nobody talks about anything other than mechanical prowess in any discussion of what it means to be a "good player" or to "have fun
Nobody talks about ways to have fun because that is the easy part of this hobby. Having fun is something I do just about every time I sit down with friends and talk for a few hours. Generally I assume that everyone who showed up was already having fun before and wanted to again. It doesn't require advice, because if you aren't having fun with PF the best response is "try a new system." DnD 5E is supposedly pretty great, as is GURPS. And if you want to get silly there are a number of card games like munchkin that help there.
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The reason people only talk about mechanical skill is because it's impossible to judge any other metric.It's actually not impossible to judge any other metric. Do you really think that it's impossible to make reasonable (if subjective) judgments about good/bad role playing, or what makes an interesting character?
More importantly, though why do we even need to judge anything in the first place? Why is it important that we are doing better/worse than some random standard? I get that those judgments can be a source of fun for some people, but they are surely not the only source of fun for all people. Don't get me wrong, play how you want, but it's not unreasonable for me to point out that implicit in the statement above is a whole raft of assumptions which shouldn't go unquestioned, especially when leaving them unquestioned makes it that much harder for me to play the way I want.
How does it make it harder for you to play as you want? You can always choose to make a narrowly focused character that is unable to contribute in a large number of scenarios. Do you believe that making options balanced will somehow prevent you from making such a narrow character?
And mechanical determinations are not a "raft of assumptions" they are facts. A Wizard is mechanically able to solve a larger variety of problems. I'm not certain what it is you misunderstanding, because mechanical measurements are inherently accurate. You either have a class feature that lets you solve problem X or you do not. I can examine both the Fighter and the Wizard's class features and see that only one of them has the ability to fly, travel long distances instantaneously, summon minions, divine the future, etc. So saying that the Wizard can solve a larger variety of problems is simply a fact. Disliking that fact does not make it an assumption, even if it is fatal to your argument.
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It's actually not impossible to judge any other metric. Do you really think that it's impossible to make reasonable (if subjective) judgments about good/bad role playing, or what makes an interesting character?
In a medium like a forum.... yes?
More importantly, though why do we even need to judge anything in the first place? Why is it important that we are doing better/worse than some random standard?
Because it can affect how much fun people have in a negative manner. I've had players disappointed and bored because another player accidentally rendered their character's redundant to the extent the general view of the group was that the bored character should leave because he isn't adding anything to the party and is just taking up loot and healing. Learning about the martial/caster disparity has helped my group from causing the same issue since that incident.
Don't get me wrong, play how you want, but it's not unreasonable for me to point out that implicit in the statement above is a whole raft of assumptions which shouldn't go unquestioned, especially when leaving them unquestioned makes it that much harder for me to play the way I want.
1. We aren't discussing how people play at all really....
2. How does it make it harder for you at all?| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
The reason people only talk about mechanical skill is because it's impossible to judge any other metric.It's actually not impossible to judge any other metric. Do you really think that it's impossible to make reasonable (if subjective) judgments about good/bad role playing, or what makes an interesting character?
All of those things that you have described are entirely subjective. Sure, there are common qualities that good characters share but there is no such thing as a definitively good character. It's just not something that is totally quantifiable. For example, I don't like Jessica Jones because I think it's just a collection of incompetent characters bumbling their way through the plot. A family member of mine, on the other hand, believes that that actually adds to the show and helps frame the characters as "street-level heroes". Both conclusions are purely opinion based and, in the grander scheme of things, entirely arbitrary.
I'd also like to put forward that writing a character for an TTRPG is unique from every other medium except certain video games. A character for a TTRPG needs to be left purposefully incomplete because they are being put into a story that is incomplete. A story that they will (or at least should) actively have a hand in shaping with outcomes that no participant (including the GM) should be able to predict, making them even more impossible to judge by any sort of consistent metric.
More importantly, though why do we even need to judge anything in the first place? Why is it important that we are doing better/worse than some random standard? I get that those judgments can be a source of fun for some people, but they are surely not the only source of fun for all people. Don't get me wrong, play how you want, but it's not unreasonable for me to point out that implicit in the statement above is a whole raft of assumptions which shouldn't go unquestioned, especially when leaving them unquestioned makes it that much harder for me to play the way I want.
You seem to be assuming a great deal about anyone who chooses to participate in these sorts of discussions. Despite what you may think, these sorts of discussions are actually indicative of a healthy, inclusive community.
Talking about mechanics helps people learn about the game, helps people find new ways of interacting with things. It helps people become more invested in the game because people usually become more interested in something the better they understand it. It helps developers take a pulse of their community, and to be able to gauge how they should move forward. A purely mechanical discussion can even spawn a beloved character. BARBARIAN AM SMASH - A guide to the Barbarian is a prime example.
I like the mechanics of the game, I like combat. There are times I even like building a character more than actually playing them. I stand by that; I'm not ashamed to say it. No doubt in my time on these forums I've rubbed more than one person the wrong way because of that stance (or because of others that spawned from it).
With that in mind, I think that I can comfortably say that I see you flinging out just as many baseless assumptions and implications as those who you are supposedly standing up again. Maybe you should try and separate saying "the right way for me to play" and "the right way for everybody to play" as statements, because only one of those has been consistently given here (hint: it's the former). Otherwise you might, I dunno, wander into a thread about discussing game mechanics and find them actually discussing game mechanics.
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There are differing opinions here. People like me, love numbers. It's why we love to theory-craft and mess around, it's an outlet to study something, get interested, spend hours without noticing, and tweak small things at a time to crunch out a powerhouse. That's how we have fun. Most of the fun for me is making the characters. I normally work hard on flavor too, but I am a numbers guy, and that is the fun. Our very obsession is why we won't be swayed, our love of numbers just can't let us sit still at non optimized builds. Not to say we deserve to be jerks, or that role play is worthless, but just we have fun in different ways, which is why we will never back down on our opinions. For what it's worth, there are threads out there about flavor, but this one is for fellow number crunchers; people who see fun in optimizing. What I'm saying is, this is a place for people drawn to the thread topic. No need to show your 'smite evil' on internet forums.
Edit: Ninja'd by a fellow number cruncher
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With versatile weapon training and adaptive armor training and specialized armor training, you lose Dex dependence and gain skillmonkey status.
Without needing dex those points can go into int which leads to even more skills.
Now you can minorly contribute to all parts of the game.
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On the formula I've been working on, I compare PC stats to the bestiary for an appropriate CR. I'll link it here, but I do have a scale to judge how good DPR is. If I could find a perfect middle range for average accuracy, there's a scale for accuracy too. Maybe play around with this?
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On the formula I've been working on, I compare PC stats to the bestiary for an appropriate CR. I'll link it here, but I do have a scale to judge how good DPR is. If I could find a perfect middle range for average accuracy, there's a scale for accuracy too. Maybe play around with this?
Not sure if it helps at all, but have you seen this spreadsheet?
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On the formula I've been working on, I compare PC stats to the bestiary for an appropriate CR. I'll link it here, but I do have a scale to judge how good DPR is. If I could find a perfect middle range for average accuracy, there's a scale for accuracy too. Maybe play around with this?
I think the issue here is that Martial-Caster disparity is only in part a combat issue, and on that front it's not usually a DPR thing.
Anyone have a formula where we could compare threat resolutions outside of damage metrics? For example, can we compare the statistical likelihood of a wizard ending a fight with a spell like teleport to other planet to the number of rounds and resources it would cost a no magic character to defeat the threat via direct damage? Serious question here, because I think we could probably sort that out on a spreadsheet.
Would it be possible for us to come to a general consensus on a reasonable number of general encounter categories? For example-
1) Prepared Combat
2) Surprise Combat
3) Exploration
4) Social
5) Travel
We could maybe take those 5 categories in a bar graph and then create a rating system to determine overall effectiveness and tools for resolving each type of encounter present in the class chassis?
I did something kind of like that in a previous thread discussing the merits of the Ranger vs. the Fighter, though I assigned points instead of graphing it out in bars, and then tallied the class points for a final score.
if he's knocking us off balance we'll just ignore him. If he's looking for a forum brawl, he won't get it. If not, then we can just do what the OP wanted. He did ask that we don't get derailed by arguments...
A wise and welcome reminder. Thank you.
The pointlessness of trying to quantify cmb has been fairly comprehensively made after a few dozen posts (by wiser folks than me) as the variables are too many and it relies on assumptions about how a character is played. But I'm sure we'll keep trying.
I am capable of building a character that creates a C/MD is not the same as saying one exists normally in the game, and if it is created then it can be solved by choosing not to do so, or not playing with people who insist in creating a cmd.
I am minded of the thread recently 'how can I get a ridiculously high enchantment spell dc' or words to that effect. While there is some entertainment to be had I'm sure in doing this as a paper exercise, only one old salt stepped up to say "don't do this, the people around you will not have fun".
if we are unhappy with the CMD perhaps we should recognise that by supporting threads like that we are unwittingly (or fully wittingly) making any disparity a problem.
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if we are unhappy with the CMD perhaps we should recognise that by supporting threads like this we are unwittingly (or fully wittingly) making any disparity a problem.
I think you're entirely wrong. Discussions like this are a big part of why we got the Unchained Rogue, The Weaponmaster's Handbook, a good Vigilante class, etc.
Martial-Caster disparity is a result of the underlying framework of the game, and it's often something people stumble onto without even knowing what it's called or why it's happening. Breaking down the reasons and results, as well as discussing the various ways it impacts different classes, helps provide the tools necessary to address the problem if it's something you're struggling with. It's systemic, and it isn't going to go away if you sweep it under the rug.
On the formula I've been working on, I compare PC stats to the bestiary for an appropriate CR. I'll link it here, but I do have a scale to judge how good DPR is. If I could find a perfect middle range for average accuracy, there's a scale for accuracy too. Maybe play around with this?I think the issue here is that Martial-Caster disparity is only in part a combat issue, and on that front it's not usually a DPR thing.
Anyone have a formula where we could compare threat resolutions outside of damage metrics? For example, can we compare the statistical likelihood of a wizard ending a fight with a spell like teleport to other planet to the number of rounds and resources it would cost a no magic character to defeat the threat via direct damage? Serious question here, because I think we could probably sort that out on a spreadsheet.
Would it be possible for us to come to a general consensus on a reasonable number of general encounter categories? For example-
1) Prepared Combat
2) Surprise Combat
3) Exploration
4) Social
5) TravelWe could maybe take those 5 categories in a bar graph and then create a rating system to determine overall effectiveness and tools for resolving each type of encounter present in the class chassis?
I did something kind of like that in a previous thread discussing the merits of the Ranger vs. the Fighter, though I assigned points instead of graphing it out in bars, and then tallied the class points for a final score.
if he's knocking us off balance we'll just ignore him. If he's looking for a forum brawl, he won't get it. If not, then we can just do what the OP wanted. He did ask that we don't get derailed by arguments...A wise and welcome reminder. Thank you.
The issue I see with this, is that adventures are written around PCs abilities and good adventures/APs intentially have multiple ways of overcoming them for a reason. Secondly there only needs to be one healer in a party to overcome those challenges, one wizard to cast teleport etc but it doesn't take into effect the fact that those things can be obtained through loot / hired services etc.
If travelling is the challenge then the DM has to ensure either the party has the ability to travel themselves or provide one. Otherwise why chose to put that into the adventure?
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The pointlessness of trying to quantify cmb has been fairly comprehensively made after a few dozen posts (by wiser folks than me) as the variables are too many and it relies on assumptions about how a character is played. But I'm sure we'll keep trying.
I am capable of building a character that creates a C/MD is not the same as saying one exists normally in the game, and if it is created then it can be solved by choosing not to do so, or not playing with people who insist in creating a cmd.
I am minded of the thread recently 'how can I get a ridiculously high enchantment spell dc' or words to that effect. While there is some entertainment to be had I'm sure in doing this as a paper exercise, only one old salt stepped up to say "don't do this, the people around you will not have fun".
if we are unhappy with the CMD perhaps we should recognise that by supporting threads like that we are unwittingly (or fully wittingly) making any disparity a problem.
Except I've seen it happen multiple times by people who weren't trying to create a C/MD. How could they have chosen to not do it if they didn't know they what the disparity was?
Awareness of the issue allows players and Gamemasters to work together more effectively to resolve the issues in their games and lower the chance of the C/MD harming their enjoyment.
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Student t-test and then ANOVA to determine significant differences across groups. You can't use the z tables since standard deviation isn't known but calculated from data.
I prefer minitab for my ANOVA analysis since doing the calculations by hand is mind numbingly tedious.
People questioning the validity of the measurements (death v class) are just experiencing a general problem with statistics. You should keep it clear what you are doing (not bad v class, but death v class). I had a rogue in RotRLs and he only died once but was the worse character I've ever had the displeasure of playing. You should consider uncompleted campaigns and switching classes/characters a death.
Ah, thanks for the heads up. From some research just now it does seem like it is 0k to gloss over the different standard deviations if sample sizes are sufficiently large and the distribution is not overly skewed. I . . . can't actually find an example for the method you described (at least for categorical variables).
Also, good point about the axes titles. Thanks!
This is a very interesting analysis. Other posters have already pointed some problems with it, so I will stick to original points.
Can you provide the original data you used? That is to say, number of people who chose a specific class and how many times they died.
Also, I believe Kobold Cleaver did a very decent meta-analysis of the caster-martial disparity.
My raw data was linked in the first post, but here it is again for convenience.
I am aware of KC's analysis, and he complained to me yesterday that now he'll have to add this thread to it :V
Yeah, I've found no evidence that casters are squishy.EDIT:
Basically: Those two arguments are myths 3 and 4 of the CMD:
"Casters are squishy" - Many people think that sorcerers and wizards are fragile and vulnerable on the battlefield. This has never been less true. Casters generally have good HP and thanks to spells like mirror image, invisibility, displacement and fly, they are often the safest PCs on the battlefield. All casters have good will saves, some have good fortitude saves, and they have numerous options for boosting saves, AC, HP, and other defenses. Casters also have ways to make themselves basically immune to everything from fire, to grappling, to mental effects. 3/4 BAB casters are generally not considered vulnerable on the battlefield.
Absolutely. And data density is a huge issue - obits are a low-hanging fruit, but they're obviously not the best measure of disparity. There is internet-accessible data in the form of PBP threads (and maybe even responses to PFS scenario threads?), but it'd be a big undertaking to trawl those archives.I want to add to the discussion that the MC/D is absolutely measurable if we want to create an extensive data collecting tool and run it a ton of times.
[snip]
The challenge here is specificity of comparisons to evaluate, density of data to mine and ability to give scenarios to get feedback.
Gonna throw in my two cents: I agree with the majority of posters that the statistics described in the OP do not analyze C/MD.
That said, I am hesitant on dismissing the data provided by the OP. Though the data may not analyze C/MD, the data should show the likelihood of PC death by race / class.
Let me also mention that if a certain class/race is statistically significantly more (or less) likely to die, we can only observe the correlation of class/race to death rate, and we cannot assume that the causality is due to bad game balance. If the data shows Fighters as statistically significant in likelihood of death, we cannot assume that Fighters are badly designed. Maybe there's a hidden correlation of Fighters being played by low-skill, suicidal players.
What we can say from the OP's data is that a correlation exists (or does not exist) between class/race choice and death rate. The question is, what can you do with this information?
Yeah, I've said from the beginning it's not the best measure. When confronted a multivariate question such as this (and trying to provide evidence through non-dialectical means), though, data accessibility is a huge hurdle.
Perhaps I have a different understanding of it than Ssalarn and others, but I see the disparity as a large-scale issue of martial classes being less effective and less fun than other classes. It crops up in inexperienced groups as well as experienced groups. While different system mastery is the primary factor of disparity in individual groups, averaged over the hundreds (thousands+?) of groups that play Pathfinder, the disparity should result from the classes themselves, or at least the type of players that gravitate towards those classes. It's not only an issue of experienced groups running up against their class' ceilings, but an issue of new players with a little more system mastery than their friends being on average more powerful when they pick wizards over fighters.
And since the issue is global, different statistics of "fun" should be appropriate as long as they are derived from a sufficiently large sample size. Deaths are a passable measure of fun, in that losing a character is rarely a fun experience. (Other measures of fun are also very important, as Rhedyn pointed out.) If there is evidence of a class in general giving people bad experiences, it at least merits some consideration as to why it's giving bad experiences. It's weak evidence, but it'd be a strong jumping off point for further investigation through surveys and stuff.
That's not to say that deaths are based solely on game balance, and I acknowledge that there are likely some suicidal fighters (I'm guessing that's part of the reason for all the ranger deaths in Serpent's Skull, since it's kind of a good class, but I have no evidence to support!). However if we look at 9-level caster deaths in Rise of the Runelords, we might see a trend that refutes certain assumptions - i.e. it would be useful if we could show that full casters aren't easy to kill.
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New tests
I attempted to test for significance of death/created differences for larger categories than before, which increases the validity of the statistical approach I'm using.
I pooled deaths and characters created into different categories: martials, casters, and 9-level casters. Martials and casters were either/or categories - if a class is Martial it cannot also be Caster. The basic question I asked in separating them was, "Does it have (spell) slots?" Yes=caster, no=martial. For the 9-level caster category, I selected only classes that have 9 full levels of slots. This includes kineticists, even though their abilities are mostly supernatural and spell-like. I would have liked to do a magic-light category, but even with Ssalarn's definitions, picking those classes would have required too many judgement calls.
The test format was the same as before, calculating Z statistics for the difference of two proportions. The null hypotheses were that the proportions of deaths and the proportions of characters created are equal for each category. A significance value of 0.05 was used in these two-tailed tests. The lowest number of "successes" was 12 and the sample sizes were still assumed to be less than 1/20th of the total population. My math is on this spreadsheet.
Results
Z scores were low for all categories. For martials, the Z scores were -0.24 for RotR and -0.97 for SS. Since every class not a martial was a caster, the Z scores were just reversed - 0.24 and 0.97. For full casters, the Z scores were -0.97 for RotR and 1.38 for SS. None of these Z scores are sufficiently extreme for the null hypotheses to be rejected.
Interpretation
Again, I found no evidence of a death disparity. This time, the lack of evidence was determined with more rigorous methods, though they're not 100% correct and I'd be interested if Rhedyn could give me some pointers on a more valid approach. But yeah, NO EVIDENCE. Again. I'm kind of failing at my stated goal here!
I did, however, find backup for Fergie's refutation of the "squishy casters" argument. Just as I found no evidence for a higher death likelihood for martials, I found no evidence for a higher death likelihood for casters, and not even for full casters (e.g. wizards, clerics).
What is interesting is the difference between different APs. I haven't done analysis of this yet, but there are striking differences in Z scores between APs. Makes me glad I didn't pool data from different APs together, though random sampling from multiple AP obit threads would be a good idea if enough data could be taken. One possible direction for further work would be to find if differences between AP data are statistically significant.
But after spending the last 5 hours catching up on the thread and writing this post I'm feeling kiiiinda tired. Might be a little while.
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The issue I see with this, is that adventures are written around PCs abilities and good adventures/APs intentially have multiple ways of overcoming them for a reason.
And the more of those ways a character can take advantage of, or the more ways they can react to the encounter outside of its expected parameters, the higher their score would be. That's really the essence of M/CD, is how many ways does this class have to address this issue, and what's the most effective of those options.
Secondly there only needs to be one healer in a party to overcome those challenges, one wizard to cast teleport etc but it doesn't take into effect the fact that those things can be obtained through loot / hired services etc.
If the Fighter has to hire a Wizard to resolve an issue for him, that's a point for the Wizard. Borrowing another classes options isn't a class function. But WBL is a metric set down right in the CRB, so you can easily look at who can resolve the encounter with the lowest wealth expenditure if you want to include consumables as a metric.
If travelling is the challenge then the DM has to ensure either the party has the ability to travel themselves or provide one. Otherwise why chose to put that into the adventure?
If there are certain adventures I can't have without either a certain class or deus ex machina, that speaks to M/CD. If a Fighter literally cannot participate in a fight against, for example, a group of planes-hopping demons, that underscores the issue.
Above and beyond that, expediency is and should be a relevant metric. If class A and class B can both get the Ring to Mordor to kill Sauron, but one class can do it in 5 minutes and the other can do it in over 8 cinema hours with the help of like 20 other characters, that's relevant information. Same if it costs class A 20,000 gp and class B can do it for free.
Except if casters aren't in the front lines then their squishiness or lack of is untested isn't it? I don't see many single class wizards wading into melee unless they have been specifically built for that purpose and have been spelled up.
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I don't see many martial classes wading into melee without armor. Just monks and the occasional kensai magus.
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The pointlessness of trying to quantify cmb has been fairly comprehensively made after a few dozen posts (by wiser folks than me) as the variables are too many and it relies on assumptions about how a character is played. But I'm sure we'll keep trying.
I am capable of building a character that creates a C/MD is not the same as saying one exists normally in the game, and if it is created then it can be solved by choosing not to do so, or not playing with people who insist in creating a cmd.
I am minded of the thread recently 'how can I get a ridiculously high enchantment spell dc' or words to that effect. While there is some entertainment to be had I'm sure in doing this as a paper exercise, only one old salt stepped up to say "don't do this, the people around you will not have fun".
if we are unhappy with the CMD perhaps we should recognise that by supporting threads like that we are unwittingly (or fully wittingly) making any disparity a problem.
Except I've seen it happen multiple times by people who weren't trying to create a C/MD. How could they have chosen to not do it if they didn't know they what the disparity was?
Awareness of the issue allows players and Gamemasters to work together more effectively to resolve the issues in their games and lower the chance of the C/MD harming their enjoyment.
Exactly. Ignoring the problem doesn't make it magically go away...
I've seen the C/MD show its ugly head in many games where no one even knew about it. Learning 3.X, I saw casters obsolete martials quite often, and my whole group was composed of noobs who firmly believed all classes were very well balanced.
That still happens in Pathtinder... I have a group where everyone except the GM (me) is a newcomer to the game. I've seen a Fighter get bored out of combat because there was barely anything they could do to contribute (there was no WMH at the time, and they wanted me to avoid house rules for their first game). The player was also annoyed seeing the Oracle doing all sorts of cool stuff in exploration, infiltration and social challenges. After a couple sessions, he was also bored with combat... Turns out saying "I full attack" every round over and over again, without making any meaningful decision is quite boring.
It's a bummer seeing how useful you character could be and how useless he turned out... And it's really freaking boring to do basically the same thing every round of every combat.
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Except if casters aren't in the front lines then their squishiness or lack of is untested isn't it? I don't see many single class wizards wading into melee unless they have been specifically built for that purpose and have been spelled up.
If they can safely and consistently avoid the front lines, their supposed "squishness" doesn't matter at all.
There's no need to be able to absorb damage when you can completely avoid being damaged in the first place.
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Except if casters aren't in the front lines then their squishiness or lack of is untested isn't it?
Is it? I've played sorcerers who spent a great deal of their time invisible and blinking about the battlefield. Their version of being durable was simply not being able to be pinned down, or often even targeted, by enemies. Despite having fewer hit points and virtually no armor class to speak of, the last one I played was far less "squishy" than the silly stalwart defender who kept getting dropped in pits, blown up by fireballs, etc. (Of note, I spent basically every swift action in the last major combat with the last sorcerer I played fishing that dwarf out of the predicaments he kept finding himself in.)
I don't see many single class wizards wading into melee unless they have been specifically built for that purpose and have been spelled up.
Generally, they don't need to. They can use control and mobility spells to protect themselves as effectively, more effectively, than a suit of magical full plate. The last ninja I played was 11th level with something like a 16 AC. It didn't matter, because he was able control the timing and conditions of his engagements and used his class abilities to stay invisible throughout the great bulk of combat, and his kusari-gama to prevent a lot of enemies from even coming within reach.
Invisibility, mirror image, heck, even black tentacles are all ways to defend a character that are often more effective at stopping hit point damage than high end AC.
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Here, let me try again with my summoner example to illustrate the issue. I didn't even want to take freaking grease in the first place, because I didn't feel like it was in theme for the character, but while discussing it with the other players, two of them were pretty adamant that taking corrosive touch (my option) was not just non-optimal, but actually a selfish thing to do, because it was so obviously less useful generally than grease.
I've seen the same arguments used to tell a cleric that they should only heal, and that memorizing hold person was selfish and bad for the team. And heaven forbid you think of playing a negative energy cleric. And don't get started on the pressure of the 4th guy to play a cleric when the party doesn't have one yet, "because you need a cleric"
I've seen people pressure others into being a rogue because they didn't have a "trap guy", or a "scout guy" in the party. And then when the player caves and picks rogue, but makes them a THF half-orc charger they get flack for playing the rogue wrong, "you didn't invest all your stats into skills."
There will always be people that try and tell you what to do, because they honestly think you want the help or just like someone to do the dirty work for them.
Do you know what you're supposed to do in these situations? Stand up for yourself! tell them politely that you appreciate their desires to help, but you have a picture of what your character is and you're playing that character. The party will not suddenly get a TPK because of your choices. You don't tell them what choices tehy need to make so you ask that they do likewise and let you play your character and have fun.
So just because some people use "power level" to judge which options are good choices doesn't make them wrong if they have fun. Yes they are probably wrong to pressure anyone and decrease their fun, but there's nothing innately wrong or right about picking options for power or flavor, even if they are the same item. But I know I've tried to persuade people to not play a rogue when they wanted to be "a skills guy" stopped when they were solid that they were playing a rogue, and then see them get upset when their skills can't keep up with the bard and wizard and druid who are better at their respective skills than the rogue.
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Happiness with the fighter requires very immersive roleplaying. See the character may not have ever had the option to be a druid, ranger, magus, or wizard. The player regrets being a fighter.
A player may want Mr. Hit it with a stick. I've met these players.
Is it optimal? No. Do they equally contribute? No. But it's also not my job to fix them.
Where my complaints come in is that I can't be a meatstick personally and be useful. Because I want to be useful, this is an issue for me. It's far easier to play classes that possess meatsticks. I gravitate a lot to summoning characters for this reason. Low optimization. All around useful. Still plays like meatstick.
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Happiness with the fighter requires very immersive roleplaying. See the character may not have ever had the option to be a druid, ranger, magus, or wizard. The player regrets being a fighter.
A player may want Mr. Hit it with a stick. I've met these players.
Is it optimal? No. Do they equally contribute? No. But it's also not my job to fix them.
Where my complaints come in is that I can't be a meatstick personally and be useful. Because I want to be useful, this is an issue for me. It's far easier to play classes that possess meatsticks. I gravitate a lot to summoning characters for this reason. Low optimization. All around useful. Still plays like meatstick.
This is why I like my Geokineticist; all the fun of being a meatstick without being completely shafted on doing things other than attacking in melee. Enemy flying out of anyone's reach? Cool, I am nearly as effective blasting away at far off enemies as I am at snapping at them with kinetic whip. Lord knows I've made some GM's salty with a natural climb speed and at-will tremorsense.
Plus all of my defenses other than my will save are so utterly fantastic just at base line level I can happily invest all of my resources into just boosting that.
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How are monks and barbarians magic lite?Because their magic doesn't solve a lot of problems. They are not any better off than the ranger or paladin. They definitely are not as versatile as a bard or inquisitor.I'd say the Barbarian is competitive with the bard and inquisitor.
"I cast fly."
"I get so angry I literally sprout wings.""I cast dispel magic."
"I eat magic for breakfast."The Barbarian's utility is themed around being tough and ferocious, but there's nothing saying you can't use rounds of rage out of combat to fly over a hazard or dispel a magical effect.
I know they can fly, but that is a specific build that gives up other options. It also takes a very specific build to be able to take care of traps. I think the one for traps requires you to be a an orc or half-orc.
Bards can generally all do certain things no matter what the focal point it. Being able to fly and remove traps alone is not going to push them to compete with inquisitors and bards for versatility.
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And clerics will heal faster than Paladins and Paladins faster than Druids. It's all a matter of degrees.Incidentally fighters do regenerate - it's called healing and they get it after a nights rest.Once per day, at a rate of their HP per level. You have to sit on your ass for several days to go from 0 HP to full HP without magic.
If you can't do ___ to a degree that matters then it doesn't matter.
You can try to sit around for days, but random encounters will likely mean you are dead before you ever get truly healed up.
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Except if casters aren't in the front lines then their squishiness or lack of is untested isn't it? I don't see many single class wizards wading into melee unless they have been specifically built for that purpose and have been spelled up.
Casters are not just wizard and sorcerers. <-----This always happens in MC/D threads so I am just giving a friendly reminder that druids and clerics were mentioned earlier, and they also have various options while being able to take the front lines.
Also even low BAB casters can have a lot of hit points, and they could end encounters before getting into real trouble.
Source=Personal Experience.
PS: We know a D6 caster up front without any defensive spells up won't last long. That has never been a surprise.
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Can we flip the argument? Instead of trying to state why martials should have a wider variety of options, could those who disagree with the C/MD Hypothesis state why they think martials should *not* be given more flexibility?
For example, there was a thread that asked people to describe how a group of all four martials could successfully breach the fortress of a high power Wizard but using "extraordinary" versions of standard martial abilities. Things like the Rogue being so sneaky they are eventually under a permanent Mind Blank and able to Disguise as well as Alter Self or something at will, that sort of thing.
Why shouldn't such alterations be adopted as a mainstream part of Pathfinder, giving martials the ability to operate within certain areas of the game on equal footing with casters?
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Can we flip the argument? Instead of trying to state why martials should have a wider variety of options, could those who disagree with the C/MD Hypothesis state why they think martials should *not* be given more flexibility?
Thanks. I was going to do this earlier, but I got distracted.
Going back to one of my earlier post here are examples I want to see solved.
Scenario 1:
A little more detail this time.
The party is out in the middle of nowhere, and have been hit with a curse and ability drain. They have no expendables to fix this. Their chances of taking on the bad guys to include a boss level fight are not good. What do they do?
In a party with magic the cleric goes to sleep, wakes up, and cast the spells assuming he had the gold pieces or material component if one is needed. If he can't fully fix the party summon monster to eat some of the attacks and/or planar ally is an option.
Scenario 2: Enemies are tagging them with AoE's, and they are flying out of the reach of any melee weapons. The party is level 7.
2b: Replace the AoE magic with archers.
I came across this in a game more than once. I used fog spells to cover our retreat, and I've blinded the enemy.
How are the martials solving these problems?
PS: No GM handouts
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In this thread, I am hoping to gather statistical evidence of the martial-caster disparity, or of the lack thereof. Since it is a very hot-button issue on these forums, I want to ask everyone to please be chill and not like flame or whatever. The idea is just to see if we can add new evidence (beyond play experience, which is still likely the most valid) to the discussion.
Also, I should state some caveats: I am a pretty strong believer in the disparity, and I really only know enough statistics to be dangerous (some college classes). I couldn't find a test appropriate to this data, but did a Z test for difference between proportions to at least show off some of the data I collected. As I have not seen any similar efforts on the boards here, I figure questionable results are better than none, and will hopefully spur brighter minds to make their own comparisons.
Methods:
The analyses I conducted checked to see if any given class or race was significantly more prone to death. Since I have only fully read through the Rise of the Runelords and Serpent's Skull APs, I chose those subforums and collected data from 1) obituary threads and 2) threads where players and GMs posted their starting parties' compositions. The second set of data established a baseline - if, say, 1 out of 10 characters created in Serpent's Skull is a ranger, then if deaths were unbiased we would expect 1 out of 10 deaths to be of a ranger - but as you might expect, the first set of data was often quite different from this baseline! A statistical approach was necessary to determine if deaths were "biased" or not.
I calculated Z scores for each* class and race to test whether or not two proportions were different. The two proportions were 1) the number of character deaths of class/race** A divided by the total number of character deaths and 2) the number of characters of class/race A recorded as being created divided by the total...
There ar too many things to account for. Nothing you come up with will be accurate. Things such as I can teleport the party away so we dont have a TPK cant really be measured accurately with math.
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Exactly. Ignoring the problem doesn't make it magically go away...
Sorry, but dispel caster/martial disparity is on the cleric and sor/wiz spell lists. There's just no way for martials to mundanely make it go away.
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Not all melee are created equal. Of the melee classes, I find that the barbarian is by far the closest to parity. Most of the issues that people bring up in the parity fight can be solved with a combination of magic items and rage powers. The biggest issue is that the barbarian does not have much pro-party buffing / negating abilities. The closest I have gotten to fully filling in all the gaps is UMD and scroll usage.
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So here's a question: how many different types of problems should any given class be able to solve? Can different classes have the tools to solve a different variety of tasks?
As an example, say martials got more skill points to play with (like 6 per level) & skills, especially ranks, were made more meaningful. Would that be sufficient for giving martial characters versatility? Does the fighter need to be able to cast dimension door by cutting a hole in reality? Would it be okay that, to travel a long distance instantaneously you need a wizard or some caster? Added on to that, the caster's versatility could be cut by a system like spheres of power where the caster must devote themselves to a magic school in order to draw out all the power is has to offer. This would make the discrepancy in versatility smaller...would that be enough?