The "Big Six" are generally regarded as such because they are the most mechanically impactful options for a player to have. They're also generally pretty straightforward, providing raw mechanical benefits that require little to no micromanaging or strategy to utilize, while being effective in the majority of situations.
While there are inevitably niche situations where that one oddball item used creatively obliterates some encounter that was intended to be challenging, that's simply the nature of the game and isn't really exclusive to magic items.
Ultimately, though, magic items are a force multiplier. They make the player better at what they were already doing well, sometimes while shoring up weaknesses. As such, their power and their necessity is dependent on things like class, build, and the player behind them.
Martial characters like fighters are pretty heavily reliant on equipment, because magic weapon and stat boosting belts and such make them better at their primary job of hitting stuff, which requires both power and accuracy. Casters, on the other hand, are generally much less equipment reliant. A headband may may boost the sorcerers spell DCs, and a cloak or belt may help him die less, but ultimately the majority of his power is baked into his spellcasting.
If you're just looking for anecdotes, the WBL guidelines are usually pretty decent, though they can be subverted a bit by PC crafters and too much unfettered access to the "Magic Mart". Most of the Paizo adventure paths balance the loot pretty well. On the other side of things, games that have bad loot or a stingy DM can be difficult even if the WBL is technically being met, because the greatsword fighter really doesn't care about or make the most of the +3 dagger he picked up, even if it's valuable.
I rarely follow WBL in my games, and my players usually don't make a particular effort to get most of those six types of items. I do allow item creation, even custom items, and nearly always provide access to an NPC crafter for such a purpose.
Last game I tried an inherent bonus system to provide the same types of bonuses as the six, but players still didn't concern themselves with getting all, rather they focused on a handful.
It's never been necessary, in my experience, to have them, but I admittedly run an unusual game style. I suspect that the fact that I use a stat generation method that provides high results mitigates much of the need for the six.
Take a look at the core rulebook and see how much wealth per level PC's get. then look at some of the magic item prices. I can assure you, it can make a pretty large difference. If you don't want it (understandable) then you can just not have them in general. If you look at class guides, they normally address magic items and their use.
Yeah, the key is that average monster stats increase assuming that you have Big Six gear according to where your WBL is. You can think of every +1 you get from a bonus as a +5% to either accuracy or saves, essentially, and while 5% may not be a big deal, if you've got -5% across the board it is, and when you get to the upper levels having -15% to 25% to accuracy and/or saves is a huge problem. And because monster stats take into account usual gear, that's essentially what you have if you don't have standard gear.
"Christmas Tree" parties as in your first post end up with significantly more wealth than they should, and have more items than they should, so they overpower the bosses. That doesn't contradict that you need wealth to survive, if anything it shows how important wealth is- if being over the wealth guidelines allows you to destroy bosses, think how bad it would be if you were UNDER the wealth guidelines.
Keep in mind that a Christmas Tree party at level 20 has gone far beyond big 6 magic items- they maxed those out long ago, and have likely moved into custom made +7/ +8 items, have Keen/Bane/Impact weapons, etc. Otherwise, they stopped getting gear of worth and no longer really count as a "christmas tree" party- they're just a normal party with more "fun" items than most. In other words, parties at level 20 that have most or all of their big 6 items aren't Christmas tree parties, they're the norm.
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And don't forget that WBL is factored into the whole CR system. If your characters have lower WBL than expected, then you'll probably need to tweak encounter balance, especially if you're running published content rather than home-brew. However, if you're doing the latter, then you probably understand what your players are capable of, and can balance appropriately.
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if being over the wealth guidelines allows you to destroy bosses, think how bad it would be if you were UNDER the wealth guidelines.
This is really the key point of the thread. If you don't let your PC's go shopping for appropriate magic items, they WILL be handicapped. The game is designed around the assumption that players will have certain wealth by level, and that they spend it on magic items intelligently. If all they've got is a hodge podge of magic items they found and aren't useful, then they're at a serious disadvantage.
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I dont think they are at a disvantage, a 40-60% chance to resist a special ability is not a disvantage, it's an average outcome.
That cloak of resistance increasing your chances to 65-85% is the real advantage here.
Also, a CR 15 encounter is not supposed to be "easy" for a lv15 party, it's supposed to be average. Average to me is 50/50.
If there is absolutely no risk of a TPK, then the challenge rating isnt working.
I dont think they are at a disvantage, a 40-60% chance to resist a special ability is not a disvantage, it's an average outcome.
That cloak of resistance increasing your chances to 65-85% is the real advantage here.Also, a CR 15 encounter is not supposed to be "easy" for a lv15 party, it's supposed to be average. Average to me is 50/50.
If there is absolutely no risk of a TPK, then the challenge rating isnt working.
This is basically wrong on all counts. The game is designed, explicitly, around the assumption that the players will win, because losing even 10% of the encounters means that you never really get a chance to complete a module without a TPK.
One way of thinking about it -- a level X character (with PC wealth) is a CR X encounter, so a party of four level X characters would be a CR X+4 encounter. This would be a true 50/50 encounter. A CR X party is expected to defeat a CR X encounter handily (after all, they have the equivalent of a 4:1 advantage), but they are expected to expend daily resources such as spells, channels, smites, and so forth.
An equal-CR encounter (CR == APL) is supposed to be an "average" encounter and the party is expected to be able to handle several of them in a single day without rest or resupply.
Similarly, if you look at the monster design specs, monsters are expected to hit "each other" (e.g., a CR X monster fighting a CR X monster) roughly 75% of the time and to resist each other's special attacks via saving throws roughly 75% of the time. This is also where PCs are roughly supposed to be, although PCs are generally expected to be somewhat more rounded because they're supposed to be built for higher survivability than one-off monsters.
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I dont think they are at a disvantage, a 40-60% chance to resist a special ability is not a disvantage, it's an average outcome.
That cloak of resistance increasing your chances to 65-85% is the real advantage here.Also, a CR 15 encounter is not supposed to be "easy" for a lv15 party, it's supposed to be average. Average to me is 50/50.
If there is absolutely no risk of a TPK, then the challenge rating isnt working.
Your preferences are not necessarily the design parameters of the system.
An encounter of a given CR is supposed to drain about 25% of the daily resources of a party of the same level. So in your example of a CR 15 encounter and a 15th-level party, Pathfinder is NOT designed for a 50-50 shot at a TPK. The party is supposed to defeat that encounter and still have 75% of their daily resources remaining. Pathfinder is designed with the intent that they can handle four of those encounters each and every day before they're all tapped out and have to stop.
Now, if you want a deadlier game, that's fine, and reducing the availability of magic items is one way to achieve that. I just ask that you don't paint your preferred variant as being the baseline assumptions of the system, because when random people show up and start talking about "how Pathfinder works", they're not talking about your preferred variant and you shouldn't respond to their ideas as though they were.
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A lot of people think the core mechanics of Pathfinder require certain magic items at each level in order for the characters to be "on track" with the challenges appropriate to the level.
This link of thinking is almost correct.
Totally agreed.
As I said, the game assumes certain wealth by level, and that you spend it intelligently. The "big 6" magic items (armor, weapon, ring of protection, amulet of natural armor, cloak of resistance, and belt/headband for your primary stat) are obvious choices that work well for most PC's. But they're certainly not the only options.
For instance, I have a 9th level cleric in Pathfinder Society who doesn't have a wisdom headband. I went for the Phylactery of Positive Channeling on that slot instead. Because that PC focuses on buffing and healing, save DC's just aren't as important as they are for a more offensive caster, and the extra 2d6 healing per channel is useful.
Obviously, wizards and similar pure casters will skip the weapon and armor from the big 6, while a melee type might want to add a shield, or multiple weapons for different circumstances (melee and ranged, for instance).
But the key point is that limiting magic item availability WILL make things tougher on the PC's, compared to the base assumptions of the game. As others have said, that's fine if that's what you're looking for. But if you're new to the game, you really should try it out as it's designed first before making changes.
and, as per the examples above, only really hurts the martial characters.
A wizard getting 1/2 gold? meh still a good wizard, was only needing to buy 3 of the big 6 anyways.
A fighter getting 1/2 gold? He now needs to decide which of the big 6 to not buy to afford the big 6 he wants.
I didnt say a 50% risk of TPK, you are taking my words too far and going on about things i didnt say.
When i said 50-50 i was talking about the chances of a failed save for example, which was mentioned countless times in this thread.
Or the chances to be hit using a non-magical armor, or the chances to hit the target, or the chances of the target resisting your spells and abilities, etc.
If you have 10% chance to fail a save, never miss your attacks, never get hit, and your spells never get resisted, is there really any challenge?
Wizards have a lot of save-or-suck spells that will quickly defeat encounters. Fighters and other martials have health to last during a battle. Certain classes can buff or debuff and rebalance the odds.
But when everything is a bonus and you will only ever fail if you roll a 1 (or 5% chance), i dont think the challenge rating and wealth by level are working.
CR is supposed to drain about 25% of the daily resources of a party of the same level
This is a relic from 3.x gamemaster's handbook, which i don't think that was ported to pathfinder, but correct me if im wrong.
Equal level CR+1 means "challenging", not "will drain your resources but you guys will be fine".
If you have 10% chance to fail a save, never miss your attacks, never get hit, and your spells never get resisted, is there really any challenge?
Yes.
<drops mike>
and, as per the examples above, only really hurts the martial characters.
A wizard getting 1/2 gold? meh still a good wizard, was only needing to buy 3 of the big 6 anyways.
A fighter getting 1/2 gold? He now needs to decide which of the big 6 to not buy to afford the big 6 he wants.
Not really. The wizard doesn't need three of the big six, but the wizard also needs a lot of other stuff, such as scrolls of utility spells that the fighter expects to have available, but can't necessarily use himself. The real advantage that the wizard has is that he's so SAD that he only really needs a single headband, while the ranger needs a Robe of Many Attributes to boost everything....
Similarly, if you look at the monster design specs, monsters are expected to hit "each other" (e.g., a CR X monster fighting a CR X monster) roughly 75% of the time and to resist each other's special attacks via saving throws roughly 75% of the time. This is also where PCs are roughly supposed to be, although PCs are generally expected to be somewhat more rounded because they're supposed to be built for higher survivability than one-off monsters.
You proved my point without realizing it.
A CR X monster will resist another CR X monster ability 75% of the time, meaning that a level X PC should resist the same ability about 50% of the time (since it's an average encounter), but with his magical gear, special abilities, buffs or debuffs, will increase that chance to 75% (or higher).
Isn't this where the balance is found? If the average is resisting 90% of the time, then the monster isnt a average challenge anymore.
I am not sure if my point is being made clear, but i believe that a PC should have about 50% chance to succeed or fail (be an attack, save or be hit) against a same level CR creature without the help of magical equipment. That would make those creatures really dangerous to your average Joe, but not to an adventuring party.
Yes.
<drops mike>
It is certainly not "average" though.
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I didnt say a 50% risk of TPK, you are taking my words too far and going on about things i didnt say.
When i said 50-50 i was talking about the chances of a failed save for example, which was mentioned countless times in this thread.
Or the chances to be hit using a non-magical armor, or the chances to hit the target, or the chances of the target resisting your spells and abilities, etc.
Sorry, I misunderstood. The way you structured* your previous post made it look like the CR 15 encounter was itself supposed to be a 50/50 endeavor.
If you have 10% chance to fail a save, never miss your attacks, never get hit, and your spells never get resisted, is there really any challenge?
Wizards have a lot of save-or-suck spells that will quickly defeat encounters. Fighters and other martials have health to last during a battle. Certain classes can buff or debuff and rebalance the odds.But when everything is a bonus and you will only ever fail if you roll a 1 (or 5% chance), i dont think the challenge rating and wealth by level are working.
Here's an interesting thing to ponder: when a fighter has four attacks, on what roll should his fourth attack be hitting? Perhaps on a 19? If so, then that means his third attack is hitting on a 14, and his second attack is hitting on a 9, and his first attack (and all his AoOs) would hit on a 4 (oh, and a Charge or a primary attack with flanking would hit on a 2).
If your fighter's primary attack is "about 50/50" (hitting on an 11 or so), then his second attack needs a 16, and both his third and fourth attacks are only possible thanks to the "auto-hit on a 20" rule. You're welcome to run your games that way, but it's pretty self-evident that that's not how the system was designed.
*If you'd like to know how you gave that impression, you transitioned away from talking about the odds of passing a save or hitting with an attack by moving to a new paragraph and introducing a new topic. After having introduced the topic of an "average" encounter you immediately followed (in the same paragraph) with "Average to me is 50/50." Any intelligent reading of that paragraph would be that the "average" which you said should be 50/50 is the same "average" you had just mentioned in the previous sentence: an average encounter. Thus, whether you meant it this way or not, what you actually said was that an average encounter is 50/50.
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A fight where your spells and attacks and saving throws only work 50% of the time doesn't sound like a fight that will only use 25% of your daily resources.
Also I'm pretty sure you can't reach that 50% without gear.
fighter strmod 4
cr2 AC 14 hit +7
cr3 AC 15 hit +8
cr4 AC 17 hit +9
cr5 AC 18 hit +11
cr6 AC 19 hit +12
cr7 AC 20 hit +13
cr8 AC 21 hit +14
cr9 AC 23 hit +16
cr10 AC 24 hit +17
cr11 AC 25 hit +18
cr12 AC 27 hit +19
cr13 AC 28 hit +21
cr14 AC 29 hit +22
cr15 AC 30 hit +23
cr16 AC 31 hit +24
This is a fighter with no gear and he's only needing a 7 to hit level appropriate most of the time. But this is for his first and best attack. But while his accuracy is the same, his damage to HP is going down significantly.
lv1-3 2d6+6 ~13 cr1 HP = 15
4 2d6+8 ~15 cr4 HP = 40
5-8 2d6+9 ~16 cr5 HP = 55
9-12 2d6+10 ~17 cr9 HP = 115
13-16 2d6+11 ~18 cr13 HP = 180
The fighter goes from needing a 7 to do 90% of someone's HP to needing a 7 to do 10% of someone's HP. at lv 6 his secondary attack needs a 12 to do the same damage and at lv11 his third attack needs a 17 to hit. So if he's really lucky he's doing 30% of someone's health in a round, but far less than 50% of the time.
So if the fighter needed a 2 to hit for his first attack then he needs a 7 for his second and a 12 for his third. And that's okay, AC transitions from stopping all attacks to stopping iterative attacks.
So if you want fighters to suck more at their job and caster's to be marginally weakened then remove wealth
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The major things to note here are that Characters derive quite a bit of power from Magic Items, and that the CR System factors this in. In other words, if a GM wants to run a low magic game with few items, they sure can, but your group will be weaker. Possibly a lot weaker. So keep that in mind.
There is also a lot of power differential between characters and campaigns. For instance, as a baseline, consider a 15 Point Buy group of four characters who are playing through an Adventure Path, and generally getting the loot the adventure provides. Alternatively, consider a 20 Point Buy group of 5+ characters doing PFS and specifically buying the gear they like from the scenario sheets.
You can also reasonably consider a similar group to either of the above, playing through a homebrew game where the GM just basically hands out lump-sum WBL and all the characters craft Magic Items. All three of those groups have significantly different character power, even if they all consisted of the same characters.
And that isn't even counting how some Magic Items are just no-brainer worth it. Bracers of Falcon's Aim for archers. Gloves of Dueling for Fighters. Not having these items makes you significantly weaker for no reason.
As I said, the game assumes certain wealth by level, and that you spend it intelligently. The "big 6" magic items (armor, weapon, ring of protection, amulet of natural armor, cloak of resistance, and belt/headband for your primary stat) are obvious choices that work well for most PC's. But they're certainly not the only options.
I'd say it's a question of spending reasonably intelligently. It's generally OK to fall behind a little bit here and there. You don't need to max out on the Big 6 in order to be competent at Pathfinder. You just need to be moving generally forward in a number of ways to keep up - this is one reason that the WBL is a bit of a nebulous number rather than a fixed set of benchmarks that must be met.
But the key point is that limiting magic item availability WILL make things tougher on the PC's, compared to the base assumptions of the game. As others have said, that's fine if that's what you're looking for. But if you're new to the game, you really should try it out as it's designed first before making changes.
Alternatively, if you do want to limit magic items, you may need to scrutinize challenges a bit more closely than just picking the right CR to use in monsters for an encounter. Compare the AC, attack values, save DCs to your group with their somewhat more limited bonuses and downgrade as necessary from the system's inherent assumptions.
That's one of the great things about RPGs like Pathfinder - you can adjust to your liking in a number of ways to make good outcomes occur. If you downgrade assumptions of magical gear, you can also downgrade assumptions of monster power to compensate.|
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Along those lines, do you think using ABP helps narrow a little bit of the gap between martials and casters, especially if the GM removes crafting? I'm not sure I'll run our current campaign past around 12th level and we only have 1 full caster (cleric), so just wondering if there is more I need to consider as we're switching to ABP at 5th lvl.Not really. The wizard doesn't need three of the big six, but the wizard also needs a lot of other stuff, such as scrolls of utility spells that the fighter expects to have available, but can't necessarily use himself. The real advantage that the wizard has is that he's so SAD that he only really needs a single headband, while the ranger needs a Robe of Many Attributes to boost everything....and, as per the examples above, only really hurts the martial characters.
A wizard getting 1/2 gold? meh still a good wizard, was only needing to buy 3 of the big 6 anyways.
A fighter getting 1/2 gold? He now needs to decide which of the big 6 to not buy to afford the big 6 he wants.
If you're ending at 12th level with only a single full caster, your experience of the Caster-Martial Disparity is likely to be limited. If the player of that one cleric underestimates that class's power due to false assumptions unmet branding promises about what the cleric is/does (as many people do), then the gap is likely to be shrunk a bit.
I wouldn't worry too much in your case. :)
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In any case it is better to not do anything unless/until you start seeing problems. There are groups out there that never see martial/caster disparity for whatever reason, it maybe will not even be a problem for you either.
Indeed, understanding the C/MD is only relevant to help with diagnosing an issue once you've already noticed a lack of fun that needs to be addressed. If you never reach that point, then it doesn't matter how much C/MD there is in your game, and you don't need to modify anything.
My 2 coppers, the big six are pretty important.
The bonus to all saves is a big deal, and for martial characters bonuses to weapon, and armor are a pretty huge deal too.
Personally, I have found the best compromise is to use the Automatic Bonus Progression system. This stops players from overloading on the Big 6 (purchasing higher bonuses than they reasonably should which could serve to trivialize encounters). They do this by doing away with the big six items and have them just as "inherent" bonuses gained from leveling up. You reduce the normal WBL track to half, and purchase other interesting gear to round out your character. I love the system.