I often hear that you can balance martial and caster classes in combat by being more creative as a martial and using the environment to your advantage but I have never heard anyone who says it give examples so I made a post specifcally to ask for them.
Specifically I am hoping to see examples of when you or players in your group used the environment to your advantage, perferably using combat maneuvers as part of it. I want to get ideas of what I could suggest to players
(I know that I mentioned martial caster disparity at the start but please at least let this get to a few pages before argueing about it)
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You cant balance it that way. The caster also has all of those options. That being said I have an example.
Elf rogue with every ability that added spellcasting on him and the feat that let him change his minor and major magic from a spellbook. Stocked up on wands and scrolls to play at being a caster.
Rest of his feats were spent on dirty trick.
Low levels focused on tossing oil flasks filled with caltrops to effectively block sqaures and let the party pincushion the enemies.
We once fought a minotaur at second level. Our barbarian got charged and died. Wizard tries to color spray it. It makes its save. Wizard dies. Cleric and me fallback to hallway. He goes full defense with me setting up bear traps behind him. Filled that hallway. Cleric dies. Then it charges me. Over all of the beat traps.
And that is why bear traps are nlw standard gear.
Wall of Stone /Fire/Thorns is excellent with the correct usage. Split up the enemies, make choke points, force them towards tanks, etc.
Use reposition or bull rush to move enemies out of strategic locations. Maybe even charge them off a cliff. If depends on the GM and what they give you to work with. It's easier with teamwork like druids altering the battlefield.
Yeah it is an easy call for people to make, and yet in practice you will find very little application of it.
Pathfinder is a game about exploration and taking the adventure TO the opposing force, hence you will almost always be set up fighting on ground not of your choosing, where the resident enemy has also probably been able to set up basic defences.
You will also (almost certainly) be just dropped on the edge of a map by your GM and have to immediately play the cards you just got dealt.
There is very little opportunity to use the environment to your advantage, and very few RAW mechanical bonuses for doing so.
How often do you get to say to the GM "Nah I won't attack now, I'll come back just before dawn when we also have heavy rainfall or a snowstorm"
Yeah it is an easy call for people to make, and yet in practice you will find very little application of it.
Pathfinder is a game about exploration and taking the adventure TO the opposing force, hence you will almost always be set up fighting on ground not of your choosing, where the resident enemy has also probably been able to set up basic defences.
You will also (almost certainly) be just dropped on the edge of a map by your GM and have to immediately play the cards you just got dealt.
There is very little opportunity to use the environment to your advantage, and very few RAW mechanical bonuses for doing so.
How often do you get to say to the GM "Nah I won't attack now, I'll come back just before dawn when we also have heavy rainfall or a snowstorm"
This really depends on the game. In a sandbox game where the party plays their cards right, they actually CAN wait until the weather is right. They can send in a scout first to do some limited checking of the terrain. They can send in hirelings, even! In some cases, they may even be able to lure an enemy group *out* of the dungeon and into a trap.
I in particular am a GM who enjoys running defensive battles. There's less exploration, but more tactics in a siege type battle. Plus, I can go more all-out if the players have time to prepare and all the resources they can think of available to them. It's definitely not the default mode, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
That said...
- If you can't pick your environment, bring the environment to the enemy with things like the aforementioned caltrops (and bear traps, I like the way you think, Halek!).
- Once you start exploring the dungeon, try to identify places where it'd be advantageous to fight a defensive battle, and try to lead the enemies there. Chokepoints, areas with cover, etc. This depends to a degree on how intricate the dungeon design is, but even the most basic dungeons tend to have choke points. In any case, take careful note of *anything* you think you can turn around to use on the enemy.
- More extreme, but far less universally useful, it may be possible to dig through walls to approach enemies from unexpected directions. This is one of those things that is 100% easier with casters, because mining your way through a wall is loud and slow. In other words, reshape the dungeon to catch enemies off guard.
And yeah, this honestly helps casters just as much if not more than martials. They just have so many more ways that they can fundamentally shift the arena of battle. But using the environment is still useful for everyone on some level.
The biggest problem isn't that these types of strategies can't be used, it's that recognizing opportunity and taking advantage of it is much trickier, and slower (in real time) than just charging the enemies head on and going from there. And if not everyone is ok with your superb plan to tunnel into the boss room from the entryway of the dungeon, you're likely to get some vetos from people who just want to do it the normal way.
Some examples
-Martial with a tower shield and heavy armor, a cleric behind with a spear in a narrow hallway. Enemy is forced to move through the armor to do anything.
-Bullrushing an enemy off of a cliff, one of the few times its a really great maneuver over others.
-Rogue using heavy brush to make sneak attacks before moving back to re-stealth again.
-Climbing a tree and shooting animals where they cannot retaliate.
-Taking over a fort and using the arrowslits for partial cover.
-fighting on an icy surface and forcing the enemies to take the long way (eating shots), or risk slipping in the open (players did this vs a troll).
-Retreating into a crowd of people to flee a losing fight.
-Haste +Grappling Hook +climb +stealth to bypass the main fort gate and its defenses in favour of tight single file corridors (Used vs Ice giants).
-Using cover of darkness and blind movement rolls to assassinate tough foes before the real fight begins (players did this vs sleeping ice giants).
-Climbing to the top of a building to then throw bombs into the melee from cover while still being able to move to each face quickly for aid.
-Ninja using invisibility to interrupt the wizard at the back for a first strike SA AOO with poisoned weapons. (Thus costing a high level spell and doing damage, and preserving actions to attack later).
-Finally, climbing to the top of a ring hill to get a flanking charge on an occupied foe who left their backside defenceless.
I once had a shadowdancer who liked using Shadow Conjuration to create light sources/obstacles to ensure the entire map was in shadow, and then just snuck around with impunity.
Unchained Rogue with Ledge Walker talent on ice.
This ability allows a rogue to move along narrow, uneven, or slippery surfaces (such as ice) at full speed using the Acrobatics skill without penalty. In addition, a rogue with this talent is not flat-footed when using Acrobatics to move along such surfaces, and retains her Dexterity bonus to AC.
Please note that it is worded slightly differently than the original core rogue talent. The original talent did not extend to slippery surfaces.
Anyone who follows them on to the ice gets sneak attacked. This should work with the Grease spell, but there could be some table variation there. It would also work with narrow ledges, but those tend to be rather rare.
I often hear that you can balance martial and caster classes in combat by being more creative as a martial and using the environment to your advantage but I have never heard anyone who says it give examples so I made a post specifcally to ask for them.
Some tactical theory:
"Environment" generally does two things: either it blocks line of sight (either fully, or by providing cover/concealment), or it hampers movement (or both). One of the major uses is to create a barrier between you and the bad guys, such that you can attack them effectively, but the baddies do not. For example, if you are standing behind a rampart and ditch, you can attack them with relative impunity, as they can't hit you with missile weapons and can't charge to engage you in melee.
The other main use is to put your bad guys in a bad position where they can't defend themselves effectively, for example, by separating the bad guys into two groups that you can defeat in detail. For example, if you can put a wall of force between the spellcasters and the martials, then you can simply beat the martials into oblivion while the spellcasters look on helplessly.
The problem, as others have pointed out, is that either you need to bring the environment to the fight, or you need to bring the fight to the environment. There are lots of "god" spells that will create friendly environments -- for example, if everyone is equipped with fogcutter lenses, your caster can use fog spells at will to hamper the bad guys. It's harder for martials to do this on a large scale.
So the tactical puzzle for martials becomes "how do I get the bad guys to come out of their strongpoint and into my prepared environment?" (For example, I could bring a donkey-load of bear traps and scatter them in front of the Dark Tower, then persuade the bad guy to come out for an Easter Egg Roll on his front lawn....)
I was in a campaign that I think was heading up to the top of a clock tower, but then it ended half way up the tower - is there a dangerous cauldron part way up the tower?
Step 1: Knock Villain off ledge
Step 2: Watch Villain float to safety and/or grow wings and fly away
Step 3: Feel sad about being a martial
Seriously, out of all the people I've knocked off cliffs I've never seen someone important ever hit the ground.
Higher ground can give you +1 to attacks.
Standing by a wall or corner can prevent you from being flanked.
You can get cover by flipping over a table and standing behind it.
You can climb trees or hide behind them or both. Ditto pillars and statues.
Bullrushing into hazards and difficult terrain, or off cliffs, into pits, etc. Pelt them with oil flasks and bull rush them into bonfires and fireplaces.
It really does depend on your GM. If he puts you in dungeons full of empty rooms, it can really limit your options.
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Watch the movie 300 and you'll understand what they mean.
As a martial, cover and flank are often the most common forms of environmental boosts available nearby. You can get some form of cover from corners, pillars, allies, furniture, etc. Flank is also somewhat easy to attain as long as someone else in the party likes melee.
From there, it depends on your character. Blind Fight is a pretty great way to fight, as you can then hide in a fog cloud/smokestick and have much better odds of hitting than your opponent. Reach Weapons and the occasional maneuver against humanoid(ish) foes can often get you a number of bonus attacks, especially in difficult terrain.
Another good way to make use of terrain as a team is for everyone to carry buffs they can put upon themselves. That way, the martial can act while the enemy gets out of the stinking cloud, pit, or sleet storm casters can bring down. Nets, Tanglefoot bags, and thunderstones are also nice to have when enemies get slowed down but you can still see them but shouldn't approach (Black Tentacles, Spike Stones, Stinking Cloud+Goz Mask). Layering a number of debuffs makes dispatching them easier.
However, this isn't a great way to balance martial and casters. Most casters can do all of this but better. Spells like Grease and Stinking Cloud create terrain zones to use for when the field is against you, spells like tactical acumen and sense vitals can improve your use of positions, and a lower reliance on magical weapons and armor (or at least, a better ability to craft them) gives you more wealth to buy items to use.