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First, no one in your group seems overly optimized. The martial characters are all good as what they do, and that is as it should be.
Example:
Barbarian level 8.
Attack = +16 (8 BAB + 5 str + 1 str item + 3 weapon (+1 furious) + 2 rage - 3 power attack) likely much higher with other weapons.
Damage = 27 (12 Str + 12 power attack +3 time) + weapon damage dice
You have two attacks, the second being at a -5. As you can see, you guys are in a pretty standard range.
This means there is a caster issue. First, when you play a caster, you have to change how you think about success. If you cast Blessing of Fervor, the cleric's damage that round is every extra attack that was taken, which is often much more than had they attacked.
This thinking can be extended. Let's use haste. First, there are the extra attacks then, + 5% of all of the damage of every regular attack + the 5% of the damage that was saved from the AC boost + any extra attacks that were generated by not having to use extra movement to get to an enemy + all the AOOs that were avoided by having extra movement.
Casters' successes are often much less tangible and are usually awarded to the martial character. If you need haste to one round an enemy, the martial and the wizard killed it.
Wizard damage will not compete with martial damage unless you get a lot of people standing close together, which does not happen that often. This should not be their goal. I would recommend the wizard pick up dazing or authoritative spell so they can do damage and control the battlefield. Persistent also is a massive boost to damage as failing the save means more cost. Maximized and empowered are the obvious other options. Meta magic rods will help too.
For all casters, crowd control and save or suck are going to have a lot more punch. Dim Door to use as team pounce is huge; fly can be a lifesaver, even something like protection from evil is fantastic.
Martial are often hammers casters are every other tool. It can be a game issue if every enemy is a nail, though.
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Martials do a lot of hitpoint damage -- that's their job.
Everything else that a caster can do, they'll generally do much worse, or not at all.
At 8th level, I'd expect a wizard to be casting haste, fly, invisibility, greater invisibility, wall of ice, shape stone, create pit spells, glitterdust, that sort of thing. If your wizard is casting haste and fly on the party, and you also want him doing the damage, then I think you're asking too much.
You could be playing a game where terrain never matters, monsters never fly, and you can always hit monsters with melee weapons, and in that case the wizard has much less to do and could probably get by with summoning spells while staying invisible. Though in a game that simple, he'd be better off playing a kineticist and blasting things like an elemental martial class.
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Those casters seemingly don't know how to pull their weight. For example,a reach cleric built for melee combat would output damage comparable to your brawler during the GM's turn and still cast a spell on their own turn. Oddly, this approach leads to greater defensive power than does hiding in the back behind a shield.
The Wizard's main job is Battlefield Control. If the Wizard consistently gives your side tactical advantage then your wizard is on task, even if the Wizard never directly inflicts a single hp of damage. The Wizard mostly gets damage by assisting other PCs get damage. Grandlounge said that nicely above. Wizard should only get a damage nova when several foes stand close together.
That all said, it sounds like neither the Wizard nor the Cleric are using Summon Monster spells. Those don't inflict a lot of damage until one gets to multiple enhanced pouncing dire tigers (at ~ 300 DPR), but Summoned Monsters can soak up damage so you (the Brawler) don't have to. If the Wizard and Cleric players were playing to potential your melee PCs would not feel overpowered.
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The Wizard's main job is Battlefield Control.
Good ol' Grease with a hefty DC will put most low-to-mediocre level opponents on their keister, and subject them to repeated saves even if they make the first one. Once down, they're -4 to hit you and you're +4 to hit them.
I front-socketed it every time I play a starter wizard, and have never regretted it.
"Ooh, baby! A fight in a doorway!" <rubbing hands>
a reach cleric built for melee combat would output damage comparable to your brawler during the GM's turn and still cast a spell on their own turn.
Not even close. The OP's brawler deals an average of 78.1 DPR on a pounce against an average CR 8 monster (with BoF, 60.6 without). How exactly does a cleric with 12 or 13 strength compete with that via AoOs?
Making the DC 1/2 the casting class round up would have enormously helped keep lower level spells relevant. But I always felt like the DC for spells should have been 1/2 the caster class level round up +10 as the base, like it is for most class based abilities.
Low level spells aren't supposed to stay relevant. Other class features have a scaling DC because you only have one or two of them, while a caster has dozens. Limited spells is the only saving grace martial classes have at all.
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Yes, Wizard needs some work to be good at single target damage. If the Wizard's player isn't content with being the best at overcoming 90% of all challenges and desperately wants to be the best at the other 10% as well, they should figure out how to do that (because it is possible). Sure, if you're too lazy to look past the CRB for spells...
If the Cleric player isn't content with playing a support-style character, a) why did he chose Cleric?, and b) he has the option to use touch spells. It's not like Cleric couldn't change their entire spells literally overnight. With a defensive build, getting close to the enemy shouldn't be too dangerous.
Brawler and Cavalier are pretty bad classes, because they can do very little else apart from dealing damage. That they're at least pretty good at that is not an imbalance, but the exact opposite - if they weren't there would be no reason to have martials in a party at all. And yes, both are using most of the respective class's potential, unlike the casters. That's still true because of hybrid classes like Summoner, but that's beside the point.
Wizards and Clerics can decide encounters with a single spell, and can overcome almost any non-combat challenge that has the martials neigh helpless. If that's not enough power for the players of those classes, the problem lies with them alone.
Also, I want to back something Grandlounge said, about the source of success. If the Cleric casts Blessing of Fervor, and your Brawler lands an extra attack, that damage does not come form the Brawler, but from the Cleric. If you would note down damage dealt, it would be put in the Cleric's column. Likewise, every point of damage dealt by a Brawler to an otherwise inaccessible enemy while under the effects of the Wizard's Fly, is damage coming from the Wizard.
I once calculated the impact of a Summoner's Haste on the overall effectiveness of my then party, and the result was that with a single standard action, the Summoner increases the total damage done by the party by as much as one of the damage dealers. Basically, that single standard action was bringing another character on the field. Even if the Summoner did literally nothing else in a combat, the character still had a huge impact on the combat!
Your party isn't as well suited towards Haste/BoF, so the impact won't be as big, but the basic concept is still true.
Lastly, an important thing to understand is that in Pathfinder, everything is a means to an end. It's always the end that counts, never the means. In almost every combat, the goal is to incapitate the enemy without suffering to much. Killing enemies quickly, using debuffs, and using battlefield controll options are all means to the same end, as are boosting defenses and/or infight healing. In the end, it just doesn't matter whether the enemy is incapitated because it's sleeping, heaviliy debuffed, attacking a near-immune character, having their damage healed back again afterwards, or dead. As long as a chatracter is efficiently working toward the goal, the character is well contributing, no matter the method used.
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Strength is the highest attribute with a reach-cleric, and advanced relentlessly. (Wisdom is typically just a 14 or 15 in point-buy, and raised via headband alone.)a reach cleric built for melee combat would output damage comparable to your brawler during the GM's turn and still cast a spell on their own turn.Not even close. The OP's brawler deals an average of 78.1 DPR on a pounce against an average CR 8 monster (with BoF, 60.6 without). How exactly does a cleric with 12 or 13 strength compete with that via AoOs?
...it sounds like neither the Wizard nor the Cleric are using Summon Monster spells. Those don't inflict a lot of damage until one gets to multiple enhanced pouncing dire tigers (at ~ 300 DPR), but Summoned Monsters can soak up damage so you (the Brawler) don't have to.
.Suffice also to say that there's no need to heal your wounded monsters after the fight -- which is something you can appreciate not only as a divine caster, but also as one who is tasked with babysitting a Con 12 teammate who frequently finds himself in 5' adjacency to annoyed opponents who aren't dead yet on their turn.
Strength is the highest attribute with a reach-cleric, and advanced relentlessly.
I kinda missed the "built for melee combat", and was referring to the actual Cleric as-is. I think the point is still generally true, the AoOs won't come enar the output of a well build Brawler. Everything else is exactly what we're workign on here.
People should just focus on what they enjoy. If all characters focus on max buffing the martials, of course these will dish out awesome damage. But that's the caster's choice. Area damage, debuffs, crowd control, utilities... lots of things casters can do on top of buffing.
Strength is the highest attribute with a reach-cleric, and advanced relentlessly.I kinda missed the "built for melee combat", and was referring to the actual Cleric as-is. I think the point is still generally true, the AoOs won't come enar the output of a well build Brawler. Everything else is exactly what we're workign on here.
Quickened Divine Favor (swift action), chug enlarge potion via Accelerated Drinker (move action) for massive threatened zone with Fortuitous polearm, Summon pack of fluffy pounce kitties or angelic hordes (standard action). ....I dunno, man; that's a lot of firepower.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not denying the power of a Cleric, reach or otherwise, but the damage from the AoOs won't be on par with that of a pouncing or otherwise full attacking Brawler.
Let's say you're a shelynite Cleric with the same strength and weapon investment as the OP's Brawler (24 Str, +4 weapon). You drink the potion, and cast Blessing of Fervor (no Quickened Divine Favor because you don't have 5th level spell slots yet). With Power Attack, that's an average of 22.7 damage per attack, which means you'd need three AoOs to "come near the output" of the pouncing Brawler, which is what I was talking about. If the fight lasts a few rounds and you can full attack on subsequent turns, you catch up, but AoOs alone won't do the trick.
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So how does a cleric summon as a standard action?Quickened Divine Favor (swift action), chug enlarge potion via Accelerated Drinker (move action) for massive threatened zone with Fortuitous polearm, Summon pack of fluffy pounce kitties or angelic hordes (standard action). ....I dunno, man; that's a lot of firepower.Strength is the highest attribute with a reach-cleric, and advanced relentlessly.I kinda missed the "built for melee combat", and was referring to the actual Cleric as-is. I think the point is still generally true, the AoOs won't come enar the output of a well build Brawler. Everything else is exactly what we're workign on here.
There's a feat for it, as long as the creatures match your aura. sacred summons
I am a bit curious about the gear here. The character has 40k just with the +3 handwraps and light noqual armor, that's 7k shy of double what a character aught to have assuming they have nothing else. If there's even a +1 on that armor, that's another 6k, though they'd be better off with that +1 on a shield regardless.
This doesn't change the balance discussion, as the character hasn't chosen a super optimized path regardless, but I would entertain the possibility that the DM favors the player causing them to stand out.
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Don't get me wrong, I'm not denying the power of a Cleric, reach or otherwise, but the damage from the AoOs won't be on par with that of a pouncing or otherwise full attacking Brawler.
Let's say you're a shelynite Cleric with the same strength and weapon investment as the OP's Brawler (24 Str, +4 weapon). You drink the potion, and cast Blessing of Fervor (no Quickened Divine Favor because you don't have 5th level spell slots yet). With Power Attack, that's an average of 22.7 damage per attack, which means you'd need three AoOs to "come near the output" of the pouncing Brawler, which is what I was talking about. If the fight lasts a few rounds and you can full attack on subsequent turns, you catch up, but AoOs alone won't do the trick.
My reach-cleric players at 8th level would often get two (Large 20' reach) AoOs at full-BaB and a third Fortuitous attack at -5. Each attack would typically hit for about ~25 hp, less (~20) if caught totally unprepared and more (~30) if fully buffed. So on the order of ~50 hp damage on the GM's turn plus whatever spell they cast on their own turn. It probably adds up to a bit less damage than a comparable brawler performing a Full Attack on their own turn. Medium size that would only be average one AoO plus another Fortuitous Attack at -5. Large size drastically increases average AoO count. Spell casting is the main thing, AoO damage is 'on the side'.
Just a note about the cleric... he is definitely not a reach cleric. He has Strength 12 and Con 10. Nope. (He has a really high AC though.)Give us his build (as best you know), and the splatbooks the GM allows.
The wizard has an Int +6 headband.That's pretty impressive by 8th-level.
The wizards who are always starving for cash are the ones that try to bump their AC as high as they can. Seriously? You're AC is going to suck, why bother sinking a fortune into being bad at AC when you can stick that gold into being a better caster?
Generally a wizard finds ways to conceal himself rather easily once beyond the baby levels, or his get-oughta-Dodge ace-in-the-hole mechanic is pimped to the nines. His main worries (aside from blown saves) are getting cranked from full-up to unconscious by a single, lucky confirmed nat-20 crit from something purpose-built to locate concealed wizards.
+6 Int Headband at lvl 8 isn't game-breaking, but it certainly is game-"bending". That's why I put a house rule in place for using +2/+4/+6 stat items as minimum lvls 4/8/12 respectively.
The cleric's stats are probably Strength 12, Dex 12?, Con 10, Int ?, Wis 20 (I don't know if he has an item or not for that), Cha 14 or so. He wishes he had higher Charisma, because he channels a lot. We all have the same point buy.
He's overpaid for starting wisdom in point-buy, and his other stats are suffering accordingly.
Without considerable feat help, clerics are mediocre channelers (paladins are much better at it).
He uses a mace, which I think isn't even magical, and a +1 crossbow, but his Dex is too low to make that useful.
He has light fortification agile armor of some kind, probably full plate, and a shield. He used some spell that gives him +5 or so natural armor sometimes, and Shield of Faith.
He has a feat that essentially gives him a warpriest ability, almost like having a third domain. He can use Sanctuary, but it's "special". When he attacks, it only breaks Sanctuary for that target. Also, it appears to be supernatural?
He has Trickery as one of his domains. He can use Invisibility and Trickster's Grace (a single Mirror Image duplicate as a move action, several times per day). He worships Calistra, so...
He may want to take a look at Guided Hand, and pick up a nice scorpion whip.
Point the Cleric to the Guiding Vellum. Getting the GM to pick a single spell for the cleric can give insight on what to expect. My cleric now has GV 1, 2, 3, and 4. I get four spells given to me each time I prepare spells. This is a big bonus to handling the day's tasks.
Pearls of Power also work well for the cleric.
For spells to help output? 1: Bless, Weapons Against Evil; 2: Darkness, Silence, Weapon of Awe; 3: Prayer; 4: Blessings of Fervor; 5: Hunter's Blessing. Darkness and Silence need party tactics, as they can disrupt your party if they are not set for it.
Lastly, open slots. This lets you fix things after 15 minutes rather than overnight. That Lesser Restoration cast in 15 minutes can mean that you continue adventuring rather than stopping for the day.
/cevah
It is not a spell, but a magic item that gives divine insight to the cleric's spell selection.
/cevah