First and foremost, accompanying comic for illustrative purposes. Ahem:
I’ve noticed something since I started serving my time on the dark side of the DM screen. Over the years I’ve seen my fair share of monsters splattered across the battlefield. On rare occasions I’ll bear witness to that perfect strike, when the desperate PCs deal exactly enough damage to fell the monster before it can get another attack. More often than not, however, the killing blow will deal way, way more damage than necessary. Critical hits are exciting and all, but when your Profession (crit-fisherman) character deals 90 damage to a 30 hp ogre, it strikes me as overkill. Combine this with the common complaint of “fighters are boring” and I begin to suspect that the damage-dealing characters of the world have been prioritizing the wrong abilities.
When it comes to martial character optimization, the conversation often begins and ends with “how do we deal the most damage possible?” That is indeed a fighting man’s primary job in combat. But I've begun to suspect that a greatsword and power attack are enough to make any barbarian relevant. My point is that very few parties are going to have real trouble with damage output. There is always a way to kill the monster. But maybe, just maybe, those boring fighters would be less boring if we devoted feats and powers to utility rather than “deal more damage.”
What do you think? Do we as a community overemphasize damage output at the expense of a well-rounded character?
I mean, the thing that martial characters do better than their caster counterparts is "deal HP damage". If you're a fighter and you want to focus on like "controlling people with combat maneuvers" then you can do that, but "trip" is a lot less effective than magic at making people have a bad day (and is notoriously ineffective against snakes).
So if I'm rolling a fighter, or a barbarian, or a slayer or a bloodrager, etc. because it matches my vision for a character, the thing I will be able to do better with that class than a different one is "smash face" so I'll help the party most if I can do that (but I should be able to do some other things too.)
Where I think there is some tension in the system is that a lot of people gravitate to martials because they tend to not readily run out of stuff, whereas the classes which have more options than "deal HP damage" tend to have their schtick more limited. So there should have probably been more options for "all-day" classes whose particular strengths are not "deal damage."
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It might be worth having your players read this: BENCH-PRESSING: CHARACTER CREATION BY THE NUMBERS.
The part that I'm thinking of is this:
Blue denotes those things that are as good as they reasonably could be against an AMCREL. This is as good as it gets, and might be considered ‘optimal’. Attack rolls are blue if they can only fail on a Natural 1 against AMCREL’s AC. Saves are blue if your character only fails against the AMCREL’s average primary ability DC on a Natural 1.
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If you do have a Blue rated combat statistic, you might consider re-allocating resources to get some of your other stats higher. Generally well-balanced characters are more satisfying to play, and the character will be more useful overall.
(you'll have to read the article for "AMCREL")
It sounds to me like you've got some players who have over-optimised some parts of their characters. Chances are they've under-optimised other parts.
If you want to change this you could try throwing some things at them that can't be solved with a sword. The Fighter probably doesn't have a great will-save, so hitting him with a Dominate spell would encourage the party to invest more in defence and less in offence (that's an extreme example).
Another way to go would be to break the fourth wall and reveal to the players that they're doing that much overkill. If they consistently deal 200% of the enemies' hp in 1 hit they might take different feats/items next time they're available.
In my experiences with Pathfinder Society, some encounters definitely require as much DPS as the group can muster (big boss monsters with high HP, multiple and/or area attacks, regeneration, etc.), but in others such tactics can actively work against the mission (needing to keep some enemies alive for questioning, for example).
This issue is often self-correcting within the course of a well-written scenario. As MrCharisma points out, overoptimized characters will be weak in other areas, so they might win a battle but fail the mission if the party is missing certain essential skill sets (typically Diplomacy and Knowledges). And even on a purely tactical level, some builds have dangerous flaws--for example, one local player has a swashbuckler whose feats and wealth are all sunk into maximizing his DPS through riposte, but if you hit him with a grapple, he's suddenly the most useless member of the party.
The bad guys are just as dangerous to the party at 1 hp as they are at full hp when their turn comes around.
This means that overkill is a whole lot better than underkill.
Also, in most campaigns for every encounter that you can one shot bad guys with ease, you will face an encounter where the bad guys can take your best possible hit and keep on coming. When you hit those, the difference between a few more points of damage per hit and not can be pretty huge.
That said, I did have a game where one player consistently seemed to crit the big bad just when they were on their last legs. It became a source of amusement that the character seemed to have bloodlust toward weakened foes.
I'll also say that the 'meta' of the game matters in this, although in a more general sense. If you GM is going to adjust encounters based on the optimization of the party and your group enjoys optimization, then making sure you are 'the best' at your job is important. The fights are going to adjust with you, so in a way it is a Red Queen's race, but you are going to need to keep up with your party as far as the level of optimization you employ (this applies to all character roles, not just the damage dealers.) On the other hand, if your GM is going to run an AP 'by the book' or another campaign without adjusting the challenge then everyone might find the game more fun with less, rather than more, optimization.
I think the 'boring to play' argument isn't particularly helpful. It is entirely subjective, and I would expect that most people that choose to play a fighter (for example) don't find them 'boring' (or they wouldn't have chosen to play them) and probably that is because what they find as fun includes racking up lots of damage. Even if it is overkill, and most of the damage is 'wasted' getting a huge hit is quite enjoyable.
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Some of the problem comes from the inability to move and full attack. If a martial is only going to get one attack per turn, he needs to make that attack count. And unless he has a lot of spare feats (who does?) he's not going to be able to do more than two things well, and one of those two is probably going to include Power Attack. So yes, some versatility would be nice, but dumping feats on Keen Scent or SF-Climb isn't going to bring the regular benefit of Furious Focus or Weapon Spec.
DRD, I understand your point, but as you can see now, you have just blasphemed in the high temple of the slaughterhouse. Killing and killing efficiency are not merely the most important things, they are the only things of importance. The only reason skills exist is because canned adventures require them for completion. If you look up and believe their guides, you are making a mistake by being any better at something they consider of lesser importance than you must be. Only in those games/tables with less of a video-game focus does your objection make sense. Pay attention to their jargon, tank, control, ...... ad nauseum. For a lot of contributors this is an open-source video game.
I have a rather personal hatred for the Pit line of spells. You can't attack the monsters in the pit because you risk falling in if you walk up to them. So you basically kill everything around the creatures in the pit, then wait for the pit to be dismissed to take the rest out. Worse, I have to waste time with each creature in said pit(s) trying to escape on their turn. Its even more 'fun' when the caster insists on doing extra to make escape difficult by using grease, or using something like that water ball spell to bullrush more things into a pit.
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And then the monsters take their turn while I keep track of how many are slowed/confused/entangled/dazed/stunned/immobile. So much 'fun'.
This is a play style issue. No one is playing the game wrong.
If you don't match your players' style, and their fun isn't the same as your fun, then you should find another group.
Meirril,
Actually the system does adaquately support "going around solving epic adventures through social interaction, blackmail and mutually beneficial trades and alliances." Many players however, it seems you included, do not support this playstyle. White Wolf is also fairly combat focused by the way. Maybe you were thinking of the various Fate systems?
It really depends on the game you're playing. If that single gob w/ 30 hp is a typical encounter, then a DPR Olympics contender is probably both pointless and likely to be boring to play.
But if you're in a game with a GM who thinks that an "average fight" at level six should be a half dozen "minions" who are all CR2 or CR3 creatures that then get class levels dropped onto that until they have twice as many HD as the PCs do, having some characters that can put out serious damage is the only way to survive a typical encounter. When mooks have sixty hp and bosses have a hundred and fifty or more, a party full of social butterflies and skill monkeys who can do less than 10 hp on a successful attack doesn't get the job done.
I mean, in a lot of games I can roll up a character with absolutely no combat capability whatsoever (say, I am good at infiltration and stealth and running away, and I do that instead of fighting), and that works in a great variety of different games. But every game in this family has a disproportionate emphasis on combat, so much so that if you run a game where "I run away from every fight" is a valid strategy for a party, you are liable to be ignoring something like 90% of the rules of the game- this is coded into the DNA of d20 games, since "killing things" is the most reliable way to get XP.
So I guess the question of "what percentage of Pathfinder do I need to discard to run the kind of game I want" before I'm better off looking for something else which is more like the kind of game I want.
I have a rather personal hatred for the Pit line of spells. You can't attack the monsters in the pit because you risk falling in if you walk up to them. So you basically kill everything around the creatures in the pit, then wait for the pit to be dismissed to take the rest out.
o_O Do you even ranged?
Besides, that's an excellent strategy even without raining death upon the empitted foes. It's generally much easier to deal with half of the enemies and then the other half of the enemies than it is to deal with all of them at the same time. (Wall of stone is one of my favorite combat spells and has saved our butts many times.)
I have a rather personal hatred for the Pit line of spells. You can't attack the monsters in the pit because you risk falling in if you walk up to them. So you basically kill everything around the creatures in the pit, then wait for the pit to be dismissed to take the rest out.o_O Do you even ranged?
Besides, that's an excellent strategy even without raining death upon the empitted foes. It's generally much easier to deal with half of the enemies and then the other half of the enemies than it is to deal with all of them at the same time. (Wall of stone is one of my favorite combat spells and has saved our butts many times.)
Ranged, Water to Drown, summon something in the pit, boiling oil, heck, capture the one in the pit for questioning.
There's a number of ways to deal with something in a pit or even use it.
In my experiences with Pathfinder Society, some encounters definitely require as much DPS as the group can muster (big boss monsters with high HP, multiple and/or area attacks, regeneration, etc.), but in others such tactics can actively work against the mission (needing to keep some enemies alive for questioning, for example).
This issue is often self-correcting within the course of a well-written scenario. As MrCharisma points out, overoptimized characters will be weak in other areas, so they might win a battle but fail the mission if the party is missing certain essential skill sets (typically Diplomacy and Knowledges). And even on a purely tactical level, some builds have dangerous flaws--for example, one local player has a swashbuckler whose feats and wealth are all sunk into maximizing his DPS through riposte, but if you hit him with a grapple, he's suddenly the most useless member of the party.
There is a difference between optimized and min/maxed.
An optimized character will have strengths and few weaknesses. As many high points as possible without any corresponding lows.
Min/max is what this thread is about. Characters maximizing one thing, e.g. DPR, at the expense of everything else.
At the end of the day though, I'm not entirely sure what you expect a warrior type class to do in a combat other than be a primary damage dealer.
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of neat things a warrior can do in a combat. They can Trip, they can disarm, they can intimidate, they can dirty trick, grapple, bullrush...and while those are fun options they all suck as battlefield control options compared to spells. Not only do they all take several feats each to become worthwhile, but the by the time you have that kind of system online at level 3 your local Wizard can cast Cloud of Seasickness to completely shape the flow of battle.
What I'm saying is that a Martial Character doesn't have the ability to focus completely into disruption or generating advantages for the party. Their only real strength is the ability to permanently remove threats from the battlefield, and the only way they can do that is by hitting very hard and reducing their HP to 0 (ignoring house-rules or alternate rules in which damaged characters take penalties to actions, in which case they are helping with disruption). You don't bring the Barbarian around because his pectoral muscles look nice oiled up, expect him to disarm complex magical runes, or because he can fill the battlefield with entangling grass. You bring the Barbarian because from level 1 he can smack things for 3d6+12 when enlarged and raging.
Is it handy when the Barbarian also spends a little bit into being able to shove an enemy away from a caster or rip a weapon out of people's hands? Sure! Any time a Martial needs to move to set up for a full attack its great for them to have the option to do something resembling battlefield control. However, the Barbarian is ultimately a wall of meat and pain. Its literally the only thing they're better at than a spellcaster.
An extreme focus on damage from a Martial can thus, at least in my book, chalked up to martial/caster disparity. The caster is better at social interactions, skill checks, disruption, generating advantages in combat, inflicting debuffs, delivering buffs, and dealing AoE damage. At least the martial can take some hits, pin down an enemy, and single target the **** out of it.
I have a rather personal hatred for the Pit line of spells. You can't attack the monsters in the pit because you risk falling in if you walk up to them. So you basically kill everything around the creatures in the pit, then wait for the pit to be dismissed to take the rest out.o_O Do you even ranged?
Besides, that's an excellent strategy even without raining death upon the empitted foes. It's generally much easier to deal with half of the enemies and then the other half of the enemies than it is to deal with all of them at the same time. (Wall of stone is one of my favorite combat spells and has saved our butts many times.)
So lets set up an example. Lets say we dropped a Large creature into the create pit. The pit is 40' deep. The target stands 20' tall. How close to the save or fall radius does your ranged attacker have to get if he can't fly?
And this lovely spell is not dismissable.
You don't.
You kill all of his friends and wait for the pit to end.
Single targets are killed through superior action economy.
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The fact that you can kill an opponent in one round means that the best tactic is always to hit them til dead. So it is not overemphasis, the rules of the game set that emphasis. Damage to hit points is the most effective thing you can do. The only way I can see to change that would be to change the rules, which would take some drastic homebrew to make that work.
The second compounding fact is that non-combat powers are not necessary. If you are attacked by an ogre and you can't defeat it, then you lose the game. Period. Combat is mandatory to be good at. If you lack the skill at anything else you don't just lose the game. Nobody is good at diplomacy? Fine, then you have some funny interactions, maybe piss some people off, maybe it takes you a lot longer to find information, you have to make lots of deals, etc. You don't fail a diplomacy check, oh well game over. It's just the way pathfinder is designed. You could disable a trap, or you could be tough enough to take it and heal up after. No perception, well I guess enemies get surprise rounds on you a lot and you miss out on treasure. Non-combat abilities can be important, but they are never mandatory. In fact, it can be more fun to not have them. You could bypass an obstacle by casting the corresponding bypass obstacle spell, or you could all put your heads together and come up with some inventive solution.
Maslow's Hammer?
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You could disable a trap, or you could be tough enough to take it and heal up after. No perception, well I guess enemies get surprise rounds on you a lot and you miss out on treasure.
Both of these can and do result in character deaths in my campaign.
For the most part... lotta people just seem to relish in killing lol. It's like they get a kick out of it, since they don't do "enough" of it in real life.
Secondly. Damage is easy. It is easier to build around, and easier to apply. There is no feat delving, spell knowledge, or battlefield prowess to get a grasp of. Boost Strength, power attack, two handed weapon, 3 attacks.... it's simple and straight forward. Many of the full martial players that I have played with are self admittedly "a little lazy". "Being a caster, just seems like too much work".
Thirdly. The bestiary (or at least the disparity of monsters used in most paizo materials) just seems to simply be overwhelmingly catered against combat maneuvers. Almost everything has 4 legs and can't be tripped, is large or bigger, and has a CMD through the roof that is overwhelmingly more difficult to overcome than AC. Without being very knowledgeable and with an optimal build CMB is hard to use effectively.
I think this is just one of those things you realize after years of game production. Paizo also didn't help this cause by making a billion feats with hardly an level of organization. The game is what it is, and I don't expect or wish for rule changes for this. If you want to be a more unique and versatile class, then just don't pick a fighter or barbarian. Though it would be nice in second edition, if there were some more options for fighters and barbarians to apply team friendly, non-combat, or battlefield control like options.
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Overkill is Underrated.
/cevah
I'm going to throw out the almost exact opposite. Last campaign I ran had all of 2 damage dealers in a 6 man party. 2 people chose to run control casters that refused to DPS because they had to stick with their character role. One was a skill monkey that didn't really seem to want to be there. One was a dedicated healer that did some melee, but wasn't built for it.
I think its better when the entire party joins the DPS parade instead of letting 1 or 2 players carry the team. A little control helps a lot. A lot of control drags out the fight to the point where everybody including the controllers are bored.
Sounds like a reasonably balanced party.
Generally PCs that are not from classes that are good at dealing damage can't be much good at dealing damage.
Your arcane caster bravely wades into melee, with their pathetic BaB and a -1 to hit and damage on the 1d4 their dagger does once a round, for the one or two rounds they last before dying.
Some classes like a cleric can perform more or less acceptably in combat at low levels. But when they get up a few levels they can't keep up with the martial classes in any shape or form.
I have a rather personal hatred for the Pit line of spells. You can't attack the monsters in the pit because you risk falling in if you walk up to them. So you basically kill everything around the creatures in the pit, then wait for the pit to be dismissed to take the rest out. Worse, I have to waste time with each creature in said pit(s) trying to escape on their turn. Its even more 'fun' when the caster insists on doing extra to make escape difficult by using grease, or using something like that water ball spell to bullrush more things into a pit.
It doesn't matter if the DPS make a splat painting with the one guy they hit each turn, they hit one guy. And if they do 96hp to a 100hp guy that leaves the opponent in single digits so they get grossly overkilled the following round. And then the monsters take their turn while I keep track of how many are slowed/confused/entangled/dazed/stunned/immobile. So much 'fun'.
It sounds like your players have got intelligent tactics down fairly well. I can see how it can get monotonous.
But I don't see how everyone just standing there pounding on the bad guys and vice versa is less monotonous.
I have a couple of suggestions-
1 You don't have to roll everything out until all the bad guys are dead. If the PCs have killed off 2/3 of the baddies and the last 1/3 waiting patiently in the pit for their turn, not standing a chance, you can just say OK the PCs win.
2 Vary the challenge. Sounds like your party will take out a bunch of ogres in a typical room or generically outside w/o any sweat.
Set them up against another party with their own spell casters. Or an organised group of defenders who have set up sensible defences, with archers firing through slits. Just be a bit careful of TPKs.
Sounds like a reasonably balanced party.
Sounds like a crappy group full of players who don't understand the game. Or deliberately want combats to last long. One of those two.
Generally PCs that are not from classes that are good at dealing damage can't be much good at dealing damage.
Good thing that every PC class can be (reasonably) good at dealing damage, than.
Your arcane caster bravely wades into melee, with their pathetic BaB and a -1 to hit and damage on the 1d4 their dagger does once a round, for the one or two rounds they last before dying.
You don't seem to know this, but there are *gasp* spells that do damage!
Some classes like a cleric can perform more or less acceptably in combat at low levels. But when they get up a few levels they can't keep up with the martial classes in any shape or form.
So not true. Seriously, with spells like Divine Power and Righteous Might, a Cleric is very much a powerful martial.
Your arcane caster bravely wades into melee, with their pathetic BaB and a -1 to hit and damage on the 1d4 their dagger does once a round, for the one or two rounds they last before dying.
Just to play devil's advocate:
At 5th level my 24 STR/14 INT/24 AC transmuter wades into the fight with his 6 natural attacks/round + arcane strike & power attack.
At 7th level, he gets pounce.
The one problem with "Rocket Tag" is that if your whole party is playing it the GM needs to as well. Don't get me wrong, your average fight-man needs to be laying down the beats or they aren't doing their job properly, but if your whole team is AoEing down the enemy before they get to move the GM will likely start to impose...sanctions on your party.
If they are a good GM, those sanctions won't be too bad. It just might force you to use a different type of elemental damage or outthink your opponent. If they are a bad GM, your party might end up on the wrong end of the "Rocket Tag" equation.
The one problem with "Rocket Tag" is that if your whole party is playing it the GM needs to as well. Don't get me wrong, your average fight-man needs to be laying down the beats or they aren't doing their job properly, but if your whole team is AoEing down the enemy before they get to move the GM will likely start to impose...sanctions on your party.
If they are a good GM, those sanctions won't be too bad. It just might force you to use a different type of elemental damage or outthink your opponent. If they are a bad GM, your party might end up on the wrong end of the "Rocket Tag" equation.
Throwing in pits or traps mid fight can off balance a PC. Likewise tripping or disarming for the Martials can again cause a bit of a problem that requires a change.
Again, bottom line, there's nothing in the rules that state the ONLY way to gain XP is by killing monsters. Its pretty easy to do however and a large focus of the PF system. If you like it, optimize for it. If you don't, don't. Play the game YOU want.
You gain XP by defeating the encounter. Often this means killing the enemy, however it also includes talking your way past, charming your way past, and even sneaking your way past. If you faced the challenge and somehow got past it, then you defeated the challenge.
/cevah
What if the solution is running away? Successfully mind you...