The main focus of these books was to give martial-heavy classes, like Fighter, Rogue, Cavalier, etc. more options and give them more interesting tools, and I both appreciate and approve of this. However, has anyone found these expanded options become unbalanced when utilized by Gish characters, like Magus or Occultist?
Not really, no. I find that it is perfectly in the spirit of things, honestly. Stuff designed to make combatants better at combat just doing its job. Of course magic makes it more powerful when compared to no magic.
Gish characters were never balanced against martials without magic.
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*passes out protest signs*
*pulls out a bullhorn and starts a riot*
"WHAT DO WE WANT?"
"VIABLE MARTIALS!"
"WHAT DO WE WANT?"
"VIABLE GISHES!"
"WHAT DO WE WANT?"
"VIABLE MARTIALS!"
"WHAT DO WE WANT?"
"VIABLE GISHES!"
"WHEN DO WE WANT IT?"
"NOW!"
"WHO OPPRESSES US?"
"THE DEVELOPMENT TEAM'S POORLY WRITTEN RULES FOR MARTIALS TO KEEP US ON PAR WITH 9/9 CASTERS AND RATHER THAN FIXING 1E THEY MADE 2E AND LEFT US WITH A PILE OF POOP AND NO FUTURE FAQ/ERRATA"
"WHO WILL SAVE US?"
"3RD PARTY PUBLISHERS!"
I was considering just adding +1 to any BAB prerequisites for classes who cast 6th-level spells of higher. My goal is to keep these options as strong as they are for their intended recipients, but not outright ban them from Gishes, while also making them ultimately more valuable for martials.
Would this +1 have the intended result? Would it be too much (remove them as viable options for Gishes)? Would it be not enough? Is this a fool’s errand?
Do you have specific examples of what you think is unbalanced?
I think you should just let people have nice things, personally.
Do you have specific examples of what you think is unbalanced?
I think you should just let people have nice things, personally.
Having nice things is great, until every encounter becomes trivialized because PCs have been min-maxed to the point of no return. I don’t want to ban this stuff, but I am cautious of Gishes getting the same tools for the same price that martials were given to remain relevant next to said Gishes.
Remain relevant in which way? Damage? Mobility? Utility?
I mean, see what happens to magic users in an endurance megadungeon... or any other time they have exhausted the majority of their magics. Throw more encounters at them until the gish is out of tricks and martial just keeps swinging away like it ain't no thing.
I don't know the scenario that prompted the post, so I am just going off of my experience and what I have heard from others... mainly on these boards.
There are countless non-magical martial builds that can smash face with the best of them. The magic users usually shine in literally all the other areas, like buffing/debuffing, utility, survival, crafting, and everything else other than smashing face. Sure, they can do that, too, but they can do MORE THAN THAT... and that, right there, is where the non-magical martials fall out of favor.
has anyone found these expanded options become unbalanced when utilized by Gish characters, like Magus or Occultist?
Nope. What options are you talking about?
Having nice things is great, until every encounter becomes trivialized because PCs have been min-maxed to the point of no return. I don’t want to ban this stuff, but I am cautious of Gishes getting the same tools for the same price that martials were given to remain relevant next to said Gishes.Do you have specific examples of what you think is unbalanced?
I think you should just let people have nice things, personally.
it's the min/maxing that is the problem, not the available rulesets. Talk to your players about min/maxing less. or learn to give them encounters that don't play to their strengths.
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Do you gish characters ever have a problem hitting where the non-magical martials do not?
Generally, the full BAB characters have a surplus of to hit accuracy, and most 6/9 casting gish characters end up being 3/4 BAB. Having high defense encounters forces the gishes to spend resources on making up that lack of accuracy instead of stacking on extra damages. Or, if they do not up with accuracy, a miss means they potentially waste whatever precious spell they were going to dedicate to extra damage.
Doesn't always work that way... but every time you can make a gish waste a spell from a miss or Spell Resistance or high saves or Evasion or concealment/miss chance or whatever it may be, it is a much bigger deal to them than a miss for a non-magical martial... generally.
For starters, if you want Advanced Weapon Training or Advanced Armor Training as a Magus, you have to make one of the following suboptimal choices:
- •Myrmidarch Magus archetype (the best of these choices);
•Armored Battlemage Magus archetype (which is just terrible, and only gets you Advanced Armor Training);
•Magus with VMC Fighter (actually not bad if you are going WAY UP in levels and not doing anything terrible feat-intensive, but takes forever to get going).
The armor master's handbook is better for patching defences than for trivialising encounters. As you might expect. Full, 9-level spellcasters can still have better defences IME.
There are a couple of broken things in the weapon master's handbook. The Molthuni Arsenal warpriest, possibly the warrior spirit advanced weapon training (but besides being hard to get on a 6-level spellcaster it eats up their valuable buffing time), maybe ascetic form with a few weird unarmed abilities. I'm not seeing the reason to stamp on 6-level spellcasters taking options from this book in general.
For starters, if you want Advanced Weapon Training or Advanced Armor Training as a Magus, you have to make one of the following suboptimal choices:•Myrmidarch Magus archetype (the best of these choices);
•Armored Battlemage Magus archetype (which is just terrible, and only gets you Advanced Armor Training);
•Magus with VMC Fighter (actually not bad if you are going WAY UP in levels and not doing anything terrible feat-intensive, but takes forever to get going).
And most of the AWT options are worth less for a Magus, too. Armed Bravery doesn't work, Versatile Training uses BAB, Fighter's Finesse and Trained Grace are much worse than just using Dervish Dance, it takes until 15th level before Focused Weapon is useful with a 1d8 weapon, Warrior Spirit is much worse on a class that already has a weapon buff, standard action buffs (from spells), and versatility (dito). The options giving out feats (e.g. Item Mastery) are worthless since it costs a feat to get them (as only Fighters have the option to replace additional group selection with AWTs). The progression is also slower, meaning any option using that is worse already.
It looks similar for Molthuni Arsenal Chaplain (MAC), and any gish using VMC Fighter. Warrior Spirit, the by far strongest AWT, is only such an upgrade to the Fighter because the class doesn't have anything a limited use-ability, self-buff, or swiss-army-knife-option. Getting Bane on your weapon when a tough fight is imminent, or getting Training -> AWT feat -> Item Mastery -> Flight Mastery is awesome for a Fighter... less so on a class that can already do the same or similar with spells.
What else from the book could be problematic? Smash from the Air is awesome, but the prereqs are nasty (four feats, and 13th level for medium BAB chars). MAC can get it easier and earlier, but I have a hard time seeing that as nerf-worthy.
There are a couple of broken things in the weapon master's handbook. The Molthuni Arsenal warpriest, possibly the warrior spirit advanced weapon training (but besides being hard to get on a 6-level spellcaster it eats up their valuable buffing time), maybe ascetic form with a few weird unarmed abilities. I'm not seeing the reason to stamp on 6-level spellcasters taking options from this book in general.
MAC is an upgrade over vanilla Warpriest for most, but it's still one of the weaker 6/9 casters (mostly because of the spell list). Warrior Spirit is from a different book (Magic Tactics Toolbox), and while a huge upgrade to Fighter, only give the class something it should have had from the beginning. I've looked into unMonk build comparisons more than probably anyone else on the planet, and while Ascetic Style is the highest damage standard build path apart from VMC: Magus, the difference to a weapon based build path without it is very small, and the difference to unarmed build paths isn't too big, either.
None of it is something I'd call "broken".