There is a lot of emphasis on the team, so
much that sometimes I get the feeling that groups often forget about the Individual component of a given character in this Role Playing Game.This isn't Team Fortress or Overwatch (forgive the video game comparison, if I knew an appropriate board game for the example I would have used it. My point isn't about videogames) where each character is a cog in a squad and group strategy is the prime directive.
Each character is their own person with their own goals and objectives and personality.
I don't use the game for its own sake, I use the game to breathe life into these fictional characters and to resolve conflicts within their stories.
Just pointing out that in my experience there is more cooperation in a pick up role playing game compared to "team" based games like overwatch. Chat is used to complain about how your team mates are ruining the game a flame each other than any sort of cooperation.
| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
Real talk: has anyone played a PF game where you stopped playing because the wizard ruined when they cast spells? This is always a theory/forum/mental gymnastics problem but I've never played a game where a caster ruined the day for materials.
Oh, my, yes.
I was the very unhappy guy who brought a vanilla cleric into Mundane's Underwater All-Stars game and accidentally ended the campaign single-handedly while inadvertently making lifelong enemies of the the other two players. I wasn't trying to be a jerk. I even tried to be a gentleman -- I intentionally avoided undead minions and planar allies, because I knew they would upstage the others. I also tanked Str and Dex and avoided combat boosts, so the martials would be more likely to shine, right?
It didn't matter. Social situations? I had better Cha (for channeling), higher Int (for skill points), and much, much better Sense Motive (due to Wis). Figuring out the plot? Why investigate when divination spells basically tell you not to bother? When we came to the shark tank encounter, I almost lied and said I didn't have control water prepared -- but I totally did. The cavalier even saw it on my sheet and said, "Why are the scout and I even playing?"
I didn't have an answer. I was ashamed of myself for ruining the game -- by accident. I was doing everything I could to not ruin it.
At this point, I assume anyone who claims that caster superiority is all theorycraft is, in fact, the one who has never actually played much, or at least not in groups that don't have a zillion houserules and gentleman's agreements and outright DM fiat to keep things copacetic.
I for one never saw a martial/caster disparity on paper, until I experienced it in the actual game.
The Caster-Martial disparity is mainly an issue because everybody at the table wants to play, wants to matter, and wants to feel valued. Lord of the Rings is a bad example because while it fairly well defined the audience expectation for OD&D, we've come a really long time since then. Nobody wants to play Frodo. Legolas, Gimili, and Aragorn are all pretty valid. Gandalf should probably be NPCd out.
Playing a superheroes game? The Hulk, the Flash, Batman, etc all have value and can work well together. Superman can't. He's a solo sub-in for basically everybody else.
If I ask you to make the greatest comic squad possible, and I give you four spots, I'm pretty sure Hawkeye won't be one of them.
It's narrative control. Giving a Wizard a Spell that summons a psuedo-fighter that can work well enough to replace the fighter in 80% of situations is like giving the fighter a permanent genie buddy to magic away all his problems. It invalidates the other people playing.
You want to include everybody. You want a class to have features that other people can't easily override with a 1/15th of their daily features. You want narrative situations to occur commonly and without ridiculous hand waving contrivance where the Fighter or the Rogue or the Bard has the perfect solution and the Wizard just... doesn't.
Imagine the following: a huge army threatens the kingdom, and the heroes have only a month or so to remove the threat. It would be really nice if instead of casting half his daily spells and teleporting all the enemies into the sun, the 20th level wizard turns to the 20th level fighter and goes "Hey man, I sort of don't have a spell to stop the entire flipping Persian army, any chance we can get you to lead a badass multi-nation army of justice?"
My last human fighter was a mutagen warrior/eldrich guardian. He could self buff, fly, self heal, and still probably did the most damage most days.
Paladins, rangers, bloodragers, magi, barbarians, monks, and a couple fighter archetypes all can get a handful of supernatural abilities to increase their flexibility.
And my level 15 ranger was practically never in a situation where he couldn't contribute in a meaningful way.
There are so many options out there to give martials versatility.
BTW, in the summon eagle plan above, it seems to have have not been taken into account that monster summon spells have a casting time of 1 round, giving the fighter a full round to charge and slaughter the wizard, even if the wizard has an initiative of +25. So many of the comparisons to spells such as charm person, arcane eye, dominate person, and summon monster rely on the GM not knowing the spell's limits and the caster trying to cheat...........
Caster martial disparity is a thing, but relying on improperly used spells or saying that wizards can reelect their specializations each day, makes the fighter fandom look either incompetent or disingenuous. And too often I've seen a level 15 fighter or ranger shred a CR 15 monster in a single round to maintain the notion they are useless.
It's my experience that monster summons, while quite good, deal less damage than you'd think after the mid levels. They frequently have lowish to hits, a hard time dealing with DR, and no magic items to beef them up. In the eagle examples above, if the enemy in question have even 5DR, the eagle's damage will drop to almost 0, while the fighter loses only 25%.
I am glad to see that Paizo is going to remove auto level scaling and limit wand/staff/scroll shenanigans. Add a maximum known spells per level (like back in 2nd edition), and I think most of the problems will be minimized.
I also think it would be cool if, say at levels 6,12, and 18, fighter's got a versatile training ability. Versatile training would act as a combat feat, but be re-trainable once per day with an hour of practicing. So while the casters are preparing spells, a fighter could re-train in rapid shot if they know they'll be up against flyers or climbers, improved trip if they expect medium humanoids, or blind fighting if they expect to be going up against drow. Arcanists already get this with meta-magic feats, so why not martials too.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
For polymorph:
Form of the Dragon 3, available at level 17, grants the caster +10 STR, +8 CON and Natural Armor, a fear aura, 6 attacks (7 with haste), a breath weapon that deals 12d8, DR 10/magic, 10ft. reach, the ability to fly, and can STILL cast spells.
Just for fun, let's assume base 10 STR wizard with a +6 belt.
Full attack: 2xBite(haste) +20 2d8+12, 2x claw +15 2d6+8, 2x wing +15 1d8+8, tail +15 2d6+8, all of which he can make at reach.
Oh, and I don't need a 200,000 gp sword to do this, which means I can buy OTHER magic items
For summons:
Summon Monster 9, available at level 17, lets a wizard summon 2-5 T-Rexes. (average 3)
Augment Summoning Feat grants +4 STR and CON.
Next Round, the wizard casts Bull's STR mass, targeting the T-Rexes.
T-Rexes each deal 4d6+29 damage, with an automatic grapple check at +36, and get +24 to hit, at 20ft. reach.
Oh, and the wizard can still offer artillery support after the buff.
Show me a fighter that can do that without the help of a caster.
EDIT: FotD 3 is a level 8 spell, so available at level 15, not 17.
This Dragon seems impressive, until you do the math on it.
Level 15= 30 AC
Factoring in your -2 for size, with a 28 str (10+6 for the belt+10 for form) you have 7+8-2= 13 to hit. Which means you need to roll 17 or better with your primary attacks (bite and two claws) and need to roll a 20 to hit with secondary (you take the -5 for multi-attack).
So DPR is 13.2
True it gets a lot better once you haste up. You now only need to roll a 16 to hit on those first four attacks, but you still need a Nat 20 on the wings and the tail so that brings you to DPR of. . .
21.78!
15th level fighter, weapon focus, weapon spec, improved crit, power attack, furious focus, that same +6 belt, and weapon training 3- using only 5 of 16 feats and only single piece of magic gear which we also gave the wizard--
52.92- so more than doubling the wizard up assuming a VERY basic build, no equipment, and no buffs.
Your T Rexes, now you're getting somewhere-
17th level AC 32, they have +22 to hit (keep in mind Bull's Strength and Augment Summoning are both enhancement bonuses and don't stack) gives us with 3 T rexes-
45 DPR that goes up to 99 with a haste.
The Fighter with two extra levels gets +2 to his attacks off BaB and Weapon Training 4 but dropping another into an extra power attack point, without spending any more feats he now gets-
62.72
But if you gave him haste it would go up to 109.76
So, yes, at 17th level if the Wizard gets two actions before the fighter gets any, and if he doesn't buff the fighter, and if the fighter started with a 17 str and didn't use any stat boosts so that with a +6 belt he has a 23 total STR, and if that fighter then used only 6 of his feats at 17th level, and had no other buffs, a set of summons could beat the fighter.
Bravo. . . you can beat an unoptimized fighter literally ignoring half of his class features.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
This has been discussed to death by now. C/MD is not primarily about combat, no one doubts the Fighter's offensive ability, and if you don't need to min-max to beat monsters then the cleric/half-caster/summons/etc fill the beatstick role handily enough.
Casters need not be dismantled at the high levels (and certainly shouldn't be nerfed at the low levels) but as I've said, a strong enforcement of theme will ensure casters are reined in, while still excelling at their areas of specialty, and make them more flavorful than just a pile of powerful but totally unrelated spells. Combined with mythic abilities for high-level martials I think that would properly alleviate C/MD.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This has been discussed to death by now. C/MD is not primarily about combat, no one doubts the Fighter's offensive ability, and if you don't need to min-max to beat monsters then the cleric/half-caster/summons/etc fill the beatstick role handily enough.
Casters need not be dismantled at the high levels (and certainly shouldn't be nerfed at the low levels) but as I've said, a strong enforcement of theme will ensure casters are reined in, while still excelling at their areas of specialty, and make them more flavorful than just a pile of powerful but totally unrelated spells. Combined with mythic abilities for high-level martials I think that would properly alleviate C/MD.
But when people make nonsensical statements like "wizard can cast one spell and have a monster better than fighter!" it becomes clear that their goal is deny people fun out of spite.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
But when people make nonsensical statements like "wizard can cast one spell and have a monster better than fighter!" it becomes clear that their goal is deny people fun out of spite.This has been discussed to death by now. C/MD is not primarily about combat, no one doubts the Fighter's offensive ability, and if you don't need to min-max to beat monsters then the cleric/half-caster/summons/etc fill the beatstick role handily enough.
Casters need not be dismantled at the high levels (and certainly shouldn't be nerfed at the low levels) but as I've said, a strong enforcement of theme will ensure casters are reined in, while still excelling at their areas of specialty, and make them more flavorful than just a pile of powerful but totally unrelated spells. Combined with mythic abilities for high-level martials I think that would properly alleviate C/MD.
Don't forget assuming 1 spell will completely end every encounter. Cause monsters don't get saving throws spell resistance or immunites.
In my experience you know what ends an encounter immediately a fighter getting a max damage critical hit.
I've played 1 through 20 regularly.
Depends on the group I'm running for. I currently have my old group whose been playing for 17 plus years and my group that we are about to hit the 1 year mark. My boss monsters (especially enemy NPC's) will use every trick they have. while I'll play a regular monsters according to their intelligence and their common tactics. So a large cat-esque monster will be stalking attack for the surprise round while a troll will just Run and and recklessly try and kill something.
Edit: I do occasionally use terrain when I plan for it but I do wish I took it into consideration more often. Unless I think hmm this volcano will inconvenience them X for random encounters I don't necessarily plan it out too much. I try to use maps when possible for the newer group and that tends to help with terrain.
I don't know about Martial vs Caster, but I rerolled Caster vs Caster. Sorcerer took over my role/space with a simple bloodline and some healing items and the enemies were immune/resistant to my Shaman tricks.
Rerolled to Alchemist. Having more fun.
Yes, and from both sides of the screen. I’ve had players choose options for their wizard which completely outclassed me as a martial character and made combat a foregone conclusion where I was a mere spectator...
I have discarded useless characters for new ones that get to play the game at high levels and seen a player leave because, and I quote 'my guy doesn't even matter. He just hits stuff if the other guys boost him or mess with the bad guys'
In my longest campaign in recent years, I ended up having to add Mythic to the game around 10th level, mostly to help the martials. The party, which was mostly martial and had only had a couple half casters to that point, ended up with a super powerful pure caster when one of the players rerolled after dying. This caster pretty much automatically MVPed every session and the other players were in their shadow.
Just last month actually. Guy re-trained to get spells because my Magus and a Druid could handle the many challenges of the game with ease thanks to our magic, while he had to rely on us every time or just watch. Doing high damage didn't matter, Magus and the Druid both did that fine, and the Magus was tougher than his martial character because of Protector Familiar.
With no real niche, because Magic is always better, he felt very irrelevant and wanted to change.
Social situations? I had better Cha (for channeling), higher Int (for skill points), and much, much better Sense Motive (due to Wis). Figuring out the plot? Why investigate when divination spells basically tell you not to bother? When we came to the shark tank encounter, I almost lied and said I didn't have control water prepared -- but I totally did. The cavalier even saw it on my sheet and said, "Why are the scout and I even playing?"
...
I for one never saw a martial/caster disparity on paper, until I experienced it in the actual game.
Thanks for all the replies, but I'm still struggling to see the exact problem other than people huffing, crossing their arms and being envious or having a clash with some other problem inherit to D&D in general as opposed to PF.
I've ran 3.5/PF/4e/5e over the course of a decade and I've never ever had this sort of problem outside of single sessions where I give the players a scenario where only one PC in the group has the ability to overcome the obstructions ahead. For example, a paladin against demons or undead, a cleric during a plague outbreak, a wizard fighting constructs, a rouge against a BBEG who has an item on his person that needs to be pilfered because it's the McGuffin of ultimate power or whatever.
I always throw layered and difficult sessions at my players, traps and puzzles and enemies with interesting formations or tactics along with weird geography and location designs. I've always found that being multifaceted in the design approach to the combats allowed every player to manifest their 'talent' in their own special snowflake way.
Some people have put forward specific problems that seem just like bad game design met with "I made my character wrong" which always blows my mind that it's even a thing the GM would allow. But I digress; these seem like manageable problems that come from a more complicated place than "system is broke"
"Sorcerer began healing, all the enemies were immune to my stuff"
Well, the problem just sounds like the GM didn't like your character; what, they only threw immune targets at you? Seems fairly trite. I don't think this is a system problem, more of a GM/pvp issue.
"Yes someone played wizard and it was awful!"
I'm not sure about the specifics but the fact that 'overhauls' were necessary seems like a mix of different player type and levels.
"Fighter got bored"
Yes this can happen, I think this is an actual problem with PF/3.5 because a martial might be like 'I want to bust in through the door and swing down the curtain and cut the chandelier rope!' only to get the reply 'no you can't do that. Also you don't have the feats for it'. I just throw most of that rules clunk into the bin for that particular theme of stuff.
"Fighter didn't want to fight because Magnus and Druid were already doing it"
If you're pouring enemies on your players and they dry up before getting to every player- and this problem repeats itself, something went wrong in other areas of preperation on the GMs side.
"Caster MVPed everything, also mythic levels"
Mythic levels can definitely throw a curve ball at keeping everyone on the same tier of play (Mythic tier in my mind is 'Do you know how feats work??')
"I tried really hard to not win, but I won"
If anything it sounds like as a player you were far more advanced than anyone else at the table. I've seen this problem before where a very experienced, very skilled player does everything with a feather touch and always succeeds because they can predict outcomes and manipulate elements of the system. You were just out of your weight class.
It should be noted, in reference to mythic, that while it gives martial some cool things and extra attacks, it gives wizard the ability to cast any wizard spell in existence spontaneously as a swift action.
The last thing you want if you're trying to even the playing field is to give the wizard the most powerful thing he could possibly have.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
-Response to Things.-
To first respond to where I was quoted myself, the issue is that the Martial character was unnecessary, mechanically. He needed our class, we didn't need his. You can keep throwing enemies at us until we're out of juice, but even then, he'd have been more useful as something like an Investigator/Alchemist/Inquisitor/Magus/Warpriest. Because at that point we just need another warm body to throw at the enemies, and then he'll have some other use too.
But to respond to your post as a whole, what I see is you saying that you'll bend the game backwards if needed to make sure people are included and don't feel like their character is unneeded. That is good, since it obviously works for your game, but it misses a few points:
I'll first say that our GM in that game was giving attention to the Martial Character, creating scenarios that were all about him, about his personal story. And the problem wasn't that he didn't contribute in combat, he killed stuff. The thing was that we killed stuff too, with no issue, but we also had Magic. So mechanically, we did what he did and more. To explore underwater, to fly, to teleport, to craft magic items, he needed us to do it. To fight... it was nice that he was there, but we can handle it fine, whatever.
Second, your point of just having the GM fix everything ignores that some people (Myself very much included!) don't want the GM to have to set up the game so that we can contribute and be relevant. I don't like it when my GM is going easy on me, I enjoy being thrown to the wolves and trying to figure out how to defeat the encounter. I vastly prefer the GM thinking "Maybe I went too far...", over my GM thinking "I have to tailor this encounter exactly right to make sure Xerres can survive..."
And, sorry to say, I think it's a bit ridiculous that you ask for this evidence and then dismiss it with "I can fix the problem, so there is no problem." It works for your games, I'm sure, but you play the game differently than I do, at the least. To you, if a character is failing the GM should do something, to me the character should adapt, and to others there are other solutions. But given that we're all looking for solutions to common issues that arise from just playing the game as it is presented, then something is indeed broken, otherwise we wouldn't be fixing it every session.
This is something that people experience constantly in this game. "Its not a problem, because I can fix it." is not a solution that will satisfy those people. The fix is already there: Be a Magic character. And that's what many people want to change.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
When I play a caster, I tend to get into the mindset of, "These martials are my weapons; how can I deploy them effectively? Fly! Invisibility Purge! Freedom of Movement! Dimension Door!"
When I'm doing that, they tend to feel useful, even if their role mostly consists of full-attacking after I've fixed any problems that might prevent them from doing so.
Though it's kind of nice when, once in a while, one of my allies is able to do things for themselves.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Do you mind if I inquire about your style as a GM?
How intelligently/ruthlessly do you use the resources [spells, spell like abilities, budget, terrain, minions, etc] of your important enemies?
I find that the more tactical I am with my monsters and the more intelligent I play my bad guys, the worse it is for the martial classes.
When I play a caster, I tend to get into the mindset of, "These martials are my weapons; how can I deploy them effectively? Fly! Invisibility Purge! Freedom of Movement! Dimension Door!"
When I'm doing that, they tend to feel useful, even if their role mostly consists of full-attacking after I've fixed any problems that might prevent them from doing so.
Though it's kind of nice when, once in a while, one of my allies is able to do things for themselves.
However...
1. Your mindset is atypical outside of Organized Play, based on personal play experience.
2. Referring to other characters as tools/weapons may have a nice thematic feel to it, but at the end of the day, a hammer has a VERY hard time cutting down a tree. A saw has a VERY hard time tenderizing meat, etc. It's also a bit demeaning.
3. Using all the spells mentioned for a party of casters makes the casters even more effective than 'keeping the team mascot going'.
4. On 'allies able to do things for themselves', that's the whole point... as written in PF1, it's VERY hard for martials to do that outside of combat unless they devote a lot of the thing they need to perform best to side-hobbies.
In a home RotRL campaign, our PC martials had twice the WBL of the casters (with consent of said casters) and were still hard-pressed to keep up, and we ended up kitting up the cohort of the person who took the Leadership feat to act as a meatshield for the party -- but not because we had to -- it was a roleplay development.
Unless the new eddition massively cuts down on the amount of raw utility powers that wizards have access to with at most a day's notice, the wizard will always outshine anyone limited to one new utility power a level.
I think people would hate it, but if resonance applies to magical items for some explainable game reason, I don't know why there shouldn't be a limit to the number of positive or negative spell effects a player could be under and then higher level spells could do more things like angelic aspect and give multiple benefits at once, give flight/DR/spell resistance, etc.
Some people might say this would Nerf the spell caster into oblivion, but with proper spell design (something desperately needed in the new Pathfinder system), there would be ways to make new higher level spells do the combo of buff powers that players want to see happen. "I want a spell that makes me invisible and flying for at least the same duration as either one individually." ok, that sounds like it might be a decent 4th level spell. This would also be a really interesting and balanced way to bring back spell research and give wizards the ability to have customized "unique" spell lists.
This would also solve the problem of that occurs when every new splat book comes out with a new first level or 0th level spell that suddenly stacks with some unintended other spell to give characters access to much higher level magic than then the writer of that one source book intended.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
The martials as the casters' weapon is a great way to put it.
Who wants to sit uselessly in the sheath until another player facilitates your character to engage the game? Who wants to be a drain on party resources rather than provide resources as an equivalent partner?
Essentially, who wants to play the BMX Bandit?
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The martials as the casters' weapon is a great way to put it.
Who wants to sit uselessly in the sheath until another player facilitates your character to engage the game? Who wants to be a drain on party resources rather than provide resources as an equivalent partner?
Hm, out of curiosity, what is it you would like to see casters do? What caster features do you want martials to have?
Should martials all have their own inherent flight? Their own dispel effects?
I don't mean belittle the idea, but I think the idea of the caster being an enabler is not necessarily a bad thing. If the party all failed their will saves against a Repulsion spell, the Wizard can at least give them another chance to get back in the fight with a dispel or dimension door.
Magic allows adventures to move in weird directions. I love visiting other planes and exploring strange environments. Is the necessity of a spellcaster (or a hearty supply of magic items) to navigate the Plane of Air a problem with martials? I don't think so.
With the route 2e is going by allowing everyone to grab items with spells attached (and by having really potent skill unlocks), I don't think martials will find themselves dead weight at high levels. If all you are trying to argue for is that martials need some of their own access to problem-solving tools, then we are in agreement.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I will never get the mindset of people who seem to think cooperation and teamwork are dirty words and that things don’t count unless you do them entirely by yourself.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I do t know about the Martial's feelings (given we are just using a general empty shell of a player in these arguments) but myself as a caster; it's fun to wind up the Martial. Lemme explain.
I tend to build more buff/debuff that blaster or control casters. As such my damage is mainly based around how much I can rev up the martial at the table. And I have yet to see one complain that they "need me" to do so. For myself it's a hold out from video games. Does it make sense to spread out the buffs so the whole team is good? Probably. But there's something about winding up 1 character so much they turn into a wrecking ball. To me that's kinda fun.
| 12 people marked this as a favorite. |
I will never get the mindset of people who seem to think cooperation and teamwork are dirty words and that things don’t count unless you do them entirely by yourself.
I feel that language like "the martials are my weapons, how shall I deploy them" makes it abundantly clear that this relationship is not coequal.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I must play a different game, because in my games, martials kill faster than casters and provide front line blockers to keep the bad guys off of the softer targets.
They do get assists from time to time like air walk or fly, but not in every battle.
Its good that you enjoy the game and you have little interruption in how the roles play out. I think people on the "The game is fine." side of things get offended by the terminology that their martial characters are sidekicks. I am fairly certain the "The game is not fine." side gets offended by accusations that they don't believe in teamwork, because wanting teamwork among (relative) equals is somehow not as good as wanting teamwork among those that aren't equal.
Different analogy then, is we're playing pretend Justice League. And currently you can pick from Batman, Captain Marvel, Green Lantern, and that de-powered 70's Wonder Woman who used karate.
One side says its fine that Batman needs to have Green Lantern put him in a bubble to travel through space, and can't really fight Darkseid. Other side says Batman is cool and all, but they really want to play Superman, and WHO THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO DE-POWER WONDER WOMAN?
Argument comes from people who don't like hearing Batman isn't good enough, because Batman is awesome. But "Game is not fine" side keeps saying Batman is awesome because he has good writers, without a good writer its better to be Superman so you can play equal(ish) with Green Lantern. Then "Game is Fine" side says if you want Superman, then go play Green Lantern. Consistently missing the point that Green Lantern is not Superman. And seriously, why was Wonder Woman de-powered, this sucks.
That people play the game without issue between Caster and Martials is not being denied. That issues come up constantly is, and is then answered with "You're playing wrong." and "The Justice League are friends, who cares if Batman relies on Green Lantern."
I really think I sort of lost track of my main point, so I'll say I want to be able to upgrade from Batman level to Superman level as the game goes on. From street level threats, to punching Darkseid, as a martial character. And without having Green Lantern boost me up. Superman is not Green Lantern, they have different abilities, but are on relatively equal levels, and that is still teamwork. The teamwork I would prefer in high level. I will also accept a re-powered Wonder Woman (In my mind I equate her to the Monk, because I just really want the Monk to get awesome powers and junk...)
Batman and Green Lantern have teamwork. So do Superman and Green Lantern. Just because I want to be able to fly without Lantern's help, doesn't mean I don't want Lantern's help at all. I just want to feel like I'm more his equal.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
I will never get the mindset of people who seem to think cooperation and teamwork are dirty words and that things don’t count unless you do them entirely by yourself.
You will never get the mindset of people who don't exist.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I must play a different game, because in my games, martials kill faster than casters and provide front line blockers to keep the bad guys off of the softer targets.
They do get assists from time to time like air walk or fly, but not in every battle.
It is impossible* for Martials to kill faster than Casters. At best, a martial character can defeat a one enemy as a standard action**. A caster can defeat all of the enemies with a Swift Action***.
*Impossible here assumes that the caster possess middling amount of system mastery. Knowledge of metamagic and AoE spells is not a high bar to clear.
**Some exceptions apply, but these are corner cases at best that require extremely specific scenarios and even in those scenarios the caster could do the same thing but faster (see below).
***Quicken Rods are a hell of a drug. Also, while it may not always be literally all the enemies, the mere fact that it *CAN* be all the enemies without reaching for corner cases is enough to convey the point adequately.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Can is the operative word. Monsters get saving throws. On certain BBEGs casting is largely nullified due to true seeing, spell resistance, energy resistance, immunity to mind affecting and high saves.
On most of these creatures, the parties I have played in have killed them all with damage from martials and casters in melee or range.
I played a melee character that killed a mob every round pouncing - at the end of the campaign, I did over 300 points of damage every round. In one dungeon, all the monsters attacked my character because I was the biggest threat in the party (they had some means of surveying the previous encounters).
This was the most broken character I ever played.
True Seeing is pretty irrelevant to the discussion. Spell resistance is at best a joke and at worse something that requires the use of a conjuration spell. And at the end of the day, over 300 HD of undead* will deal more damage than any Martial. There is no scenario where the martial comes out ahead short of GM fiat.
*Or whichever long duration minion you prefer. If you go with Animated Objects make sure you use a solar to make the Permanency free.
You are talking about corner cases that a lot of players don't use in their games. Also, of which will probably not exist in pf2e
1. You were not talking about PF2E. If you were then I will happily retract my statement. Also please post details of your advance copy, inquiring minds want to read it.
2. You brought up a less likely corner case and the point of permanent minions was to counter that. Without taking into account corner cases, the simple fact is that casters will always defeat enemies faster than martials. Failing to acknowledge this is a significant weakness in your position.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
If in PF2 an evil Fighter or Rogue can be a credible high level villain at the end of an adventure path, having directed the plot and logistics of the entire story from low to high levels and standing up in combat against the PCs as a final boss, without spellcasting and without a spellcasting "vizier" or a demon / dragon backer who is actually pulling the weight... THEN maybe the disparity will have narrowed enough to no longer be much of an issue.
| 16 people marked this as a favorite. |
Full disclosure: my guy was a vivisectionist beastmorph alchemist and the game was the Iron Gods AP - run as written. So my guy could fly, see invisible, etc, with a high AC. But he basically acted as a martial in combat as he rarely ever did anything but charge in combat.
I played a melee character that killed a mob every round pouncing - at the end of the campaign, I did over 300 points of damage every round. In one dungeon, all the monsters attacked my character because I was the biggest threat in the party (they had some means of surveying the previous encounters).All the damage in the world means nothing if you can't deliver it.
You're talking to a GM who has seen the absolute most extreme builds 3.5 could produce. An ubercharger with well over 1000 damage per charge for example.
But no matter how much damage it is, its just damage.
Past a certain level damage doesn't win fightz in Pathfinder (and 3E before it.) Problems are solved (usually by spells or rarely by magic items or more rarely still by a martial's class ability or skill) and then damage cleans up a fight that has already been overcome.
Your gm has much to learnhis was the most broken character I ever played.
Wait wait wait.
Your proof that martials aren't irrelevant is that you completely subsumed the role of a martial using a caster, and then could do other things on top of it? Isn't that exactly the argument your opposition in this debate is making? You exactly proved their point.
Anzyr, when is the last time you witnessed a martial actually 'win' any fight over level 12? Not the finishing blow, not the majority of damage, but to actually determine the results of the battle?
More than you would probably think, but with several caveats. Take our current campaign where we are currently level 15 (I'm actually playing this time!). We have two martials, a Barbarian and a Lore Warden (The OG one) Fighter, and two casters, a Telepath Psion (ME!) and a Herald Caller Cleric. The Barbarian does occasionally carry a fight, but these tend to be all "easy" fights where the enemies are fairly straight forward. We just got done raiding a Frost Giant stronghold for example and some of the encounters were solved by the Barbarian just beating them down. Now some caveats here.
1. The enemies in the fights where the Barbarian won the fights were simple martially inclined enemies.
2. The Cleric and myself could have ended these encounters quicker (barring lucky saves) if we were willing to eat the resource cost.
3. The Fighter has struggled significantly ever since level 10. I would put the number of fights they have won since level 10 at zero.
I should note that myself and the Cleric are also carrying the skills of the group. The Cleric is also carrying healing for the group, though thanks to Vigor + Share Pain, my drain on healing resources has been minimal since level 7.