reactionary combat optionsHow often and to what effect did you find those 3 options used? From my reading of them, I don't know that I'd personally use them....ever. You're spending both an immediate and your next standard action for a chance at 1) doing a standard attack (instead of the full round you probably could do in the given circumstance) or 2) making a combat maneuver mid attack.
These only really seem useful mid-full attack (except the first), and even then means you sacrifice your retaliatory full attack next round. It's arguably better than waiting to do a maneuver on your initiative step, but even then....
And you're assumption is wrong. A Balor is supposed to be a fight for a PARTY of level 20's not some idiot on his own. In the source material you're thinking of... Aragorn would have been meat for the table. And the only reason Gandalf prevailed, was that he sacrificed his own life to do so.Okay, easy thought experiment. We know that a character with full player class levels & wealth has a CR equal to its level (ie a level 20 fighter npc is cr 20). Put 2 of those against each other. Who wins? 50 / 50 chance. Hence, fair fight. They are evenly matched. Etc.
A 20th level fight with PC wealth is a CR 20, and if built well it has a good chance at beating a balor, but not all classes are equal in CR with regard to combat. I think we all know this. The PC classes were made to work as a team. I don't think it is really possible to say class _____ is a CR ____ unless we stick to the monster creation guidelines.
So if we have a fighter that adheres to those guidelines vs a balor the balor likely will win because it can fight(melee), and has magic. To give the fighter a fair chance it would have to have above average saves, armor, and melee abilities, which is kinda how giant are done, except for the poor will save. For now I am only speaking of the core fighter because I can't account for every archetype.
Straw man argument. We aren't arguing the LOTR character Aragon is a 20th level character, merely that players that want to player a character who shares his traits shouldn't be limited to 20th level.What are "his traits" that the 20th level PC should be sharing? That's the problem.
What has Aragorn actually done?
* Heroically managing to track the orcs across Rohan? Given the size of the orc band, that's maybe a DC 15 Survival check.
* Fighting against an army of orcs at Helm's Deep? Look at Valeros' numbers; he basically auto-hits a standard orc (+13 on his secondary attack against AC 13); normally one-shots them (1d8+13 damage against 18 hit points before death), and can't be touched (AC 29 against an orc's +5 attack). At level 12, Valeros could carve through an army of orcs.
* Command a group of undead warriors? That's a plot point.
* FIght off (but not kill) five spectres? Those are CR 7 creatures, CR 12 total -- a 20th level character would chop them into hamburger.None of those would be "heroic" at 20th level.
I think you're limiting the concept with specifics.
He's a swordsman
he's a tracker and woodsman
He's tough and resilient.
High BAB, high feats, high Hp/con save.
That can apply at any level - power is relative. Your definition of heroic is going to vary depending on the kinds of challenges you like to pose. That will vary from DM to DM.
Straw man argument. We aren't arguing the LOTR character Aragon is a 20th level character, merely that players that want to player a character who shares his traits shouldn't be limited to 20th level.
The beauty of Pathfinder is that they don't share the same narrative unless the fighter goes Pleroma hunting or the DM chooses to throw one in their path.
There are thousands of different campaigns out their and only a small number will include a Pleroma.
The Pleroma's existence does not necessitate that all 20th level characters be able to kill one.
No, but in general that's the kind of thing a 20th level challenge is in PF. Pleromas may be on the top end, but it's not ridiculously out of line.
That's the kind of thing high level characters need to be able to handle.
They don't need to handle them unless they are selected as the challenge there are literally dozens of CR20 challenges. You don't get to pick a creature that one particular class would struggle with as say for that reason the class needs to be completely changed.
If tomorrow a monster was created that drained and consumed divine magic in a 100ft radius sphere around it, you wouldn't go back to the cleric and oracle classes and say OMG we must re-write them.
As if fighters go round in groups of four anyway. Parties are almost always mixed in some way.
A wizard could handle any CR 20 encounter, including one surrounded by an anti-magic field. Depending on how many sources you ban, that encounter is different shades of trivial.
Fighter-man is the odd one out, in that he can't handle most CR 20 fights without literally being carried. (I personally found a good summoning tactic is to Summon trumpet archons that can carry the fighter to the problem and cast heal on him a few times).
Technically and pedantically speaking a Balor is one nat 20 and a confirmed crit away from decapitating someone with his vorpal tech so there's a not-insignificant chance of death from non-bleeding edge optimization crews.
A CR = APL is an 'average' encounter. Not easy, not hard average.Yes, but what does "average" mean?
In this game, remember that by design, the party is supposed to win. CR=APL encounters are just there to burn off daily resources.
There shouldn't be any real risk of PC death with a CR=APL encounter.
So, that's a roughly 2.5% chance (5% chance of a natural 20, 50% chance of confirming a crit) of a PC death each round -- combat usually lasts roughly three rounds, so a 7.5% chance of decapitation.
We can argue about whether or not that's "significant," but given the fact that a party could fight ten of those things in a row and still probably not have seen it once, combined with the widespread availability of relatively cheap ways to negate critical hits, I think this more or less proves my point.
I'm not really interested in a game based on corner cases and optimization. I leave that to the theoryhammers.
That a single class would struggle against a particular opponent doesn't demonstrate anything other than that this should be a cooperative game. I suspect the bard wouldn't have a great time of it either.
If you think fighters should be able to kill Balors single handed bring out a 3pp book of feats archetypes and powers to do that. Or ban fighters in your personal games, or houserule changes.
There is still no convincing case for turning the fighter into a caster class by another name and forcing it on the core base user.
Technically and pedantically speaking a Balor is one nat 20 and a confirmed crit away from decapitating someone with his vorpal tech so there's a not-insignificant chance of death from non-bleeding edge optimization crews.
A CR = APL is an 'average' encounter. Not easy, not hard average.Yes, but what does "average" mean?
In this game, remember that by design, the party is supposed to win. CR=APL encounters are just there to burn off daily resources.
There shouldn't be any real risk of PC death with a CR=APL encounter.
So, that's a roughly 2.5% chance (5% chance of a natural 20, 50% chance of confirming a crit) of a PC death each round -- combat usually lasts roughly three rounds, so a 7.5% chance of decapitation.
We can argue about whether or not that's "significant," but given the fact that a party could fight ten of those things in a row and still probably not have seen it once, combined with the widespread availability of relatively cheap ways to negate critical hits, I think this more or less proves my point.
The balor gets 4 attacks a round with reach plus attacks of opportunity. So the maths aren't as simple as that.
Power word stun and implosion are particularly nasty to the low hp non martial casters.
All that said, the question wasn't whether a 20th level party could beat one, that is of course the case. It is whether it would put up a fight and use up resources.
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A 20th level fight with PC wealth is a CR 20, and if built well it has a good chance at beating a balor,
Honestly, I'm not sure about that. As you point out, "not all classes are equal in CR with regard to combat" and fighters are at the high end of the classes at low levels, but conversely at the low end of the classes at high levels.
Precisely because the fighter is so specialized, it's hard for me to see a typical level 20 fighter being able to make much of a dent in a balor. Consider the following:
Pre-combat. Balor is flying, fighter isn't. Neither side is surprised. Fighter wins initiative.
Round 1; Fighter invokes item to give her flight. Balor casts greater dispel magic and wreck's fighter's defensive items; casts quickened telekinesis to try to levitate fighter and hold her helpless 10 ft above ground.
Round 2: FIghter draws bow and fires arrows, doing 200 points of damage. Balor casts dominate monster, overwhelming fighter's poor Will save.
Round 3: Fighter disrobes as per the balor's mental command. Balor chuckles evilly.
Round 4: Fighter is naked, equipmentless, dominated and held in place, unable to touch the ground. Fighter's player flips table, storms off, wondering what idiot thought this was a fair fight.
Well, yeah. The Balor cheated at least twice. Telekinesis grants a will save to lift people off the ground, or is targeting CMD. I count a DC 23 on that. Can't just DO it. Any fighter worth their salt would have at least a +14 will save, maybe +16 (probably +16, tbh), possibly with a reroll, not including their natural wisdom. That succeeds pretty often. Then they get another +5 on top of it to counter dominate monster because improved bravery, making them succeed on an 8 (or 6) with reroll... and that's all assuming that, with them having a bow, their first action isn't just 'quaff potion of Protection from Evil.' The second point where it cheated was area-dispelling magic items.
A 20th level fight with PC wealth is a CR 20, and if built well it has a good chance at beating a balor,Honestly, I'm not sure about that. As you point out, "not all classes are equal in CR with regard to combat" and fighters are at the high end of the classes at low levels, but conversely at the low end of the classes at high levels.
Precisely because the fighter is so specialized, it's hard for me to see a typical level 20 fighter being able to make much of a dent in a balor. Consider the following:
Pre-combat. Balor is flying, fighter isn't. Neither side is surprised. Fighter wins initiative.
Round 1; Fighter invokes item to give her flight. Balor casts greater dispel magic and wreck's fighter's defensive items; casts quickened telekinesis to try to levitate fighter and hold her helpless 10 ft above ground.
Round 2: FIghter draws bow and fires arrows, doing 200 points of damage. Balor casts dominate monster, overwhelming fighter's poor Will save.
Round 3: Fighter disrobes as per the balor's mental command. Balor chuckles evilly.
Round 4: Fighter is naked, equipmentless, dominated and held in place, unable to touch the ground. Fighter's player flips table, storms off, wondering what idiot thought this was a fair fight.
For each object within the area that is the target of one or more spells, you make dispel checks as with creatures. Magic items are not affected by an area dispel.
As it turns out, it's quite easy to win by GM fiat and the fighter is quite right to flick off the GM because the punk cheated.
Or he just rolled horribly three times in a row, in which case it's time to just suck it up.
Round 1; Fighter invokes item to give her flight. Balor casts greater dispel magic and wreck's fighter's defensive items; casts quickened telekinesis to try to levitate fighter and hold her helpless 10 ft above ground.
Round 2: FIghter draws bow and fires arrows, doing 200 points of damage. Balor casts dominate monster, overwhelming fighter's poor Will save.
Round 3: Fighter disrobes as per the balor's mental command. Balor chuckles evilly.
Round 4: Fighter is naked, equipmentless, dominated and held in place, unable to touch the ground. Fighter's player flips table, storms off, wondering what idiot thought this was a fair fight.
Well, most fighters purchase immunity to mind control as soon as possible (and most monsters mysteriously know this), so Rounds 2+ would probably go rather differently.
Well, yeah. The Balor cheated at least twice. Telekinesis grants a will save to lift people off the ground,
A 20th level fight with PC wealth is a CR 20, and if built well it has a good chance at beating a balor,Honestly, I'm not sure about that. As you point out, "not all classes are equal in CR with regard to combat" and fighters are at the high end of the classes at low levels, but conversely at the low end of the classes at high levels.
Precisely because the fighter is so specialized, it's hard for me to see a typical level 20 fighter being able to make much of a dent in a balor. Consider the following:
Pre-combat. Balor is flying, fighter isn't. Neither side is surprised. Fighter wins initiative.
Round 1; Fighter invokes item to give her flight. Balor casts greater dispel magic and wreck's fighter's defensive items; casts quickened telekinesis to try to levitate fighter and hold her helpless 10 ft above ground.
Round 2: FIghter draws bow and fires arrows, doing 200 points of damage. Balor casts dominate monster, overwhelming fighter's poor Will save.
Round 3: Fighter disrobes as per the balor's mental command. Balor chuckles evilly.
Round 4: Fighter is naked, equipmentless, dominated and held in place, unable to touch the ground. Fighter's player flips table, storms off, wondering what idiot thought this was a fair fight.
Not with all the Will save toys shut down by greater dispel magic.
The second point where it cheated was area-dispelling magic items.
Nope. Targeted dispel -- one target per four caster levels.
The balor's tactics stand.
Well, most fighters purchase immunity to mind control as soon as possible (and most monsters mysteriously know this), so Rounds 2+ would probably go rather differently.
Round 1; Fighter invokes item to give her flight. Balor casts greater dispel magic and wreck's fighter's defensive items; casts quickened telekinesis to try to levitate fighter and hold her helpless 10 ft above ground.
Round 2: FIghter draws bow and fires arrows, doing 200 points of damage. Balor casts dominate monster, overwhelming fighter's poor Will save.
Round 3: Fighter disrobes as per the balor's mental command. Balor chuckles evilly.
Round 4: Fighter is naked, equipmentless, dominated and held in place, unable to touch the ground. Fighter's player flips table, storms off, wondering what idiot thought this was a fair fight.
And how do you "purchase" this in a way that cannot be dispelled?
Nope. Targeted dispel -- one target per four caster levels.The balor's tactics stand.
Oh, you're misreading the spell. 'This functions as a targeted dispel magic, but it can dispel one spell for every four caster levels you possess, starting with the highest level spells and proceeding to lower level spells.' It still only targets one thing, it just removes multiple spells from it at once.
So like, if the fighter had Fly, Protevil, Bless, and Haste cast on him, you could remove all four at once with one targeted dispel--but you couldn't target four separate objects/persons. That's area dispel. You follow me?
Nope. Targeted dispel -- one target per four caster levels.The balor's tactics stand.
Oh, you're misreading the spell. 'This functions as a targeted dispel magic, but it can dispel one spell for every four caster levels you possess, starting with the highest level spells and proceeding to lower level spells.' It still only targets one thing, it just removes multiple spells from it at once.
So like, if the fighter had Fly, Protevil, Bless, and Haste cast on him, you could remove all four at once with one targeted dispel--but you couldn't target four separate objects/persons. That's area dispel. You follow me?
That's not the interpretation I've seen, but I will accept that we have a difference of opinion here.
The overall point still stands; the magical abilities of the balor combined with at-will dispel magic (and the greatly superior mobility of the balor) means that it can fight using skirmish tactics and shut down the fighter's toys. The fighter's only viable tactic is hit point attrition, which takes time. Essentially the fighter has to be lucky long enough to take out the balor's hit points, while the at-will dominate person means that the balor need only be lucky once.
I know a certain Fighter who would laugh at the Balor, never even try to fly, and kill it in the first round after winning initiative.
Shh. Archers are cheating. >.>
That's not the interpretation I've seen, but I will accept that we have a difference of opinion here.
The overall point still stands; the magical abilities of the balor combined with at-will dispel magic (and the greatly superior mobility of the balor) means that it can fight using skirmish tactics and shut down the fighter's toys. The fighter's only viable tactic is hit point attrition, which takes time. Essentially the fighter has to be lucky long enough to take out the balor's hit points, while the at-will dominate person means that the balor need only be lucky once.
TBH, thank whoever lets you interpret things that way for giving you a better mage's disjunction a whole 4 spell levels earlier, then. Lord knows if that's how the spell worked at my tables I'd never prep any other 5th level spells. (Well. One divination, because Diviner, but you know what I mean. My GMs never let me get away with nuffin. :()
Anyways, I'm not so sure about that since he doesn't have a good way to get in, do something, and get out of range completely. He doesn't have wind wall, so he's vulnerable to arrows, and two rounds of 200HP of arrows (which you said he did on turn 2) means the Balor is a pincushion to a Fighter 20 if he doesn't just FUBAR the die rolls.
Which is always a possibility, ofc. Lord knows I can't roll above a 5. S'why I play Barbaians.
Nope. Targeted dispel -- one target per four caster levels.The balor's tactics stand.
Oh, you're misreading the spell. 'This functions as a targeted dispel magic, but it can dispel one spell for every four caster levels you possess, starting with the highest level spells and proceeding to lower level spells.' It still only targets one thing, it just removes multiple spells from it at once.
So like, if the fighter had Fly, Protevil, Bless, and Haste cast on him, you could remove all four at once with one targeted dispel--but you couldn't target four separate objects/persons. That's area dispel. You follow me?
That's not the interpretation I've seen, but I will accept that we have a difference of opinion here.
The overall point still stands; the magical abilities of the balor combined with at-will dispel magic (and the greatly superior mobility of the balor) means that it can fight using skirmish tactics and shut down the fighter's toys. The fighter's only viable tactic is hit point attrition, which takes time. Essentially the fighter has to be lucky long enough to take out the balor's hit points, while the at-will dominate person means that the balor need only be lucky once.
I'm loath to enter this discussion however...
You are of course assuming the fighter just sits out in the open rather than using intervening terrain, and confined space to limit the Balors ability to fly. Because interesting encounters always take place in featureless bubbles?
It is a fair point. Though I try to avoid fights in a vacuum I understand this is a theory exercise - even if that isn't how combats often go in game. If the Balor is teleporting around it's not attacking or spellcasting. It's always going to be in a situation therefore where the fighter can respond.
I guess my point is being indoors/underground or outside in a wilderness setting can affect what appears to be incredible advantage on face value.
With a thrown weapon.I know a certain Fighter who would laugh at the Balor, never even try to fly, and kill it in the first round after winning initiative.Shh. Archers are cheating. >.>
Oh well now you're just being ridiculous.
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You guys have created 362 new posts since 3 PM EST on Thursday.
Just figured I'd point that out.
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Give people options that's one of pathfinders strengths. Forcing wuxia on fighters is removing options not granting them.Do you have any idea how weird this sounds? "You're FORCING me to have an option I don't want to take!"
I'm pretty sure you're misrepresenting his argument. His view is "I like the Fighter as it is." and lots of people are saying "Well its not good enough, we need to add stuff and make it better."
I mean, I am absolutely on the side that says "Fighter am dumb, change make good." I've been burned hard by the space the game puts between Casters and Non-Casters too many times, I will NEVER play a class without spells or an equivalent in this game ever again. Would sooner rip those pages out and burn them as a sacrifice to my heathen Gods.
But the Sword likes the Fighter as is, as apparently lots of people do. And apparently an important part of that is that the class is simple or straightforward, to them at least. I'm aware of the argument that Fighters are super-complicated because if you don't choose feats right you suck, and I agree with that, but I can't dictate what people's actual experience at the table is. Which is what matters.
The Fighter, as it is, makes a lot of people really HAPPY. I am NOT one of those people. I'm one of the people that would hunt down the creator of the Fighter like a wounded animal gnawing its leg off to get out of a bear trap so it can hunt down the man that killed its father.
But, happy those people are, which is the Sword's point. You change the Fighter, you change what makes those people happy, and even at best its a trade-off of making a new group happy at the expense of the old group. I would be part of the happy new group, but I'd have sympathy for the unhappy old group that they lost something they really like.
And yes, you're just talking about adding options, but that could still screw up the class for people that really like it, because they like how simple and mundane it feels to them. And a secondary point consistently brought up is that if you want to change the Fighter that much, why not just make something new to do what you want and leave the Fighter to the people that like it. Which is effectively what I do, because I play with Path of War and am very happy to toss money at Dreamscarred Press, because they listen to my endless complaining and produce stuff that makes me shut up and leave my GM alone for once.
Arguing in defense of the Fighter is giving me an ulcer, and I think my keys are smoking because these words are like acid. But don't misrepresent what The Sword actually wants, and is getting, from the Fighter.
Give people options that's one of pathfinders strengths. Forcing wuxia on fighters is removing options not granting them.Do you have any idea how weird this sounds? "You're FORCING me to have an option I don't want to take!"
What was being suggested was re-writing the fighter class to make it as Kyrt describes above and limiting martial fighters to 6th level and below.
We weren't talking about releasing a new options book - it was a complete re-write that I object to. Now read the quote you selected on light of this and it isn't weird at all. Options are great but forcing monk-like-abilities/wuxia/spell-like-abilities at key levels is unnecessary and damages the class for those that want it to represent non magical characters.
And you're assumption is wrong. A Balor is supposed to be a fight for a PARTY of level 20's not some idiot on his own. In the source material you're thinking of... Aragorn would have been meat for the table. And the only reason Gandalf prevailed, was that he sacrificed his own life to do so.
Let's put it this way...If Aragorn were level 20, a Balor should be a fair fight for him. If he where level 20, then he should make sense in a narrative where his oppoonents can teleport at will, fly, control minds, cause enemies to implode, strike people defenseless with a word, undo magical wards, rain storms of flames and summon demons. Aragorn simply does not fit that narrative. He does however fit the kind of a narrative a campaign might have at level 5.
A balor is supposed to be a fight for a party of level 20s -- a fight that a party of level 20s can handle with relatively little risk or expending resources. And there's no assumption that "party" means fighter-mage-cleric-rogue. Especially in PFS, "party" can just as easily mean "fighter-swashbuckler-rogue-brawler-core monk-slayer.
Do you really think that the second party could handle a balor at all, let alone "with relatively little risk or expending resources"?
A Balor is supposed to be a resource expending knuckle-dragging fight for a balanced party. A party of the one you described is going to have major problems.. just as a party of wizards is not going to finish the fight without casualties, assuming they finish it at all. Especially under a GM who does not allow cheats or exploits. And running away does not constitute a victory.
But then again if a party of fighter-swashbuckler-rogue-brawler has survived progressing 20 levels together as a group, they'll have done so because they've learned to adapt to a variety of challenges... and have become masters of the arts of adaptability and prepration. That's the...
Also I absolutely believe that party could handle a balor with relatively little risk or expending many resources. The literal one thing martials do is quite a lot of damage very quickly. The balor will be lucky to survive the pummelling charges from the monk and brawler.
What was being suggested was re-writing the fighter class to make it as Kyrt describes above and limiting martial fighters to 6th level and below.
To be clear, we still want high level fighters to be martial. We just want the concept of "martial" to expand beyond that of just generic solider #3. A fighter who stops being a martial sounds depressing.
Options books don't help a bad chassis, it just means the character has to jump through more and more hoops to get what it should have gotten out of the box.
A crappy Fighter with heaps of splatbooks necessary to make it vaguely functional is a more complicated version of an actually good Fighter who gets all the options to be functional baked right in. If you want the crappy Fighter, just pick the Timmy options.
Options books don't help a bad chassis, it just means the character has to jump through more and more hoops to get what it should have gotten out of the box.
A crappy Fighter with heaps of splatbooks necessary to make it vaguely functional is a more complicated version of an actually good Fighter who gets all the options to be functional baked right in. If you want the crappy Fighter, just pick the Timmy options.
Except Fighter is literally a blank slate.
The moment you start applying "real functionality baked in", you might as well rename it, I dunno, Ranger, Cavalier, Barbarian, Paladin...It is more sane to REMOVE FIGHTER if you wish to remove the possibility of people without the know-how to make the blank slate work picking it up.
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I love the Legolas bits. I'd be quite happy with that right through. Which I guess is what the fighter/ranger is now.
I guess there is a difference between saying a fighter isn't powerful enough vs saying a fighter doesn't affect the world in the way I believe a high level character should. Whether a fighter or any other martial class is crappy will depend on what you want to get out of the class.
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Also I absolutely believe that party could handle a balor with relatively little risk or expending many resources. The literal one thing martials do is quite a lot of damage very quickly. The balor will be lucky to survive the pummelling charges from the monk and brawler.
This theoretical party of fighter-swashbuckler-rogue-brawler presumably has a GM who doesn't make the most of magic-using monsters (or has houserules to make martials better), or they wouldn't have survived so long with that party composition. But sure, if the balor, a monster with CL 20 casting, were to act like a martial in a fight against martials, yeah, it's an easy fight.
But the fact that every single member of the group has a poor Will save is certainly a powerful temptation for the balor to open with crowd control, fly out of range, and keep it a ranged battle with its numerous gtfo abilities (unholy aura, telekinesis, the whip, teleport). Not even mentioning the balor's magic items, that's a difficult fight. One the party could very well TPK in if their own choice of magic items wasn't up to snuff.
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Except Fighter is literally a blank slate.
It's not. It's the most limited class in the game. You are weapon-man. Pick your weapon, that is what all your abilities will gear toward. You are fighter-guy, whose only abilities apply to combat.
These classes:
The moment you start applying "real functionality baked in", you might as well rename it, I dunno, Ranger, Cavalier, Barbarian, Paladin...
Can all (sans Cavalier) do the same cool flavor and fighting style stuff as the Fighter...except they also have more extra abilities and a great ability to affect the narrative.
There is not one character concept the Fighter can achieve that the above classes cannot also fulfill.
The Fighter is no more a blank slate than any of the above, particularly with all those splatbooks that are nice for them, but NECESSARY for the Fighter. All of which simply grant the Fighter the ability to do some of the things those classes can already do.
Giving the Fighter those things as pickable class abilities instead of Feats just consolidates them so they're easier to find.
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Straw man argument. We aren't arguing the LOTR character Aragon is a 20th level character, merely that players that want to player a character who shares his traits shouldn't be limited to 20th level.What are "his traits" that the 20th level PC should be sharing? That's the problem.
What has Aragorn actually done?
* Heroically managing to track the orcs across Rohan? Given the size of the orc band, that's maybe a DC 15 Survival check.
* Fighting against an army of orcs at Helm's Deep? Look at Valeros' numbers; he basically auto-hits a standard orc (+13 on his secondary attack against AC 13); normally one-shots them (1d8+13 damage against 18 hit points before death), and can't be touched (AC 29 against an orc's +5 attack). At level 12, Valeros could carve through an army of orcs.
* Command a group of undead warriors? That's a plot point.
* FIght off (but not kill) five spectres? Those are CR 7 creatures, CR 12 total -- a 20th level character would chop them into hamburger.None of those would be "heroic" at 20th level.
a) Aragorn is called a 'ranger in LotR', that does not make him a ranger in PF terms, though his tracking skill does imply he has ranger levels...
b) who says he's lvl20? sure, he's most likely high level, but nothing to say 20c) the Balrog is not a Balor, I suspect it's an epic monster
d) Gandalf is an epic demi god in disguise and probably alone higher than a mythic level 20
e) reducing the Nazgûl to mere spectres is like saying smaug was a young adult dragon
f) The battle at Helm's Deep was not vs common lvl 1 warrior orcs in ac 13... I can't warrant they were all elite troops, but the uruk hai would have had higher level elite members with them, and they were better equipped than AC13.
Also I absolutely believe that party could handle a balor with relatively little risk or expending many resources. The literal one thing martials do is quite a lot of damage very quickly. The balor will be lucky to survive the pummelling charges from the monk and brawler.This theoretical party of fighter-swashbuckler-rogue-brawler presumably has a GM who doesn't make the most of magic-using monsters (or has houserules to make martials better), or they wouldn't have survived so long with that party composition. But sure, if the balor, a monster with CL 20 casting, were to act like a martial in a fight against martials, yeah, it's an easy fight.
But the fact that every single member of the group has a poor Will save is certainly a powerful temptation for the balor to open with crowd control, fly out of range, and keep it a ranged battle with its numerous gtfo abilities (unholy aura, telekinesis, the whip, teleport). Not even mentioning the balor's magic items, that's a difficult fight. One the party could very well TPK in if their own choice of magic items wasn't up to snuff.
If you keep it a ranged battle the balor goes down even quicker. Ranged combat though feat intensive (fighters) is deadly.
Also what is the functional difference between having four characters with poor will saves or two? The balor can still spend two rounds casting at a balanced party. If your argument is that all PCs should have high will saves - then this is all part of the power creep that some people seem to revel in that makes it much harder to DM the game.
Straw man argument. We aren't arguing the LOTR character Aragon is a 20th level character, merely that players that want to player a character who shares his traits shouldn't be limited to 20th level.What are "his traits" that the 20th level PC should be sharing? That's the problem.
What has Aragorn actually done?
* Heroically managing to track the orcs across Rohan? Given the size of the orc band, that's maybe a DC 15 Survival check.
* Fighting against an army of orcs at Helm's Deep? Look at Valeros' numbers; he basically auto-hits a standard orc (+13 on his secondary attack against AC 13); normally one-shots them (1d8+13 damage against 18 hit points before death), and can't be touched (AC 29 against an orc's +5 attack). At level 12, Valeros could carve through an army of orcs.
* Command a group of undead warriors? That's a plot point.
* FIght off (but not kill) five spectres? Those are CR 7 creatures, CR 12 total -- a 20th level character would chop them into hamburger.None of those would be "heroic" at 20th level.
a) Aragorn is called a 'ranger in LotR', that does not make him a ranger in PF terms, though his tracking skill does imply he has ranger levels...
b) who says he's lvl20? sure, he's most likely high level, but nothing to say 20
c) the Balrog is not a Balor, I suspect it's an epic monster
d) Gandalf is an epic demi god in disguise and probably alone higher than a mythic level 20
e) reducing the Nazgûl to mere spectres is like saying smaug was a young adult dragon
f) The battle at Helm's Deep was not vs common lvl 1 warrior orcs in ac 13... I can't warrant they were all elite troops, but the uruk hai would have had higher level elite members with them, and they were better equipped than AC13.
This is basically what I got from this, starting from C: Every creature they fought in LOTR that has a statblock in Pathfinder are all superior to the Pathfinder versions. Why can't the Ring Wraiths be the CR5 Wraith? Because their names sound cooler? I don't see them doing anything superior than their Pathfinder counter parts.
Sure, the orcs could have a few superior versions, like one with the advanced template, but generally they are CR 1/3. If they have better/different equipment, then just give it to them.
If someone were to try and convince me that the Balrog is somehow superior to the Balor, watching the Balrog helplessly fall in to a hole doesn't help. I don't know about the book version.
These type of things used to peeve me, but it's just amusing, now, especially since I see it all the time. Like how Shelob is an epic level encounter despite it doing nothing beyond what an Ogre Spider can do.
I remember that a lot of people couldn't except Drogon and the other dragons from GoT being considered Drakes in Pathfinder instead of True Dragons despite have little relation to True Dragons.
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[This is basically what I got from this, starting from C: Every creature they fought in LOTR that has a statblock in Pathfinder are all superior to the Pathfinder versions. Why can't the Ring Wraiths be the CR5 Wraith? Because their names sound cooler? I don't see them doing anything superior than their Pathfinder counter parts.
Sure, the orcs could have a few superior versions, like one with the advanced template, but generally they are CR 1/3. If they have better/different equipment, then just give it to them.
If someone were to try and convince me that the Balrog is somehow superior to the Balor, watching the Balrog helplessly fall in to a hole doesn't help. I don't know about the book version.
Beyond that, I believe that Gygax is on record with the inspiration for a number of the monsters that come straight from LotR (although I can't find a citation to hand).
In particular (IIRC):
* Aragorn is indeed a ranger. More accurately, the "ranger" class was modeled on Aragorn.
* Spectres are modeled on the Nazgûl.
* Balors are modeled on the Balrog.
* Orcs are modeled on LotR orcs; goblins are modeled on Hobbit goblins.
* The cloak of elvenkind is modeled on the cloaks Galadriel gave the Fellowship.
et cetera, et cetera.
We return to the basic issue that heroic characters are not necessarily high-level. Gygax knew that and designed a set of monsters and challenges that ran the gamut from gritty semi-realism such as LotR up to, literally, the gods themselves.
There is no reason to believe that Aragorn was above level 5. He didn't do anything particularly beyond the classic abilities of a low-level ranger. The only way to argue otherwise is to engage in circular reasoning -- "Well, he had to be level 20 because he fought an army of orcs at Helm's Deep! And the army had to be high level elite troops, because they fought Aragorn!"
And that's fine, because you don't need to be level 20 to be heroic.
So I ask again.... what are the "shared traits" that everyone wants to copy from Aragorn? If we're simply talking about his loyalty, steadfastness, courage, tenacity, and leadership skills,.... those are things that you don't need to be level 20 to achieve.
If you're talking about things like his combat prowess,.... he's level five or so. He's not doing things like wrestling oliphaunts to the ground with his bare hands and choking them out -- he's not singlehandedly slaying dragons -- he's not besting liches in hand-to-hand combat. There were characters in the Silmarillion that did those things.
I suspect, instead, people are talking about unfulfilled power fantasies -- the idea is that you can't have a good campaign if you leave levels on the table. Pathfinder's design, particularly the capstone abilities, doesn't help this. There was a lot less pressure to achieve maximum possible level in AD&D, because a) there wasn't a maximum level for most classes, and b) classes generally stopped getting cool additional stuff around level 10ish (even rolling for hit points stopped) and instead the rules gave them what amounted to retirement careers (thieves were expected to take over a thieves' guild; fighters were expected to build a castle and become lords of the manor, et cetera). Once Sir Studly the fighter, became His Grace the Lord Studly, Duke of Studlyshire, there wasn't much reason to adventure.
(In BD&D, of course, classes stopped at level 3 or so -- they didn't even have level 4 spells in the books. They listed "fireball" as a spell, but not the actual mechanics, so no one knew what it did.)
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These type of things used to peeve me, but it's just amusing, now, especially since I see it all the time. Like how Shelob is an epic level encounter despite it doing nothing beyond what an Ogre Spider can do.
I remember that a lot of people couldn't except Drogon and the other dragons from GoT being considered Drakes in Pathfinder instead of True Dragons despite have little relation to True Dragons.
I can't help but imagine someone watching Back to the Future and saying "Biff Tannen must be level 20, because everyone at Hill Valley High School is afraid of him. And so George McFly, who punched out Biff, must be at least level 20, too!"
Same circular reasoning. And no more convincing when applied to Shelob. She must be epic because she beat Frodo? And because a bunch of garrison orcs are afraid of encountering her?
These type of things used to peeve me, but it's just amusing, now, especially since I see it all the time. Like how Shelob is an epic level encounter despite it doing nothing beyond what an Ogre Spider can do.
I remember that a lot of people couldn't except Drogon and the other dragons from GoT being considered Drakes in Pathfinder instead of True Dragons despite have little relation to True Dragons.
I can't help but imagine someone watching Back to the Future and saying "Biff Tannen must be level 20, because everyone at Hill Valley High School is afraid of him. And so George McFly, who punched out Biff, must be at least level 20, too!"
Same circular reasoning. And no more convincing when applied to Shelob. She must be epic because she beat Frodo? And because a bunch of garrison orcs are afraid of encountering her?
The only time-traveling power in Pathfinder is Time Stop, which requires 17th level. Time travel in Back to the Future is more powerful, hence Doc must be a god.