RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I generally prefer casters, but in my experience martials are by no means weak if played well. One of my favorite characters in the past couple of years was a fighter.
I have friends who can make non-spellcasters thrum with power and utility. One is just amazing at playing rogues, and won't even touch the Unchained rogue because "why does the most powerful class need more power?" This guy can be running a rogue in a 17th level party and be voted MVP.
Another friend definitely prefers spellcasters, and he was always considered a mediocre/poor player. Then he played a fighter - what a difference! He had that fighter doing things that made the group's jaws drop. He still prefers casters because he buys into the idea that they are "better," - but he is terrible at playing them. We encourage him to play martials because he is so good at it, but he generally doesn't.
I'm going to be trying out a bloodrager here in an upcoming Reign of Winter game, so I guess I'll se how that goes. I tend to consider the 4-level casters essentially martials.
My favorite? Probably cleric. I have a soft spot for my very first D&D(BECMI) character who was a cleric. It's my go-to class if I know I'm going to be playing the character for a very long time. I like the mix of healing and buff magic, along with the ability to play the martial game if need be. I also like being self-reliant when it comes to survival. I enjoy both spontaneous and prepared casters fairly equally - they fulfill different things mechanically IMO.
My preference runs towards clerics and divine casters.
I like the idea of having the powers of the gods behind me, not to mention, more times than not, when you come across creatures, traps, magic items that impede magic, its more arcane than it is divine.
So its clerics and druids when I'm feeling castery, and paladins and warpriests when I want to hit things.
|
Or I just summon a few monsters that don't need gear or healing or anything. Or I play a druid with a pocket fighter and summon more support.
Summoned creatures are wonderful utility. In combat they are...okay, but no match for a dedicated melee character. Animal Companions are wonderful. They're also available to just about everyone with some minimal investment. Paladins just get one at 5th, for example.
I can "function" with a fighter. I could moderately self sustain with a paladin. That is still a weaker choice than a fullcaster from levels 1-20.
Weaker? Probably technically. But a well-built Paladin, Slayer, Ranger, or Barbarian is a very nice thing to have in a PC group. Their out-of-combat options will be more limited than a Wizard or Druid, but they do direct damage very well indeed, and that's an essential enough combat role that having them around is pretty useful.
I'm not saying they're as good as casters. They aren't. But that's mostly on a non-combat/utility front rather than in direct combat, and there's a point of diminishing returns on the utility of full casters. Having a Cleric and a Wizard provides wonderful utility...toss on a Druid and they don't add as much, but still some. Toss on a Witch on top of those and you're getting to the point where it doesn't help, since someone else can do everything they do already.
So if they're what you enjoy playing? They're more than good enough that you don't have to feel guilty playing them. A party with 0 Full Casters is admittedly screwed. A party with 3 rather than 4? Does just fine.
Disclaimer: None of the above necessarily applies to all martial classes. The list above were picked for a reason. It certainly applies to them. The Paladin is even a net gain to party healing.
A good martial needs a good caster in the party. Sorry casters for the most part offer more variety in combat.
Played a paladin lately as a change from my full casters and I just get twitchy not being able to adapt as well to help the team. Don't get me wrong I'm the character who one shot the assimar in book one of rise of the runelords, I have fun and feel useful, just i find more times where I'm just having less interesting options than the wizard. But that said the balance plays out, he'll die to a giant's fart if things go sideways and I being the self healing save God I am will tank a dragon without breaking a sweat.
Full spell casting and the ability to heal but not be main healer is the sweet spot not many parties generally like to run multible clerics, Shaman's and/or oracles as a mix of both healing a little or one primary and the other just there with emergency heals. The cleric spell list ain't far behind wizard in offensive power and there are many ways too boost that list anyhow. Armor, 3/4 BAB and expceptable HP make me happy.
Will add hybrids casters mostly have class tricks like bards to spice it up so again they don't suck, but they ain't a wizard/cleric power house.
Well anyhow everything has its place in a balanced party but casters just get a bit more to do.
I prefer martial classes but not the fighter. Barbarian, Rangers, Slayers, Monks, and Paladins are fun to play as you have more to your class than just full attack.
Fighters can be fun too but they definitely are not my favorite.
|
I like characters with a lot of flexibility and fiddly class features and systems I can mess with that provide interesting results. I also like skill points.
Full casters have spells that provide fiddly class features. Those are fun! Int-based casters even get skill points.
A lot of hybrid classes have class features I like and get flexibility from spell selection. Those are fun too!
Some of the more-martial classes can do lots of interesting things as well. Slayers are neat, for example, and barbarians and swashbucklers can do some interesting things. If you count 4-level casters as martials the paladin is a lot of fun and the ranger looks like something I could enjoy although I haven't played one in Pathfinder yet.
I really really really don't like the fighter. The class is dead to me. I'm not really impressed by the UC monk (let alone the Core monk != zen archer). My first PF character was a Core rogue and oh dear that was a bad idea.
I never really got into classic bard fluff myself, but there are some good archetypes. Try the Archaeologist some time: it's a blast and it's totally not a sing-song banjo bard in any sense.
I like Bard and (Un)Rogue skill-monkey type characters. I tend to like partial casters with good teamwork like Bard, Skald and certain Occultist builds. I think with my builds I usually like to walk the line between casters and martials. I'm not a big fan of Fighter or Barbarian, but I do enjoy my Slayer. It may be a martial, but its set up to have more interesting combat setups than yelling 'I full attack it!' repeatedly. It certainly benefits from a good full attack and will try to do so when possible, but when its not possible I don't feel horribly crippled.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Martial. Favorite classes are monk and fighter.
Why yes, I have started to go bald since I've started playing DnD (24btw).
Martial. Favorite classes are monk and fighter.
Why yes, I have started to go bald since I've started playing DnD (24btw).
+1 that made me laugh so hard :)
Also wow!
Martials got a lot of points recently and are starting to near the casters.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
Title says it all.
Me personally, I like casters more because they are more versatile and have more things to do.
I will post a post for Martials and one for casters favorite the one you like more.
Edit: to clarify anything below a 6th level caster is a martial so Paladins and Rangers are Martials, but inquisitors and bard are not.
Casters. Personal favorites being Psions followed by Wizards. Psions are easily fluffed to the point that very few magical themes and tropes cannot be filled with them and their mechanics rarely if ever get in the way of fulfilling your "mage" concept. Wizards because I enjoy micromanagement more than your average person, and they're kind of like the toolkit expert who has something for every occasion.
The martial characters that I enjoy playing are also things like Rangers and Paladins. Despite your OP noting them as being more martial than caster, the reason they are very enjoyable is often directly tied to their ability to cast spells. Any archetype that trades their casting away almost always results in a net loss to their potential and options in the game. Being spellcasters, even a little, makes them better martials as a result (such as how rangers have in-house access to magic item creation feats, and staple martial supports like resist energy, delay poison, and the almighty freedom of movement, and benefit from a wide variety of caster-supporting magic items such as pearls of power, prayer beads, scrolls and wands, etc).
But the real question is why, no?
Because they have more options and more ways to interact with the game and thus the world. Casting characters have no options that non-casters do not, speaking from the standpoint of things like skills, but they have a huge toolkit of things that noncasters simply do not. No amount of ranks in Heal can bridge the gap between an expert and an adept casting cure light wounds and, humorously, the adept is probably just as good at the Heal skill or has the option to be.
My friend Aratrok (whom I met on these forums) ran a Reign of Winter campaign that I played a psion in. Out of the PCs involved, my character was the only one from the original team that began the campaign. Everyone else's PCs were either killed or retired for being too boring to the PCs, most of which were martial characters (in the beginning we had a 3:1 martial/caster setup).
By the end of the campaign (we all collectively decided to stop it because the adventure path itself was really not doing anything for us, due to a mix of terrible plot, lack of plot hooks, bad justification for doing anything along the plot's very strange rails, and never giving the PCs any reason to progress forward), my psion "Witch" Agatha was never at a loss for something to do in any situation. She was an MVP in a lot of encounters that the rest of the party could do nothing to deal with...
She was thrown off a high location. She flew back up.
She fell into a freezing river. She could swim (as in swim speed) and had cold resistance.
She helped make the party magical doodads to help them.
She never stood around in combat doing nothing, happily supporting allies, conjuring monsters, or tripping up enemies.
This is not how that actually played out. What actually occurred was Agatha using the psionic equivalent to grease a lot, with the notable humor that giants on average tend to have very poor reflex saves. The party was carving through the frost giants and had quite a number of them disabled or dead before the chicken-hut artifact thing was really even making a show of a single giant.
Agatha, being a little spiteful at the time, wanted to chase them down after they routed but the rest of the party opted to just let them go so she complied.
She ended up being the party's face because she had the best Bluff, Diplomacy, and Sense Motive modifiers in the party, because I just appreciated and invested ranks into those things.
She did things like dispelling or breaking curses on party members. She eventually broke a geas on the whole party to give them their free will back, because she could and would. It was expensive (she had to create magical items to do it) but she could and did do it with the party's help (it's amazing how affordable one-time use items are when an entire party is pitching in to help fund them).
The point is, at no point did I ever feel like I was just there watching as the game unfolded waiting for my turn. I always felt like there was something I could do, or try, or some way to improvise with what I had (even if I never had the perfect spell for the job), and having a multitude of options for interacting with the world magically never once diminished my ability to interact with the world without using magic. In fact, it only enhanced the fact.
Well , already voted , but if it is to say my fav classes:
APG Summoner is ofc my fav , nothing beats having an eidolon , such an awesome concept. (And i keep the rule , if a player tells me about unchained one , another page of the book burns and so does any rules written on it.)
After summoner i like mostly using sorcs and spiritualists (CHA based) , i honestly think the phantoms kinda of suck , but they allow nice ideas like the eidolon , so i still go for it.
|
|
Martials all the way. Casters have way too much in the way of bookkeeping for me to fully enjoy the way I do a martial class.
The Advanced Training options for fighters have really made them more enjoyable, not that I didn't in the first place. And I never really had any issues with rogues and monks either, though I'm quite digging the unchained versions. Not too fond of the core ranger, but Kobold Press came out with the Spell-Less Ranger and that's the version allowed at my table. Slayer is pretty cool as is the brawler.
And an ex-inquisitor is just fun to run.
So, yeah... Martials are where it's at for me.
A more semi-serious post about why I prefer martials.
1) I feel like I'm building a character more often than not. For most casters, you choose either the most general or focused (insert class feature here) and pick the best spells, because, let's be honest, despite the ridiculous number of spells, you always pick certain ones, since it feels like the game is balanced around them sometimes. With a martial, I feel like I can create a character that can grow in how they perform and kick ass, and each one looks wildly different in my mind's eye. With any 9th lvl caster, you just level up and the world is yours. I guess it's just a thematic thing in my mind. Like... the limits and focus make my character feel like a master at what they do. Can't think of many things more satisfying than finally finishing a style tree on a character I played from level 1.
2) I sort of said this already, but in my mind, casters tend to just look samey. Clerics, wizards, sorcerers just look similar in my head. Oracles don't for obvious reasons, but this goes back to the progression being contogient on your spells. I can't visualize the growth in the character. A Lvl 20 wizard is probably still some guy in a robe, just with more stiff in his pack. A level 20 fighter though, has gleaming heavy armor they move effortlessly in, an assortment of mythical weapons on their back, and their staure and physicality is wildly different, and probably godly in presence. A barbarian is less a savage and more World War Hulk by level 20.
3) This might be since martials are, perhaps to their detriment, more grounded in reality, but I can more closely understand what it means to train tirelessly and grow because of it. I don't know what it means to contact some higher power in the cosmos or in myself, but I know the weight of a claymore and the difficulty of a push up. You know how many push ups you have to do block a dragon's bite with a bucker? Probably a lot.
Lastly, they're the underdog and inherently weaker, I got to pull for them!
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
Thinking about it further, here are some other reasons I generally prefer casters.
They're easier to build into actual characters rather than being forced into cookie cutter builds. It often feels like to do anything worthwhile as a martial, you have to be nailed into a variety of very specific feats - typically entire trees of feats - to function at all.
Whereas when playing something like a Psion, Wizard, or Cleric, or even a Ranger or Paladin, you're freeing up a ton of your regular resources by comparison. I never once feel feat starved when playing any of those classes (except maybe Paladin/Ranger but they typically either need very few feats or get them for free while ignoring prerequisites).
For example, on Agatha, I pretty much just picked feats as I fancied. Not a single feat she has was ever mandatory, only being picked because they furthered the theme I was going for with her, except for Power Penetration but it was filler anyway (yes, filler) that I figured I'd trade out for another feat if I felt like it later.
Because there are so many things that aren't required to be good and playable (in another recent thread I noted you don't even need more than a 13 Int or Wis to play a good Wizard or Druid successfully) it means there's a lot of wiggle room for customization and personalization. With Agatha, I wanted her to be a shapeshifting witch who lived in the wilds assuming the forms of various animals, beasts, and eventually abyssal horrors; while doing creepy soul magics and witchy stuff. Check.
Past that, the rest is gravy. Aside from some feats to support the former, I could take whatever I wanted. Same with skills. Her sheet is spattered with random skill points invested into all sorts of things that she got better at and learned during her adventures, to the point that even if she wasn't even manifesting any high level powers she was super useful. She never fell below 60% resources during an adventure (I'm a frugal bastard who prefers to line up a shot rather than nuking stuff from orbit and sorting through the ashes) so longevity was never an issue either.
I could change around 90% of her selections and end up with a completely different character and still be super effective, rather than being tied down into burning half my feats so I can shoot some arrows or jump or something.
EDIT: I eventually gave up on language picking for Agatha. She speaks like 19 different languages but I only ever put down 8 or so on her sheet because I couldn't be bothered to pick more. There was a running joke at the table that Agatha spoke "Yes" instead of a language, because we weren't even sure if there were 19 different languages in the campaign (there's like 21 languages total in the linguistics skill and some of those are the different elemental languages).
What's consuming half your feats so you can jump? This deeply intrigues me.
|
|
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
I agree with Ashiel's reasoning. Which is why at my table we house-rule down many feats that exist just to unlock a fighting style to the minimum remotely reasonable level (including some being free). For example, TWFing is one feat for all three bonus attacks (gated by BAB of course).
The only martial that gets away easy is the two-handed fighter, needing only power attack.
Martial fighting styles and their basic feat requirements for approximately maintaining effectiveness:
- Two-Handed Fighting - Power Attack
- Two-Weapon Fighting (Strength-based) - Power Attack, Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Greater Two-Weapon Fighting; recommend Double Slice and Two-Weapon Rend
- Two-Weapon Fighting (Dexterity-based) - As Str-based TWFing, plus Weapon Finesse, (Deadly Grace, Dervish Dance, or Slashing Grace)
- Sword+Shield TWFing - As other TWFing plus Improved Shield Bash; also highly recommend Shield Slam and Shield Mastery.
- Archery - Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Improved Precise Shot, Deadly Aim, Rapid Shot, Many Shot
And this doesn't even take into account feats like Weapon Focus, Improved Critical, or Critical Focus. A fighter of even the simplest fighting style (Two-Handed Fighting) can spend at least 8 feats on that style without gaining anything but more DPS (Power Attack, Furious Focus, Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Spec, Greater Weapon Spec, Improved Critical, Critical Focus). Weapon Focus is itself often the gate to more feats that the character will want to meet their style (e.g. Slashing Grace).
The fact is that, aside from fighters, most martials could spend literally every feat they ever get on doing nothing but pumping more to-hit and damage into their full-round attack and have absolutely no other tricks. And with the way the game is typically played, it's practically demanded of them.
Casters? I could spend all my feats on Skill Focus and still be at 80-90% of my potential power.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What's consuming half your feats so you can jump? This deeply intrigues me.
I was just using hyperbole, remarking about the sheer weight of feats that are required to do often incredibly mundane things. Though there were quite a few jumping related feats in 3.x, such as a feat that let you do things like making leaping charges or jump and slap something in the head and stuff. Most of which, as I recall, were crap. With the exception of...Leap Attack, I think it was (doubled your damage if you jumped during your charge, IIRC).
|
What's consuming half your feats so you can jump? This deeply intrigues me.I was just using hyperbole, remarking about the sheer weight of feats that are required to do often incredibly mundane things. Though there were quite a few jumping related feats in 3.x, such as a feat that let you do things like making leaping charges or jump and slap something in the head and stuff. Most of which, as I recall, were crap. With the exception of...Leap Attack, I think it was (doubled your damage if you jumped during your charge, IIRC).
Yes, leap attack doubled the Power Attack damage if you leapt during a charge. You combined it with Shock Trooper to reduce your AC instead of your Attack bonus (because you chose the penalty to your Attack Roll, up to your BAB), and did silly things.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yes, leap attack doubled the Power Attack damage if you leapt during a charge. You combined it with Shock Trooper to reduce your AC instead of your Attack bonus (because you chose the penalty to your Attack Roll, up to your BAB), and did silly things.What's consuming half your feats so you can jump? This deeply intrigues me.I was just using hyperbole, remarking about the sheer weight of feats that are required to do often incredibly mundane things. Though there were quite a few jumping related feats in 3.x, such as a feat that let you do things like making leaping charges or jump and slap something in the head and stuff. Most of which, as I recall, were crap. With the exception of...Leap Attack, I think it was (doubled your damage if you jumped during your charge, IIRC).
Yeah we had a player playing a frenzied berserker using some web enhancement stuff that let her mount also share the benefits of her rage/frenzy, and she used leap attack + shock trooper + spirited charge + horseshoes of the zypher + cursed berserking weaponry to swoop around and merc stuff.
Of course she was partied with 2 wizards, 1 sorcerer, and a shugenja. :P
EDIT: Which means she was generally the least powerful character in the party. She was beloved though, just like our cute kobold sorcerer.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I know your miles may vary but I am seeing a lot of wrong reasons to like a certain type of character. I'm seeing a lot of "choosing mathematically and in a white room" vs "what I just like to play".
|
|
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
I know your miles may vary but I am seeing a lot of wrong reasons to like a certain type of character. I'm seeing a lot of "choosing mathematically and in a white room" vs "what I just like to play".
Watch out, guys! It's the fun police! :P
Seriously, for some people, playing an effective character is fun. I can enjoy playing a fighter just as much as I enjoy playing a bard, because I have fun playing an RPG at the table. The truth is, though, that if I were given the choice I'd choose the a caster over a martial character every time, because having options and cool things to do all the time IS fun.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I know your miles may vary but I am seeing a lot of wrong reasons to like a certain type of character.
You failed the "fact or opinion" quiz in 2nd grade, didn't you?
I can decide I like Commoners the best. I don't even NEED a reason for that at all -- much less the "right" reason.
I know your miles may vary but I am seeing a lot of wrong reasons to like a certain type of character. I'm seeing a lot of "choosing mathematically and in a white room" vs "what I just like to play".Watch out, guys! It's the fun police! :P
Seriously, for some people, playing an effective character is fun. I can enjoy playing a fighter just as much as I enjoy playing a bard, because I have fun playing an RPG at the table. The truth is, though, that if I were given the choice I'd choose the a caster over a martial character every time, because having options and cool things to do all the time IS fun.
Well your reasons are wrong based on the assumption that martials don't have anything "fun" to do all the time.
Also, define "being effective" because as far as I know, all classes are effective in some shape or form.
The vibe I get out of some people is competitiveness vs other players.
Design Manager
|
| 13 people marked this as a favorite. |
Well your reasons are wrong based on the assumption that martials don't have anything "fun" to do all the time.Also, define "being effective" because as far as I know, all classes are effective in some shape or form.
The vibe I get out of some people is competitiveness vs other players.
Wow, could you be any more self-righteous?
Blanket statement "You are wrong [...] because my vibe based on my own prejudices and nothing anyone has said says you're trying to one-up other players" <- That's you.
You literally cannot say "You're wrong because every class is effective" without coming off as a combative and kind of ignorant tool. "Effective" is entirely subjective, and dependent on playstyle, the particulars of a given adventure, and other factors, so any blanket statement, particularly one that starts with "You are wrong" is meaningless, doubly so when you bill into a thread about people's opinions on what they like to play.
|
I prefer Martials. As cool as the idea of Vancian magic is I've never quite jived with the idea that my effectiveness was being spent away every time I cast a spell. Spellcasters do some cool things, but a sword is just as effective in the first fight as it is in the 12th and that means something to me.
|
|
Well your reasons are wrong based on the assumption that martials don't have anything "fun" to do all the time.
That's extremely subjective. For some people, some concepts, and some martials, sure.
But if you want to be super-great at all the Knowledge skills, and effective in combat...there are a limited number of martial options (Lore Warden's pretty much it barring a few racial options). If you want to be good at social skills as well, that number approaches zero (Lore Warden with a very specific build). You also want to be able to provide party buffs and handle your own healing? I can think of one way to get all that without spells, but it's convoluted, doesn't kick in until level 6 or so, and if you can figure it out I'm impressed.
An Investigator does all those things right out of the box.
And does them better than the martial build I mention. And with much less effort.
Also, define "being effective" because as far as I know, all classes are effective in some shape or form.
Are they? Again, this is super subjective and depends on what you're aiming for. None make effective planar travelers without relying on magic items, for instance.
The vibe I get out of some people is competitiveness vs other players.
That's really not what's going on here. If your character is less effective than bob's character at every single aspect of the game it's not competitiveness to feel overshadowed and incompetent in comparison.
|
I tend to play universalist Wizards. First of all, I like a wide spell selection. Wide spell selection is the key feature of a wizard, one that I'm unwilling to compromise on in order to get another spell slot in a particular school, because I find that limiting.
To me a wizard is someone who solves problems using the combination of the trusty spellbook and vast array of knowledge gathered during the career. I've probably done more damage to the enemies indirectly through directing the martial characters at what needs to die first (thanks to knowledge) and telling them tricks to defeat stuff than I did with the spells (though trivializing encounters through color spray and the like may come close). I tend to favor teamwork.
Another reason is that I simply don't know a lot of the rules for martial type stuff in PF, so playing a Wizard is less complicated (I have a weird play history).
I'm willing to play other stuff, as long as I don't have to sacrifice my knowledge skills here, so Investigator would potentially be a pretty strong option for me.
Mentor Wizard type of leadership is what's fun for me, in the end.
Edit: I acknowledge martial-caster disparity, but I also like it that way. However, in such discussions, I find it hard to forget the example of a level 12 (IIRC) Rogue who destroyed Golarion in one campaign.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Well your reasons are wrong based on the assumption that martials don't have anything "fun" to do all the time.I know your miles may vary but I am seeing a lot of wrong reasons to like a certain type of character. I'm seeing a lot of "choosing mathematically and in a white room" vs "what I just like to play".Watch out, guys! It's the fun police! :P
Seriously, for some people, playing an effective character is fun. I can enjoy playing a fighter just as much as I enjoy playing a bard, because I have fun playing an RPG at the table. The truth is, though, that if I were given the choice I'd choose the a caster over a martial character every time, because having options and cool things to do all the time IS fun.
Well, for non-casting martials such as Fighter or even the almighty Barbarian, most of their abilities and toolset is combat based with little skill support (barbarians do have an edge here). However, this does mean that in many cases where the party is trying to do problem-solving related things or just play around within the world doing things their range of options is significantly more limited than those of their casting peers. This is because casters can do everything that a muggle can do but they also have this huge toolkit that muggles do not.
Because of this, I feel the onus is on the martial to show how they have something "fun" to do all the time. Because there are very many instances in a typical adventure where they have little to nothing to contribute to an adventuring situation that a commoner does not.
This means that anytime that something non-combat related comes up that a commoner wouldn't also be capable of interacting with in any major way tends to leave such characters twiddling their thumbs. There's a reason why certain gaming tropes exist, such as the guy who gets into a fight or brawl in town because he's been twiddling his thumbs for an hour while the rest of the party does things like investigating things. Whereas my character Agatha has all the means if performing an investigation (such as Perception, Survival, Sense Motive, etc), while also being able to detect (and identify) poisons to garner additional clues.
The vibe I get out of some people is competitiveness vs other players.
I'm curious as to how "having more stuff you can do in any situation and thus getting to interact and play around more in the game" gets interpreted as "competitive". Doesn't that make it more cooperative when everyone is contributing? I mean, a football team all work together, you don't have one or two guys playing the game while everyone else watches and waits for someone to pass the ball to them.
Martial all day. Easier to prep between games and I like doing good old fashion damage
For the Fighter haters out there I played Eyes of the Ten and later modules with a Fighter(Weapon Master) in our party that rattled of 200+ damage in several encounters. He wasn't considered a weak link in the party.
Favorite class tie between fighter, ninja or monk
Casters. Lots more options generally means lots more fun to be had.
|
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
For the Fighter haters out there I played Eyes of the Ten and later modules with a Fighter(Weapon Master) in our party that rattled of 200+ damage in several encounters. He wasn't considered a weak link in the party.
Meanwhile I watched the paladin spike 300 damage when she wanted, the eidolons pounced everything to death, the kung-fu raptor went to puree mode, and the casters removed targets without needing a single point of damage. YMMV.
|
|
I know your miles may vary but I am seeing a lot of wrong reasons to like a certain type of character. I'm seeing a lot of "choosing mathematically and in a white room" vs "what I just like to play".Watch out, guys! It's the fun police! :P
Seriously, for some people, playing an effective character is fun. I can enjoy playing a fighter just as much as I enjoy playing a bard, because I have fun playing an RPG at the table. The truth is, though, that if I were given the choice I'd choose the a caster over a martial character every time, because having options and cool things to do all the time IS fun.
Well your reasons are wrong based on the assumption that martials don't have anything "fun" to do all the time.
Also, define "being effective" because as far as I know, all classes are effective in some shape or form.
The vibe I get out of some people is competitiveness vs other players.
Um... I think you kinda misunderstood my entire post. Allow me to elaborate.
Playing an effective character is fun. I never said martial characters WEREN'T effective, just that playing the character that can do the things you envision him doing reliably is fun. I even added in the caveat "some people", implying that not EVERYONE feels that way.
You also claimed that I said that martials don't have anything fun to do all the time, which isn't what I said at all. What I DID say was that casters have more options and cooler things to do all the time, and that is fun. Now can a martial character have fun all the time? Sure. But when your Barbarian is scouring ancient texts written in Aklo to find clues about an ancient super weapon capable of destroying the cosmos unless the proper incantation is said, you'll wish you had a scroll of comprehend languages you could use, instead of saying "Hey, duh, Mr. Wizard, how do you pronounce ASPOIGASD;LAKVNAU;LAUN?"
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'll admit that the most effective character isn't always the most fun character for me. I've had more fun playing martials than casters. Yet I tend to make current and future characters as casters for their efficacy. I care more about game fun than personal fun.
1 |Toughness, Intimidating Prowess, Combat Reflexes
2 |Bravery +1, Power Attack
3 |Armor training, Cleave
4 |Great Cleave
5 |Weapon training(Blades, Heavy), Advanced Weapon Training: Versatile Training(Intimidate, Diplomacy)
6 |Bravery +2, Lunge
7 |Armor training, Iron Will
8 |Blind-Fight
9 |Versatile Training(Bluff, Ride), Cut from the Air
10|Bravery +3, Advanced Weapon Training: Armed Bravery
11|Armor training, Smash from the Air
12|Pin down
13|Defensive Weapon Training, Antagonize
14|Bravery +4, Dazing Assault
15|Armor training, Advanced Weapon Training: Weapon Sacrifice
16|Weapon Focus
17|Fighter’s Reflexes, Greater Weapon Focus
18|Bravery +5, Weapon Specialization
19|Armor mastery, Greater Weapon Specialization
20|weapon mastery(GS), Advanced Weapon Training: Weapon Specialist
I have yet to actually make that character when given the chance because I know the group would require something with a bit more oomph to function. If I didn't play my constructor psion, the party would have wiped several times already. Well we would "almost wipe" aka GM pulls BS to keep the plot going and everyone feels like they aren't really playing a game anymore.
I'm sick of groups falling apart whenever I try to have "fun". Martials have failed me. The above fighter would have great saves, ac, and hp. He could dish out damage, handle spell effects, give out hard CC and soft CC, have social skills, and theoretically function quite well. Yet he is not a meat wall or room CC pooper that a caster is. He's expensive to maintain and his only advantage is that he would want to push the party beyond the point that an all caster group would have retreated. It's sad.
|
|
To find out which I like more, let me check my guides:
Martials
-Barbarian
-Gunslinger
Casters
-Alchemist
-Investigator
-Summoner (I'll finish it one day)
Warpriest
Question mark
-Kineticist
Even tossing Kineticist into martials, as a whole I prefer 2/3rds casters. They're a great mix of melee and magic in a way that helps keep things interesting. Giving me plenty of options is something I want a class to do, and for casters, I get both spells and feats to fool around with, as opposed to martials who only get one.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
This is part of the reason why casting martials tend to be better overall. Because it's really like comparing batman and batman with his utility belt. He's still batman either way, except he's got a lot more options when he's wearing his utility belt.
This isn't a suggestion that there's a "right" way to play persay, or that you must enjoy playing casters by any means. What it is, is simply an explanation for why some people like playing casters moreso, even if those casters are filling in martial roles (because, amusingly, filling the role of a non-caster is actually pretty simple for many casters because - like I noted earlier - that there is precious little you can do without magic that a commoner with bigger numbers can't).
Yup combat casters is it for me. Inquisitor,Magus are two of my favorite classes to play.
For the Fighter haters out there I played Eyes of the Ten and later modules with a Fighter(Weapon Master) in our party that rattled of 200+ damage in several encounters. He wasn't considered a weak link in the party.Meanwhile I watched the paladin spike 300 damage when she wanted, the eidolons pounced everything to death, the kung-fu raptor went to puree mode, and the casters removed targets without needing a single point of damage. YMMV.
I'm the opposite where I don't prefer playing the most op classes in the game. I still thought 200+ with a Fighter with 18 Str was pretty impressive.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm the opposite where I don't prefer playing the most op classes in the game. I still thought 200+ with a Fighter with 18 Str was pretty impressive.For the Fighter haters out there I played Eyes of the Ten and later modules with a Fighter(Weapon Master) in our party that rattled of 200+ damage in several encounters. He wasn't considered a weak link in the party.Meanwhile I watched the paladin spike 300 damage when she wanted, the eidolons pounced everything to death, the kung-fu raptor went to puree mode, and the casters removed targets without needing a single point of damage. YMMV.
If you think Paladin is an OP class, we need to sit down and have a little talk about the Ds and the Ds.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I like playing casters because I like making the GM tell me I can't do things.
"You can't summon whales on land."
"You can't summon whales in rivers."
"You can't summon whales in the ocean but inside a force cube."
"You know what? I don't care what the book says. Your whale summoning privileges are revoked."
"You do not do extra damage for using Wall of Stone to build a chimney/crematorium around an enemy then dropping Flamestrikes into it."
"You can't damage the antimagic golem with disintegrate. Yes, you can use disintegrate to make a hole in the floor. No, I don't know how much falling a twenty-ton object takes when it falls fifty feet. You can't disintegrate that much with one spell, it says it right here. Oh, you knew that... wait, how are you casting it three times in one turn?"
On an unrelated note, using RAW, Sharknados do surprisingly little damage.
"What do you mean I can't move a one-inch thick diagonal slice of stone out of the tower base, causing it to collapse? It's totally within the volume limitations of my stone shape spell!"
Have to say that I don't really like the simplicity of poll question.
There are pure martials and pure casters, and there are plenty of things that are in between.
Myself, I don't really enjoy playing most of the pure martials or most of the pure casters.
I mostly enjoy classes like Inquisitor and Warpriest who are primarily self-buffing martials with extra utility tacked on.
I know one of my favorite characters is a Drunken Master/Ki Mystic Sensei. It's hardly a caster, but just as supportive as a bard, and capable of damage when the situation arises (Especially with a good style tree), and hella fun to RP. Where would they fall? Who knows.
From what I see, most people love the middle road, which is unanimously agreed to be where balanced is happily achieved (That area being 4th and 6th level casters), and when in comparison to them, full martials tend to be okay/equal in light of more recent content.
Just those rascally full casters.
|
|
I usually favor playing sorcerers. Or at least I did until recently. But then I was playing wizards and fighter/mages in AD&D 2nd. That said, I also like playing fighters, monks now and then, the occasional rogue, and the even more occasional druid. Recently though I've fallen in love with both the Kineticist class and Spiritualist class (with ectoplasmist archtype more often then not).
I also tend to play my sorcerers with more of a melee focus, often going into the dragon disciple prestige class.
Personally, I'm partial to casters.
I can't say that I have a favorite though, beyond that I am looking forward to giving an Arcanist a run someday.
|
|
"What do you mean I can't move a one-inch thick diagonal slice of stone out of the tower base, causing it to collapse? It's totally within the volume limitations of my stone shape spell!"
That wouldn't work, you have to make the removal asymmetrical, otherwise the whole structure just falls an inch and nothing happens.