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I think you've got a point here, and I can see how this would seem like a downgrade to a lot of people. But I think a way this problem can be mitigated is from the GM's descriptions. What's more evocative, "Alright, he failed his save against your Fear, he takes a -2 to just about everything." or "You place dark and disturbing images into his mind, shaking him to his core. As he lifts his blade, you can see his hand shivering as he looks at you. He takes a -2 to just about everything."
Of course, you don't want to overuse flowery descriptions because they can slow the game down, but using them can really help your players see past the numbers and make them feel powerful.
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Damage is a numbers game. Since damage is the main option for non-spellcasting martials, they received the best damage numbers.
Numbers also make for great teamwork. Imagine a roleplaying game in which the player characters have only kill-or-miss attacks. "I strike at the skeleton ... and miss." "My turn. And I miss, too." "Let me try. Hurray, the skeleton collapses into a heap of bones." The first two attackers feel that the dice let them down. Contrast this to the three players each damaging the skeleton a little bit, and the accumulated damage of three attacks was enough to take it down. Everyone feels like they contributed.
Dungeons & Dragons clerics and magic-users (for some reason, TSR did not call then wizards at first) were given a lot of Save-or-Die spells in early editions. They fit the folklore and were impressive when they succeeded. But they were disappointing for roleplaying. "Cleric, we have damaged the skeleton. Your turn." "I turn undead. It runs away." "Um, I guess that solves the problem. Couldn't you have done that first?" "Sorry, bad initiative roll."
Pathfinder 1st Edition replaced Turn Undead with Channel Positive Energy. It damaged the skeletons instead of chasing them away. It made the feature more cooperative, because with Channeling, it mattered that the fighter had already hit the skeleton. Pathfinder 2nd Edition continues the move away from Save-or-Die.
Damage is not the only numbers game. Healing is about hit-point numbers, but in the opposite direction. Buffing and debuffing are also about numbers. All those numbers let the players work together.
Another set of spells are battlefield control, such as Grease or Wall of Thorns. They let players cooperate without changing numbers on a creature, so they also fit well with roleplaying. Not everything has to be about numbers. Martials have their own forms of battlefield control, such as tripping or disarming enemies.
One of the biggest aspects, I think, that made Spellcasters was the battlefield control abilities. Ever since I've started digging deeper into Pathfinder, I've noticed how just by perceiving things different you can see how powerful some things are when they don't seem like it, just because they didn't have numbers attached to them.
For example: Imagine a cleric that managed to heal 30+ HP in a AOE per target at lower levels, that would be OP, right? Well, it certainly would. But imagine that you're fighting against a lot of monsters that are in an advantageous position against your party, so they will charge in and start dealing damage... And then suddenly your caster acts first or manages to act on the surprise round and he decides to use Sleet Storm or Stone Call.
What would've been a situation where most monsters would be able to take charge and engage first, now becomes an extra round where your teammates have the engage initiative. You just prevented the possibility of a shit ton of damage from your party without engaging with saving throws or numbers, you just interrupted their charge with difficult terrain.
You could replicate this effect with most wall spells by basically cutting off an enemy for a few rounds (if they even could get hid of the wall in the first place). You would cast haste and suddenly every attack your teammates made would make them look cool, but in truth that damage could easily be tallied for your caster.
This goes to get even crazier at higher levels with reality shattering spells. But it certainly didn't look that strong because you were no Barbarian dealing 50+ damage at every attack or a fighter never missing.
Of course, this is basically common knowledge for every player/GM that know why Spellcasters were so powerful in PF1e, but most of my friends never stopped to think about it at all and I suspect most players never did (I had one friend that also plays a lot of sorcerers get mad because I never threw a fireball or dealt a lot of direct damage).
I do appreciate how a lot of debuffs have gained that "teamwork aspect" you get from chipping away at an enemy until they die, which Mathmuse is describing. Fear, for example; unless the enemy critically fails, they aren't going to be out of the fight, but they become squishier due to the -1/-2 which puts the PCs closer to winning.
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One of the biggest aspects, I think, that made Spellcasters was the battlefield control abilities. Ever since I've started digging deeper into Pathfinder, I've noticed how just by perceiving things different you can see how powerful some things are when they don't seem like it, just because they didn't have numbers attached to them.
For example: Imagine a cleric that managed to heal 30+ HP in a AOE per target at lower levels, that would be OP, right? Well, it certainly would. But imagine that you're fighting against a lot of monsters that are in an advantageous position against your party, so they will charge in and start dealing damage... And then suddenly your caster acts first or manages to act on the surprise round and he decides to use Sleet Storm or Stone Call.
What would've been a situation where most monsters would be able to take charge and engage first, now becomes an extra round where your teammates have the engage initiative. You just prevented the possibility of a s&@& ton of damage from your party without engaging with saving throws or numbers, you just interrupted their charge with difficult terrain.
You could replicate this effect with most wall spells by basically cutting off an enemy for a few rounds (if they even could get hid of the wall in the first place). You would cast haste and suddenly every attack your teammates made would make them look cool, but in truth that damage could easily be tallied for your caster.
This goes to get even crazier at higher levels with reality shattering spells. But it certainly didn't look that strong because you were no Barbarian dealing 50+ damage at every attack or a fighter never missing.
Of course, this is basically common knowledge for every player/GM that know why Spellcasters were so powerful in PF1e, but most of my friends never stopped to think about it at all and I suspect most players never did (I had one friend that also plays a lot of sorcerers get mad because I never threw a fireball or dealt a lot of direct damage).
As someone GMing age of ashes, those spells are still OP. Wall of Stone and Resilient Sphere have turned so many encounters from hard into trivial...
The thing is that difficult terrain is way less prevalent now and you can still Sudden Charge through it and in fact, you move a lot more now, so the impact is lessened. But yeah, Wall Spells are still pretty good, even if they're still easier to by pass than before either through damage or simply having the right Skill Feats (specially later on when characters start to become Masters).
Eh spellcasters still have plenty of flat encounter changing abilitiss. They just have less of them before to circumvent things that normally have numbers or creatures have ways to circumvent with numbers more easily.
Spellcasters absolutely do engage more with numbers than they used to, but not everything interacts with a number modifying condition.
The fogs, mists and clouds for instance all have flat effects attached for instance.
Dimension door, still warps reality.
Freedom of movement, fly, invisibility, globe of invuln, various illusions, shape stone and onwards.
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I think a subtle but important part of GMing now is to call out when another player's "number" made the difference. For example, Bob casts Fear at the monster and because of that Lisa's next strike is a critical hit instead of a regular hit. The GM mentions that and Bob feels good because his number made a difference.
It's funny sometimes... some of my players (and I know I would) relish other players being dependent on them to do better and shine brighter. I've seen some of my (10-12 year old) players offer each other out-of-game favors in order to get healed, or threaten to withhold buffing for silly interpersonal reasons. I call it out when I see it, but I know there's something to satisfying to them when people are desperately asking them for help! :)
It's funny sometimes... some of my players (and I know I would) relish other players being dependent on them to do better and shine brighter. I've seen some of my (10-12 year old) players offer each other out-of-game favors in order to get healed, or threaten to withhold buffing for silly interpersonal reasons. I call it out when I see it, but I know there's something to satisfying to them when people are desperately asking them for help! :)
Helping teammates do better is teamwork. Asking for favors (as in-game roleplaying or out-of-game dealing) is less smooth than automatic teamwork.
I like watching my players use teamwork. I remember one session in my Iron Gods campaign where the party faced a series of robots. These robots had Hardness 10 that absorbed 10 weapon and energy damage from every hit. The magus decided to go nova, using spellstrike every turn and using his arcane pool to make his rapier keen for more critical hits, to minimize the effect of the hardness. He used mirror image for protection, and the rest of the team supported him by guarding his flanks and making additional attacks.
When the magus was down to one mirror image and the last robot by luck damaged him down to one quarter his full hit points, he announced that he was retreating. The bloodrager stepped between him and the last robot, the fighter took over as the primary damage dealer, the skald cast a healing spell on him, and the magus himself renewed his mirror images. That was teamwork. The magus put himself at risk because he knew that the team would protect him at a moment's notice.
So anecdotally, to support the OP’s point.
A recent encounter was against a necromancer and a handful of skeletal champions. Party has a few spellcasters and a few martials.
Right out of the gate the skeletons jam up the party. The Barbarian slips through the skeletons and promptly gets Sickened by the necromancer and is essentially sidelined for 2 rounds. The Rogue is next to break through, gets a decent stab in on the necromancer and is then Paralyzed, out of the fight for a couple rounds. Barbarian finally gets rid of sickened so the necromancer re-sickens him.
All this while the spellcasters have their hands full with the skeletons. Spells have neutered the 2 big damage dealers. Yay spells!
But now the Necromancer is low on debuffs, so they cast a defensive spell and get working with their weapon. They are still pretty dangerous with a dagger.
But the skeleton line finally crumbles, and the Rogue is no longer paralyzed. The defensive spell drops off of the necromancer. They are in a tight spot but so far they have owned the fight, and with another couple good hits the rogue will go down, so no need to do anything other than stand and deliver, right?
Well... free from distraction, the PC spellcasters start in on the Necromancer. The Necromancer is soon crushed under several debuffs, can’t really fight, can’t really run, tries running anyways, gets blocked by the druid (not a strong one mind you...), tripped, and finally surrenders.
It was the spell casting that dominated the fight the whole way through. First the NPC’s, though of course their stats were higher due to being an NPC and a boss. But in the end, by layering in a handful of key debuffs, primarily through spells, a still-dangerous enemy was brought low.
And all of those spells were of the “reduce a number by just a little bit” variety.
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The thing is that difficult terrain is way less prevalent now and you can still Sudden Charge through it and in fact, you move a lot more now, so the impact is lessened. But yeah, Wall Spells are still pretty good, even if they're still easier to by pass than before either through damage or simply having the right Skill Feats (specially later on when characters start to become Masters).
If you box someone in with a wall, their only options are to teleport out, burrow or attack it. Hardness 14 and 50HP on Wall of Stone is actually extremely difficult for most level 9-10 monsters to take down (A level 13 monster took 4 hits to destroy it). On top of that, the health is for each 5x5 section so large creatures have to destroy 4 sections before they can move out... all the while ranged characters can just poke them inside be box.
If you box someone in with a wall, their only options are to teleport out, burrow or attack it. Hardness 14 and 50HP on Wall of Stone is actually extremely difficult for most level 9-10 monsters to take down (A level 13 monster took 4 hits to destroy it). On top of that, the health is for each 5x5 section so large creatures have to destroy 4 sections before they can move out... all the while ranged characters can just poke them inside be box.The thing is that difficult terrain is way less prevalent now and you can still Sudden Charge through it and in fact, you move a lot more now, so the impact is lessened. But yeah, Wall Spells are still pretty good, even if they're still easier to by pass than before either through damage or simply having the right Skill Feats (specially later on when characters start to become Masters).
Yeah, but such an use is certainly GM dependent. Mine, for example, will definitely grant a Reflex Save if I'm trying to use it like a single target removal spell.
Don't know if I'm as crazy about it as everyone else in this thread. If teamwork is everything then independence and self reliance are impossible, and you're just a part of the machine.It's funny sometimes... some of my players (and I know I would) relish other players being dependent on them to do better and shine brighter. I've seen some of my (10-12 year old) players offer each other out-of-game favors in order to get healed, or threaten to withhold buffing for silly interpersonal reasons. I call it out when I see it, but I know there's something to satisfying to them when people are desperately asking them for help! :)Helping teammates do better is teamwork. Asking for favors (as in-game roleplaying or out-of-game dealing) is less smooth than automatic teamwork.
My view is that teamwork isn’t everything, but it certainly powerful. A party of 4 beefcake fighters will probably do OK in most situations, especially if they coordinate well during character creation and during level up so they can cover all the skill bases. But, they will hit often and hit hard, and at the end of the day, reducing hit points ends fights no matter how you go about that.
But I also think that 3 fighters and a spellcaster would do better overall. Or at least, they would have an easier time.
Don't know if I'm as crazy about it as everyone else in this thread. If teamwork is everything then independence and self reliance are impossible, and you're just a part of the machine.It's funny sometimes... some of my players (and I know I would) relish other players being dependent on them to do better and shine brighter. I've seen some of my (10-12 year old) players offer each other out-of-game favors in order to get healed, or threaten to withhold buffing for silly interpersonal reasons. I call it out when I see it, but I know there's something to satisfying to them when people are desperately asking them for help! :)Helping teammates do better is teamwork. Asking for favors (as in-game roleplaying or out-of-game dealing) is less smooth than automatic teamwork.
It has been the case since first edition. Fighter, Cleric, Rogue and Wizard is kind of the basic party.
It has been the case since first edition. Fighter, Cleric, Rogue and Wizard is kind of the basic party.
Feels like its become Fighter, Cleric, Rogue and Bard now