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Folks here are claiming that casters need a total redesign to make them demi gods and that even melee characters should be redone so they play similar to Tome of Battle characters. Thats just silly. Completely silly.
Nope, that is you setting up a strawman and punching it down. I would like casters to be more close to what they are in the current iteration of the rules (i.e. PF1E), with nerfs to the gamebreaking abilities. THEN bring up martials to be more in line with the power of casters, i.e. Tome of Battle. So, unless you think that current PF1E casters are all demi-gods (provably false by looking at the stats of actual demi-gods, i.e. empyrials, archdevils and demon lords), you are using hyperbole because you don't have an actual argument to make.
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System mastery? Did you ever see any of us blaming people with low system mastery when they started saying things like caster-martial dispartiy,martials are useless,martials has no ways of doing different things or anything else. I suggest stoping right there man.
And one of the main goals of the magic system is that making you heighten your spell slots. Because if you dont your spell slots at lower tier will be lot less usefull than in 1e. They talked about this in their own blogs.Come on.
EDİT:And for the love of god please stop blaming people with powergaming. Yes that is what you are doing. We want caster to be usefull and fun. Martials in the first edition isnt useless at all. If your team mate optimizes his/her own character more than you ofcourse he will be more powerfull than you. That is a table issue. Please tell me how ability to one shot a boss which is a CR+4 is balanced or weak(that is a fighter btw. Which can deal more than 700 damage at level 12. Please stop.)?
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I would like casters to be more close to what they are in the current iteration of the rules (i.e. PF1E), with nerfs to the gamebreaking abilities. THEN bring up martials to be more in line with the power of casters, i.e. Tome of Battle.You are basically confirming my characterization of your position but quibbling over some details. You want, essentially PF1 casting (Demi Gods) and ToB martials. So a total redesign of the entire game. Sorry, but that is not the only way to make casters feel effective. Its not the most efficient way. Its not, IMO, the best way.
Alright, so you think normal casters in PF1E are demi-gods. Well, at least now I know you are not argueing from a position which I can share in any way or form.
And, yes, I want a design much closer to PF1E. I don't think I've made a secret of that anywhere. The questions for me are how much closer I can move the developers to my position (close enough to make PF2E look good for me?) and if that is even on the table. I guess I have to wait until they make their spell pass which Mark already talked about in another thread.
provably false by looking at the stats of actual demi-gods, i.e. empyrials, archdevils and demon lordsLol
I guess that's the best answer you can give when you've been proven empirically wrong?
I am not used to it. If it is problem i will try to use space bar more often.
EDİT:Sorry if it causes your eyes to bleed. That was not my intention.
Thank you. :)
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You are being silly. I think 3.X/PF casters are "demi gods" compared to non casters (even ToB martials). I thought that came through but you want to take things literally. You are arguing semantics.
If you want to argue semantics because it makes you feel better, go ahead. Feel free to quote pages in some monster manual or something. I will simply ignore the post.
No, I think the silly person is you, since you are still argueing that normal casters in PF1E are demigods. Well, at least I know I don't need to engage with you in discussion anymore. Goodbye.
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So perhaps they should try to find new areas in which to excel
With two signature skills (Arcana and Crafting), no armor proficiencies, a short list of specific weapons for weapon proficiencies, one Expert saving through (Will), 2+Int skill advancements, and class feats centered on spell casting, I'd like to hear your suggestions.
And don't say "role playing", since that's not specific to a class.
With two signature skills (Arcana and Crafting), no armor proficiencies, a short list of specific weapons for weapon proficiencies, and 2+Int skill advancements, and class feats centered on spell casting, I'd like to know what you suggest as the alternative. And don't say "role playing", because every other class can do that, too.
FYI, signature skills are now gone. See: This thread
FYI, signature skills are now gone. See: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs4299v?From-the-Stream-Signature-Skills-are-goin g
That definitely helps.
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This is not a low magic game.
It's not a high magic one either...
The point of the game is not to play casters and lord over everyone else.
Why do you assume that people that want casters to be awesome don't want awesome martials too? I know that's what I want.
I have to say, I'm with magnuskn on this. I'd like to see the troublesome things trimmed off the casters and martials brought up to casters levels of fun stuff to do.
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This is not a low magic game.It's not a high magic one either...
The point of the game is not to play casters and lord over everyone else.Why do you assume that people that want casters to be awesome don't want awesome martials too? I know that's what I want.
I have to say, I'm with magnuskn on this. I'd like to see the troublesome things trimmed off the casters and martials brought up to casters levels of fun stuff to do.
I'm there too
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And me, I was hoping Legendary would open up some epic shenanigans for the Fighter.I'm there too
Why do you assume that people that want casters to be awesome don't want awesome martials too? I know that's what I want.I have to say, I'm with magnuskn on this. I'd like to see the troublesome things trimmed off the casters and martials brought up to casters levels of fun stuff to do.
Whatever method to raise up martials would be used is not that important. The Tome of Battle book simply comes to my mind since it includes abilities which approximate spells (which is where the jealousy some fans of martials seem to exhibit apparently comes from).
If Legendary proficiencies or feats would unlock stunts which approximate spells (without calling them so, as to avoid the "anime!" enrage trigger apparently common among martial fans), then that would work perfectly fine as well.
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I want my higher level martials to be like Beowulf or Gilgamesh and swim for week in icy water and kill sea monsters on the way
That is just how I always envisioned my high-level Barbarian to play!
Favorite class of mine for martial characters and it just totally fits with what you described. ^^| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
You are being silly. I think 3.X/PF casters are "demi gods" compared to non casters (even ToB martials). I thought that came through but you want to take things literally. You are arguing semantics.
If you want to argue semantics because it makes you feel better, go ahead. Feel free to quote pages in some monster manual or something. I will simply ignore the post.
I believe that ToB classes could easily have approached the power of casters if only they had more support. I mean they already had access to some amazing things that casters couldn’t readily replicate (i.e. white raven tactics, iron heart surge, extraordinary teleportation).
I feel like saying that casters were demigods compared to every other class isn’t true. But, I’m assuming you’re using hyperbole since the claim itself has been proven empirically false. I think what you’re trying to say is that a relatively optimized wizard can trivialize your average fighter. This I agree with; martials generally have fewer options compared to casters, and in a game where versatility trumps big numbers, this can be crippling.
This is why a fair number of people like ToB content. Because it gives martial characters in combat options abilities beyond 5-ft step, full attack.
And, yes, I understand that fighters could build to do cool things and contribute in combat, but then they tend to do only that thing. A great example being imperious command from 3.5. This super powerful feat allowed fighters to make a skill check to skip an enemies turn. Optimize this skill check and you become godlike. With some magic items, a fighter with this feat could solo almost any encounter the DM could throw at you. Yet every turn you are doing the exact same thing.
An optimized wizard on the other hand, in addition to being godlike, was also dynamic in combat. Are you going to cast celerity, or irresistable vertigo field, chain gate an army, shapechange into a chronotyryn? I’m not saying it’s balanced, but at least its more fun than the melee equivalent.
Just to give some anecdotal evidence for that last claim, I have played in campaigns with both God-wizards and uber chargers, almost always as a roguelike character. I loved the campaign I played with the GOD wizard. He would keep me invisible, enchant my weapon, boost my AC, summon in flankers for my sneak attack. I’m not saying all wizards play this way, but any online GOD wizard guide will recommend you do. The uber-charger on the other hand… he would go in deal 1,000,000 and always one shot the monster. I did nothing, I never participated in a combat past 10th level. It’s not as if the player in question was being malicious, this was just the only way he was able to optimize his character.
In every game, there will always be optimizers. Even in 5e, which I find to be a very well balanced game, you can go pretty crazy. Combine the diviner wizard’s portent with the monk’s quivering palm and oh boy. In 5e the monk is not a broken class, neither is the wizard. I guess I just don’t understand why we are judging certain classes fairly (martials) and others (casters) almost exclusively by their power ceilings.
What I’m also not claiming is that casters should be left totally untouched. I think that a few spells should be nerfed, and others (I’m looking at you blood money and paragon surge) totally removed. But, as numerous people have pointed out on this thread, this is not at all what happened. Almost every spell was hit, and hit hard, utility spells (prestidigitation, unseen servant) especially. Certain fan favorites were made “uncommon” so that in certain APs you likely will never be able to cast them. The number of spells you can cast per day has been reduced. As has already been noted, these nerfs have a compounding effect.
I’m also not sure why you seem so surprised by the pro caster reactions. In PF1, 7 of the 11 core classes were casters. If your favorite class was one of the 7, chances are you got nerfed. Does it really surprise you that at least a portion of the playerbase is unhappy?
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Wait, I thought the derogatory "Anime" cries originated from caster players who hated martial classes from climbing up tiers... Was I wrong?
Anyway, I feel the old PF1 ultra-magic returning is fine as long as PF2's martials get to enjoy some of its craziness too, without outside assistance (= by own class features & progression, not necessarily reliant on buffs/items).
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Wait, I thought the derogatory "Anime" cries originated from caster players who hated martial classes from climbing up tiers... Was I wrong?
Nah, not me - if making martials more quote "anime" unquote (which I cannot stand, it's such a dumb way to talk about it) gives them more engaging play in terms of in and out of combat options, then I'm all for it. The whole reason I play casters in the first place generally is because I like having options that aren't just "make a skill roll" out of combat and "full attack/use the one combat maneuver you're specialised in" in it.
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I feel making martials "spellcasters, but different" through things like ToB is a questionable decision, because then you just have a game of slightly different spellcasters.
I'm going to tell you bluntly: right now, martial characters in the game I run are lording over spellcasters with their awesome martial prowess.
Players keep making jokes about how everything casters do is inconsequential and it gets especially hard to disagree when a cantrip lands 2 points of damage.
So, in short, spellcasters should not have fun and martial characters only are entitled to being awesome?
Doesn't sound like wanting balance between both to me.
It sounds exactly like accusing spellcasters to want to shine above anyone else.
That's not OK for spellcasters to do but it is for martial characters, apparently.
I think level 4 is probably the best level for consistent martial damage to be compared to spellcasters, as that's when you'd expect them to get a magic weapon, while spellcasters still have level 1 cantrips to compare to. It'd be on the same level as comparing full-BAB classes at 6 to 3/4-BAB classes at 6 and comparing their damage.
I can guarantee that my level 1 party would have died without the sorcerer in it.
Without the druid...I'm less sure, but the druid was playing pretty martial-like most of the time. I'm usually pretty critical of his choices in 1E, but his usages of heal and burning hands were pretty solid.
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Nope. Not using hyperbole. A core Druid or Cleric could put martials to shame. My Dragonborn sorcerer, with his limited spell list, could do things my swordsages and crusaders could only dream about. But even if ToB classes weren't totally over shadowed by casters, its still absolutely ludicrous to make the suggestion that casters should be made OP again and martials should be turned into the gamey nonsense that ToB was. Its also not something martial players necessarily want. I sure as hell don't want to deal with all that nonsense again.
Sorry if I was unclear. I was talking about the "casters are demigods" statement. The ToB classes are not equal to casters, on this we agree. However, as I said this is likely because ToB has only one books worth of support whereas casters have... well... almost every book. Again the ToB classes can do some things that most casters can't: Give themselves and their allies extra turns with WRT, put out the sun (ending all life on the material plane) with IHS, and teleport into/out of an antimagic field at low levels.
The versatility and core power of the average player playing your average caster was far higher than a competent melee player. I do not want that for PF2.
Neither do I. I want all classes to be highly versatile, and, in the hands of a competent player, highly powerful, not limited and weak.
I don't see the problem. There is nothing wrong with tagging certain spells as possibly problematic and empowering the DM not to allow those in his game. As I stated elsewhere, the DM spends hours prepping a session. The player takes minutes to peruse a spell list. If the player feels bothered that he may need to talk to his DM about some spell he likes, oh well, deal with it. The system needs to do what it can to empower and help new DMs so there are more DMs. If people feel frustrated behind the screen, then less games are run and that's good for no one.
Marking a spell as potentially problematic is not the same thing as saying "This spell is not allowed without specific GM approval." Also, the GM doesn't need to be empowered, they can already do whatever they want. In fact, I could argue that the rarity system pressures GMs into not including certain spells in their campaigns because rarity implies that the spell in question shouldn't be in player hands to begin with. But this is just a matter of opinion.
My real problem involves APs. Most GMs seem to run APs as written so if the AP doesn't say you get the rare spell, then you never do. I want to cast circle of protection? Better hope I'm playing the right AP.
Finally labeling things as "rare" just to restrict player access to them feels, courtesy of 3.5's complete arcane, "capricious and arbitrary."
Also I don't appreciate the 5-hours of work argument. I had a dungeon master who used a similar line of reasoning to defend the fact that every door in every dungeon was:
1. Locked
2. Indestructible
3. Unpickable
5. Surrounded by indestructible walls
6. Immune to magic, psionics, ect.
Instead we had to search through every room in the dungeon for every key... which was fun maybe the first 4-5 times but quickly became tedious. I believe that it's fine to spend as many hours as you like building an adventure while also being cognizant of the fact that players have access to the teleport spell.
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I have played in campaigns with both God-wizards and uber chargersI am thankful to say that I have NEVER played at such a table. I have quickly walked away from such campaigns online and have politely asked such players to calm their munchkinisn down or leave when I DM.
Wait. What?
Zecrin was describing what is arguably the most polite way to play a wizard: use spells to assist the other characters, and make them more effective than they already are. The so-called God wizard doesn't blast or use SoD spells, they employ buffs, battlefield control, and debuffs, resorting to blasts and other direct impact spells only when none of the other options are viable. They don't hog the glory or even take it: they let the martials do what they do best, and give them direct or indirect advantages.
Are you saying you don't like that form of play? Or did I misunderstand?
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You misunderstood. I was talking mostly about the Uber Charger.
Ok. Thanks. I was worried for a minute that we were on completely different worlds.
Though, to be clear, a GOD Wizard using battlefield manipulation, debuffs and the like that lands their spells too easily can present its own set of problems.
I agree. It's a big part of why I believe the power ceiling of Wizards needed to be lowered. I just wasn't expecting the ceiling to completely cave in. :(
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On a side note about martials, I dislike ToB/PoW. Not because I hate martials; I love them and prefer to play them. No, it's a combination of the mechanics and the styles. Martials should be allowed to be superhuman by RL standards without having to rely on class features that are mechanically almost identical to spells or overtly supernatural in nature (of which several initiator styles are guilty).
It's a matter of presentation, in many ways. I want my higher level martials to be like Beowulf or Gilgamesh and swim for week in icy water and kill sea monsters on the way, not teleport around or cause their blades to magically multiply and catch on fire.
And that's a totally okay way to go about it, too. My point is, it's better to bring martials up rather than bring all casters down.
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throwing my 2 copper in the proverbial hat: i'm also of the mind of "tweak the broken spellcaster options, raise martials to similarly flexible/heroic/legendary means".
ToB/path of war were one means of doing so, by giving martials access to all those tasty buffs/debuffs/conditions that casters and monsters previously held exclusivity rights for, but has the problem of turning martials into a different flavor of caster for the most part, but even something like putting more "oomph" in skill feats, or bringing in something akin to skill unlocks or stamina and feat-interaction from PF1e's unchained rules (amped up a good bit) that give martials more options and narrative power is just as fine for me!
the end result being that if someone at the table wants to play merlin by the endgame, he should totally be able to--and the guy next to him should be just as able to play beowulf, or cu'chulainn, or diarmuid, or siegfried, or fergus mac roich, or finn mac cumhaill (i'm not even touching japanese/greek/roman or even other european history and mythology, which gets even crazier!), as he likes around the same level.
they dont have to be the same, but having a similar ballpark of power in their separate fields and for the world at large is the kind of "balance" that should be aimed for.
EDIT: on the whole "anime" topic, i feel it stems from peopleon both sides demanding "realism" (true to earth/human logic) from the setting/system, rather than "verisimilitude" (true to the world's own internal logic and power scale). so people get rustled at the idea that a "common man" can kill a dragon with a simple sword or bow, regardless of how normal or mundane that task may be for that heroic fantasy world. because it isn't something someone on earth could do, it MUST be magic. and since it must be magic, obviously the common man can't do that, despite it being a common trope in that world's history and lore.
this usually makes exception to casters and similar archetypes, because "well, they're [magic] so of course they don't have to be realistic. it's magic!" it leads to the sort of unhealthy double-standard you find in fantasy settings, and in fantasy systems (and their fans).
shonen anime today is hardly different than a greek epic, just with minutes of screaming and lightning, rather than chapters of descriptions of boats designs or women's shapely figures (or mens if we're being fair, this is ancient greece we're talking about!)
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Yeah, I was hoping Legendary would open up for epic/mythic action like that, ripping off demon heads with your bare hands, and such.
That's an excellent way to go about it as well. The point why I thought of ToB in the first place is that it seems that there is a notable desire from a part of the martial population to bring casters down a peg or ten. Since my first instinct is the exact contrary, to bring up martials as needed, abilities which work close to spells seemed to be the way to go. But effects which work more in the way of Staggering Critical (without the need to critical hit) would also make sense for level 12+.
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Cast no spells in first two encounters?Right.Definitely the most fun experience i can imagine.
In our playtest, I ran a 7th-level bard. Three encounters. I cast exactly zero non-cantrip spells.
Why? Because none of them were useful, and yes, I designed the character with a wide variety of different ones.
I also didn't have any use for Resonance Points. Or Spell Points.
Amusingly, the player tracking sheet just asks "did you run out"? Um, no. I didn't run out because I didn't use any because there was nothing useful to use them on.
10.5 hours of careful character construction and the end result was spamming two cantrips which a 1st-level bard gets, and neither of which is more powerful than at 1st. I could literally have been replaced with that 1st-level bard because I was never physically attacked and the enemy made their saves frequently enough that the DC change wouldn't have felt any different. That is how tight the numbers are in PF2.
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On the "Anime" martials discussion, I think PF1 has lately started making some very awesome martial options that my groups have LOVED. While all this PF2 drama has been going on, we've gotten books like Blood of Ancients and Planar Adventures where you have things like:
- A Fighter with more skills that can at-will create a shadow weapon to use, which automatically scales to all +X and can change the enchantments on it at will while having access to new unique enchants.
- A Brawler that can kill you with any object they pick. This includes sending their enemies flying for free on hit or sunder/disarm them from range with needles.
- Super powerful Tian Xia healers that use only the mundane Heal skil to recover lots of HP and even remove magical debuffs like curses.
- A freakin martial that is supposed to fight Spawns of Rovagug and can wrestle with colossal creatures like it was nothing.
- A flying Fighter with cool aerial maneuvers. They can even create shockwaves that send enemies flying away!
- A shifter that works as everyone originally imagined they should. It can spontaneously transform into different things whenever needed.
- Rogues that can remove alignment with their Sneak Attack, which disable a lot of abilities.
- A turbo Swashbuckler that actually seems interesting. They get pounce and can heal debuffs with kisses.
- A Rogue that can see the dreams of people and even enter them later. They can also remove debuffs and use dreamscape rules.
- A planewalker Ranger that works as advertised.
- Lots of freely accessible magical abilities in Conduit Feats.
So these are just the most notable examples from what was like 1 month worth of books. These martial options are really evocative and cool-sounding. I was really happy when I thought this would be the new design style for Pathfinder! Martials can have a lot of cool things in thematics ways... It just took many years before we got the options.
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Again, I'm all for that. As I said in the other thread, though, I'd prefer it to be all in one book, rather than a dozen softcovers. :p
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On the "Anime" martials discussion, I think PF1 has lately started making some very awesome martial options that my groups have LOVED. While all this PF2 drama has been going on, we've gotten books like Blood of Ancients and Planar Adventures where you have things like:
- A Fighter with more skills that can at-will create a shadow weapon to use, which automatically scales to all +X and can change the enchantments on it at will while having access to new unique enchants.
- A Brawler that can kill you with any object they pick. This includes sending their enemies flying for free on hit or sunder/disarm them from range with needles.
- Super powerful Tian Xia healers that use only the mundane Heal skil to recover lots of HP and even remove magical debuffs like curses.
- A freakin martial that is supposed to fight Spawns of Rovagug and can wrestle with colossal creatures like it was nothing.
- A flying Fighter with cool aerial maneuvers. They can even create shockwaves that send enemies flying away!
- A shifter that works as everyone originally imagined they should. It can spontaneously transform into different things whenever needed.
- Rogues that can remove alignment with their Sneak Attack, which disable a lot of abilities.
- A turbo Swashbuckler that actually seems interesting. They get pounce and can heal debuffs with kisses.
- A Rogue that can see the dreams of people and even enter them later. They can also remove debuffs and use dreamscape rules.
- A planewalker Ranger that works as advertised.
- Lots of freely accessible magical abilities in Conduit Feats.
So these are just the most notable examples from what was like 1 month worth of books. These martial options are really evocative and cool-sounding. I was really happy when I thought this would be the new design style for Pathfinder! Martials can have a lot of cool things in thematics ways... It just took many years before we got the options.
those are some darn cool options to be sure! however i'm not sure many people would enjoy waiting 8+ years to use the system "as advertised/intended", you know?
nobody wants to play a videogame that is released both incomplete and that you have to pay full purchase price multiple times to actually play.adding to that, as it stands, conventional archetypes don't appear to be able to exist--you cant multiclass/archetype until level 2 now, and they dont make their theme apparent until halfway into your entire career at the very earliest (level 10+), and i have the sneaking suspicion that base-archetypes that trade some class feats at a given level for more thematic ones for the AT (which to note: has not so much as been breathed about by the devs at this time) would be a horrific tire-fire on the forums, as it would be yet more 4E parallels (which people generally don't like), despite the fact that OG pathfinder and 3.5's unearthed arcana did largely the same thing as well.