflect Arrows) and take a long time to meet. Let me count the ways.

  • It totally replaces your save bonus, making its effects non-stacking with all other effects to increase your saves in the entire game.
  • It only functions against magic- and only a subset of magical abilities. You cannot use it to resist anything that targets multiple people and isn't a reflex save, which is a solid portion of good spells at levels 9+.
  • It can only be used once per round, which wouldn't necessarily be a problem if it was strong, but it makes it extremely weak against spammed spells and dovetails with:
  • It's an extremely minor benefit even when it does matter. At 9th level, being extremely modest and only assuming said fighter started with a 14 in Dex and 12 in Wis and Con, and picked up a +3 cloak of resistance because being a lawn ornament sucks, it gives them a whopping +1 on Reflex sometimes, a +2 on Will sometimes, and if they decided to use it for some reason it would give them a -1 on Fortitude. If they forgo the cloak and rely on Spellcut, they now have a massive hole in their defenses and get geeked by most any level appropriate save it can't help them with and crumble under focus fire.
  • It gets worse as time goes on. A +20 total modifier to a save at 20th level is one of your weaknesses, giving you 50/50 odds of losing a fight outright when it's targeted.


I can't find that feat, can you post it


Aratrok wrote:
  • It gets worse as time goes on. A +20 total modifier to a save at 20th level is one of your weaknesses, giving you 50/50 odds of losing a fight outright when it's targeted.[/list]
  • It isn't even 50/50. At that level you are talking about DC's in the mid 30's, more if you are using Spell Perfection.


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    andreww wrote:
    Aratrok wrote:
  • It gets worse as time goes on. A +20 total modifier to a save at 20th level is one of your weaknesses, giving you 50/50 odds of losing a fight outright when it's targeted.[/list]
  • It isn't even 50/50. At that level you are talking about DC's in the mid 30's, more if you are using Spell Perfection.

    He was probably basing it off the standard 10 + 1/2 HD + key ability and assuming a +10 key stat (which is a fair expectation for a key stat at 20th level, even if you can reach a bit higher). This is of course not counting things like feats and circumstantial buffs.


    CWheezy wrote:
    I can't find that feat, can you post it
    Weapon Master's Handbook wrote:

    Spellcut

    You can weaken waves of harmful magic energy with weapon blows.
    Prerequisites: Str 13, Cut from the Air, Power Attack, base attack bonus +9, Spellcraft 1 rank, weapon training class feature with a melee weapon.
    Benefit: Once per round, you can use your base attack bonus in place of your total saving throw bonus for a spell, spell-like ability, or supernatural ability that either allows a Reflex save or is not a melee attack and targets only you.


    That...is not a thing that's good. They could at least have let you add your weapon training bonus or something. I mean, it would still only be barely passable, but less insulting. Shouldn't, like, Spell Sunder or something be the benchmark to aim for, in terms of power level, when creating mid-to-high-level "attack magic with weapons" abilities?


    Lol those restrictions. What a joke


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    I know it's a thing that's been brought up before, and it's only a small part of the puzzle of boosting non-magical characters up towards parity with casters, but feat prerequisites and restrictions on feat effects really need to be loosened up. There's this pattern I keep noticing when reading PF material where you have a magical ability that does something, and then a non-magical ability that does something similar or even virtually the same thing, and like three different caveats are always stuck into the non-magical ability, making it far less powerful/versatile than its magical counterpart. This bugs me.

    Like, there should be some way (feat chain or archetype or such) of swiftly cobbling together a makeshift, unstable alchemical item that degrades to uselessness after 10 minutes or so, but you can do it just as quickly as an alchemist can get their bombs up and going.

    - Gears


    It's also garbage right. Instead of your total bonus seems like crap.

    If this was a wizard feat it would read
    Mindcut: once per round when you make a save, add your int modifier to the saving throw.
    Prereq: none


    Yeah. I mean, I'm not even sure which I prefer. In a way, finicky little abilities with caveats and such can be fun if they're dynamic and cleverly designed, it's just the fact that it's only mundanes who have to deal with them, whereas magical options often tend to be called "Problem B Solver, Greater" and read, roughly, "When you encounter Problem B, that problem is solved for you."

    I think this particular feat problem could be somwhat mitigated if Cut From the Air could be chosen at 1st level fighter, then automatically upgrades to Bash from the Air at 5th level and then became spellcut (adding weapon training bonus to the granted bonus) at 9th. That would at least make me do something other than shake my head ruefully and flip to the next page in the splatbook.

    I'm weird, though. My group loves it when our characters f~#! up or crazy things we didn't plan for happen. Often to our detriment, rarely in our favor, but almost always to our amusement. That happens to mundanes a lot. In my ideal game, the only thing is it would happen to casters just as often. I understand that's not most people's preference though, so I would be all for making martial abilities more dependable, rather than making magic more risky and error-prone.


    CWheezy wrote:

    It's also garbage right. Instead of your total bonus seems like crap.

    If this was a wizard feat it would read
    Mindcut: once per round when you make a save, add your int modifier to the saving throw.
    Prereq: none

    And there'd be a spell that eats your reaction and automatically saves or something, because in 3.PF, there's always a spell that's better than the corresponding feat.


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    I never got why Lunge just couldn't extend to cover your AoOs for that turn as well. Maybe my standards are low, but that's all I'd need to make me agree to take that feat. I don't even mind the AC penalty. Casting a spell should impart a -2 AC penalty until the beginning of your next turn too, though. :)


    but guys whirlwind attack is so op, you don't understand


    The only prereq Whirlwind Attack should have left is the BAB (which I think is fair) and possibly the Dex.


    In my games I moved whirlwind attack to the end of the cleave feat chain. It makes send right? First you hit one extra guy, then more then all of them.


    Yeah, that sounds pretty good too. No one ever takes the Cleave line (including Cleaving Finish, even though that one's actually quite nice) in my group. I've been mulling over how best to consolidate those. Adding Whirlwind certainly has appeal. I've also been thinking of simply having Cleave + Cleaving Finish be a single feat, and then also combine Great Cleave + Improved Cleaving Finish, with the former combo as a prereq for the latter one. But then I get to thinking I would probably like to fit Cleave Through (nixing that silly dwarf prereq [ugh racial-only options :/]) in there somewhere. I never seem able to make up my mind how to combine it all. I feel like it should be two or three feats at most, but I can never decide quite how to divide it up. Maybe mixing Whirlwind Attack in there somewhere would make sense.


    I'm seriously leaning in the direction of consolidating feat lines, so by taking the entry one you automatically get the benefit of higher-level feats once you get strong enough for them. I think that makes it easier for martials to be good at many different things, helping to even out the disparity both in and out of combat. (Not completely evening things out, obviously, but it's a step in the right direction.)


    Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
    N. Jolly wrote:
    Does Pathfinder need full casters?

    Given that, for many of us, Pathfinder is the rightful heir to the D&D legacy, it wouldn't feel right not to have the four most iconic character types in the game: fighters, magic users, clerics and thieves.

    And while you can make those iconic character types on the chasis of many different extant PF classes, it still wouldn't feel right not to have the base of all base classes available straight out of the starting gate.

    I kind lost interest in all the C/MD threads once they balooned past 3-4 pages, but there were many valid ideas in there which act to *reduce* or *limit the scope* of the C/MD even if they don't really eliminate it. And at the end of the day, there really *should* be a C/MD, just as there *should* be full 9th-level casters in the game. Magic is, well, magical, and however puissant a fighter is, he still doesn't have the vast powers of magic at his beck and call. And that's as it should be.

    I mean, if you just take the nerf-hammer to all casters and:
    - eliminate the most egregious spells from PC access
    - eliminate traits which reduce metamagic cost
    - limit starting stat maximums for casting stats (and probably all stats while you're at it, just on general anti-min-max principle)
    - use a global magic limiting system like the limited magic system in Pathfinder Unchained
    - arbitrarily increase casting times for higher-level spells to something like (Spell level/2) in full rounds

    ...and then give non-casters a few cherries concerning skills and tactics, then the C/MD will fade to the background, even if it doesn't actually disappear.

    I for one wouldn't want to do away with full casters, or with the C/MD in its entirety. Magic should be, you know, magical. YMMV.

    Liberty's Edge

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    Most fighter feats should just be class features you get at certain levels, and feats should be boosts to those to "specialize" in them.


    @Wheldrake: ...To summarize my own opinions, we might never eliminate the disparity, but it shouldn't be so large as to stop people from having fun. Part of that is player choice, of course.

    For example, if Player A is playing a Rogue, and announces that they want to be sneaky, stealthy, and good at getting information for the party, maybe Player B's Wizard shouldn't constantly prepare Invisibility and Divination spells to use on themselves. Broadly speaking, I think casters should try to fill the gaps in the party, not go out of their way to be better at what others are doing.

    (On the other hand, maybe Player A's Rogue appreciates the Wizard casting Invisibility on them, so they can invest into other parts of their build. LOOOOOOTS of table variation here.)

    RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

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    bad example, rednal.

    "IF the Rogue announces they want to be sneaky, stealthy and good at getting information for the party, he should be better at it then the wizard casting Invisibility and divination spells, so the wizard decides he has better things to do."

    That's the way you say it.

    ==Aelryinth


    Aratrok wrote:
    CWheezy wrote:
    I can't find that feat, can you post it
    Weapon Master's Handbook wrote:

    Spellcut

    You can weaken waves of harmful magic energy with weapon blows.
    Prerequisites: Str 13, Cut from the Air, Power Attack, base attack bonus +9, Spellcraft 1 rank, weapon training class feature with a melee weapon.
    Benefit: Once per round, you can use your base attack bonus in place of your total saving throw bonus for a spell, spell-like ability, or supernatural ability that either allows a Reflex save or is not a melee attack and targets only you.

    Honestly, this just sounds like another feat all martials should get for free, even if at diminished capacity(like one per encounter/minute per level), because like combat expertise it only provides a potential option, that is so weak it barely adds up to the utility of a cantrip... which most casters get 4 of for free at level one.

    RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

    Aratrok wrote:

    Spellcut is pretty awful, ignoring how its prerequisites are off the wall (it takes 9 levels to learn how to do this, and Cut from the Air is a weaker version of Deflect Arrows) and take a long time to meet. Let me count the ways.

    • It totally replaces your save bonus, making its effects non-stacking with all other effects to increase your saves in the entire game.
    • It only functions against magic- and only a subset of magical abilities. You cannot use it to resist anything that targets multiple people and isn't a reflex save, which is a solid portion of good spells at levels 9+.
    • It can only be used once per round, which wouldn't necessarily be a problem if it was strong, but it makes it extremely weak against spammed spells and dovetails with:
    • It's an extremely minor benefit even when it does matter. At 9th level, being extremely modest and only assuming said fighter started with a 14 in Dex and 12 in Wis and Con, and picked up a +3 cloak of resistance because being a lawn ornament sucks, it gives them a whopping +1 on Reflex sometimes, a +2 on Will sometimes, and if they decided to use it for some reason it would give them a -1 on Fortitude. If they forgo the cloak and rely on Spellcut, they now have a massive hole in their defenses and get geeked by most any level appropriate save it can't help them with and crumble under focus fire.
    • It gets worse as time goes on. A +20 total modifier to a save at 20th level is one of your weaknesses, giving you 50/50 odds of losing a fight outright when it's targeted.

    Compare Spellcut to the 'Moment of' Techniques from To9S.

    Once per round, you could sub a concentration check for your saving throw.

    If you had full ranks in concentration, that would naturally be your Level+3, + Con modifier. Moment of Perfect Clarity (? Been awhile) was the perfect solution for those with a low Will save. It'd be the same as Spellcut, except BAB+6!

    And, of course, if you had Steady Focus, you could take 10 on the Concentration check, and basically never miss a save that you wanted to make.

    There's no way I'm going to call a 'Mastery' a feat that is worse then normal saves. Do these guys even know how to write feats?

    ==Aelryinth

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