Right now the biggest disparity between martials and casters is that martials run very big risk of completely wasting their turns whereas casters have a much smaller risk.
Martials are all hit or miss with their powers, they make attack rolls. They have almost no effects on a miss. And their best attack hits 40-60% of the time. A second attack only hits 15-35% of the time, and the third hits at best 10% of the time. So even in the best circumstances he has a 23% chance of doing nothing with 3 attacks.
Casters, on the other hand, have many options with an effect on a "miss". They make the opponent roll a save and only have no effect on a critical success. The opponent generally has between a 45 and 65% chance of making the save, but the caster can often select which save, skewing the odds towards the caster. So casters generally have the same odds of failure as the martial, but still get something for their efforts. And this is not even accounting for multiple target spells.
The obvious solution is to give the martials some options that force the enemy to make a save. It would be interesting to see how popular those options are compared to traditional attack options.
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Duje It was all good until The last sentence which was highly jerkish.
well, you can up your odds with flanking, tripping, buffs from pots or clerics and various feats, martials don't need to use spell slots, while casters can only use use spells depending on how many times did they prepared it.
That being said, casters need that on failure effects, because its usually one-shot thing, martials can use their best attacks all the time, so yeah, you are completely wrong, and don't have any understanding about balance
Except casters have cantrips.
Remember that Feint and Demoralize are single actions.
I've been campaigning for more single action abilities to add attack boni to martial characters, specifically to solve this problem.
After seeing the group with a bard and Inspire Heroics, it's become obvious that I was right. I'll be posting a whole thread later.
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Right now the biggest disparity between martials and casters is that martials run very big risk of completely wasting their turns whereas casters have a much smaller risk.
Hi. I've actually play tested at levels 5 and 10 and I can tell you, martials do a LOT more damage on average than casters at these levels.
Most of the cantrips hit or miss just like martials, except casters only get one shot per turn. And yes, casters are using cantrips a lot more than expected, but that's because they get hardly any spell slots, and combat can last several rounds at higher levels.
You must be talking about Fireball but that's one spell that can be used a few times per day. Most of the spells are like Fear, where even a failure results in only the Frightened 2 condition, which is pathetic. It takes a crit failure (1 in 20 on boss creatures) to actually have them flee... for 1 round. This LIMITED 1st level spell is just as good as Demoralize, a skill any Barbarian can do every 3rd action.
But the fact that most spells are too weak is a subject for another post.
No, when it comes to damage, martials are in a good state. Most of the martial classes need tweaks, but damage is not the problem.
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Right now the biggest disparity between martials and casters is that martials run very big risk of completely wasting their turns whereas casters have a much smaller risk.Hi. I've actually play tested at levels 5 and 10 and I can tell you, martials do a LOT more damage on average than casters at these levels.
Agreed. My 1st level sorcerer managed to do 12 damage in the entirety of Chapter 1 of Doomsday Dawn. My 4th level not-a-cleric did 12 damage in a single cast of Electric Arc (despite still being the base level spell, no heightening!) and despite that the Martials are still out-damaging me (I mean, sure, 90% of my spell slots are going into Healing, but when I have spent spells on damage, the results have been pretty lackluster).
This LIMITED 1st level spell is just as good as Demoralize, a skill any Barbarian can do every 3rd action.
But the fact that most spells are too weak is a subject for another post.
No, when it comes to damage, martials are in a good state. Most of the martial classes need tweaks, but damage is not the problem.
Well, it's actually more reliable than demoralize, though it costs 2 actions instead of 1. Plus, a level 1 spell that would cause fleeing to any target with any reliability would be absurd, because that works regardless of target, unless you restrict it like daze in first edition.
I've not played outside of level 1 yet, but martial effectiveness seems fine when accounting for conditional bonuses / penalties. I know that there's talk of higher level foes having stats a bit above where they're supposed to be, which if adjusted will make at least first attacks a little more reliable. The fighter & ranger have ways to improve their reliability as well: Double slice letting you get 2 attacks at 0 MAP and hunt target improving the reliability of later attacks for example. Barbarians & rogues are less accurate, but also deal more damage through rage & sneak attack.
Agreed. My 1st level sorcerer managed to do 12 damage in the entirety of Chapter 1 of Doomsday Dawn. My 4th level not-a-cleric did 12 damage in a single cast of Electric Arc (despite still being the base level spell, no heightening!) and despite that the Martials are still out-damaging me (I mean, sure, 90% of my spell slots are going into Healing, but when I have spent spells on damage, the results have been pretty lackluster).Right now the biggest disparity between martials and casters is that martials run very big risk of completely wasting their turns whereas casters have a much smaller risk.Hi. I've actually play tested at levels 5 and 10 and I can tell you, martials do a LOT more damage on average than casters at these levels.
I'm wondering if, at higher levels, actual damage spells will feel more effective. At level 1 they run the problem of, dealing 5 damage to multiple targets with 6 max health feels horrible when a long sword wielding martial is looking at instant-killing such a target from max health on an average hit. In effect, the damage the caster dealt without killing the target was meaningless. I'm not too shaken about martials outdamaging a cantrip though. However it is frustrating that cantrips are slightly less effective than using a bow as a caster until you get the expert->legendary training in spell rolls, especially since damage cantrips are also lower range with less flexible action economy.
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Well, it's actually more reliable than demoralize, though it costs 2 actions instead of 1. Plus, a level 1 spell that would cause fleeing to any target with any reliability would be absurd, because that works regardless of target, unless you restrict it like daze in first edition.
Fear has the same reliability as Demoralize, they both go against the target's Will save. The only difference is Fear does 1 Frightened more. Both cause the opponent to flee on a crit fail.
But a Barbarian can do this action 3 times per round for FREE, a spellcaster can only do 1 once per round and 3 times per day.
For a spell to be weaker than a skill (2 actions vs 1) and only better by Frightened 1, and the Barbarian can do it 3 times per round for FREE, it's not good. Yes it's level 1 but with limited spell slots, all your spells need to count.
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Agreed. My 1st level sorcerer managed to do 12 damage in the entirety of Chapter 1 of Doomsday Dawn. My 4th level not-a-cleric did 12 damage in a single cast of Electric Arc (despite still being the base level spell, no heightening!) and despite that the Martials are still out-damaging me (I mean, sure, 90% of my spell slots are going into Healing, but when I have spent spells on damage, the results have been pretty lackluster).I'm wondering if, at higher levels, actual damage spells will feel more effective. At level 1 they run the problem of, dealing 5 damage to multiple targets with 6 max health feels horrible when a long sword wielding martial is looking at instant-killing such a target from max health on an average hit. In effect, the damage the caster dealt without killing the target was meaningless. I'm not too shaken about martials outdamaging a cantrip though. However it is frustrating that cantrips are slightly less effective than using a bow as a caster until you get the expert->legendary training in spell rolls, especially since damage cantrips are also lower range with less flexible action economy.
The worst part about cantrips is that they don't get Attribute to damage until its heightened to 3rd. Third! You don't get 3rd level spells until 5th level! The second die of damage then doesn't kick in until 9th!
A 9th level character (according to what you get when you create a character above 1st) will have "One 8th level item." Know what an 8th level item is? A +2 weapon potency rune (so the warriors will be getting 3 damage dice). They also get two 7th level items (know what's a 7th level item? A +2 armor potency rune). Meanwhile casters still using Mage Armor get a mere +3 to their AC from it (keeping in mind that they don't get armor proficiency, never have their unarmored proficiency improve, and therefore start at +0). Bracers of Armor, of course, are an 8th level item (and grant the same aforementioned bonus of +3).
Meanwhile all of the Staff of <Magic> items are a measly level 5 which is outright purchasable for petty cast (the next higher one is a 9th level item and unobtainable). Staff of Fire is level 7 (and gives you...two 3rd level spells, two 2nds, a 1st--of which you can only cast three a day without downtime (with downtime, 4 castings)), and you'd still have to have those spells on your spell list in order to use them.
Well, it's actually more reliable than demoralize, though it costs 2 actions instead of 1. Plus, a level 1 spell that would cause fleeing to any target with any reliability would be absurd, because that works regardless of target, unless you restrict it like daze in first edition.Fear has the same reliability as Demoralize, they both go against the target's Will save. The only difference is Fear does 1 Frightened more. Both cause the opponent to flee on a crit fail.
But a Barbarian can do this action 3 times per round for FREE, a spellcaster can only do 1 once per round and 3 times per day.
For a spell to be weaker than a skill (2 actions vs 1) and only better by Frightened 1, and the Barbarian can do it 3 times per round for FREE, it's not good. Yes it's level 1 but with limited spell slots, all your spells need to count.
Fear (the spell) also works if the target passes their save. So, assuming a crit fail on a 1, a crit pass on a 20, and a pass on an 11...Fear (spell) is almost guaranteed to have some effect vs demoralize which has a 50% chance of being a wasted action.