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do you guys know that scene in Dumb and Dumber where the dude is sitting between them in the dog van and is just screaming GUYS GUYS GUYS
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What if when your BAB hit 6 you could 10ft step (like a 5ft step but twice as far) and still have a full attack action left. At BAB 11 you could 15ft step and full attack or as long as you move less than your full movement speed you get your highest 2 iterative attacks (lose the 3rd). And finally at BAB 16 you can 20ft step and full attack or so long as you move less than your full movement speed you get your 3 highest iterative attacks (lose the 4th).I give Fighters (and Brawlers and Swashbucklers) 10 foot steps as a Class Feature at around 8th (Brawlers get it at 7th). It works pretty well to help them out, though it isn't as good as Pounce.If they are TWF and could have 3 attacks do you let them split it up?
IE: attack - move 5' attack - move 5' attack #3? and I assume no AoOs as its just a longer 5'step?
Sure. I also allow people using TWF to make two attacks as a Standard (though ITWF and the like don't increase that).
Applied to NPC/monsters with class levels too? This is the area I could see it start getting rough is when used vs the PCs potentially so just wondering what you've seen play out in your game before I toss my kids into playtest mode :-)
Well, it requires 8 levels of Fighter or Swashbuckler (or 7 of Brawler), so most monsters aren't getting it, but yeah, I let NPCs use it. Makes martial NPCs more threatening, but not a lot more than giving them a Quick Runner's Shirt (which I often also do).
Really, none of my various buffs to martial characters (and there are actually a fair number) have caused any problems at all. Whether in NPC or PC hands.
I could easily post my current House Rules in their entirety if people were interested.
It is still just two attacks at most.
Same applies for the big bad monsters, of course. They can move in and swing most / all of their natural attacks at the party, giving players less chance to react and adapt.
That's true. But it leads to a new problem: It changes balance between natural attacks and two-weapon fighting in favor of the latter - since with TWF etc. you can attack with both hands within a single act. By extension this usually favors PCs over NPCs, because the latter group relies more on natural attacks than the first.
And with all these rulebooks out, all these guides online and all this player knowledge built up, players already can deal a lot of damage. Skewing it further in their favor can create more trouble than fun.
Unchained attack economy is more robust than most hacks people come up.
I guess that's also true. Before Unchained, I tried to build something like it myself two times and didn't find it convincing. Since the various actions are incredibly deep rooted and everywhere in the game rules, any change causes serious collateral damage.
For my taste, even the well-thought Unchained version has too many issues. Two of them I mentioned already (multiple Great Cleaves, balance between two weapons and natural attacks), and there are more:
* Abilities which turn move actions into swift actions become worthless
* Creatures can move further before attacking, weakening terrain and positioning or enforcing bigger maps
* Multiple 5-foot steps partially undermine the point of reach
* etc.
Well, if Pathfinder would have started with the system, and built the class abilities, feats, move speeds etc. around it, it would have been great, likely better than the current system. But after nearly 20 sessions with it I realize the original system fits better.
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A level 1 fighter can walk 30 feet or charge 60 feet or run 120 feet every single round and do full damage.
A level 6 fighter loses a little bit of potential damage, but can still pull it off because iteratives are inaccurate.
A level 11 fighter is losing more than half their potential damage.
A level 20 fighter is going to end up doing maybe 30% of their total damage while moving.
This seems kind of backwards. Shouldn't a newbie who's just finished their training be less competent at darting around a battlefield relatively than the ultimate master of martial combat?
And yeah, the level 20 fighter is doing more damage with that standard action attack, but comparatively, against CR relevant threats the value of that attack is increasingly less impressive.
Vital strike helps. But it's four feats and still not all that great unless you're doing some specific tricks.
It's even sillier for classes like Rogues and Swashbucklers who theoretically exemplify mobile warrior archtypes in fiction but are also terrible at it. Heck, with TWF and sneak attack rogues are arguably the least mobile class in the entire game. Which seems entirely backwards for the sorts of archetypes associated with the class.
To understand this issue you have to look back into the days of yesteryear. It's the year 2000, and 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons is released. Martial characters are believed by the designers to be really strong, with the fighter being the forefront of "good" martial characters. Their mistaken belief goes so far as to suggest that a +2 Strength is so good that it's worth a pair of penalties in other scores (and they grossly undervalue mental statistics which are, as understood today, much stronger when you consider how they are used).
When this game came out, a common staple buff was haste, just like today. However, that buff gave +1 standard or move action and affected 1 person at a time. So by the time that your average party even had iterative attacks, haste was online and available if you needed it. By mid to high levels, you were expected to be able to afford boots of speed which would give you haste during any round you explicitly needed it (as they function today). This means that while full attacks were restricted compared to normal attacks, it was more or less assumed that any martial would be able to move + attack at higher levels with their whole full attack, though many monsters would not be able to (because they lacked haste).
However, when 3.5 came along, a lot of stuff got shifted around. One of those things was that haste got nerfed from +4 hit, +4 AC, double movement speed, +1 action/round; to +1 hit, +1 ac, +1 reflex, +30 ft. speed, and +1 attack/round (note that with +1 action/round, you could get +1 attack if you wanted but you'll usually move+full attack a foe in range if you weren't already in melee); but it was increased to 1 target/caster level allowing you to buff your whole team.
The reason for the nerf was, allegedly, so that spellcasters couldn't cast haste to cast 2 spells/round. However, this is dubious reasoning because metamagic rods (including quicken rods) were added into 3.5 allowing them to do just that. If that were indeed the intention, limiting it to +1 move action (similar to today's quickrunner's shirt) then it would have made it just as useful to the martial for all real purposes but would have prevented them from popping an extra spell/round.
However, now the new haste spell favors casters moreso than before, because most parties don't have nearly enough martials to get the 1 target/level, but you can definitely get your mileage out of that with a horde of undead minions, summons, animal companions, etc.
Those core martials with their big fancy BAB and iterative attacks really aren't that special when they can't make full-attacks, easily and effortlessly replaced with cannon-fodder units like summoned monsters, simulacra, animated dead, and animal companions. They provide all of the defensive benefits of a martial character (body blocking, providing martial pressure, grappling, etc) but they are by nature expendable. You don't have to worry if the enemy kills them because they can be replaced, where a real martial has to be resurrected.
Many of those martial replacements can likewise be positioned so they can full-attack immediately. In fact, a fighter in 3.5 could be entirely replaced by the druid's animal companion and you'd never miss him. Tordek (the iconic dwarf fighter) can eat his axe, we don't need nor want him, he's useless, he isn't welcome here, we're not a charity for resurrection costs for a character who was no longer cut out for adventuring or fighting world ending horrors like pit fiends.
Pathfinder is based on 3.5, and while they initially nerfed casters by tweaking some of their spells, they also horrifically nerfed martial characters by splitting their core feats apart and ignoring sound feedback during the playtest concerning the scaling differences between CMB and CMD. Also, any nerfs to casters are now irrelevant because many of the worst offenders have simply been replaced with expanded content and they've even gone the extra mile to make spells that are just as broken as anything in 3.x ever was (here's looking at you, Aroden's spellbane).
Martial characters are fighting an uphill battle. A martial character is never stronger, relative to the enemies they face, than they are at 1st level. At 1st level, they are the strongest they will ever be and it's just a steady decline from that point (because HP scales faster than martial damage and even if you've got something like Pounce, if your foe isn't neglecting defenses you very likely can't 1-round them even then).
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Continuing from my previous post, this also leads more experienced players who are cooperatively minded (as in, not out solely for themselves but thinking about their contribution to the other players as well) to realize that certain classes should be avoided because they cost the party too much. Most of the classes that should be avoided - nearly all in fact - tend to be martially oriented characters such as fighters, rogues, and monks.
Experienced players are frequently going to ask themselves, "What is my shtick/role/purpose/benefit/aid?" or something to that extent. What do you do to make the fellowship more likely to succeed rather than be overrun by a horde of orcs and dragons or die alone in the wilderness or in the depths of the ocean.
To be worthwhile, you must be able to do something and fill a role to a great enough degree to be worth your share of the experience and loot. If your position in the party could be replaced by more summoned monsters, animated skeletons, or animal companions, you are not worth your share. If they could simply "make do" with any of those things, you still aren't worth your share because you come with a higher opportunity cost than those expendable substitutes. You are expected to amass nearly 1 million gp (880,000 minimum) by 20th level, which would be about +293,333.33 gp to a each member of a 3-person party. Similarly, you would amass 3,600,000 XP by 20th level, which would be +1,200,000 XP to each member of a 3-person party which means they'd reach their capstones sooner without you and have more money and thus more power.
You have to be worth your share. You have to be worth all that money and experience points or you are just a drag on those who are. And if you can be casually replaced with expendable meatshields, or even just made to do without, you aren't worth it. You're even a risky cost since you're not technically expendable if you expect to be resurrected when you die or have to deal with getting things removed like mummy rot or blindness.
Now some martial characters in Pathfinder can justify their existence and are a boon to the party. Barbarians, Paladins, and Rangers are all durable enough that their risk is fairly low if they are built right, and they have enough natural offensive power from their class to make them effective physical damage dealers and prime targets for powerful buffing spells. Each have ways of being sturdier and harder to negate and remove than simple summons and minions, and they aren't as vulnerable to sweeping attacks as their expendable competitors.
Paladins and Rangers typically bring more to the party than they ask from the party. Both have a variety of useful spells that they can use with frequency (especially with pearls of power), are competent item creationists (adding +2 crafters to a team actually nets your team more effective wealth), and have a variety of utility benefits that most summons cannot effectively match (while Rangers lack the healing/resurrecting abilities of a Paladin, they also come with a mini-ranger called an animal companion who shares a few of the ranger's combat class features).
Barbarians while being an obvious drain on the party (rather than feeding back into the party like Paladins and Rangers) can justify their existence by being the iconic and premier anti-magic warrior, undisputed master of combat maneuvers, and generally just silly-tough if built right, to the point that at high levels a barbarian can wade into a ton of enemies while shrugging off spells and effects and shattering spells. They justify their existence by being so far above their competition in terms of meat-shields that summons and animated minions pale by comparison to the prowess of the unstoppable engine of hate and rage.
All three of these classes do suffer from the full-attack issues, though to a lesser extent (barbarians have access to pounce, and Paladins and Rangers have access to effective mounts and/or are competent switch hitters because their abilities work regardless of their chosen weapons, which means that a smiting Paladin with a bow will destroy you and when you close into melee with him, he'll just destroy you with his gauntlets, armor spikes, or whatever instead; same deal with Rangers).
All of them have options for increased mobility and incredibly synergy with good magic items. For example, Barbarians and Paladins get a lot of mileage out of things like a ring of evasion since it allows them to turn their incredible saving throws into near-certain avoidance vs reflex saves. A ring of freedom of movement is also worthwhile (rangers can potentially skip it since they have the spell), as are boots of speed in core. Outside of core, a quickrunner's shirt or five is a good idea (since you can add the effects of a magic item to another magic item for +50% cost, tossing extra charges of quickrunner is a good idea).
The point is, the system has doomed most of the nonmagical martial characters to being worth less to the party than almost anything else. A few are able to rise above and shine, but most are left to writhe in their own filthy excrement.
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Experienced players are frequently going to ask themselves, "What is my shtick/role/purpose/benefit/aid?" or something to that extent. What do you do to make the fellowship more likely to succeed rather than be overrun by a horde of orcs and dragons or die alone in the wilderness or in the depths of the ocean.
Quoting for emphasis on this statement.
Many people assume that the desire to "measure up to your teammates" is based on some form of attempt to compete with your party members, and given that it is a cooperative game, that this is somehow flawed. Such opinions are voiced regularly in other threads.
As Ashiel elaborates (more concisely than I), that isn't it at all.
Pathfinder is a team-based activity. And the performance of the team depends on both the ability of each teammate, and their ability to work together. Moreover, it is a team sport that results in rewards for victory, which are split between all members of the team - which (in the opinion of many) puts an onus on everyone to earn their share.
For those whom carrying or being a dead weight character grates on their sense of fairness ("Why do I/they have to do more work for an equal share?"), being competent at your role is a serious consideration. It's not about competing with your teammates - it's about supporting them and doing your fair share.
[/sidetrack]
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Experienced players are frequently going to ask themselves, "What is my shtick/role/purpose/benefit/aid?" or something to that extent. What do you do to make the fellowship more likely to succeed rather than be overrun by a horde of orcs and dragons or die alone in the wilderness or in the depths of the ocean.Quoting for emphasis on this statement.
Many people assume that the desire to "measure up to your teammates" is based on some form of attempt to compete with your party members, and given that it is a cooperative game, that this is somehow flawed. Such opinions are voiced regularly in other threads.
As Ashiel elaborates (more concisely than I), that isn't it at all.
Pathfinder is a team-based activity. And the performance of the team depends on both the ability of each teammate, and their ability to work together. Moreover, it is a team sport that results in rewards for victory, which are split between all members of the team - which (in the opinion of many) puts an onus on everyone to earn their share.
For those whom carrying or being a dead weight character grates on their sense of fairness ("Why do I/they have to do more work for an equal share?"), being competent at your role is a serious consideration. It's not about competing with your teammates - it's about supporting them and doing your fair share.
[/sidetrack]
While it might seem like a sidetrack, a big part of the issue with party usefulness is in fact the full-attack mechanic. Unfortunately, many martials do not have anything to bring to the table that other hybrid or casting characters do not bring to the table in spades, while offering little in the way of a specialized function.
For example, Barbarians, Paladins, and Rangers, all have a specialized function as a martial character - they have higher than average HP, BAB, and a number of combat-related abilities allowing them to excel at direct physical combat.
However, because direct physical combat is often of limited usefulness due to the way the system stifles iterative attacks (because of the full-attack mechanic with no replacement for 3E haste), it is actually the things outside of being a martial that make those characters worth bringing along in a group. Paladins and Rangers are both excellent or at least passable at many other roles besides just dealing physical damage and body blocking, while barbarians are typically leveraging their abilities better than their peers (since they have things like Pounce available to them).
You don't pick Paladins, Rangers, and Barbarians for their martial prowess. You pick them because they also do things like...
1. Soak a ton of damage.
2. Have great (to incredible) saves.
3. Come with animal companions.
4. Have a host of immunities.
5. Craft magic items (Paladins & Rangers).
6. Use magic items effectively (such as scrolls and wands).
7. Have useful out of combat abilities (Rangers excel here and Paladins even have options to allow them to raise dead without expending any party wealth).
8. Have options for party support (Rangers can make an entire party immune to poison for the duration of an adventure; craft more magic items; are excellent for scouting; etc).
And more stuff.
But it's not primarily because they are martials. If their value lied in the fact they were simply martials then martials would be worthwhile unless something was making them actively worse than a normal martial. However, it is instead the case that it is the extra stuff above and beyond them being a martial character that makes them worthwhile as a martial character choice. Even then, they are often rivalled by classes like Clerics who can often fill a martially oriented niche while having a wider berth of options overall.
A Cooperative Game
Now in my last post, I discussed that a lot of classes don't justify themselves for being in the group. It has the potential to sound very elitist or hardcore for some people, or sound like someone is taking the game too seriously. So I want to discuss the mindset about this and show just how mundane this sort of thinking is and why it's actually beneficial to everyone involved.
Let's say that I'm trying to pick between two different classes to make a character that's an ex-soldier in an army that has become an adventurer. I've narrowed my options down to Fighter or Ranger in the core rulebooks, so I start looking at how they work.
Many new players will see things like "Weapon Training" and see flat damage numbers. They think about doing lots of damage. Their plan is to squish stuff (though the full-attack mechanic will usually hold them back from doing so unless they are archers because we have no 3E haste).
However, when I look at the two, I see something different.
1. I see the two are very similar in terms of basic combat ability.
2. I see rangers have better Reflex saving throws and incentives to invest into Wisdom.
3. I see that rangers have extra skill points that allow me to flesh out an idea better, or push my role harder (allowing me the option to start with absolutely wonderful physical statistics while having lots of skills).
4. I see that rangers can use and craft useful magic items for themselves and the party.
5. I see that rangers can cast spells like resist energy and delay poison as 1st level spells (which in turn means they can load up on pearls of power and spam those on the entire party whenever possible).
6. I see that at higher levels they have a lot of "oh crap" buttons like instant enemy, quarry, hide in plain sight, freedom of movement, nondetection, and other ways to either rise to the occasion in a time of difficult need or to protect themselves or someone else from bad things that happen tothem on adventures.
I see that the fighter...
1. Doesn't do anything except hit things with weapons.
2. Has poor saving throws and thus makes me a risk for the party since I'll frequently be CC'd by spells like entangle, grease, web, create pit, etc.
3. Has poor saving throws and thus makes me a risk for charm and dominate effects to turn me on the party and potentially kill another player's character that I'm supposed to be defending. The Ranger has the same base save but their Wisdom-encouraging class features make pushing a higher than average wisdom painless, and they have easier access to items that help prevent mind-control.
4. Has few skill points, meaning I have to invest in a statistic that serves little to no purpose or function for my character other than for skill points to round out my character. To be as robust as the Ranger, I'd have to settle for essentially a skill-less character.
I'm going to take the Ranger.
In an even more mundane way of looking at things...
A Ranger or Bard is to a Rogue what a Rogue is to an Expert, so unless you are insisting on playing experts, do not make the mistake of thinking that those who ignore the rogue in favor of better alternatives are elitists. They are doing the exact same thing most players playing the rogue are doing, but they've just realized that there is a better alternative to the rogue.
I could easily post my current House Rules in their entirety if people were interested.
Yes, please. I've been considering options to let martials be a bit more mobile for some time, and I'd love to see what others have tried. The bits you've dropped so far seem pretty sound.
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I could easily post my current House Rules in their entirety if people were interested.Yes, please. I've been considering options to let martials be a bit more mobile for some time, and I'd love to see what others have tried. The bits you've dropped so far seem pretty sound.
Well, the rules as a whole are quite a list. The mobility bits specifically are as follows:
Brawler: Gain the following ability.
Brawler Mobility (Ex): At 7th level, a Brawler gains a +10 foot bonus to movement speed, and may make 10 foot steps instead of 5 foot steps whenever a 5 foot step would ordinarily be allowed. She may also make 5 foot (though not 10 foot) steps in difficult terrain. At 13th and again at 19th level, this movement bonus increases by +10 feet (to a maximum of +30 fet at 19th level), though their 10 foot-step never improves further.
Cavalier: Gain the following ability
Master Horseman (Ex): At 8th level, the Cavalier's mount can ignore the penalties of squeezing into smaller spaces, allowing the rider's ranged or melee attacks to be made without penalty while the mount is squeezing, and in melee the Cavalier may make a full attack action even if his mount moves up to half its normal movement (rather than the normal limitation of 5 feet).
Fighter: Gain the following ability.
Mobile Warrior (Ex): At 8th level, a Fighter gains a +10 foot bonus to movement speed, and may make 10 foot steps instead of 5 foot steps whenever a 5 foot step would ordinarily be allowed. He may also make 5 foot (though not 10 foot) steps in difficult terrain.
Gunslinger: Gain the same ability as the Fighter.
Monk: Use Unchained Monk stuff with a few modifications, so they have movement options.
Rogue: They gain the following ability. It's worth noting, as a balance note, that Rogues in my games basically all have Ki Pool and access to Ninja Tricks and thus some very nice swift actions available. And that making them choose between those and this is part of why i made it as good as it is.
Sudden Leap (Ex): At 7th level, as a Swift Action, a Rogue can move up to 20 feet, obeying normal movement rules, or 10 feet that do not provoke attacks of opportunity. This counts as a movement action, and thus prohibits five foot steps, but not other movement or attack actions, though if another Move Action is taken, the two must be taken as part of one continuous move, not separated by any attacks or other actions (barring spring attack and similar effects, anyway).
Slayer: Gain the same ability as a Rogue.
Swashbuckler: Gain the same ability as a Fighter.
Oh, and my general rule that TWF allows two attacks as a Standard Action (though ITWF and following Feats still require a Full Attack).
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My full house rules are 14 pages, 9 of them Class Features and the like for various Classes (Fighters get the most stuff). I can do the full version if you like, but that's all the mobility stuff.
I'd like to see the full version if only to look over & compare with ideas I've had.
I'm still unsure whether I like the idea of speeding up martials (allowing full attacks or the like more often) or slowing down casters (more full round action or 1 round cast time abilities). I worry that speeding up martials leads to more rocket tag as noted before, but I don't have the breadth of experience with the bestiary & higher level play.
I agree that martial classes should be more mobile than they currently are, but I don't know how to mechanical resolve the issue without pumping martial character's damage too high.
Imagine melee characters get to full attack every turn no matter what they do. Full attacks are usually enough to kill a single enemy. Combats only last as long as they do (and in my experience that's usually 4 rounds at most) because melee characters need move to their targets and will do substantially less damage that round.
There needs to be some sort of change to mitigate the reduction in effectiveness that martial characters experience when moving.
If it's a homegame, it's simple. Simply houserule it.
I do, and I find it is NOT unbalancing for Martials to be able to have multiple attacks (or Rogues or anyone else for that matter) each round.
Not anymore than having Wizards and spellcasters able to cast 6th level or higher spells every battle if they wish.
If one has a problem with reach weapons, simply make it so that the fighter can only do full attacks anytime they wish against those who are directly adjacent, and unable to do this with a reach weapon.
I've done this, and to tell the truth, damage does go up...but sometimes it isn't as high as some here would think. Because each attack has a lower bonus to hit, sometimes the rolls for the third or fourth attack are almost to the point of never hitting with some creatures...especially if they opt to use Power Attack.
It depends on the AC of the enemies of course.
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As opposed to the mage, who can move 30 feet and do basically anything on their spell list except summon.
Funny thing...you actually can summon. You just split it over two actions (see combat chapter, starting and completing full-round actions). You spend a standard action to begin your summoning and you can still move or do whatever with the rest of your action, then on the following round you spend your next standard to complete the spell and it does its thing.
Which is pretty sweet when you want to summon but also want to dive behind cover rather than standing out in the open waggling your fingers and doing the hokey pokey.
That said,
False premise.
At 1st-level, a fighter can move 30 feet and do some damage.
At 6th-level, a fighter can move 30 feet and do some damage.
At 11th-level, a fighter can move 30 feet and do some damage.
At 16th-level, a fighter can move 30 feet and do some damage.Nothing gets worse. But here's a different option a fighter has...
Isn't really true. It's true in the sense that mathematically the strength of the hit isn't getting weaker, but it's not true in the sense that it remains anywhere near as relevant an amount of damage. Setting aside the point that was being made (that poor martials don't get nice things to do other than being automated whack-a-mole templates), which is a fine point unto itself, let's look at what the fighter is doing.
At 1st level, a generic fighter (using 15 PB elite array) has a +2 Strength modifier. Wielding a longsword means his average damage is 6.5, 7.5 if two-handing it, or 10 if using a greatsword. Enemies within 2 tiers of his level (CR -2 through CR 3) have HP ranging from 4-30 HP.
Against most foes of his CR or less, the Fighter is likely going to 1-shot them on a successful hit. Even against foes strong enough to be considered an "epic" challenge for his party, he is going to deal about 20-35% of the critter's HP per successful hit all by himself, while being 100% mobile.
Now let's scale it up a bit. At 5th level, our Fighter's got an extra +1 to damage from Strength and his Weapon Training gives another +1 to damage. His average damage is now 8.5 (1 handed), 9.5 (2 handing), or 12 (2-handed weapon). So what's the HP range for things within 2 steps of his CR? About 30-95 HP.
He will 1-shot nothing, even on a successful critical hit. Even if what he's fighting is throwaway trash mobs (in a group of critters that are each 2 CR steps below our fighter, the fighter still cannot dispatch a single one of them without landing about 3 hits a piece on them), while fighting something like a remorhaz means he deals less than 10% of its HP with a 1-handed weapon and only about 12% with a two-handed weapon and this is assuming he's specialized and doesn't take into account damage mitigation through things like AC or DR.
The fighter progressively grows ever more and more weaker, and thus more and more replaceable as the game progresses. At 1st level, he is a force to be reckoned with as he peels off 1/4 to 1/3 of the strongest foes' HP with each strike. Every level thereafter, he gets progressively weaker and worse at his job relative to the challenges that he is expected to face. So the only way that your character actually gets any stronger is if you are never fighting any enemies that are greater than those you found at 1st level.
By the time you're 20th level, a single blow from a Fighter is negligible. Seriously, even with a +10 Strength, +4 weapon training, +5 enhancement bonus, and 4 feats invested into your weapon to reach +4 extra damage, your longsword is only going to deal 27.5 damage per hit. Things at this range have HP measured in hundreds if not thousands (no joke, great wyrm dragons can have over 1,000 HP). Move + attack is going to leave little more than a scratch on anything anywhere close to your level range.
When you can't down a useless mook that's not even worth XP to you anymore (CR-10, has an average of about 130 HP) in a single blow...well, why the **** do we keep you around and give you a share of the treasure? We're trying to kill pit fiends and save the world, we don't need someone who's going to hold us back. Go learn a useful skill that's actually worth something and until then, we'll stick with replacing you with a few extra castings of summon monster.
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Side point: The concept of Vital Strike is fairly cool, however it ultimately doesn't amount to very much. +2d6 damage at 7th level is no replacement for a second hit, because the damage dice aren't actually all that important in 3.0-PF. Mythic Vital Strike, on the other hand, is a great equalizer.
(On a bigger segue I also really liked Mythic Weapon Finesse, as frankly I think the current phobia of allowing Dex to damage too freely is... well, neither necessary nor productive.)
On a similar note: Spirited Charge + Lance is a good way to deal damage and keep mobile at higher levels, as the flat x3 damage multiplier is a nice replacement for a full attack. The problem I have with it (and one of the reasons I ban lances when I GM) is that a human fighter can get both Spirited Charge and Power Attack by 2nd level and one-shot pretty much everything for the next 4-6 levels. If the mounted combat style instead scaled off BAB (similar in concept to Vital Strike, but applying flat damage bonuses, as I think Vital Strike should anyway), then it would be a lot less wonky. In my opinion.
As for fixes... the Path of War has a lot of fun toys for martial characters, and I heartily recommend it for any table where players want more from their warriors.
Alternatively, allowing greater movement than 5ft and still full-attacking is a good way to keep martial characters relevant, however it does render a number of the options in PoW somewhat obsolete.
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Back when I was running 3.5, one of my most successful (measured in player enjoyment, duration, and number of players) campaigns had a barbarian who used a lance with an animal companion picked up from a web enhancement feat (essentially gave a druid companion minus the magic stuff), feats that allowed her to share her rage/frenzy with her companion, power attack, shock trooper, leap attack, spirited charge, levels in frenzied berserker, magic items that increased the size of her and her mount and allowed them to charge through the air or run along walls, and so forth. She also had pounce which meant that she could full attack on a charge for x3 damage on every attack.
For those who are only familiar with Pathfinder, here are a few notes.
1. She wielded a berserking weapon. These stacked with rage in 3.5.
2. Power attack allowed you a penalty up to your BAB (you chose the penalty) for +2 damage per -1 taken.
3. Shock Trooper allowed you to apply the penalty to your AC instead of to-hit for 1 round. Ergo, if you have a +13 BAB, you could eat a -13 AC for 1 round to add +26 damage to your attack.
4. Leap attack allowed you to make a Jump check as part of a charge to double your damage on attacks made during the charge.
5. Spirited charge tripled her damage when using a lance.
At level 20 (the campaign went a little further than 20), she had a strength score when raging that was greater than most dragons (30-ish base Strength, plus rage, berserking, frenzy and frenzy), made 5 attacks per round at no penalty with a +40 damage bonus, for around +60 flat damage. Her weapon of choice was a +5 collision cursed berserking lance which added a flat +10 to damage along with the rage-like effects (for a total of around +70 damage). She made 5 attacks per round (her four attacks plus haste) at no penalty for power attacking. Each hit dealt x4 damage (so about 280 base damage before rolling dice) before critical hits (a critical hit added another 140 damage or so), so her upper damage limits was around 2100 damage (assuming she hits with all 5 attacks and they critically hit, which is essentially never going to happen but it's a fun number to look at). Without assuming any criticals, if all hits landed, you were looking at about 1400 damage.
Of course, since she was in a party with core casters she was undisputedly the weakest member of the team. However, she did fill a very nice and important function and that was basically curbstomping anything that dared be vulnerable to physical damage. She was able to destroy most any single lone enemy that she could get within attack distance of, and of course she was sporting a ring of freedom of movement, something that granted mind blank, a greater cloak of displacement (for when she tanked her AC into the gutter), a pair of goggles with a gem of true seeing as a lens, and nifty little things that made CCing her rather difficult (meat shields bought a lot of time on average though).
Frequently the party (mostly mages) would buff her to hell and back, send her into combat, cast a few spells so that she wouldn't turn on them in her berserker frenzy (stuff like turning ethereal or putting a wall of force or resilient sphere between them, and just let the barbarian rip common enemies to teeny tiny bloody chunky bits.
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Well, if people want 'em, you'll get 'em. Maybe not tonight. I have to format them to make them readable. Expect them some time tomorrow.awesome. maybe a link to google docs?
Yeah, that's probably easiest.
Read them here.
Some of these are playtested, some aren't (for example, since adding the movement abilities, I've had a Lore Warden Fighter, so Mobile Warrior is playtested, but I haven't had a Rogue or Slayer, and the only Cavalier was a Daring Champion, so Sudden Leap and Master Horseman haven't been yet). All are, however, based on my actual experience playing (and more often running) the game.
Some are obviously predicated on others (Slippery Mind would be written very differently if you're not already allowing Charisma to Will Saves). And others are balanced around other House Ruled stuff (adding all my listed changes to one martial Class and no others might well cause balance problems). Thus, you should bear in mind the whole of my house rules before importing parts piecemeal.
I don't have Ultimate Intrigue yet, so it hasn't mostly been updated for that book (though I dug up enough on the Noble Fencer to make the interactions between my rules and that archetype clear). Vigilante seems likely to get a mobility option and may or may not receive other stuff. We'll see.
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Funnily enough, at high levels casters, on the other hand, get more mobile.
At lv1 a sorcerer can move(with her legs, 30ft speed) and cast Color Spray. That's pretty much it.
At lv20 a sorcerer can move, cast Quickened Disintegrate and cast another Disintegrate.
Or she can double move and still cast Quickened Disintegrate.
Or she can tripple move(with her quick runner's shirt) and not cast anything, and use her pre-summoned critters to do stuff.
Or she can fly 60/90 feet(latter if hasted) and still cast a spell and use summons. Do you know when martials get to fly on their own accord? Tell me, my friend lv20 fighter is very interested.
Or she can cast Time Stop, then do whatever. Best mobility is mobility you get when time doesn't even move.
O yeah, and teleporting. Don't forget teleporting.
Poor martials, on the other hand, are stuck with three buttons, labeled "Quite a nice amount of damage, no mobility", "A pitiful amount of damage, a little mobility" and "A little more mobility, no damage". A dog of average wits can be trained to play a high-level martial quite effectively.
since a lance is a x3 weapon for a crit it goes up two steps.
lance 2x damage on normal charge
then spirited moves a lance to 3x on normal charge
then bumped to 5x if crit
Ashiel, you had a severely unoptimized barbarian.
Where was your Valorous weapon for 2x on a charge?
Why did you just go off into the woods and burn your Frenzies so you couldn't be turned on the party at the start of the day?
No reach weapon? I can't believe you didn't do a spiked chain. Psh.
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We didn't use FB's because they were party TPK's waiting to happen.
An enemy FB with a Valorous Spiked chain, enlarged and hasted:
Could charge out 140' and Jump into/over the middle of the party.
They covered a circle 50' across.
They could easily reach a Str score of 40 even at lower levels.
Shock Trooper, Leap Attack, Improved/Supreme Power Attack.
3-4xBAB dmg from Power Attack.
Leap Attack doubled that. So, figure 120 min to 160 dmg just from Power attack.
+22 dmg from Str. So, 144 to 184 dmg.
+ Weapon. Valorous Enlarged Spiked chain +5, 2-12+5 = 12. 156-196 dmg.
x2 from a charge w Valorous. 312-392 dmg
Full Attacking with Pounce/Haste. 5 attacks, 2 of them primary.
Supreme Cleave.
Every hit is going to do 300-400 dmg. That kills pretty much all PC's of level 20 or less, and then Supreme Cleaves through to a second target, not even spending an attack. Simply put, with his first attack, the FB wipes the mage, the rogue, the cleric, and likely the fighter and barbarian, and still has the rest of his attack sequence to go.
If he doesn't kill a cleave target...he's still got another primary attack from Haste, and his base TH is somewhere between +40 and +50, so he's not going to miss. ANOTHER 300 dmg does for any 30 Con bastard silly enough to survive the first swing.
Lance/charge shenanigans aren't even needed (and work better with multi-armed Chargers, anyways. I think the dmg for Charge builds got into exponents).
You only have to paint that scenario once for a party to get FB's banned. It's all from feats, class abilities, and Valorous, a +1 magical ability. There's literally no way to stop it. True Sight or Pierce Magical Concealment overcomes all those miss chance shenanigans, it is VERY unlikely any AC is going to be high enough to stop the blows, and the damage is just waaaay too much.
==Aelryinth
Marking for interest.
Well, if people want 'em, you'll get 'em. Maybe not tonight. I have to format them to make them readable. Expect them some time tomorrow.awesome. maybe a link to google docs?Yeah, that's probably easiest.
Read them here.
{. . .}
I don't have Ultimate Intrigue either, but reportedly you are going to have to (Counter)Errata Fencing Grace the same way you did Slashing Grace if you want to keep them consistent. Better do Dervish Dance, too, just to be sure, since it has similar wording to Slashing Grace.
I could have sworn I saw one typo in there, but now I can't find it again.
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I don't have Ultimate Intrigue either, but reportedly you are going to have to (Counter)Errata Fencing Grace the same way you did Slashing Grace if you want to keep them consistent. Better do Dervish Dance, too, just to be sure, since it has similar wording to Slashing Grace.
Yeah, I heard that about Fencing Grace. And will be doing so. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
Dervish Dance is another matter, and functions differently. Given it has lower prerequisites (2 ranks of skills are worth way less than a Feat), and makes a non-finessable weapon finesseable for everyone, I'm cool with leaving it as-is. At least for now.
I could have sworn I saw one typo in there, but now I can't find it again.
It's very possible. I try to make my writings typo-free, but they sneak in sometimes.
EDIT: Fencing Grace added, since you got me thinking about it.
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Would it be horribly broken if higher level martials could make two attacks as a standard action instead of just one? I'm just spitballing here. I've not played a martial character at a high level before.
Do I think it's horribly broken? No. Not really.
Anything more than two, maybe three attacks if you're a fighter? Probably. I'm not great at game design/balance, tho.
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Funny thing...you actually can summon. You just split it over two actions (see combat chapter, starting and completing full-round actions). You spend a standard action to begin your summoning and you can still move or do whatever with the rest of your action, then on the following round you spend your next standard to complete the spell and it does its thing.Or you just take Acadamae Graduate (for Wizards) or Sacred Summons (for Clerics) and summon as a standard action anyway.
That works too! I tend to discuss things using general tactics available to most anyone. Mostly because they apply to the widest number of characters and can then be specialized to taste. :)
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Ashiel, you had a severely unoptimized barbarian.
Partially agreed. She probably could have gotten much nastier in the damage output department, but she had all her bases covered, and once you can 1-shot everything in the game on a full-attack you don't really need more. :P
Where was your Valorous weapon for 2x on a charge?
I don't think anyone even knew about that weapon at the time.
Why did you just go off into the woods and burn your Frenzies so you couldn't be turned on the party at the start of the day?
Nope. The party was a bunch of spellcasters though and tended to be very good at being where the 'serker wasn't going to hurt them. Nobody in the party ever died to the 'zerker.
No reach weapon? I can't believe you didn't do a spiked chain. Psh.
Well...I did say she was using a lance. :)
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We didn't use FB's because they were party TPK's waiting to happen.
Looking back on it, the class was pretty rubbish but it made the player happy. :P
An enemy FB with a Valorous Spiked chain, enlarged and hasted:
Could charge out 140' and Jump into/over the middle of the party.
They covered a circle 50' across.
They could easily reach a Str score of 40 even at lower levels.
Shock Trooper, Leap Attack, Improved/Supreme Power Attack.3-4xBAB dmg from Power Attack.
Leap Attack doubled that. So, figure 120 min to 160 dmg just from Power attack.
+22 dmg from Str. So, 144 to 184 dmg.
+ Weapon. Valorous Enlarged Spiked chain +5, 2-12+5 = 12. 156-196 dmg.
x2 from a charge w Valorous. 312-392 dmg
Full Attacking with Pounce/Haste. 5 attacks, 2 of them primary.
Supreme Cleave.Every hit is going to do 300-400 dmg. That kills pretty much all PC's of level 20 or less, and then Supreme Cleaves through to a second target, not even spending an attack. Simply put, with his first attack, the FB wipes the mage, the rogue, the cleric, and likely the fighter and barbarian, and still has the rest of his attack sequence to go.
If he doesn't kill a cleave target...he's still got another primary attack from Haste, and his base TH is somewhere between +40 and +50, so he's not going to miss. ANOTHER 300 dmg does for any 30 Con bastard silly enough to survive the first swing.
Makes it seem really funny that people get butthurt over AM BARBARIAN, doesn't it? :P
Lance/charge shenanigans aren't even needed (and work better with multi-armed Chargers, anyways. I think the dmg for Charge builds got into exponents).
You only have to paint that scenario once for a party to get FB's banned. It's all from feats, class abilities, and Valorous, a +1 magical ability. There's literally no way to stop it. True Sight or Pierce Magical Concealment overcomes all those miss chance...
Mmmmhmmm. Though it's remarkably easy to shut down as a spellcaster in 3.5 because of nonsense like Craft Contingent Spell (I loathe this feat so much).
I don't miss 3.5.
Craft Contingent Spell should have been called Craft Schroedinger's Wizard, it got abused in examples so much.
In reality, the combined time/cost of contingent spells makes them untenable for most adventurers, and being liberal with the activation conditions like wizards wanted to be was also heavily abused.
The biggest thing with Contingencies is that the wizards always wanted the contingency to be pre-emptive, or selectively interpreted to their benefit. Once you start enforcing activation conditions, contingency gets a lot less useful.
First, contingency is a REACTION. Something has to happen, THEN Contingency goes off. It doesn't preempt anything. "When we are ambushed", and 'When we are attacked' means getting divebombed by a mosquito sets it off. "When an enemy comes within 10' of me' suffers the same way, and how exactly does Contingency manifest the divination magic to tell who is an enemy?
Secondly, speaking is a free action, not an immediate one, so you can't yelp the command word in alarm out of your turn, too bad, so sad.
IN examples, the Contingency was always perfectly geared to whoever the wizard was facing. In reality, nothing ever worked so easily.
The one thing it did do well is make chain nova combos easier to get off. But the SPell Sequencer things added to the Contingency things already did that (and gods, do you remember the Sash of Spells from Volo's complete guide to magic?!?)
==Aelryinth
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I don't miss 3.5.
I ran a game for a group consisting of a storm druid/bonded summoner, psion/thrallherd, fighter/man-o-will/war hulk and a barbarian/fighter/totemist/fist of the forest/totem rager.
The psion mostly ran schism to telekinetically grapple things and throw down energy wall to run battlefield control, the storm druid generally spammed AoE lightning spells and had his elemental beat on things, while the war hulk did AoE melee damage and the ... thing... bounced around with vast movement rate and an AC over 70. At level 12.
Given that at 12th level they could reliably dish out over a thousand damage a round to a single target, that when wrapping up the campaign I wound up tossing out the Monster Manual and running a WoW inspired endgame dungeon with 'boss' creatures ranging from 2,000 to 20,000 hitpoints (they were 16th level by the end, and that fight lasted 8 rounds), and a range of special abilities.
The War Hulk also had Leadership, to ensure plenty of minions in addition to thralls, companions and summons.
It was hilarious and fun.
But no, I don't miss it.
Yeah, that's probably easiest.Read them here.
These are good. Do you have a thread on it in the homewbrew forum? Lots of stuff to talk about but don't want to derail the thread.
Here's a thought: Currently:
The "start full-round action" standard action lets you start undertaking a full-round action, which you can complete in the following round by using another standard action. You can't use this action to start or complete a full attack, charge, run, or withdraw.
What if you loosened the restriction on this so that none of the listed actions are forbidden (especially Full Attack), and instead of consuming 2 Standard Actions, it consumes a Standard Action in the 1st round and a Move Action in the 2nd round, or vice versa (depending upon what you had left over in the 1st round)? Attacks in a Full Attack get split as evenly as possible between the parts of the split Full-Round Action, with the Standard Action part getting 1 more if you have an odd number.
If you have a split action, your opponent could conceivably use their next available actions to get away, so it would be advisable to do something (like convert one of the early attacks into a Trip) to keep them from doing this.
In addition, allow partial Full Attacks in combination with partial movement:
If you get 1 or 2 attacks in a Full Attack, things work as they do now.
If you get 3 attacks in a Full Attack, you can forego the 3rd one to move up to 2/3 your speed, or forego the 2nd and 3rd ones to move up to 4/3 your speed.
If you get 4 attacks in a Full Attack, you can forego the 4th one to move up to 1/2 your speed, or forego the 3rd and 4th ones to move at up to your speed, or forego the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th ones to move at up to 3/2 your speed.
If you get 5 attacks in a Full Attack (for instance, Flurry, or you normally have 4 but are under Haste), you can forego the 5th one to move at up to 2/5 your speed, or forego more to (1 more at a time) move at 4/5, 6/5, or 8/5 your speed (same pattern as above). This also works if you are a really awesome monster, even though the attacks aren't iterative (exception: if you have Pounce, it works the same way it does now).
And so on (in case you have a really good Flurry and/or Haste), again, also working for really awesome monsters that don't have Pounce to supercede this).
The movement doesn't necessarily have to be at one end of the set of attacks -- it can be inserted between attacks or even split up between them. (I think this obsoletes a certain combat feat, but I can't remember the name of it -- not Circling Mongoose, because that would be useful for Sneak Attackers even with the above relaxation of the rules about moving and attacking.)
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It's probably easier to just allow moving half of your move speed as part of a full attack, mixing in attacks with movement however you want.
Here's a thought: Currently:
The "start full-round action" standard action lets you start undertaking a full-round action, which you can complete in the following round by using another standard action. You can't use this action to start or complete a full attack, charge, run, or withdraw.What if you loosened the restriction on this so that none of the listed actions are forbidden (especially Full Attack), and instead of consuming 2 Standard Actions, it consumes a Standard Action in the 1st round and a Move Action in the 2nd round, or vice versa (depending upon what you had left over in the 1st round)? Attacks in a Full Attack get split as evenly as possible between the parts of the split Full-Round Action, with the Standard Action part getting 1 more if you have an odd number.
If you have a split action, your opponent could conceivably use their next available actions to get away, so it would be advisable to do something (like convert one of the early attacks into a Trip) to keep them from doing this.
In addition, allow partial Full Attacks in combination with partial movement:
If you get 1 or 2 attacks in a Full Attack, things work as they do now.
If you get 3 attacks in a Full Attack, you can forego the 3rd one to move up to 2/3 your speed, or forego the 2nd and 3rd ones to move up to 4/3 your speed.
If you get 4 attacks in a Full Attack, you can forego the 4th one to move up to 1/2 your speed, or forego the 3rd and 4th ones to move at up to your speed, or forego the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th ones to move at up to 3/2 your speed.
If you get 5 attacks in a Full Attack (for instance, Flurry, or you normally have 4 but are under Haste), you can forego the 5th one to move at up to 2/5 your speed, or forego more to (1 more at a time) move at 4/5, 6/5, or 8/5 your speed (same pattern as above). This also works if you are a really awesome monster,...
How about just make it so you can take your normal attack or all your iteratives as a standard and both as a full.
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Craft Contingent Spell should have been called Craft Schroedinger's Wizard, it got abused in examples so much.
In reality, the combined time/cost of contingent spells makes them untenable for most adventurers, and being liberal with the activation conditions like wizards wanted to be was also heavily abused.
The biggest thing with Contingencies is that the wizards always wanted the contingency to be pre-emptive, or selectively interpreted to their benefit. Once you start enforcing activation conditions, contingency gets a lot less useful.
First, contingency is a REACTION. Something has to happen, THEN Contingency goes off. It doesn't preempt anything. "When we are ambushed", and 'When we are attacked' means getting divebombed by a mosquito sets it off. "When an enemy comes within 10' of me' suffers the same way, and how exactly does Contingency manifest the divination magic to tell who is an enemy?
Secondly, speaking is a free action, not an immediate one, so you can't yelp the command word in alarm out of your turn, too bad, so sad.
Of course in the very same book it actually explicitly notes that contingencies can be very vague and work as intended by the caster at the time and that it's not a lawyer game with a lot of minute fine print. When your contingency is for being attacked, you are not to try to twist that to mean that because a mosquito tries to bite you, that your contingency goes off. That's asinine and the rules actually told you to not do that.
And it was a matter of how cheap they were. Even as a simple counter-effect, there's not really anything that you can rules-lawyer into being fair and balanced. Literally a contingency to cast spell immunity on you against certain spells when those spells would affect you is standard fare. And they were cheap. CL x Spell level x 100 gp cheap. That's chump change.
You don't have to prepare for everything, just everything you weren't already prepared for, which is enough.
Related to the original topic, I always felt it was unwritten rule that monsters kindly charge the Fighter anyway so he does not really need to move at all.
I mean, monster probably beat the Fighter in init anyway and in typical fight scenario, it is the big melee guy who breaks the door down into the combat zone.
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Related to the original topic, I always felt it was unwritten rule that monsters kindly charge the Fighter anyway so he does not really need to move at all.
I mean, monster probably beat the Fighter in init anyway and in typical fight scenario, it is the big melee guy who breaks the door down into the combat zone.
Generally speaking, if monsters are dumb enough to give the fighter the full-attack, it's probably something like a tiger which means it's nuking you with pounce doom.
Then there's the hordes of things sporting SLAs and stuff.
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Related to the original topic, I always felt it was unwritten rule that monsters kindly charge the Fighter anyway so he does not really need to move at all.
I mean, monster probably beat the Fighter in init anyway and in typical fight scenario, it is the big melee guy who breaks the door down into the combat zone.
Generally speaking, if monsters are dumb enough to give the fighter the full-attack, it's probably something like a tiger which means it's nuking you with pounce doom.
Then there's the hordes of things sporting SLAs and stuff.
*Pounce of doom
FTFY