Addressing the "Is it as broken as the wizard Fallacy"

[Matthew Downie]

Grandlounge wrote:

Gallent Armor

At level 12 it's easy for a group to take 270 damage total. That's with you 8 - 12 combats.

10ish wands pe day

7500 gp per day in 6 days one pc loses all of there wealth by level or everybody is down 1/4 in a group of 4.

Seems harsh on consumables.

An encounter that challenging is likely to be, say, APL+2 on average. (Lesser encounters might well be ended by the wizard casting a single spell before any damage is done.)

A CR 14 encounter is supposed to give out an average of 15,000gp.

So for these 10 combats that cost you 7,500gp in wands, you're making 150,000gp of treasure (and levelling up to 13 from the experience gained).

[Gallant Armor]

Grandlounge wrote:

Gallant Armor wrote:

necromental wrote:

Gallant Armor wrote:

Grandlounge wrote:

Gallent Armor

At level 12 it's easy for a group to take 270 damage total. That's with you 8 - 12 combats.

10ish wands pe day

7500 gp per day in 6 days one pc loses all of there wealth by level or everybody is down 1/4 in a group of 4.

Seems harsh on consumables.

I'm not sure I understand your math. A wand of CLW has 50 charges and can heal an average of 5.5 HP per charge. That works out to 275 HP per wand. With your example of 270 HP damage total, that would be a bit less than a wand per day which isn't unreasonable.

It's 270 damage per encounter, not day.

That would be an insane average encounter. For a 4 person party that's 67.5 damage per person. With that average the wizard would be put to single digits or lower with the average encounter.

Given that some encounters should make the party feel challenged and some should make them feel powerful, as least one encounter a day would outright kill at least one party member.

If your party is taking that amount of damage with the average encounter it is time to address tactics and gear to boost AC and saves.

Wizards at that level often have nearly 100 hp.

(4+ 2 con + 2 Con from a belt) * 12 = 96 more or other way to get there with fbc, toughness, etc.

A barbarian is around 168 raging before that's 16 con and a +4 con belt. No fcd or toughness.

4 players averageing about 130hp each taking 1/2 hp per combat with some combats causing very little damge others around half, and other yet more damage 3/4 and some with kos.

That gets you to about 65 per pc per combat.

If combats are not challenging how do you get a wizard to spend some good spells they likely have the best knowledges checks at the table?

How hard are you setting the average combat? Similar to what I said to necromental; Players should certainly be able to handle an APL encounter without each character losing 1/2 of their hit points.

At my games, encounters that take 1/2 the parties HP are APL+2 with max HP. I can't imagine that being the average for most tables.

[necromental]

Gallant Armor wrote:

Staff like wand is useful to get near infinite low level spells, the point is to limit how often they get their most powerful abilities.

Players should certainly be able to handle an APL encounter without each character losing 2/3 of their hit points. Even an APL+1 shouldn't be that hard to beat.

Again, if the fights aren't threatening, why is the wizard spending his alpha-strikes?

[Gallant Armor]

necromental wrote:

Gallant Armor wrote:

Staff like wand is useful to get near infinite low level spells, the point is to limit how often they get their most powerful abilities.

Players should certainly be able to handle an APL encounter without each character losing 2/3 of their hit points. Even an APL+1 shouldn't be that hard to beat.

Again, if the fights aren't threatening, why is the wizard spending his alpha-strikes?

In a given day there should be several challenging encounters where the wizard can use their big spells. My point is that a party shouldn't be down 1/2 or 2/3 their HP with an average encounter.

An average encounter should be APL or APL+1 depending on how optimized the party is. If a party is losing 1/2 their HP with an APL encounter, something is wrong with tactics, equipment or character builds.

[Athaleon]

How long do 8-12 encounters take to resolve in real time?

[Grandlounge]

I said an average of 1/2 over the course of the day. I have seen groups take on all +4 without take 2/3 damage it's not the strength of the group that we are talking about. Even if we get way more conservative 1/4 hp per combat that's still 5 wands a day. That's still a lot of consumables. It's a consistent burden on players.

Let me get this straight.

You can remove narrative power from a wizard by making them central to healing the party via staff like wand?

You can exhaust a wizards resources buy throwing combats at them that do virtually no damage at them.

The easier the encounter the more likely low level spells are to be helpful thus giving them a greater pool of resources to pull from.

If fights are easier they take fewer rounds so you have no actually shown that you are asking for more comabt from pcs. So why not the normal number of combats but increase the difficulty for the group so they have more rounds?

[Matthew Downie]

Athaleon wrote:

How long do 8-12 encounters take to resolve in real time?

This varies widely - some groups are a lot more efficient than others. Probably two to three gaming sessions.

[Gallant Armor]

Athaleon wrote:

How long do 8-12 encounters take to resolve in real time?

It depends on the game. I have played sessions with rapid fire combats and others with RP in between encounters. For reference, we often go 2-3 sessions without resting in game.

Essentially, it would take 2 to 3 times as long as a given table would run a 4 encounter day.

[Chess Pwn]

Gallant Armor wrote:

In a given day there should be several challenging encounters where the wizard can use their big spells. My point is that a party shouldn't be down 1/2 or 2/3 their HP with an average encounter.

An average encounter should be APL or APL+1 depending on how optimized the party is. If a party is losing 1/2 their HP with an APL encounter, something is wrong with tactics, equipment or character builds.

So if there are 10 fights at lv12 a wizard has at least

4 6th level spells, 5 5th level spells, 5 4th level spells and 6 3rd levels spells.
If the fights are only apl or apl+1 then a wizard won't be needing to try hard with their spells to win the fights. and thus will have plenty of spells for your day. You have plenty of hastes, plenty of black tentacles, and those are you "low tier" slots that can swing fights.

[Gallant Armor]

Chess Pwn wrote:

Gallant Armor wrote:

In a given day there should be several challenging encounters where the wizard can use their big spells. My point is that a party shouldn't be down 1/2 or 2/3 their HP with an average encounter.

An average encounter should be APL or APL+1 depending on how optimized the party is. If a party is losing 1/2 their HP with an APL encounter, something is wrong with tactics, equipment or character builds.

So if there are 10 fights at lv12 a wizard has at least

4 6th level spells, 5 5th level spells, 5 4th level spells and 6 3rd levels spells.
If the fights are only apl or apl+1 then a wizard won't be needing to try hard with their spells to win the fights. and thus will have plenty of spells for your day. You have plenty of hastes, plenty of black tentacles, and those are you "low tier" slots that can swing fights.

Of the 12, I would say at least 3 or 4 should be APL+2 (APL+1 for an under powered party). Level 12 is near the higher end of mid range, so days where there are 15 combats are certainly possible.

The wizard should feel like they are contributing each encounter. The goal shouldn't be to make the wizard feel useless in combat, it should be to have the wizard ration their most powerful resources.

Your mention of haste makes me think we have different views on magic. If a wizard casts haste on a fighter, the fighter is still the one swinging that sword another time per round. If he wasn't well suited to swing that sword the spell wouldn't have any significant benefit. Buff spells are a great way for a wizard to aid a party, but the results are cooperative in nature.

[Grandlounge]

Gallant Armor wrote:

The wizard should feel like they are contributing each encounter.

Why? how do you make this happen. The whole point is people are saying a wizard can conserve power.

Quote:

The goal shouldn't be to make the wizard feel useless in combat.

There is a huge gulf between a wizard saying, "you guys can handle this is 6 seconds so I'm going to look around the room" and feeling useless.

Quote:

Your mention of haste makes me think we have different views on magic. If a wizard casts haste on a fighter, the fighter is still the one swinging that sword another time per round. If he wasn't well suited to swing that sword the spell wouldn't have any significant benefit. Buff spells are a great way for a wizard to aid a party, but the results are cooperative in nature.

How is haste effectively different than burst of radiance or stinking cloud? The wizards casts a spell and others run clean up. It is still cooperative play with the wizard having a huge impact. Buffing and debuffing are two side of the same coin.

[Derklord]

Gallant Armor wrote:

Most campaigns involve some task and enemies being put in the way of the party who prevent the completion of that task. Getting rid of that threat makes the most sense logically.

"There are roads which must not be followed, armies which must not be attacked, towns which must not be besieged, positions which must not be contested" ~Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

[Gallant Armor]

Grandlounge wrote:

Gallant Armor wrote:

The wizard should feel like they are contributing each encounter.

Why? how do you make this happen. The whole point is people are saying a wizard can conserve power.

Quote:

The goal shouldn't be to make the wizard feel useless in combat.

There is a huge gulf between a wizard saying, "you guys can handle this is 6 seconds so I'm going to look around the room" and feeling useless.

I honestly have no idea what you are trying to say here. If the wizard is happy holding their action then there is no problem.

Grandlounge wrote:

Gallant Armor wrote:

Your mention of haste makes me think we have different views on magic. If a wizard casts haste on a fighter, the fighter is still the one swinging that sword another time per round. If he wasn't well suited to swing that sword the spell wouldn't have any significant benefit. Buff spells are a great way for a wizard to aid a party, but the results are cooperative in nature.

How is haste effectively different than burst of radiance or stinking cloud? The wizards casts a spell and others run clean up. It is still cooperative play with the wizard having a huge impact. Buffing and debuffing are two side of the same coin.

Buffing and debuffing both rely on their targets to be effective. If you cast slow on a caster it won't have as much an impact as if you cast it on the TWF. In the same way, Buff spells amplify what is already there. The spell helps certainly, but the fighter still needs to be built effectively for the spell to have any significant use. If you cast haste on a wizard it will be less effective then if you cast it on the fighter. The target of the spell is just as important as the spell itself.

[Grandlounge]

I first point was that "The goal shouldn't be to make the wizard feel useless in combat." Has nothing to do with balancing combat nor the point we are discussing which is getting a wizard to use resources. Becuase a smart wizard can do nothing in combat and be happy with how smart there decission is.

Quote:

If the wizard is happy holding their action then there is no problem.

Then your extra combats are not doing what you say they are doing.

Quote:

The spell helps certainly, but the fighter still needs to be built effectively for the spell to have any significant use.

This statement can apply to haste or to blinding an opponent. The question was how is buffing different than debuffing the enemy not. How is casting haste on a wizard different than casting haste on a fighter. For the I would not cast haste I would cast Arcane Concordance, or Battlemind link. If the same group of adventures uses haste you call the cooperation but some how blinding so the rogue has sneak attack is not?

The fighter is equally relevant if the wizard using a spell for has or their target.

[Gallant Armor]

Grandlounge wrote:

I first point was that "The goal shouldn't be to make the wizard feel useless in combat." Has nothing to do with balancing combat nor the point we are discussing which is getting a wizard to use resources. Becuase a smart wizard can do nothing in combat and be happy with how smart there decission is.

Quote:

If the wizard is happy holding their action then there is no problem.

Then your extra combats are not doing what you say they are doing.

They extra combats are doing exactly what I say they are doing. The goal is for the wizard to not be able to use their most powerful spells all of the time. With a 4 combat day, a mid level wizard can cast something potent most rounds. In a longer day the potent spells become less frequent. That is the goal. If a wizard uses a less powerful spell or does nothing, this leaves room for a martial character to shine.

Grandlounge wrote:

gallant armor wrote:

The spell helps certainly, but the fighter still needs to be built effectively for the spell to have any significant use.

This statement can apply to haste or to blinding an opponent. The question was how is buffing different than debuffing the enemy not. How is casting haste on a wizard different than casting haste on a fighter. For the I would not cast haste I would cast Arcane Concordance, or Battlemind link. If the same group of adventures uses haste you call the cooperation but some how blinding so the rogue has sneak attack is not?

The fighter is equally relevant if the wizard using a spell for has or their target.

This part was a bit hard to read.

If a spell makes an opponent flat footed or gives concealment and thus the rogue gets sneak attack the same logic would apply. The spell itself nor the rogue themselves are what causes this extra damage, it is the combination of the two. The cooperation of the party led to extra damage to be done and both party members played a role.

[Grandlounge]

Just so we are on the same page blind denies dex to ac allowing sneak attack. It's not super important, though they can interact with rules differently.

Now to the other stuff.

Here is where I think your view differs from others. You're equating rationing resources and curbing power. I don't think most people will agree with that idea. Having a few extra fights where a wizard does not have to spend resources is not the same as making them ration resources because you are not forcing scarcity. If the fights are harder and more frequent so they force the wizard to cast more spells then you create scarcity.

If you want to force the wizard to actually ration which will decrease there power you must create a situation where they may run out of spells. Easy fights do not do that, they just create boring fights where the wizard absently throws out magic missles.

[Gallant Armor]

Grandlounge wrote:

I said an average of 1/2 over the course of the day. I have seen groups take on all +4 without take 2/3 damage it's not the strength of the group that we are talking about. Even if we get way more conservative 1/4 hp per combat that's still 5 wands a day. That's still a lot of consumables. It's a consistent burden on players.

That is if there is no healer in the party and no one takes leadership or hires a healer. In that instance there is no difference between 1 combat per day or 1000 as most/all damage has to be healed by consumables. If it becomes an issue players can buy boots of the earth.

Grandlounge wrote:

Let me get this straight.

You can remove narrative power from a wizard by making them central to healing the party via staff like wand?

...I never said anything like that. Someone brought up staff like wand giving wizards near infinite spells and I addressed that. I also don't see how a wizard using a wand of CLW would be removing narrative power from them.

Grandlounge wrote:

You can exhaust a wizards resources buy throwing combats at them that do virtually no damage at them.

I didn't say virtually no damage, I just said that your 1/2 to 2/3 total HP for an average encounter is crazy. A competent party would not take that much damage unless the average combat was APL+2.

Wizards tend to cast spells or do nothing. Either they expend resources or allow the martials to shine. Either way a longer day works.

Grandlounge wrote:

The easier the encounter the more likely low level spells are to be helpful thus giving them a greater pool of resources to pull from.

First and second level spells can certainly be of use for a APL or APL+1 encounter at level 12, but they won't be nearly as effective as their 5th and 6th level spells.

Grandlounge wrote:

If fights are easier they take fewer rounds so you have no actually shown that you are asking for more comabt from pcs. So why not the normal number of combats but increase the difficulty for the group so they have more rounds?

That is certainly an option. It would be possible to substitute "More combats per day" for "More combat rounds per day" and have the same basic argument.

[Gallant Armor]

Grandlounge wrote:

Just so we are on the same page blind denies dex to ac allowing sneak attack. It's not super important, though they can interact with rules differently.

Yeah, that was my mistake. I made the edit as soon as I posted.

Grandlounge wrote:

Here is where I think your view differs from others. You're equating rationing resources and curbing power. I don't think most people will agree with that idea. Having a few extra fights where a wizard does not have to spend resources is not the same as making them ration resources because you are not forcing scarcity. If the fights are harder and more frequent so they force the wizard to cast more spells then you create scarcity.

Holding onto resources for later use by any definition is rationing.

HP damage is not the only thing that makes an encounter challenging. There are many conditions and effects that can accomplish that. Many encounters a day should do significant HP damage, the only thing I don't agree with is your 1/2 to 2/3 as an average.

Grandlounge wrote:

If you want to force the wizard to actually ration which will decrease there power you must create a situation where they may run out of spells. Easy fights do not do that, they just create boring fights where the wizard absently throws out magic missles.

Please stop with your strawman tactic of "easy fights" it's getting old.

[Omnius]

Gallant Armor wrote:

Whether it’s teleport, disguise, bluff, diplomacy, distraction or any other tactic to avoid combat, my point remains the same. It might be fun every now and then, but if it’s your primary tactic than there would be no reason to choose a combat focused class.

And here, you show the problem.

The biggest portion of the caster/martial disparity is still not combat. It's outside of combat.

Every class is a combat class. But when that's all you are, you're not a terribly functional or effective individual.

And besides that, "I brought a character who only knows how to fight, so we gotta fight everything," is a terribly crass expectation to lay on a group. I expect folks to bring something more than a one-dimensional character whose only ability for interacting with the world it hitting it with a pointy stick, and will be angry if they then proceed to force that expectation onto everyone.

Gallant Armor wrote:

Who said that the party is only facing a fraction of the enemies? They could be facing 1% or 100% of the forces over the course of a campaign. That really isn’t relevant here.

Leaders move around resources. It is a big part of their job. If they see that their forces are not likely to be useful where they are, they will move them to where they will be effective. The reason why enemies from skipped encounters may be moved is that the party foiled whatever reason they had to be there in the first place. If the guards have nothing to guard, they will be transferred to where they can guard something else.

1) I already told you how I came to that conclusion. If the party has a three-day trip with thirty encounters along the exact path they happen to be taking, either the enemy has a ridiculous and contrived amount of information on where the party is at any given time, or that is a small portion of the enemy force.

2) You don't know when someone sneaked past you.

3) Even if four random hobos do sneak past a guard post, generally the response is not to abandon every guard post prior to the point the four hobos are at leaving the path clear for an entire army to march past. The guards still have something to guard, and something to guard against. Also, if this is three days' travel, presumably they'd be hours if not days behind you before they were finally mobilized.

[Sara Marie]

Removed a couple posts, be respectful with each other when conversing on our forums.

[WhiteMagus2000]

Grandlounge wrote:

If you want to force the wizard to actually ration which will decrease there power you must create a situation where they may run out of spells. Easy fights do not do that, they just create boring fights where the wizard absently throws out magic missles.

You don't always have to throw high CR stuff at players to have them burn resources. I've seen players burn their highest level "fight ending spells" on a first level silent illusion or a suspicious item with magic aura. Sometimes some very low CR critters look a lot like high CR critters and frequently get blasted with way more force than was really needed.

One real death trap per dungeon will keep them paranoid through the whole thing.

[Gallant Armor]

Omnius wrote:

Gallant Armor wrote:

Whether it’s teleport, disguise, bluff, diplomacy, distraction or any other tactic to avoid combat, my point remains the same. It might be fun every now and then, but if it’s your primary tactic than there would be no reason to choose a combat focused class.

And here, you show the problem.

The biggest portion of the caster/martial disparity is still not combat. It's outside of combat.

Every class is a combat class. But when that's all you are, you're not a terribly functional or effective individual.

And besides that, "I brought a character who only knows how to fight, so we gotta fight everything," is a terribly crass expectation to lay on a group. I expect folks to bring something more than a one-dimensional character whose only ability for interacting with the world it hitting it with a pointy stick, and will be angry if they then proceed to force that expectation onto everyone.

We essentially agree here. Combat focused classes are for combat focused games. This is a major reason why there should always be a session 0. If players know there is going to be a focus on using out of combat tactics, they can choose their classes accordingly.

Omnius wrote:

Gallant Armor wrote:

Who said that the party is only facing a fraction of the enemies? They could be facing 1% or 100% of the forces over the course of a campaign. That really isn’t relevant here.

Leaders move around resources. It is a big part of their job. If they see that their forces are not likely to be useful where they are, they will move them to where they will be effective. The reason why enemies from skipped encounters may be moved is that the party foiled whatever reason they had to be there in the first place. If the guards have nothing to guard, they will be transferred to where they can guard something else.

1) I already told you how I came to that conclusion. If the party has a three-day trip with thirty encounters along the exact path they happen to be taking, either the enemy has a ridiculous and contrived amount of information on where the party is at any given time, or that is a small portion of the enemy force.

2) You don't know when someone sneaked past you.

3) Even if four random hobos do sneak past a guard post, generally the...

1) Most of my examples are for dungeons. My midlevel the party will likely be teleporting and not traveling three days overland anyway.

2) If you are guarding the thing and the thing is no longer there I think you can put 2 and 2 together.

3) If a call for aid is made, it would be logical for at least some of the guards to come running.

As for moving the guards around, even with reduced rest, rest will still occur as will downtime. There will be plenty of time for resourced to be moved as needed.

[WormysQueue]

Gallant Armor wrote:

Combat focused classes are for combat focused games.

Ok, but don't you think that it's a bit unfair that, while combat focused classes are for combat focused games, basically everyone else is also very playable in combat focused games but also in a lot of other style of games? (and just for the record, I do not even think that the fighter is the real problem here; in my opinion it's all those tier 1 and 2 classes that should be nerfed very badly for the game to really improve.)

[MerlinCross]

Omnius wrote:

Tier 1 is Cleric, Druid, Wizard, Witch, Shaman, Arcanist.

Really? I must have been playing Shaman completely wrong.

Which again my own experience is "This is broken usually if someone sits down and Plays that way". I've seen a number of clerics, summoners, and even a Druid. Only one guy broke the game wide open as Summoner and he was very much a Power gamer/Rules lawyer(Would shut people down with rules and argue loop holes for himself to do stupid stuff).

So my experience is biased. I can see how they break the game, but it's also based on the character, player, and world/AP they are in. My Shaman felt very shut down in Book 1 of Iron gods to the point I'm swapping characters.

Yeah players might plan a smooth scry and fry operation but I'm willing to bet this tends to not be a very common instance. And on the other end, I'm not sure the Wizard will want to just fling Grease and then read for the rest of the fight. Yes the Wizard PC just won the fight but how many people do you know actually likes to take 1 action and pass turn for the rest of it.

Magic and spells by RAW can break the game but each table, campaign, player and hell fight is different.

[Gallant Armor]

MerlinCross wrote:

Omnius wrote:

Tier 1 is Cleric, Druid, Wizard, Witch, Shaman, Arcanist.

Really? I must have been playing Shaman completely wrong.

Which again my own experience is "This is broken usually if someone sits down and Plays that way". I've seen a number of clerics, summoners, and even a Druid. Only one guy broke the game wide open as Summoner and he was very much a Power gamer/Rules lawyer(Would shut people down with rules and argue loop holes for himself to do stupid stuff).

So my experience is biased. I can see how they break the game, but it's also based on the character, player, and world/AP they are in. My Shaman felt very shut down in Book 1 of Iron gods to the point I'm swapping characters.

Yeah players might plan a smooth scry and fry operation but I'm willing to bet this tends to not be a very common instance. And on the other end, I'm not sure the Wizard will want to just fling Grease and then read for the rest of the fight. Yes the Wizard PC just won the fight but how many people do you know actually likes to take 1 action and pass turn for the rest of it.

Magic and spells by RAW can break the game but each table, campaign, player and hell fight is different.

Shamans can be very powerful with the right build. You get your own spell list and you can cherry pick from the cleric and wizard lists as needed. You have hexes all day and spells when you need them. Wandering spirit/hexes add in a lot of versatility.

They can even work in melee with a hex strike build.

I have never seen a "god wizard" below level 15 or so. For the majority of the game wizards are useful, but not OP.

[MerlinCross]

Gallant Armor wrote:

Shamans can be very powerful with the right build. You get your own spell list and you can cherry pick from the cleric and wizard lists as needed. You have hexes all day and spells when you need them. Wandering spirit/hexes add in a lot of versatility.

They can even work in melee with a hex strike build.

I have never seen a "god wizard" below level 15 or so. For the majority of the game wizards are useful, but not OP.

Off topic maybe. In my defense;

-Shaman Hex pool is smaller than Witch and Evil Eye(the good one) is Mental Based. Depends on the enemy.
-Limited Cherry picking and Wizard list needs very much a set build to exploit.
-Spirits and their hexes run the gauntlet of good to meh to WHY. Wanderings help but only really takes off late.
-Unsure about the hex strike build and feels like it would take away from pure caster which is the worry of the thread.

Granted this shows my 'noobness' and my bias. I only seen one busted/game breaking/"why are we here?" caster. Heck that last one is again why I'm swapping characters. I just don't feel useful or at least as useful as an NPC. Might be Tier 1 but Shaman just doesn't live up to whatever people are saying about it in my own experience

[Bob Bob Bob]

I still don't see how forcing rationing (assuming your suggestions work exactly how you think they will) does anything. Getting the Wizard to ration spells does nothing to stop the Wizard deciding "Eh, @#$% it" and blowing their good spells, destroying an encounter (or two, or three), and performing whatever the roleplay equivalent of tea bagging your own team is. "The Wizard player gets to sit around doing nothing until they decide that they're going to make the party irrelevant for this battle!" sounds incredibly boring for both the Wizard player and everyone else at the table.

[wraithstrike]

Grandlounge wrote:

Just so we are on the same page blind denies dex to ac allowing sneak attack. It's not super important, though they can interact with rules differently.

Now to the other stuff.

Here is where I think your view differs from others. You're equating rationing resources and curbing power. I don't think most people will agree with that idea. Having a few extra fights where a wizard does not have to spend resources is not the same as making them ration resources because you are not forcing scarcity. If the fights are harder and more frequent so they force the wizard to cast more spells then you create scarcity.

If you want to force the wizard to actually ration which will decrease there power you must create a situation where they may run out of spells. Easy fights do not do that, they just create boring fights where the wizard absently throws out magic missles.

Pretty much this.

In addition:
The higher level spells aren't always going to be the better option just because they're higher level.

[WhiteMagus2000]

Bob Bob Bob wrote:

I still don't see how forcing rationing (assuming your suggestions work exactly how you think they will) does anything. Getting the Wizard to ration spells does nothing to stop the Wizard deciding "Eh, @#$% it" and blowing their good spells, destroying an encounter (or two, or three), and performing whatever the roleplay equivalent of tea bagging your own team is. "The Wizard player gets to sit around doing nothing until they decide that they're going to make the party irrelevant for this battle!" sounds incredibly boring for both the Wizard player and everyone else at the table.

Not tea bagging your own team is part of being a full caster. Whether it's a wizard that drops fire balls and battlefield control spells on their own team or a cleric that refuses to heal the last guy that argued with him. Not being a dick to your team is part of playing a team game. Once my players literally keel hauled the wizard for stealing loot and once threw the cleric overboard while wearing plate mail (we were playing skull and shackles) for refusing to heal.

And sitting out, doing nothing, is an increasingly foolish activity as your level goes up. You never know when things are going to escalate fast. More than once I've seen a combat go from not-that-serious to really bad when someone (usually the wizard) suddenly gets killed in a single shot.

As a side note to those "end the combat in a single spell" spells; they can fail. Your target can save or be immune, then you've wasted time, burned your best spell, and possibly made the situation worse than it was before (Charm and dominate, I'm looking at you).

[wraithstrike]

WhiteMagus2000 wrote:

Bob Bob Bob wrote:

I still don't see how forcing rationing (assuming your suggestions work exactly how you think they will) does anything. Getting the Wizard to ration spells does nothing to stop the Wizard deciding "Eh, @#$% it" and blowing their good spells, destroying an encounter (or two, or three), and performing whatever the roleplay equivalent of tea bagging your own team is. "The Wizard player gets to sit around doing nothing until they decide that they're going to make the party irrelevant for this battle!" sounds incredibly boring for both the Wizard player and everyone else at the table.

Not tea bagging your own team is part of being a full caster. Whether it's a wizard that drops fire balls and battlefield control spells on their own team or a cleric that refuses to heal the last guy that argued with him. Not being a dick to your team is part of playing a team game. Once my players literally keel hauled the wizard for stealing loot and once threw the cleric overboard while wearing plate mail (we were playing skull and shackles) for refusing to heal.

And sitting out, doing nothing, is an increasingly foolish activity as your level goes up. You never know when things are going to escalate fast. More than once I've seen a combat go from not-that-serious to really bad when someone (usually the wizard) suddenly gets killed in a single shot.

As a side note to those "end the combat in a single spell" spells; they can fail. Your target can save or be immune, then you've wasted time, burned your best spell, and possibly made the situation worse than it was before (Charm and dominate, I'm looking at you).

Sitting out isn't objectively foolish.it depends on the challenge presented and how well the party is built. And when you're fighting someone/something you've fought already which is common in games it's easier to access the threat level of an opponent.

[NoTongue]

J4RH34D wrote:

A wizard that prioritises INT (all of them) can easily have 9 ranks a level. Easily. That is almost impossible for a fighter that still wants to hit things well.

I agree that as a fighter I want to hit stuff with my sword. But I can't hit stuff with my sword if it's flying, or if it teleports, or if its invisible. Or a bunch of other things that wizards have ways around, but the fighter relies on the wizard for.

Pathfinders not a PVP game and all experienced melee players actually do prepare for the most common obstacles when they think they will arise. They do eventually acquire one of the many methods of flight and one of the many methods to see invisible opponents.

You can teleport away to save a character but in many situations that means you've lost the game.

[Omnius]

WhiteMagus2000 wrote:

And sitting out, doing nothing, is an increasingly foolish activity as your level goes up. You never know when things are going to escalate fast. More than once I've seen a combat go from not-that-serious to really bad when someone (usually the wizard) suddenly gets killed in a single shot.

As a side note to those "end the combat in a single spell" spells; they can fail. Your target can save or be immune, then you've wasted time, burned your best spell, and possibly made the situation worse than it was before (Charm and dominate, I'm looking at you).

Oh, even once the control spell goes off, you're not doing nothing. You're just not going supernova without cause. Lower-level spells to maintain the situation, cantrips, crossbow (or longbow if you're an elf), class abilities including hexes if you're a witch, hitting things if you're pretty much anything with a medium BAB.

Just not wasting resources.

Yes, sometimes spells can fail. In fact, most of the time, they fail... on some of the targets.

But dealing with dynamic situations is the forte of the classes that have a variety of options, rather than the ones that don't, and on average, if you get a group of enemies in a control spell that targets a weak save, odds are very strong that some of them will fail, meaningfully reducing their ability to contribute to the fight. You don't need to remove everything all the time; you just need to cost a meaningful portion of the enemy a meaningful portion of their actions, reducing their ability to cause harm below the threshold at which they are a legitimate threat.

If a control spell fails to control the situation, then you spend more resources to get the situation under control and win the fight.

Also, Dominate is a Hail Mary, not a reliable go-to spell.

[Bob Bob Bob]

WhiteMagus2000 wrote:

Bob Bob Bob wrote:

I still don't see how forcing rationing (assuming your suggestions work exactly how you think they will) does anything. Getting the Wizard to ration spells does nothing to stop the Wizard deciding "Eh, @#$% it" and blowing their good spells, destroying an encounter (or two, or three), and performing whatever the roleplay equivalent of tea bagging your own team is. "The Wizard player gets to sit around doing nothing until they decide that they're going to make the party irrelevant for this battle!" sounds incredibly boring for both the Wizard player and everyone else at the table.

Not tea bagging your own team is part of being a full caster. Whether it's a wizard that drops fire balls and battlefield control spells on their own team or a cleric that refuses to heal the last guy that argued with him. Not being a dick to your team is part of playing a team game. Once my players literally keel hauled the wizard for stealing loot and once threw the cleric overboard while wearing plate mail (we were playing skull and shackles) for refusing to heal.

...

It's a poor choice of words but the best I could convey. I'm not talking about intentionally tea bagging your team. That's just being a jerk. I'm talking about doing something (with good intentions or not) which makes your teammates feel like you've killed the enemy team and run around tea bagging them. I've done this at least once (zombie bruiser versus an entangle effect, I literally just walked away from it shooting it) and seen this at least once (monsters all clustered in a 2x2 square, black tentacles both held them down and prevented the melee members of the party from getting in range). They weren't someone trying to break the game. I wasn't either. Just, completely trivialized that encounter by accident. And in the case of black tentacles, relegated the rest of the party to secondary plinking. It was the "right" choice in that they won with minimal resources expended, it was just not the right choice from a fun perspective.

[Omnius]

This is part of the reason archers tend to be the best Fighters.

[Kitty Catoblepas]

MerlinCross wrote:

Off topic maybe. In my defense;

-Shaman Hex pool is smaller than Witch and Evil Eye(the good one) is Mental Based. Depends on the enemy.
-Limited Cherry picking and Wizard list needs very much a set build to exploit.
-Spirits and their hexes run the gauntlet of good to meh to WHY. Wanderings help but only really takes off late.
-Unsure about the hex strike build and feels like it would take away from pure caster which is the worry of the thread.

Granted this shows my 'noobness' and my bias. I only seen one busted/game breaking/"why are we here?" caster. Heck that last one is again why I'm swapping characters. I just don't feel useful or at least as useful as an NPC. Might be Tier 1 but Shaman just doesn't live up to whatever people are saying about it in my own experience

Just my (limited) experience playing Iron Gods with a Shaman

- The Player's Guide hints a lot of things immune to mind-effecting spells. Consequently I picked Misfortune Hex (and Chant) and it didn't steer me wrong. Well, it may have landed me on the GM's bad side...

- I picked the Ancestors spirit (statted towards the Lore spirit to access the Wizard spell list). It felt like I could always contribute with its ability (+2 to any check for an ally within 30').

- I chose a Sage Familiar (Thrush). With the alternate Half-Orc racial (+2 to Diplomacy) and Charisma as a secondary score, I was a passable face/librarian.

- With the Half-Orc/Human/Half-Elf FCB along with the Lore wandering spirit, I ended up with a rather nice spell list. Also, the Shaman list is actually not bad in my opinion.

- I felt a glut of options. It felt the need to stretch my resources to fill every role since it seemed like I could. Shaman really seems to encourage MADness.

True, I didn't actually dominate every encounter, but by buffs and debuffs may have trivialized an encounter or two.

[AM BARBARIAN]

RETURNING TO MAIN POINT, FALLACY AM TO ASK IF IT AM BROKEN AS WIZARD.

CORRECT QUESTION TO ASK AM IF IT AM BROKEN AS BARBARIAN. GIVEN THAT NOTHING AM BROKE LIKE BARBARIAN BROKE AND NOTHING BREAK LIKE BARBARIAN BREAK, AM PROBABLY NOT BROKEN.

QED, THAT AM GAME.

[Derklord]

MerlinCross wrote:

-Spirits and their hexes run the gauntlet of good to meh to WHY.

That's basically what makes the class good - the existance of bad options allow the existence of good options, which in turn allow the class to be good.

About the tier list:

I put this in a spoiler in the hope that it doesn't spark a discussion about which class is which tier. THat's not the topic. tThe tier list is not an exact sience, the borders are arbitrary, and some options (archetypes and others) can change a class's tier. If you disagree, please do so only per PM.

Note that the tier system is about potential, which does include making strong choices. For a Shaman, that includes picking Lore Spirit's Arcane Enlightenment as a wandering hex when in need.

Tiers are about a combination of power and versatility. Tier 2 classes have as much raw power as tier 1 classes, but lack the versatility. Tier 3 classes are often more versatile than tier 2 classes, but lack the power, while tier 4 classes are the opposite in comparison. Tier 5 classes generally lack versatility, and have power only in limited situations (which means if your game consists of nothing but these situations, you won't notice the difference).

The tiers are roughly this (YMMV):
Tier 1 are the prepared full casters, and Sorc/Oracle with Paragon Surge.
Tier 2 are the spontaneous full casters plus Summoner.
Tier 3 are the 6/9 casters plus Medium.
Tier 4 are the 4/9 casters and the more powerful/variable pure martials (e.g. Barbarian).
Tier 5 are the other martials.

Gallant Armor wrote:

I have never seen a "god wizard" below level 15 or so. For the majority of the game wizards are useful, but not OP.

I think you misunderstand that term. "God wizard" is not about power level or breaking the game - it's about a playstyle: A Wizard who casts buffs, debuffs, battlefield controll spells, and summoning spell, rather then direct damage spells or save-or-suck spells.

It's actually the least disruptive/overshadowing way to play an efficient wizard, as it creates the illusion of adequate contribution from the martials. When the Fighter does all the damage, it might not matter that the Wizard did 80% of the work, and the Fighter did said damage while buffed and to debuffed and seperated enemies. The player will probably feel good, which is, after all, all that counts.

Gallant Armor wrote:

Your mention of haste makes me think we have different views on magic. If a wizard casts haste on a fighter, the fighter is still the one swinging that sword another time per round.

It's still the caster providing the damage increase. I've actually done the math for my current party (for average numbers, obviously), and by casting Haste, my Summoner increases the party's overall damage by an amount about what one of the damage dealers do. With a single standard action and a second level spell slot, my Summoner contributs as much to the combat as the pouncing Wildshape Druid, the full attacking Gunslinger, or her Eidolon.

WhiteMagus2000 wrote:

As a side note to those "end the combat in a single spell" spells; they can fail. Your target can save or be immune, then you've wasted time, burned your best spell, and possibly made the situation worse than it was before (Charm and dominate, I'm looking at you).

It's not about ending the combat in a single spell, it's about deciding the combat with a single spell. You don't need/use a single target save-or-suck spell for that. For instance, by seperating the enemy forces with a wall spell, you're suddenly outnumbering the enemy instead of being outnumbered. AoE or multi-target debuffs like Slow are also a much saver bet, because even if only half the enemies fail the save, you're removing a whole lot of dangerousness.

Vidmaster7 wrote:

For sundering reality the amount of force it would take would be staggering and honesty i'm pretty sure it is not even calculable or possible to calculate because it may not even be possible in reality no matter what but that is going into theoretical physics.

You're right, and you know what? That's why we call it fantasy! Why are you playing a high fantasy game if you don't want characters to break the laws of physics?

[Chess Pwn]

NoTongue wrote:

Pathfinders not a PVP game

This is pretty much not true. Pathfinder is a lot of PVP game, since the enemies are "players" built by the GM. Sure you don't have the party in-fighting, but the enemy wizard is a wizard like your ally is a wizard. The enemy fighter is a fighter like a player fighter. So it's a lot of PvP, and if you got to choose between fighting a fighter or a wizard of medium+ levels the wizard is the harder fight.

[PossibleCabbage]

But in a PvP game, both sides are trying to win. In Pathfinder (and related tabletop games) the GM is not trying to win, they're trying to challenge and entertain the players, but not to win the fights. I feel like that's an important distinction.

[Omnius]

Derklord wrote:

MerlinCross wrote:

-Spirits and their hexes run the gauntlet of good to meh to WHY.

That's basically what makes the class good - the existance of bad options allow the existence of good options, which in turn allow the class to be good.

** spoiler omitted **

And don't forget tier 6; classes that are just outright dysfunctional. Core rulebook Monk with no archetype, shifter, and the NPC classes other than Adept.

[Gallant Armor]

Derklord wrote:

Gallant Armor wrote:

I have never seen a "god wizard" below level 15 or so. For the majority of the game wizards are useful, but not OP.

I think you misunderstand that term. "God wizard" is not about power level or breaking the game - it's about a playstyle: A Wizard who casts buffs, debuffs, battlefield controll spells, and summoning spell, rather then direct damage spells or save-or-suck spells.

It's actually the least disruptive/overshadowing way to play an efficient wizard, as it creates the illusion of adequate contribution from the martials. When the Fighter does all the damage, it might not matter that the Wizard did 80% of the work, and the Fighter did said damage while buffed and to debuffed and seperated enemies. The player will probably feel good, which is, after all, all that counts.

This brings it back to the combats per day argument. If you only have 4 combats per day I agree, the wizard will contribute more than their share by levels 5 to 7 and dominate by levels 9 to 11.

Your "80% of the work argument" also brings up what I previously said about tactics; if the wizard is so powerful, then it would be reasonable for the enemy to focus fire, force concentration checks, etc. to keep them from doing what they do.

Derklord wrote:

Gallant Armor wrote:

Your mention of haste makes me think we have different views on magic. If a wizard casts haste on a fighter, the fighter is still the one swinging that sword another time per round.

It's still the caster providing the damage increase. I've actually done the math for my current party (for average numbers, obviously), and by casting Haste, my Summoner increases the party's overall damage by an amount about what one of the damage dealers do. With a single standard action and a second level spell slot, my Summoner contributs as much to the combat as the pouncing Wildshape Druid, the full attacking Gunslinger, or her Eidolon.

My point is that it is a partnership. Haste is only as good as the party member(s) you cast it on. The additional damage doesn't exist without both party members working together.

[Tarik Blackhands]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

But in a PvP game, both sides are trying to win. In Pathfinder (and related tabletop games) the GM is not trying to win, they're trying to challenge and entertain the players, but not to win the fights. I feel like that's an important distinction.

It is, but challenge is more a spectrum than a binary thing and it gets extremely wonky if your table has shall we say differing levels of optimization. What challenges your average core monk is trivial to AM BARBARIAN and a challenge for the latter would reduce the former to a greasy smear more than likely.

Further, while the game isn't pvp few people like being overshadowed by any one person at the table (*Sigh* I go around smack the dazed monsters the wizard left with his fireball again. Can we skip rolling?) and it's often very frustrating for GMs to watch everyone breeze through your challenges with barely a scratch.

[Envall]

Chess Pwn wrote:

This is pretty much not true. Pathfinder is a lot of PVP game, since the enemies are "players" built by the GM. Sure you don't have the party in-fighting, but the enemy wizard is a wizard like your ally is a wizard. The enemy fighter is a fighter like a player fighter. So it's a lot of PvP, and if you got to choose between fighting a fighter or a wizard of medium+ levels the wizard is the harder fight.

Except the GM could always "win" by just willing to kill the players. He controls the narrative, the players are utterly powerless in front of him. He is god, and he will smite you all! Surely fun social event will be drawn out of situations like these.

Even hard modules with lot of death traps are just big puzzles. In con pick up games, I have met GMs who are creepy in how much pleasure they derive out of killing player characters. Like a small child squishing ants. There is odd glee in it.

[Fergie]

original post wrote:

In short nobody mentioned the strength of these classes in the early to mid parts of a campaign, and why is that?

There are so many threads about it, that some crazyperson kobold was exasperated enough to make an index of them: The Official Martial Caster Discussion Index

original post wrote:

Personally I feel it's because they are more in line with other classes before they hit the higher levels.

You are correct that the power imbalance ramps up at higher levels. However, it exists from low levels, and can be very pronounced, and even game breaking around 7th level.

original post wrote:

But even so why do people use this to try and justify whether something is weak or not?

Largely this comes from a general assumption that core is very well balanced, and anything unbalanced must be from non-core material (or failure to implement the rules). Unfortunately, core has some potentially serious balance issues, so it is pointless to use it as a benchmark for class balance. I would say that wizards are a class that easily breaks the game, therefor if a class is of similar power, that is a strong indicator that class is overpowered. I'm not up on all the latest stuff, but I would even say that wizards are THE most overpowered class, so they could be used as an example of what to avoid.

Usually, people use the "some magic" classes like Ranger, Paladin, and sometimes Bard as examples of well balanced classes. However, even these classes are capable of disrupting game balance in some situations.

One final note on all this stuff. Most of these problems go back to AD&D. Class imbalance was seen as a feature, not a bug, and the game essentially topped out at 10th level. You could even say that the problems go back to books written by Tolkien, and even some of the oldest books. The 4-5 person rag-tag-team, fighting the big-bad-evil after a half dozen encounters with mooks is a very difficult thing to balance. Most media, like books and movies can just cut away, and use narrative control to tell a good story. In the vast majority of media, there is one main hero, and a bunch of supporting side-kicks. It is totally different when each character has a full time person controlling them, and many outcomes are decided by random dice rolling. The bottom line is that tabletop roleplaying games are a difficult, flawed way to tell most stories. I think class balance is very important, but adventure design is the other side of the coin that must be addressed. 4-5 PC's ganging up on the final boss is often going to leave some of the players feeling letdown.

EDIT: Another way to look at this is to figure out which stories don't work because of class abilities. For example, the slow moving bruiser gets shut down by ranged attacking. The Super Evil boss can often be pwn'd by Smite Evil. The uncrossable chasm gets shut down by flight. The great distance gets shut down by teleport. The poor will save gets charmed or dominated, Etc. The problem is the melee brute is trivial to neutralize, however the wizard requires a more powerful wizard with a vast magical arsenal.

[Derklord]

Gallant Armor wrote:

Your "80% of the work argument" also brings up what I previously said about tactics; if the wizard is so powerful, then it would be reasonable for the enemy to focus fire, force concentration checks, etc. to keep them from doing what they do.

For intelligent enemies, that's true, presuming they realize what's going on, which requires them to see the wizard and possibly succeed on spellcraft checks. Animals et al. won't 'realistically' attack the guy in the back who does nothing but raise his hands and mumble every know and then.

It's also not always possible - in addition to Invisibility, which most of these spells don't break, the Wizard can fly, or, in closer areas, stay behind multiple allies and protected by Mirror Image et al.
Such a playstyle should reasonably draw less aggro than direct damage and SoS-spells, though - when most players think blasting is the best thing spells can do in combat, I'd expect most NPCs to feel the same way.

Gallant Armor wrote:

My point is that it is a partnership. Haste is only as good as the party member(s) you cast it on. The additional damage doesn't exist without both party members working together.

Every god needs his followers! ;-)

On a side note, the originator of the term, Treantmonk, gave a good explanation for the name in his Wizard guide.

Omnius wrote:

And don't forget tier 6; classes that are just outright dysfunctional. Core rulebook Monk with no archetype, shifter, and the NPC classes other than Adept.

Shifter is not tier 6 - it's raw power is actually pretty good (compared to other pure martials), and in-class flight is never a bad thing to have. I hate the class, because it breaks Paizo's own class design policies, but it's still tier 5.

I also left out tier 6 deliberately, because it's basically only (unarchetyped) cMonk (plus NPC classes, but who cares about those?).

[Avoron]

Derklord wrote:

(plus NPC classes, but who cares about those?)

Adepts, for one, are probably versatile enough to make it into tier 3, which places them above like 45% of PC classes.

[wraithstrike]

Chess Pwn wrote:

NoTongue wrote:

Pathfinders not a PVP game

This is pretty much not true. Pathfinder is a lot of PVP game, since the enemies are "players" built by the GM. Sure you don't have the party in-fighting, but the enemy wizard is a wizard like your ally is a wizard. The enemy fighter is a fighter like a player fighter. So it's a lot of PvP, and if you got to choose between fighting a fighter or a wizard of medium+ levels the wizard is the harder fight.

It's not PvP.

The enemies being built with similar rules doesn't make it PVP.
PVP is player vs player. The enemies are not players. They are characters. Characters /= players.

[Malachandra]

Chess Pwn wrote:

NoTongue wrote:

Pathfinders not a PVP game

This is pretty much not true. Pathfinder is a lot of PVP game, since the enemies are "players" built by the GM. Sure you don't have the party in-fighting, but the enemy wizard is a wizard like your ally is a wizard. The enemy fighter is a fighter like a player fighter. So it's a lot of PvP, and if you got to choose between fighting a fighter or a wizard of medium+ levels the wizard is the harder fight.

A PvP game isn't defined by how combat works (in your example, that enemy statistics are the same as player statistics), it's defined by real life players trying to beat each other. Enemies are non-player characters. So Pathfinder definitely doesn't qualify as PvP in most situations.

Besides, if Pathfinder were a PvP game, the GM would win that fight before it started.

As for who to choose to fight, I'd agree the wizard is harder in many cases, but that's highly situational.

[Chess Pwn]

GM makes a nice balanced encounter of whatever CR they want, lets say CR -1.
Once the players meet the encounter those NPC are going to be trying their best to win the fight. So for that fight the NPCs all controlled by the player which is the GM are fighting all the other players and is trying to win.

or like a cr+3 fight of just one enemy, there's one fighter OR one wizard as this CR+3 fight. This character played by the player known as GM is trying to solo-kill the other players' characters.

These seems to fall under PvP combat if you ask me. The GM isn't out for the PCs and thus throws challenges the players should win against. But once the encounter has started that GM is out to kill the team (assuming that's the NPCs goals for fighting the players.)

Even the general story, the GM is playing characters that for some reason or another want to stop or kill the PCs. The BBEG wants them dead so they don't stop him. He sets up guards to stop the PCs. His guards want them dead cause they are in the castle when they shouldn't be. So even out of combat most of what the GM is doing behind the scenes (aka the story) is against the players.

So sure, THE GAME is a cooperative story simulator thing wherein you find combats that are mini PvP games and the overall story is the GM against the players.

[PossibleCabbage]

Chess Pwn wrote:

those NPC are going to be trying their best to win the fight.

I feel this is quite often not true. GMs often use tactics for NPCs that aren't "the best tactics" or "the most reliable tactics" because this accomplishes other goals the GM might have- keeping the game running quickly, characterization of an NPC, making it fun, etc.

You even see this codified in Paizo adventures sometimes where an NPC will focus their attention on a specific sex, a specific race, people with visible tattoos, etc. even if they aren't the most tactically advantageous person to attack. You see this happen in the moment sometimes when, for example, an antagonist has a tactically advantageous position that makes them mostly unreachable against a party without good ranged options- the GM may "allow" the players to bait the antagonist into somewhere they can be stabbed, because otherwise the combat takes too long.