I've been thinking about using PF1 in an OSR way. And that led me to wonder: what happens to the martial-caster disparity if metamagic rods just don't exist? What if you can't find them, can't buy them, can't make them?
All it would do is encourage spellcasters to find ways to get those metamagic effects in other ways, at the very worst they'd have to take the feat they want and try to get a trait that reduces the effective level change. You'd likely end up with more incentive to play Sorcerers as they have some interesting bloodline abilities to work metamagic.
Likewise, spellcasters would likely opt to purchase scrolls that have been made by spellcasters with the metamagic feats already, and then use those.
I've been thinking about using PF1 in an OSR way. And that led me to wonder: what happens to the martial-caster disparity if metamagic rods just don't exist? What if you can't find them, can't buy them, can't make them?
It's still not enough to remove the caster martial disparity, if that's your goal. The general problem of martial characters (in PF1) is they are typically limited to physics and reality, which just makes them weaker in ways that aren't outright easy to express. Like martials are often a bigger direct threat in combat. But the wizard can simply get his whole party to not even be physical there to fight, if they need to escape. The wizard can make his own personal demiplane. Magic itself (in PF1) is broken and leads to the disparity.
Likewise, spellcasters would likely opt to purchase scrolls that have been made by spellcasters with the metamagic feats already, and then use those.
I assume that for all intents are purposes metamagic simply doesn't exist in the OP's idea. There's no items that exist that include them.
IMO it would be a slight downgrade to casters. I would think the difference between an experienced vs inexperienced casters player would be bigger.
IMO, banning metamagic rods would just push experienced players more toward the arcanist (and exploiter wizard leaving unprepared spell slots) class for the Metamixing exploit.
The caster-martial disparity is such that metamagic rods don't really move the needle that much.
The biggest issue that causes the caster-martial disparity is that, with the proper spells (and possibly some multiclass/prestige class levels), a caster can do everything a martial does and still have other spells to act as a caster.
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A bit of a tangent, but even with a high degree of system mastery tastes, play-style, and even mood influence the choice of character concept and class for a given adventure/campaign.
Yes, casters are "optimal" in PF1. However, optimization is not the be-all and end-all of RPGs.
I'm honestly less worried about optimization and such, and more about making sure that the players feel like their PCs meaningfully contribute--which can mean different things to different players, but gimp a PC enough, and it becomes clear.
In some cases, this could backfire and make spell casters more efficient. Meta-magic rods are expensive and can only be used a limited number of times per day. If the rods are not available, the spell casters will be able to use the gold they would have invested in rods for other items. Instead of rods the spell caster will have access to more rods, wands and things like pearls of power or pages of spell knowledge. Even consumables like scrolls and wands will become more common.
So we play the AP's, with 4 party members, and we really haven't seen a huge advantage that casters have over martials - if anything it's just the opposite. Archers, gunslingers, and fighters, can quite often have the majority of situations dealt with before it's even the spell casters turn.
the only caveat I will grant, is that it's way to easy to have a huge over abundance of healing available to a party, which makes many encounters way less of a threat.
Which raises the question of why everyone doesn’t universally choose a full caster who can also martial. The disparity between classes also coincides with degrees of system mastery.
I mean, it is pretty challenging to make a full caster that can use weapons as well as a martial and keep that up for a full adventuring day.
While casters can imitate it on a limited basis, they usually lack the feats and other supporting bits to be on par with dedicated martials at doing martial things.
But they can do like 80% of what a martial does for a limited time.
I suppose the reason why I don't ever do that is because the Inquisitor exists.