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Counterspelling needs to stop sucking if you want to see it more often.
I'm not potentially wasting my turn to ready an action if I could be casting haste or dominating someone.
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Counterspelling needs to stop sucking if you want to see it more often.
I'm not potentially wasting my turn to ready an action if I could be casting haste or dominating someone.
SKR and I had a conversation about this awhile back and he agreed that counterspelling is absolutely terrible. It's stacked against the counterspeller at multiple points and requires that someone on one side of the equation either invest heavily in abilities to shore it up, or be prescient and simply know what the other guy has prepared. It's either a heavy-handed tool in the GMs arsenal that still does almost nothing to address the issue of M/CD, or it's a highly ineffective tool for the player unless they find that the GM regularly uses low level casters as mooks.
Just to be clear, to counterspell you first have to select a specific opponent to counterspell. You then have to ready an action to counterspell. You then have to identify the spell being cast and either have the same spell (or same school of spell if you've grabbed the right feat) or Dispel Magic available. If the person you've chosen to counterspell decides not to cast, or if you fail your Spellcraft check, or if the spell he casts isn't one you have an appropriate spell available to counter, you've just wasted an entire turn. It's a system weighted against the counterspeller at every turn, and is probably the absolute worst way to spend a turn since you have spectacularly low odds of success.
The thing with counterspelling is that the formula is stilted to favor the higher level caster (usually the enemy since same level NPCs are generally far weaker than PCs), requires you to sacrifice your action for the chance to maybe take an enemy's action, doesn't play well with the meta ("Oh, your wizard readied an action to counterspell? Guess Karzoug will use his school ability / magic item / etc. this round"), and is generally less effective than doing the thing you would have done anyways. Even if it was completely reworked to be perfectly valid as a use of an action, it would still mean that the proposed solution to "martials and casters can't play the same types of games" is to throw more casters in the mix so they can have their own completely separate minigame in every fight. Which is bad not just for the obvious face value, but also because it further tilts the game against martial characters, who right now need those spells from the spellcasters to participate effectively in high level fights where the enemies have unique movement options, unusual combat tactics that cannot be effectively countered by nonmagical means, etc.
So let me summarize the issues with that "solution":
1) It only addresses combat situations, which are a small part of the total M/CD issue
2) The system itself is poorly constructed and almost always unfairly stilted against the party
3) You are further separating casters and martials instead of closing the gap, essentially creating a little subgame for casters to play with each other; basically, even if counterspelling were fixed to be an equitable and effective use of an action, the end result would be that spells don't actually happen at all, and the casters just stand by with readied actions until one retreats because the rest of the fight's over and his side lost.
4) Martials are often the ones who benefit most from in-combat spells like haste, and the proposed "counterspells everywhere" solution actually hurts them the most, since now their spellcasting friends are locked out of even being able to help them get in the game.
Ssalarn, I also agree with you that while counterspelling sucks for a player, it's also one of those mechanics where it would make the game really unfun and annoying if it ever became a viable tactic. Counterspelling needs retooled from the ground up.
Though, honestly, I think readied actions need tweaked in general.
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Just to be clear, to counterspell you first have to select a specific opponent to counterspell. You then have to ready an action to counterspell. You then have to identify the spell being cast and either have the same spell (or same school of spell if you've grabbed the right feat) or Dispel Magic available. If the person you've chosen to counterspell decides not to cast, or if you fail your Spellcraft check, or if the spell he casts isn't one you have an appropriate spell available to counter, you've just wasted an entire turn.Or if you use dispel magic but fail the caster level check, then it's also wasted.
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That was kind of one of the factors I had tucked into #2, but yeah. I have a sneaking suspicion that the system is constructed as it is specifically to discourage players from using it.
It might be interesting if you could counterspell as an immediate action with any spell of the same level. Leave the fine details up to the player or GM like you do when describing attacks: "Just before the enemy's stinking cloud rolls over your allies, you detonate a fireball directly in the mass of roiling gasses, causing both spells to evaporate, leaving naught but the stench of scorched ozone". If you still feel like you need to have an opposed roll involved, you could steal a page from Spheres of Power and use MSB / MSD (essentially a magical equivalent of CMB/CMD), having the counterspeller roll his MSB against the caster's MSD. You still end up with a fast and simple method of resolution, and it kind of sort of helps curb C/MD on the combat front by forcing faster resource expenditure.
...
Okay, I was stretching that to try and make it on topic.
I'm a strong proponent of what I'd call partial niche protection -- because it's not all or nothing.
Pretend we could somehow simplify the game into Buffing/Healing, Combat, Skills, and Utility Problem-Solving, and pretend they could be rated as 0 = no ability to do that thing to 4 = does it better than anyone or anything ever.
We could make a cleric class that's B4, C0, S0, U0; and a fighter class that's B0, C4, S0, U0; and a thief class that's B0, C0, S4, U0; and a wizard class that's B0, C0, S0, U4. We'd have perfect niche protection. Each class is needed to deal with each thing. What you'd have are 4 different games, really, with each class only able to play in one of the four. That's hardly ideal.
(1e had stuff like the thief class: B0, C1, S3, U1; and everyone else was essentially S0. So he had a niche, but it was kind of awkward and I like to think we've moved beyond that since the '70s.)
At the extreme opposite end of things, everyone could be B2, C2, S2, U2. That's unbelievably bland and borderline pointless -- at that point, it's far better to simply move to a classless system.
Ideally, we could have a game in which maybe the fighter is B1, C3, S2, U2; whereas the cleric is B4, C2, S1, U1 or whatever, and everyone would have a major area of competence, but all be able to do other stuff, too, to some degree. We're a long way from being there (the current fighter is still something like B0, C3, S1, U0; whereas the druid is more like B3, C3, S2, U4).
I'm with you, I would break it down a little more precisely though. I would identify various combat and non-combat roles, and ideally every class would be highly rated in one area for both.
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just found this thread, are we still allowed to comment on the OP after 1000+ posts?
Absolutely!
I think the biggest problem with casters in pathfinder isn't that they are too powerful, its that the ratio of caster:martial is off in most (non monster) encounters.
I think it's both.
But remember, the power of casters is not purely an in-encounter thing. It's what they can do between encounters, before encounters, in town, really any time they want to solve any problem. It's not exactly "power", but it is versatility and fun.
If your PC party is 60:40 caster:martial then you can take that as your base ratio for the world (in custom campaigns anyway). If you have 3 casters and 2 martials in your party you should run into encounters with roughly the same mix IMO.
I'm not sure I agree.
If a fire team of Navy Seals (typically 4 men with specialties in sniper, medic, demolitions, and assault) walks into Walmart with 400 people in the store, should they expect 100 snipers, 100 medics, 100 demolitionists, and 100 generalist soldiers in there? Heck, even when they sneak into a camp of terrorists, they don't find that mix.
Casters are pretty rare in all the published works. A town of 300 people might have only 2 or 3. Call it 1% in some cases. If they had 5% it would be a very unusual town. I don't think your adventuring group will have fewer than 5% casters.
While a GM could do as you say, it would be strange for every encounter, even most, or even some to have a 60/40 ratio of casters to non-casters. For those GMs and players who like that, go for it, but it is pretty far outside the expectations of the Golarion that Paizo has published.
After you have the class mix down you look at spells available in the world. I don't think the spells themselves matter honestly, i think what matters is their rarity.
Maybe true, but every caster learns some spells as they level up. Automatically. For free. I suspect they'll take the best ones regardless of rarity. So every PC caster will always have the best spells available.
Of course, banning a spell sets its rarity to "so rare that it doesn't exist" - that's the only way to keep a spell out of the game.
I've seen the idea of banning spell marts and having players find whole spellbooks mentioned at least once in this thread, and i think that makes a lot of sense.
Except for the automatic spells per level.
If you take it a step further you see that most spellcasters in the world (that use spellbooks anyway) are going to have a common set of spells. If every spellcaster is bent on adding spells to their spellbooks you will tend to see the rarity curve flatten out over time.
Even the NPC casters should take the same "best" spells that the PCs have. I agree with this point.
Now combine these two concepts, you have encounters with roughly equal ratios of caster:martial on both sides, and the casters all have a roughly common set of spells.
Maybe.
Next, I'd start using the counterspell rules more often. Every spell in pathfinder (with specific exceptions) can be counterspelled (fizzled) by casting the same spell at the same power level against it. With equal-ish numbers of casters on both sides of encounters you should encourage caster/players to try counterspelling the bad guys (mostly by having the bad-guy casters do the same thing to them). I think this creates a more tit for tat environment, the casters should protect everyone from spells, and the martials should protect everyone from other martials.
As others have said, counterspelling is so bad that nobody uses it. It needs serious house-ruling to make it remotely playable.
Currently, you could say "I ready an action to counterspell that guy there". Now, IF he casts AND you correctly ID his spell AND you have that spell prepared, you can counter it. If he doesn't cast, you lose your turn. If you fail to identify his spell, you lose your turn. If you don't have that spell prepared, you lose your turn.
Way more chance you lose your turn than there is that you successfully counterspell.
Alternatively, you could say "I ready an action to Magic Missile that guy there, once he begins doing something." If he doesn't cast but does something else (like drink a potion, use a wand, fire a crossbow, whatever) you still get to damage him - your turn isn't wasted. If he does cast, you don't have to identify the spell so no chance you lose your turn. During his casting, your readied action takes place and you automatically damage him, quite probably for enough damage to make him fail a concentration check and lose his spell. The chance of him making that check and successfully casting are (IME) much less than the chances that you fail to counterspell and he successfully casts. And, even if he does cast, at least you ALSO damaged him instead of doing nothing (failed counterspell).
The Magic Missile solution is vastly superior to the counterspell rules.
I think this preserves the sense that casters are super badass by making the physical removal of the opposing caster the martial character's main goal (in order to let their own caster...
I think you are onto something here. Really.
It means reworking the counterspelling rules to be far more playable than they currently are. Once you do that, you've solved part of the problem.
But.
That still doesn't do anything about all that Tier 1 versatility that casters have OUTSIDE of encounters.
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In my view, the biggest immediate issue with martials versus spellcasters stems from the disparity of versatility. Prepared spellcasters essentially have the ability to rebuild their character on a daily basis whereas feats and martial class features tend to force martials to lock-in their build choices, leading to crippling overspecialization. Wizards are encouraged and rewarded for utilizing their versatility whereas fighters are encouraged to overspecialize and get punished for versatility. My view on this came from an interview with Sean K. Reynolds about the subject and how this observation inspired him to design the brawler's Martial Flexibility class feature and design feats in his RPG to work like spell preparation.
This problem causes martials to feel boring, inept, and unfun compared to spellcasters because they rarely have the capability to prepare for different types of challenges. Unlike many problems with fighter/wizard disparity, this is something that can be fixed in the game simply by designing new content and classes that allow martials to vary their builds. Perhaps a houserule that characters can swap out the last bonus combat feat they gained X times per day similar to how Inquisitors can do so with teamwork feats?
I'm actually working on two martial classes that enable and encourage the player to branch out in their build paths.
If a fire team of Navy Seals (typically 4 men with specialties in sniper, medic, demolitions, and assault) walks into Walmart with 400 people in the store, should they expect 100 snipers, 100 medics, 100 demolitionists, and 100 generalist soldiers in there? Heck, even when they sneak into a camp of terrorists, they don't find that mix.
Casters are pretty rare in all the published works. A town of 300 people might have only 2 or 3. Call it 1% in some cases. If they had 5% it would be a very unusual town. I don't think your adventuring group will have fewer than 5% casters.
While a GM could do as you say, it would be strange for every encounter, even most, or even some to have a 60/40 ratio of casters to non-casters. For those GMs and players who like that, go for it, but it is pretty far outside the expectations of the Golarion that Paizo has published.
I guess i was going the other direction with this because it casts the players in a bad light if you don't (sort of, not really).
If magic isn't this common in the world then it (theoretically) shouldn't be as common as it is in adventuring parties. Now I understand that short of the GM setting an artificial limit on the party ratio, or straight up banning magical classes, there isn't anything you can do about the supersaturation of casters in adventuring parties. I don't agree with tactics that take away the fun of making any character you wan't so I didn't suggest these pretty obvious solutions; instead I went at it from the other direction, bringing the ratio up to match the players', which would (it seems to me) be much more fair to them.
The players aren't really at fault of course, they didn't design the system.
In my view, the biggest immediate issue with martials versus spellcasters stems from the disparity of versatility. Prepared spellcasters essentially have the ability to rebuild their character on a daily basis whereas feats and martial class features tend to force martials to lock-in their build choices, leading to crippling overspecialization. Wizards are encouraged and rewarded for utilizing their versatility whereas fighters are encouraged to overspecialize and get punished for versatility. My view on this came from an interview with Sean K. Reynolds about the subject and how this observation inspired him to design the brawler's Martial Flexibility class feature and design feats in his RPG to work like spell preparation.
This problem causes martials to feel boring, inept, and unfun compared to spellcasters because they rarely have the capability to prepare for different types of challenges. Unlike many problems with fighter/wizard disparity, this is something that can be fixed in the game simply by designing new content and classes that allow martials to vary their builds. Perhaps a houserule that characters can swap out the last bonus combat feat they gained X times per day similar to how Inquisitors can do so with teamwork feats?
I'm actually working on two martial classes that enable and encourage the player to branch out in their build paths
While I think that anyone can find anything fun for any reason, I agree generally with Cyrad's point. My 'solution' is not a universal one, it does not solve the underlying, literally systemic problem: it is only meant to be a patch to the combat situation.
After you have the class mix down you look at spells available in the world. I don't think the spells themselves matter honestly, i think what matters is their rarity.
Maybe true, but every caster learns some spells as they level up. Automatically. For free. I suspect they'll take the best ones regardless of rarity. So every PC caster will always have the best spells available.
Of course, banning a spell sets its rarity to "so rare that it doesn't exist" - that's the only way to keep a spell out of the game.
Ah, I was only thinking of the ways to learn extra spells, doh. I can only think of one way to fix this, and it is probably too weird for most people to want to use. If you instituted a sort of master-apprentice system with arcane users, or patron-beneficiary, or deity-cleric/druid, etc. and then restricted those spells gained by leveling to the master's/patron's/deity's "spell list". This is kind of hackey and artificial though, my 'solution' does not cover this aspect well and it probably breaks right here in all honesty.
There should be (and are) other scales of rarity than a binary one. After all, whats the point of going on a dangerous quest for knowledge/spells if you could get them some other way? The master-apprentice thing i proposed just now might preserve the commonality/rarity of spells, because of course there will be different standards of teaching in different places. Instead of raiding the dead wizard's trap filled dungeon/tower/demiplane to plunder his spellbook maybe you are doing it to prove that you are worthy of learning from him, and the reason he has set up that gauntlet is because he has some spells that are actually uncommon in the world, maybe more powerful ones, maybe too dangerous to be let loose in the pool of common spells that the general public has access to.
As others have said, counterspelling is so bad that nobody uses it. It needs serious house-ruling to make it remotely playable.
Currently, you could say "I ready an action to counterspell that guy there". Now, IF he casts AND you correctly ID his spell AND you have that spell prepared, you can counter it. If he doesn't cast, you lose your turn. If you fail to identify his spell, you lose your turn. If you don't have that spell prepared, you lose your turn.
Way more chance you lose your turn than there is that you successfully counterspell.
Alternatively, you could say "I ready an action to Magic Missile that guy there, once he begins doing something." If he doesn't cast but does something else (like drink a potion, use a wand, fire a crossbow, whatever) you still get to damage him - your turn isn't wasted. If he does cast, you don't have to identify the spell so no chance you lose your turn. During his casting, your readied action takes place and you automatically damage him, quite probably for enough damage to make him fail a concentration check and lose his spell. The chance of him making that check and successfully casting are (IME) much less than the chances that you fail to counterspell and he successfully casts. And, even if he does cast, at least you ALSO damaged him instead of doing nothing (failed counterspell).
Ok, I admit to you (and everyone else who said it) that the counterspelling system sucks, and that I did not read through it thoroughly before posting.
In light of this information (which shouldn't have been new, but is) I agree with your observation that it could/should be reworked.
IM(rough)O it should be a magical (and ranged) version of the AoO, available to casters who have a spell of the same level and range prepared(which would let most touch spells go unopposed, which would save most of those important buffs, and make the close range buffs more tactical in that the opposing caster would have to maneuver to counter them), possibly based on a spellcraft roll instead of a caster level roll (unless you are using Dispel Magic which I would re-flavor as a brute force approach that is pitting your strength as a caster directly against theirs).
This obviously needs more thought put into it than that and I would love to be part of that discussion.
I think this preserves the sense that casters are super badass by making the physical removal of the opposing caster the martial character's main goal (in order to let their own caster...
I think you are onto something here. Really.
It means reworking the counterspelling rules to be far more playable than they currently are. Once you do that, you've solved part of the problem.
But.
That still doesn't do anything about all that Tier 1 versatility that casters have OUTSIDE of encounters.
I wasn't trying to address the versatility problem because I don't have an answer for it aside from stealing from other worlds idea's. You could boost the technology of Golarion just a little bit and make spellcasting and mechanical thinking mutually exclusive to each other, you could create caster kryptonite, you could turn them all into a+*~~#~s and demonize them in society, etc.
I didn't come up with any of those, they are all stolen from fictional works. The reason I didn't suggest any of them before is that they would change the setting of Golarion, which I happen to like as is.
Wow, that was way too much
TLDR; I think the ratio of C:M needs to swing one way or the other and taking away player freedom isn't an option so it has to go the other way, I've got a hackey solution for enforcing the commonality/rarity of spells, the counterspell system sucks and I feel bad for not reading it before posting originally, I don't have an answer for the larger problem of casters being just flat superior to martials for versatility (outside of changing the setting of Golarion which I don't want to do).
If a fire team of Navy Seals (typically 4 men with specialties in sniper, medic, demolitions, and assault) walks into Walmart with 400 people in the store, should they expect 100 snipers, 100 medics, 100 demolitionists, and 100 generalist soldiers in there? Heck, even when they sneak into a camp of terrorists, they don't find that mix.
Casters are pretty rare in all the published works. A town of 300 people might have only 2 or 3. Call it 1% in some cases. If they had 5% it would be a very unusual town. I don't think your adventuring group will have fewer than 5% casters.
While a GM could do as you say, it would be strange for every encounter, even most, or even some to have a 60/40 ratio of casters to non-casters. For those GMs and players who like that, go for it, but it is pretty far outside the expectations of the Golarion that Paizo has published.
I guess i was going the other direction with this because it casts the players in a bad light if you don't (sort of, not really).
If magic isn't this common in the world then it (theoretically) shouldn't be as common as it is in adventuring parties. Now I understand that short of the GM setting an artificial limit on the party ratio, or straight up banning magical classes, there isn't anything you can do about the supersaturation of casters in adventuring parties. I don't agree with tactics that take away the fun of making any character you wan't so I didn't suggest these pretty obvious solutions; instead I went at it from the other direction, bringing the ratio up to match the players', which would (it seems to me) be much more fair to them.
Like I said, fair enough if that's the way you want to play it. It kinda turns into Xanth where EVERYONE has magic. Or imagine Star Wars where 60% of the galaxy are Jedi (or Sith or other force users). Or imagine Harry Potter where 60% of the muggles are spellcasters too. Or imagine Lord of the Rings where Frodo, Sam, Pippin, Merry, and Gimli are wizards like Gandalf - and 60% of the orcs and trolls are slinging spells too.
Just seems weird. Unusual. And not consistent with published material. But fine for groups that like such things.
As far as being unfair, refer to my previous post regarding the Navy Seals. Is it unfair that those highly trained specialists engage a group of enemies, say, terrorists somewhere, but those terrorists don't have the same ratio of highly trained specialists? Should the navy restrict the Seals from receiving their training on the grounds that most enemies don't have it?
Of course not. Those Seals have a dangerous job so they have tons of specialized training and have the best equipment to maximize their chances of surviving that danger.
Adventurers have an even more dangerous job - they should, MUST, have advantages in training (classes) and equipment.
So it's perfectly OK for them to have a disproportional number of casters.
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Or imagine Star Wars where 60% of the galaxy are Jedi (or Sith or other force users).
In Episode IV, only one guy can cast interplanetary teleport for the party. That guy is Han Solo. Just because his material component is a giant ship instead of something in a pouch doesn't mean Luke and Obi-Wan are the only magic users there.
Or imagine Star Wars where 60% of the galaxy are Jedi (or Sith or other force users).In Episode IV, only one guy can cast interplanetary teleport for the party. That guy is Han Solo. Just because his material component is a giant ship instead of something in a pouch doesn't mean Luke and Obi-Wan are the only magic users there.
So you're confirming my point? The party has specialists that can do things the rest of the common folk cannot (or at least have fewer specialists).
So you're confirming my point?
Just pointing out that force users aren't the only magic-users. If only martial characters in PF had the kind of narrative power that Han did...
Sorry Blake, that was somewhat ambiguous. When I said "fair to them" i was referring to the players, not the mooks. I meant that boosting the ratio on the bad guy side was more fair to the players than artificially reducing it on the player's side (assuming that the ratio is going to be changed at all of course).
I'm just confused as to how a PC party made up of 60:40 caster:martial (which is definitely not the norm or anything, just a ratio i've been using as an example) is any less unusual or inconsistent with the published material than an NPC party of 60:40 caster:martial, unless we are just disregarding player choice...(EDIT... as the culprit for the caster/martial disparity (and if we are I can roll with that, im just not sure)) .
Also, Ssalarn, I finally had the time to go back and read through your conversation with SKR. Did you see the counterspell system change I proposed in my second post? what do you think?
So you're confirming my point?Just pointing out that force users aren't the only magic-users. If only martial characters in PF had the kind of narrative power that Han did...
Kirth, your view on this subject is well known, but you might be a little off this time.
Han has a HUGE financial investment in his ship - it's not a class feature, it's simply part of his gear. Any Pathfinder gunslinger/rogue (what class is Han, anyway?) could go invest a huge amount of cash into a galleon or a Flying Carpet or a Teleport item or whatever other transportation he wants.
Really, if you define "narrative power" as having an item that he can use to transport his friends, well, every class in Pathfinder has that much narrative power.
As for my original point, owning a ship is not the same as wielding magic. In Star Wars, the force users really are the only magic users, and the M/CD in that galaxy far, far away is just as big as it is on Golarion.
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Why not change how the casters Attack of Opportunity works instead of allowing them to make a melee attack allow, allow them to make a counter spell when a spell is being cast?
Take away their ability to make melee attacks with an AoO, and 6/9 casters have to choose one or the other, they with get a free dispel or free melee attack with an AoO.
Why would you take away the AoO?
"Yes, Gandalf, I know you have a sword in your hand, and I know that the orc just provoked, but you can't take an AoO. Sure, Frodo can, even though he has no idea how to use his little short sword, but you can't. Ever. Did you want to counterspell the orc instead?"
Probably doesn't work. Logically or thematically.
But I totally agree that using counterspells as a form of AoO might make sense. It could be weird though:
1. What is the threat range of a counterspell? If it's greater than 5', then why does that not also apply to a longbow - if that wizard 100' away provokes when he casts, and Gandalf can counterspll him, why can't Legolas shoot him?
2. Can the caster choose to Cast Defensively to prevent counterspell AoOs the same way he prevents melee AoOs?
Based on that, I'd rather keep counterspelling as its own separate mechanic but just make it more useful. Possibly by allowing it as a simple Immediate Action without requiring a readied action, but otherwise keeping it the same as it's already written (except for that).
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Or imagine Star Wars where 60% of the galaxy are Jedi (or Sith or other force users).In Episode IV, only one guy can cast interplanetary teleport for the party. That guy is Han Solo. Just because his material component is a giant ship instead of something in a pouch doesn't mean Luke and Obi-Wan are the only magic users there.
Han has the power to manipulate the action economy. He both Shot First, and didn't, at the same time, creating alternate realities in the process. It still didn't give him much in the way of narrative power, since the story in both alternate realities ended the same way.
Han has the power to manipulate the action economy. He both Shot First, and didn't, at the same time, creating alternate realities in the process. It still didn't give him much in the way of narrative power, since the story in both alternate realities ended the same way.Or imagine Star Wars where 60% of the galaxy are Jedi (or Sith or other force users).In Episode IV, only one guy can cast interplanetary teleport for the party. That guy is Han Solo. Just because his material component is a giant ship instead of something in a pouch doesn't mean Luke and Obi-Wan are the only magic users there.
Yeah, I think George Lucas suffered from a seriously bad case of "GM Railroad".
So, I've been thinking of the concept of breaking up the disparity by categorizing a class' function, and assigning a level of competence to it.
While I was reading a write up for a 3PP mounted cavalry class (Go Hussars!), while I liked what I had read, I couldn't help but think "I hope this guy only adventures on open ground, because he'd be most unhelpful without his mount". I know there are ways to mitigate that with cavaliers or samurai, but it got me thinking...
What if a character has different competencies, represented by class abilities for each competency. So, for instance, if the categories were:
Melee Combat, Magic Usage, Skill Monkey, Mounted Combat, Utility. Each would be ranked individually, like maybe 1-3. Declare only one can have a 3, one a 2 and the others 1's...or some other similar fashion.
So let's say you want to build a character that's good at melee combat first, but also competent on a horse, so you assign:
MC 3, MU 1, SM, 1, MoC 2, U 1. Mc 3 give full BAB d10 hp, weapon training and armor training, and a bonus feat every other level.
MoC 2, grants a mount, some mounted feat competencies, and maybe one or two special mounted attacks.
MU 1 give basic cantrips or orisons, maybe a level 1 heal that uses HD as caster level.
SM 1 gives 2 + INT skills, and no synergy (like 1/2 level to knowledge checks kind of things)
U 1 gives basic things that are helpful outside of combat...tbd.
Obviously as presented it would be messy, and several options are missing (pets, unarmed or ranged combat, divine vs nature vs arcane fluff, etc.), but I wanted to jot this down and get some feed back.
The highest ranked category would determine BAB and HD and core class abilities, and the others would determine what other class abilities the character would get. But, they'd all have some "magic", all have some utility, but the player can decide which is the core competency.
I guess this would be a bit like mixing d20 and Numenaria...
But I totally agree that using counterspells as a form of AoO might make sense. It could be weird though:
1. What is the threat range of a counterspell? If it's greater than 5', then why does that not also apply to a longbow - if that wizard 100' away provokes when he casts, and Gandalf can counterspll him, why can't Legolas shoot him?
2. Can the caster choose to Cast Defensively to prevent counterspell AoOs the same way he prevents melee AoOs?
1. I was thinking the threat range for a the counterspell AoO would be dependent on the the range of the spell about to be cast and the counterspeller would have to have a spell of the same or greater range equipped, of the same type (evo, abj, ill, etc) maybe, it still needs work but it would add another layer of strategy to choosing spells for the day, and out of combat versatility usage.
As for why the archer can't do the same thing... id go with a fluff reason: the wizard or whoever performing the counterspell isnt trying to attack, hes just trying to add enough magic energy to the spell being prepped to unbalance it and make it fizzle (although i could totally see a feat making that fizzle do like a d6 in damage or something).2. That sounds like a game balance thing, im not versed enough in the pathfinder system to say one way or the other. it would probably require some play-testing of both ways i guess
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Why would you take away the AoO?
I am not taking it away I am making it more inline for what a caster would do. How many casters run around with a melee weapon in the hands all the time? I guess if you run a Cetus on your hand then sure I guess you could if you wanted.
Basically you are allowing the full caster to have their cake (spells) and eat it as well (melee AoO). To me it isn't all that thematic and this is the house rules/home brew thread right?
It would be a good start to fixing counter spelling and it would be "Hard" choice that 6/9 casters would have to make at creation.
But I totally agree that using counterspells as a form of AoO might make sense. It could be weird though:
1. What is the threat range of a counterspell? If it's greater than 5', then why does that not also apply to a longbow - if that wizard 100' away provokes when he casts, and Gandalf can counterspll him, why can't Legolas shoot him?
2. Can the caster choose to Cast Defensively to prevent counterspell AoOs the same way he prevents melee AoOs?
1. I was thinking the threat range for a the counterspell AoO would be dependent on the the range of the spell about to be cast and the counterspeller would have to have a spell of the same or greater range equipped, of the same type (evo, abj, ill, etc) maybe, it still needs work but it would add another layer of strategy to choosing spells for the day, and out of combat versatility usage.
As for why the archer can't do the same thing... id go with a fluff reason: the wizard or whoever performing the counterspell isnt trying to attack, hes just trying to add enough magic energy to the spell being prepped to unbalance it and make it fizzle (although i could totally see a feat making that fizzle do like a d6 in damage or something).2. That sounds like a game balance thing, im not versed enough in the pathfinder system to say one way or the other. it would probably require some play-testing of both ways i guess
That was my point.
We have clear mechanics for AoOs. We know if an enemy is provoking within our threat range. You're proposing a solution that uses the AoO mechanic, but now we no longer have a threat range (it varies based on the range of the spell that target is casting). Ouch. A variable threat range that I won't even know if he's casting inside my threat range until I identify his spell and look up the range of that spell.
How would anyone counterspell vs. a Personal spell or a caster targeting himself?
Plus you're proposing hijacking the AoO system (spellscasting already provokes any melee attacker if you're in his threat range) but rewriting a bunch of the mechanics.
All of which illustrates my point: this deserves its own mechanic rather than hijacking and bastardizing the AoO mechanic.
It's not a bad idea, it's just a separate idea that works better as a separate mechanic.
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You're not hijacking or bastardizing anything your changing the mechanic to fit only a certain way.
Melee or 4/9 casters only get melee attack options for AoO
6/9 Casters get either a Melee attack OR the ability to counter spell for their AoO
Full casters ONLY get to counter spell as their AoO
you just use the counter spell rules for counter spelling. The range is limited to LoS (-range penalties as per normal for anything ranged) and you make a Spell craft check 15 + Spell level.
If you identify you and you have either dispel magic or the appropriate spell ready you can counter
We have clear mechanics for AoOs. We know if an enemy is provoking within our threat range. You're proposing a solution that uses the AoO mechanic, but now we no longer have a threat range (it varies based on the range of the spell that target is casting). Ouch. A variable threat range that I won't even know if he's casting inside my threat range until I identify his spell and look up the range of that spell.
How would anyone counterspell vs. a Personal spell or a caster targeting himself?
Plus you're proposing hijacking the AoO system (spellscasting already provokes any melee attacker if you're in his threat range) but rewriting a bunch of the mechanics.
All of which illustrates my point: this deserves its own mechanic rather than hijacking and bastardizing the AoO mechanic.
It's not a bad idea, it's just a separate idea that works better as a separate mechanic.
Thats fine, im not saying it would need to continue going under the name AoO. It just needs to be a similar built in immediate that can happen on someone else's turn. As I said this is all a rough first-idea-see-if-it-sticks thing. do you want to continue discussing it specifically? do you want to make a new thread?
as to the personal and touch range spells, they would be out of range (on purpose). that way you can still give out your buffs. It would kind of break combat up into two separate stages:
the first stage: everyone gets buffs
melee fighters go at it
spellcassters try to get offensive spells through based on their prepped list (aka hoping they have more long range or mid range spells prepped if these "counterspell op attacks" are taking up spell slots)
casters maneuver to get their close range offensive spells through the opposing maneuvers
second stage: Then after someone has broken through and taken out or incapacitated the casters on one side the other side's casters get to have fun with whatever big boom spells they have left.
i don't know if everyone would want that, its a pretty big change to the kind of melee that happens now. but it would give martials a bigger role in combat i think
Or imagine Star Wars where 60% of the galaxy are Jedi (or Sith or other force users).In Episode IV, only one guy can cast interplanetary teleport for the party. That guy is Han Solo. Just because his material component is a giant ship instead of something in a pouch doesn't mean Luke and Obi-Wan are the only magic users there.
Well... The fancy thing in the Star Wars universe is... THE FORCE. And a few guys have it. But, i agree with you in one aspect, non-force users have ways to balance it, technology! A Milennium Falcom? Blasters? Stun/Thermal bombs? Jetpacks? Do Jedis can use them too? Yes, right, but... other classes can get the most of those things. This is not the case with these games. The fighter and rogue classes have no special ways to counter the magic. Those classes attempt to be more realistic than caster classes, who are highly unrealistic!
I think another solution, that can be added on top of the existing rules is to create a subsystem with new abilities that you can purchase with feats and skills. I like the Path of War feat three to access their powers.
Did anyone used d20 Skills-n-Feats Martial Arts System? That system works nice w 3E/3.5E; you purchase a feat to get access to a special martial artist skill, you get ranks on that skill and get a maneuver per each rank in the skill (and can use a feat to get two extra maneuver too); the skill is class skill only for fighters and monks, so other classes had to spend double the skills to get the same maneuvers. It is not that nice for PF, cause PF has a slightly different skill system and the combat thingy changed.
But we tested it and we liked it, my players liked the Nerve Strike tree of that system... the block family of maneuvers and so on. You can take a look at it. This is a kind of solution for the game.
My ideas on Dispell Magic.
For non-casters: for the sake of Gods, give them a way to counter magic, supernatural or extraordinary abilities! To parry a spell with a sword or something!
For casters, now in the topic:
Leave it as it is now... Buuut with a feat you can improve it.
The feat provides you an ability, a power, to counter spells.
1. You designate an opponent as the one you are carefully watching, observing. You can only observe this way one opponent in the same round.
2. When he starts casting you get an special attack of opportunity you can only use to counter spell. If you used all your attacks of opportunity of that round you cannot use it.
3. You roll a spellcraft check, but if you did not succeed you can continue, you just ignore the spell he is casting, well, at least you can determine if he is not really casting.
4. Then you can, as a swift action, use your counter ability and sacrifice a prepared spell or a unused spell slot to gather its raw magic power and use it to counter the spell, the higher the spell/slot you sacrifice, the better chances you get.
In this way:
You don't need to have the same spell, you just need to use pure raw magic to counter it. That balances the advantage NPCs have against PCs (the GM knows your spells, at least unconsciously).
You can counter even if you fail the spellcraft check, you just ignore what you are trying to counter and can end up wasting a 7th level slot to counter a cantrip. That reduces the complexity of the thing, you don't need for the planets to be aligned to counterspell.
You don't need to waste your round in a ready action, you use an special attack of opportunity and done.
Notes:
You can use it to counter spells (arcane, divine, psychic), psionic powers, alchemist spells, etc. maybe spell-like abilities too.
You can only counter once in a round or maybe you get penalties for continuous usage of this ability in the same round.
With additional feats you can designate more opponents to keep on watch in the same round; have a bonus on your counterspelling rolls; have an automatic trigger of the dispel... etc. Just ideas.
How many casters run around with a melee weapon in the hands all the time?
You've never played a reach cleric?
While I like the idea of improving counter-spelling, and turning it into something people would do for a reason other then so they could be the only one who ever did it, I don't think it helps the C/M D in any real way.
- It makes casters more effective at fighting casters... ugh.
- It means more people taking actions when it isn't their turn... ugh.
- It gets into all kinds of threatening, provoking, countering, issues... ugh.
- It is purely a combat issue, and common caster defenses, such as invisibility, would be more powerful then ever.
Again, counter-spelling could use improvement, but that improvement should prioritize fixing over-complexity and game disruption, not making casters better at fighting other casters.
Well... it works in a way. More counter-spelling means less effective magic in the game. So, more room for non-casters to shine.
So if the Caster gets the option at either what does the martial get?
We are trying to fix the disparity not create more by allowing a caster more options and martial less.
Actually, it does help shorten the gap.
In a battle where my group of PCs has a caster and the NPCs don't, nothing has changed. But if the enemies have a caster who counterspells everything our caster tries to do, then our caster is just wasting spell slots for no effect - at least the enemy caster is too. But if the enemies have two casters, then they're neutralizing our PC caster AND still casting spells.
In any case, just because the caster gets a new option, counterspell, that the martials don't get, doesn't mean they get more powerful - they actually get less powerful every time the enemies are using that option against the PC casters (and gain nothing in the rest of the encounters). Net gain: 0 (negative, actually).
My ideas on Dispell Magic.
For non-casters: for the sake of Gods, give them a way to counter magic, supernatural or extraordinary abilities! To parry a spell with a sword or something!
This is kind of starting to come out of the woodwork. Barbarians have had Spell Sunder and Eater of Magic for years, of course, and a Fighter with Smash from the Air will never be hit with Enervation ever again. It's a shame Spellcut isn't as good as it should have been, though.
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The enemy casters still have to make their checks to identify the spell before they can begin to counter it
They then HAVE to have either the exact same spell ready or dispel magic to counter.
2 casters should be able to shut down one, it just makes sense because they can team up on him. So your player will have to think a bit more tactically when casting spells. If the enemy cannot see your player he does not get the chance to counter spell.
@ Arachonofiend
I agree that the developers are starting to develop some feats that will help with the casters but they seem to be either few and far between or have stupid limited rule sets because the casters HAVE to be the strongest.
I agree a Wizard should be stronger than a Fighter, it is just that a fighter should have some fun mechanics as well instead of standing still and hitting something with a stick.
The enemy casters still have to make their checks to identify the spell before they can begin to counter it
They then HAVE to have either the exact same spell ready or dispel magic to counter.
But this is why no one uses counterspelling.
You don't know the spells the NPCs have, but the GM knows your spells and unconsciously work around them. If you remove the requirement of the same spell, the thing becomes balanced. This is why i proposed a feat that allows you to use raw power from your slots to counter the spell. Much like when clerics consume a prepared spell to heal.
So if the Caster gets the option at either what does the martial get?
We are trying to fix the disparity not create more by allowing a caster more options and martial less.
Actually, it does help shorten the gap.
In a battle where my group of PCs has a caster and the NPCs don't, nothing has changed. But if the enemies have a caster who counterspells everything our caster tries to do, then our caster is just wasting spell slots for no effect - at least the enemy caster is too. But if the enemies have two casters, then they're neutralizing our PC caster AND still casting spells.
In any case, just because the caster gets a new option, counterspell, that the martials don't get, doesn't mean they get more powerful - they actually get less powerful every time the enemies are using that option against the PC casters (and gain nothing in the rest of the encounters). Net gain: 0 (negative, actually).
This only works out when the martial is then free to do their own thing.
In actual play, that quite frequently isn't the case.
You know how martials lack options for dealing with many extraordinary or supernatural effects, right? Flight, Invisibility, climb speeds, battlefield control effects and hilariously OP buffs like Mirror Image. Things like that. If it becomes very easy to stop PC casters from getting their encounter destroying nukes off, it also becomes very easy to stop PC casters from getting their spells off that allow martials to participate in the encounter when the other side isn't being sporting and playing rock-em-sock-em with the martial. Thus, it becomes critical that at least one of two things happen:
1. The party has enough magic to force an effect through counter-spelling, which is probably best done by simply spamming
2.The damage dealers almost never need to rely on others to get their job done
Option 1 encourages caster parties, because if the entire group is tossing out AoE SoS spells then one of them will probably get through. Likewise, landing a flight spell is easier if the entire party can have a go of casting it.
Option 2 pushes the damage dealer role over to characters like Wild Shape Druids and Synthesist Summoners who aren't easily phased by terrain and enemy mobility options. Even something like a Hexcrafter Magus is miles ahead of most full BAB classes in this regard.
Neither of these options makes martials look good. Instead of the current state of "if martials don't get given a specific spell they can't participate in many encounters", we get "if martials don't get given a specific spell 3 times over to push through counter-spelling they can't participate in many encounters". This is not an improvement.
Snowblind, you're overanalyzing it.
We already know martials don't compete with casters. We already know an all-caster group is better than an all-martial group. This isn't in dispute (except for a few holdouts I guess).
My point is that right now, every caster successfully casts every spell. Making counterspells effective and COMMON means sometimes casters fail to cast spells because an enemy counterspells it.
That can ONLY lessen the disparity (at least with regards to encounters which is only part of the problem) because martials still do whatever they can or can't do, but now some caster spell power is wasted due to enemy countering.
Furthermore, making it so that only casters can do this means that the enemy casters are burning actions, even if it's only their Swift action, to counterspell. Allowing martials to do it too means that the martials will be burning their actions instead.
Now, maybe if we allow martials to counterspell somehow, then the ineffective martial (because the enemy is flying or invisible or whatever) could use his actions to be effective again. But then I think PC casters are going to be very disappointed when every kobold, goblin, orc, ogre, giant, demon, devil, elemental, dragon, and many, many other things, start counterspelling every spell they ever cast.
Suddenly your PC wizard is just the guy who threatens to be cool and causes one of the enemy orcs to waste a swift action to keep him from being cool.
That probably doesn't work.
Some part of the disparity (not all of it obviously) comes from the fact that martials can be stalled or tripped or whatever in battle, but casters come with this whole (mostly) unopposed action economy.
Furthermore, making it so that only casters can do this means that the enemy casters are burning actions, even if it's only their Swift action, to counterspell. Allowing martials to do it too means that the martials will be burning their actions instead.
Now, maybe if we allow martials to counterspell somehow, then the ineffective martial (because the enemy is flying or invisible or whatever) could use his actions to be effective again. But then I think PC casters are going to be very disappointed when every kobold, goblin, orc, ogre, giant, demon, devil, elemental, dragon, and many, many other things, start counterspelling every spell they ever cast.
Suddenly your PC wizard is just the guy who threatens to be cool and causes one of the enemy orcs to waste a swift action to keep him from being cool.
That probably doesn't work.
Right, thats why i think it should be tied to spell slots somehow, or maybe a couple of archetypes that can use pool points to dispell
I was thinking about the disparity and came to this point... the hit points. They were determined with the balance between classes in mind; but in the end it fails. Why? Cause HP represent how hard is to kill a creature; but sadly it represents too how hard is to heal a creature and should be the other way, a hard to kill creature would be also easy to heal.
If you compare, a fighter have about twice the hit points of a wizard. But to restore her to full HP, it requires double the magic, potions etc than a wizard. A 18 Con provides +4 HP per level, higher than the expected HP for a wizard (3.5) and too low compared to the mean value of a barbarian HD (6.5); meaning creatures with a low Hd benefit much more from a high Con stat than creatures with high HDs... an irony.
Potions/spells should restore HP in % rather than raw hit points. Myabe they restore HD, you have a 1d6 HD? sorry you don't benefit that much from potions, ah you are a fighter, roll a 1d10 instead; multiclass? don't worry, a 3 fighter / 7 wizard using a lot of spells only heal 3d10 + 7d6, ok? Sorry, but fighters and barbarians have such stamina so they benefit much more than a weak wizard from medicine, potions and spells.
Fighters could have a way to heal faster than wizards, maybe they can recover 2 points of non-lethal damage per hour, maybe a bonus on how much they can recover from rest, maybe they heal during the day when not engaged in battle without requiring to rest, "dudes, i'll be helping the people to repair those tents until the pain goes away, i'm just tired of being on the bed the whole day being of no use, don't worry about me, it's just a bruise and i'm a die hard, you know?".
I did this with a couple ways.
Vitality: Healing spells affecting the fighter always take effect at least at his fighter level. Which would affect Cure wands and potions, and make them slightly more effective for fighters.
Healing potions on fighters return double health (which makes healing potions cost the same as CLW wands). - i.e. he gets the benefit of CLW wands, with potions.
==Aelryinth
While I've heard a lot of cogent arguments that give a good conceptual perspective as to why a higher level or higher hitpoint character requires more healing, I hadn't really seen it approached from the disparity point of view (the "how SHOULD we be looking at this" vs "how can we look at this that keeps internal consistency").
A character's sources of hitpoints are based on hit dice and constitution, multiplied by level.
Since multi-classing is a thing, we'll need a mechanic that can be used more universally (otherwise, we are spending time cutting up how the healing affects a character, etc).
The easiest to apply while in-game, but takes some math to set up, would be to have each character set up with a % of their hitpoints as their "healing" number (so like maybe, 10%.. easy to figure out), and then sources of healing would apply that number X amount of times depending on the strength of the spell, etc.
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Fighter 10th lvl
10d10 equals 55hp
16con (+3) is 30hp
Total 85/10% is 8.5 (9)
cure light is 9 + 5(CL)
Cure Mod is 18 + 10 (CL)
Cure Serious 27 + 15(CL)
Cure Critical 36 +20 (CL)
Might fix it a bit, mind you potions, scrolls and wands when bought are lowest caster level so you wouldn't be adding to much more healing from them.
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How about making cure spells restore HP based on recipients HD, rather then 1d8? For example, cure moderate wounds heals 2d12+Caster Level(CL) on the barbarian, and 2d6+CL on the wizard.
Optionally, you could replace the CL bonus with the recipients Con bonus, however, this would reward using consumables later in the game and make the cure mass spells usually less powerful. Probably better to skip that idea.
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How about making cure spells restore HP based on recipients HD, rather then 1d8? For example, cure moderate wounds heals 2d12+Caster Level(CL) on the barbarian, and 2d6+CL on the wizard.
This runs into the problem of not working well with multiclassing, or requiring you to create formulae for determining what a character's average hit die are, which really seems unnecessarily complex. I liked the idea of using a percentage of total hit points a bit more than this, primarily because it's roughly the same difficulty of math, but with fewer steps involved.