Pathfinder--why the gap between casters and mundanes?

[13_CBS]

I can't say that I've played a full game of Pathfinder, though I have played a game of 3.P before. However, from what I've gathered, Pathfinder still seems to preserve the wide gap between casters (wizards, clerics, druids, sorcerers, psions, etc.) and mundanes (rogues, fighters, etc.)

Now, I do understand that whether or not Pathfinder has buffed or nerfed casters overall is a bit controversial on this board. The intent of this thread is not to discuss this. Regardless of whether casters were indeed strengthened or weakened, and regardless of whether mundanes were indeed strengthened or weakend, as far as I can tell there is still a very wide gulf between them.

I also understand that the idea of full casters tending to overshadow mundanes in mid-to-high-op games might also be controversial, but that's not the intent of this thread either.

The intent of this thread is to ask: IF it is true that casters were overshadowing mundanes in 3.5, and IF it is true that Pathfinder did not fix this, then WHY was it not fixed?

The idea that casters had far more tools to use in their toolboxes than their mundane party members seems to be one of the most widely-understood things on places like Giantitp, Minmax (and its previous iterations), even on WotC's own home boards. Yet, Pathfinder [apparently] did not completely fix this issue. From what I've gathered, it looks like Paizo seemed to agree with the idea only partially at most--certain extremely broken spells were fixed (or so I hear), but not all of them, and plenty more still cause trouble.

So what I'm wondering is--why wasn't it fixed?

My current hypotheses are...

1) Paizo did not believe there was such an issue. For whatever reason, they believed that all that was needed was a bit of tweaking for some spells--otherwise, casters are relatively balanced relative to mundanes.

2) Paizo agreed that, in theory, casters were overshadowing mundanes, but also believed that their target audience is not the type to play at a sufficient optimization level such that the caster-mundane gulf is much of an issue. If most of their target audience was playing non-optimized blaster wizards, healbot clerics, and sword & board fighters, then going through the titanic effort of fixing the caster-mundane balance problem would not have been worth it.

3) Paizo agreed that, in theory, casters were overshadowing mundanes, but misunderstood the problem at a fundamental level that they believed their current solutions to the problem to be sufficient.

Could anyone else shed some light on this? This phenomenon has always intrigued in game design, where players relatively quickly reveal fundamental balance problems and designers are very slow to fix them, if the problems are acknowledged at all.

[WhatBigTeeth]

The intent of this thread is to ask: IF it is true that casters were overshadowing mundanes in 3.5, and IF it is true that Pathfinder did not fix this, then WHY was it not fixed?
The point of Pathfinder was that it still essentially was 3e with some relatively minor tweaks and a retouched paint job. Turning the system on end to address its deep systemic faults would miss that point.

[Frosty]

Shouldn't you ask Paizo these questions?

[13_CBS]

Shouldn't you ask Paizo these questions?

I've been told that the people who asked such questions were often banned from their boards. :smallamused:

[137beth]

Paizo developers do not think casters overshadow mundanes.


The point of Pathfinder was that it still essentially was 3e with some relatively minor tweaks and a retouched paint job. Turning the system on end to address its deep systemic faults would miss that point.
Not really, there are lots of fixes for the common mundane classes in the homebrew forums which make them tier 3 without introducing any new subsystems at all, so there's no reason Paizo shouldn't have been able to do at least that much. Taking wizards or sorcerers down a few pegs would be a bit trickier (though possible, I mean, we have a tier 5 full caster, the healer...), but this may not be as much of an issue in-game as the best combat spells do not kill monsters, but rather make it easy for your party to kill them. What they could have done was give each casting class a more restrictive spell list.

Unfortunately, the main reason they are unlikely to fix it soon is that they do not believe casters are really more powerful.

[eggynack]

SKR's feat point system (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/featpointsystem.html) seems to have some relevance to this discussion. It seems pretty clear, just looking at it, that its creator has little understanding of D&D 3.5 balance. Leadership costs 8, natural spell costs 5, weapon specialization costs 10, and two weapon fighting costs frigging 11. I don't know the extent to which that understanding effected pathfinder's balancing, but it seems telling at the very least.

[Elderand]

Pathfinder is 3.5 with a paintjob, nothing new under the hood.

And it's not an accident, that's what they wanted as a product so that's what they got.

[Doorhandle]

I think it was a combination of 1 and 2. Pazio seems to be fairly bad at optimizing, or more likley not trying with many monsters, and may have misjudged the extent of the problem.

Also, part of the issue may be that the worst spells for this sort of thing are all high-level, and for the most part pazio seems to stop near level 13, ex: pathfinder society. That isn't to say there aren't low level spells that can cause issues.

[Metahuman1]

I think it was a combination of 1 and 2. Pazio seems to be fairly bad at optimizing, or more likley not trying with many monsters, and may have misjudged the extent of the problem.

Also, part of the issue may be that the worst spells for this sort of thing are all high-level, and for the most part pazio seems to stop near level 13, ex: pathfinder society. That isn't to say there aren't low level spells that can cause issues.

I've always though it was interesting that Pathfinder Sociaty sticks it's fingers in it's ears and goes "LALALAI'MNOTLISTENINGLALALA" on the problems in it's own system through GM fiat at lower levels, banning of higher levels and banning of crafting as a basic kiss off to the fact that they KNOW they took something broken and made it the best thing ever for every caster.

[Kudaku]

There are two ways to bring casters and mundanes on the same level.

Option one is to bring mundanes up the tiers - you'd probably need something like the Tome of Battle, a way for noncasters to emulate effects that casters use and/or create powerful effects not easily copied by a spell (Stealth/Invisibility, looking at you).

Option two is to bring casters down on the mundane level by heavily limiting their options. This could mean limiting spell slots, crucifying the spell list, and so on.

The common link between both of these is that they require a significant overhaul of the system:
1. you're no longer playing a wizard but something more similar to (for instance) the dread necromancer or the beguiler.
or
2. you're no longer playing a fighter but a 'warblade' (whatever the Paizo interpretation of the ToB would be).

Now, Paizo did make some changes and limitations when they reintroduced casters (the polymorph line of spells took a beating, druids actually need physical stats now), but they were either unable or unwilling to change enough parts of the game to really fix the class balance.

This could be in part because they wanted Pathfinder to be familiar to the 3.5 players who were looking for a new system but didn't want to try or was unhappy with D&D 4.0.

[Reverent-One]

The point of Pathfinder was that it still essentially was 3e with some relatively minor tweaks and a retouched paint job. Turning the system on end to address its deep systemic faults would miss that point.

This. Their focus was backwards compatibility and continuing what other people liked, not restructuring the game at the level needed to remove the gap between mundanes and casters.

[13_CBS]

Leadership costs 8, natural spell costs 5,

Okay, that's pretty interestin--



weapon specialization costs 10, and two weapon fighting costs frigging 11.

What?! Weapon Specialization costs twice as much as Natural Spell? But...why?


1. Something that gives you an extra attack better than an equivalent feat that doesn't.Two-Weapon Fighting is better than Weapon Focus because TWF gives you one more opportunity to use Weapon Focus (and Power Attack, and Weapon Specialization, and Cleave, and Improved Critical, and Improved Disarm...)

:smalleek:

But...improved critical and improved disarm aren't even that great in the first place and...

Oh god...

[eggynack]

Okay, that's pretty interestin--




What?! Weapon Specialization costs twice as much as Natural Spell? But...why?



:smalleek:

But...improved critical and improved disarm aren't even that great in the first place and...

Oh god...
Yeah... it's pretty horrific. You just keep reading it, and you find more and more horribly priced feats. I think those are some of the worst though. There's also stuff like skill focus at 10, lightning reflexes at 10, manyshot at 12, and... quicken spell at 5. It's just one horrible understanding of balance after another. They're not all incorrectly priced, but they are often enough to indicate a person who just doesn't know the first thing about balance. Also, improved trip is priced at 8, and as you mentioned, improved critical is at 10. He doesn't even understand balance within the different archetypes.

Edit: Crap. I just noticed that run and endurance are priced the same as natural spell, and toughness is priced one higher.

[The Glyphstone]

There's a reason SKR is....not looked upon favorably by pretty much anyone in the optimization, homebrewing, or theorycrafting community. I've heard second or third-hand that his interpersonal conduct on the Paizo forums leaves something to be desired as well, but can't confirm that.

[Marnath]

There's a reason SKR is....not looked upon favorably by pretty much anyone in the optimization, homebrewing, or theorycrafting community. I've heard second or third-hand that his interpersonal conduct on the Paizo forums leaves something to be desired as well, but can't confirm that.

I don't read their forums(in fact I don't even know where they are) but from looking at his site I can guess he's arrogant and not as clever as he thinks. The "Books I've written" page is very telling, in particular. I had to search carefully in some of the older ones to find the entry for his name amongst all the other people that made them.

[Sylthia]

The problem with truly balancing mundanes and casters is that it is hard to do without making martial classes feel like spellcasters, or nerfing casters so much to the point where they no longer have much room for customization.

I will not say one way or the other for myself, but 4th ed tried to balance all the classes and some claim that it changed the game so radically that it no longer felt like D&D.

[Salbazier]

Yeah... it's pretty horrific. You just keep reading it, and you find more and more horribly priced feats. I think those are some of the worst though. There's also stuff like skill focus at 10, lightning reflexes at 10, manyshot at 12, and... quicken spell at 5. It's just one horrible understanding of balance after another. They're not all incorrectly priced, but they are often enough to indicate a person who just doesn't know the first thing about balance. Also, improved trip is priced at 8, and as you mentioned, improved critical is at 10. He doesn't even understand balance within the different archetypes.

Edit: Crap. I just noticed that run and endurance are priced the same as natural spell, and toughness is priced one higher.

You know, overpricing weapon focus and such I can slightly understand. I too once like my '+x to attack/damage roll' stuffs. At least it was common misunderstanding. But skill focus, tougness, and quicken spell!? Even I got from very early on that the former two suck and the latter is gold. :smallsigh:

I didn't read the article for I have neither will nor guts for it. That sounds like worse than a trainwreck.

[eggynack]

You know, overpricing weapon focus and such I can slightly understand. I too once like my '+x to attack/damage roll' stuffs. At least it was common misunderstanding. But skill focus, tougness, and quicken spell!? Even I got from very early on that the former two suck and the latter is gold. :smallsigh:

I didn't read the article for I have neither will nor guts for it. That sounds like worse than a trainwreck.
It's not really a train wreck. It's just a train wreck. I suppose I should clarify. The idea, the base underlying principle of pricing feats at different levels based on their power level, is a good one. It's good enough that Sonofzeal wrote up a revised version hereabouts (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245177). Pathfinder is at no loss for good ideas, and I think that shows through in a lot of the things that they've done.

However, he doesn't really understand game balance at all. I've listed a lot of examples of horribly priced feats, and I could probably continue doing so for awhile. Like, I don't even think I've mentioned that skill focus is at 10, and the +2/+2 variants are at 9. Those aren't ridiculous in relation to each other, but when you set them next to leadership at 8, it just becomes crazy buns. Did I mention dodge at 7? Dodge is at 7. It exemplifies a lot of the issues that went into pathfinder remaining imbalanced despite years of study into what made 3.5 imbalanced. The system has some good ideas, of which I think that archetypes are some of the coolest, but this isn't the guy I want closing the gap between casters and mundanes. I don't even think he knows it's there, even after all this time. That's why I brought up the feat point system, because I see it as a microcosm of pathfinder's balance issues.

[137beth]

The problem with truly balancing mundanes and casters is that it is hard to do without making martial classes feel like spellcasters, or nerfing casters so much to the point where they no longer have much room for customization.

I will not say one way or the other for myself, but 4th ed tried to balance all the classes and some claim that it changed the game so radically that it no longer felt like D&D.

I would encourage you to look at some of the hombrewed martial classes on these forums. Many of them (I'm a fan of jiriku's, personally) retain the flavor of core classes, bump them up to tier 3, and don't have any silly "per-encounter" or "you can ready X moves at a time" effects attached. Casting classes can be brought down to tier 3 most easily by limiting their spell lists (something in between "gets every spell in the game", like a wizard, and "gets only a few bad spells", like a healer).
Now, that doesn't make it easy--WotC apparently had trouble designing tier 3 mundane classes (hence their "magic but not really and not called magic so we can pretend it is martial" stuff in ToB, or all of 4th edition, for that matter). But, as the homebrewers have shown, it is perfectly plausible to create tier 3 martial classes with nothing that remotely resembles a magic-esk/supernatural class.
I think part of the problem is that WotC's two primary attempts at "fixing" martial classes, ToB and 4th edition, both just ended up like alternate-magic systems with different fluff. As a result, people who limit themselves to official 1st party content see "no way" to make mundanes any good.

Now, just because we have great homebrew out there, that doesn't mean you should expect professional game designers like SKR to catch on. But it does mean I hear awful grinding sounds whenever people say that it is impossible to make mundane characters good without turning them into spellcasters:smallmad:
At the same time, though, making them tier 1-2 without plain stupid effects (you win automatically, always) is actually considerably more challenging. However, most people seem to prefer tier 3-4 ranges, so this is okay. From there, the issue is just that Paizo's designers have trouble understanding the weaknesses of tier 5 classes.

EDIT:
I don't even think he knows it's there, even after all this time.
He explicitly stated (can't find the quote right now...) that the alleged power gap between casters and noncasters is a myth spread by people with agendas.
That's right, everyone, there is some sort of evil political motive you are promoting by spending 10 seconds or more thinking about game balance! What possible sort of "agenda" could people have for trying to disrupt SKR's own sense of balance? Who knows! It is an evil conspiracy aimed to trick Paizo into nerfing the poor, underloved, underpowered wizards:smallbiggrin:

[eggynack]

He explicitly stated (can't find the quote right now...) that the alleged power gap between casters and noncasters is a myth spread by people with agendas.
That's right, everyone, there is some sort of evil political motive you are promoting by spending 10 seconds or more thinking about game balance! What possible sort of "agenda" could people have for trying to disrupt SKR's own sense of balance? Who knows! It is an evil conspiracy aimed to trick Paizo into nerfing the poor, underloved, underpowered wizards:smallbiggrin:
Yeah, I hear about that one a lot. I've never actually seen the quote in person, so I decided to obliquely reference the sentiment rather than mention when he explicitly stated what I implied was true. It's pretty hilarious that he thinks fighters and wizards have any kind of equality between them, and I'd love to see that quote if anyone can find it. I don't think I've ever really experienced the whole "SKR acting crazy" thing first hand, outside of the feat point system I posted.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Understand that quadratic wizards and linear warriors is not a bug its a feature.

Seriously you are telling reality to sit down and shut up.

This goes back well before 3.0, unless some ancient foggie wants to tell me how different it was in Chainmail days or something I'd imagine its at the begining. Many spells have not changed much, I remember dread Imprisonment in BG II and many a save scum before I got the right spells figured out to counter it.

Pathfinder is built as a compatible update to 3.5, it was never all that likely to resolve this and frankly wasn't trying. There's some obvious patches (wall of iron having no gold value) but all the basic things are the same. Why? Because that was the idea, there was no more 3.5 so they started their own to keep publishing new material in the same mold. Most of their books are setting pieces or adventures, not splatbooks detailing five new elf variations.

Pathfinder is mechanically less interested in making everybody equal then in making everybody fun to play. They aren't entirely uninterested (polymorph was fixed, etc) but the broad structure is still there. Casters still get a bigger more open box of tools to choose from, thus have more options, thus played to win tend to end up higher in power.

Of course changing that and it wouldn't look like D&D anymore, Wizards tried it and ended up with 4E. You like 4E good for you, but its just not the same game anymore whether its good/bad or just different.

More to gameplay then simple perfect balance anyways. Yeah it sounds nice for everybody to be equally effective, but that makes no sense given the range of potential threats an adventurer can face.


I've been told that the people who asked such questions were often banned from their boards. :smallamused:

Having been there I would say it would have been for cause not some jackboot thugs in groupthink.

Or its changed since.

[eggynack]

Understand that quadratic wizards and linear warriors is not a bug its a feature.

I don't think you really understand what linear warriors quadratic wizards really means. It's a pretty awful method of constructing a game, because it just means that different players are bored at different levels instead of everyone having a consistently good time. Leaving that aside, neither 3.5 nor pathfinder truly follows the dogma of linear warriors quadratic wizards, though I suspect that they're trying to. In order to create a balance of that variety, you need one class to be highly powerful at level one, and another class weak at level one, and then the initially powerful class scales much slower than the initially weak class. In these systems, this is utterly untrue.

Wizards, if they are ever weaker than fighters, scale far too quickly to fit into this framework. Some claim that they pass the fighter at level 5 or so, while others contend that it happens right at the start of the game. This is even more true in the case of druids. There is actually no level at which a fighter surpasses a druid in 3.5. At the very instant of character creation, the druid is already significantly more powerful than the fighter, and it just gets worse and worse as time goes on.

Finally, the idea that getting rid of the imbalance in the game would make it incredibly samey is patently untrue. Just look at the tier system, and lop off everything above and below tier 3. Just in that one tier, you have somewhere around 6 completely different systems acting in balance. Let's do a quick count off. You have casting, in the form of beguilers, the ToB system, in the form of all of those classes, psionics in the form of psychic warriors, The system used by binders, and factotums, which are both rather different than everything else in that tier, whatever you qualify the wildshape ranger as, which also has a different mechanical system from everything else there, and the incarnum system, in the form of totemists and incarnates. You can create a game with many radically different mechanics, and have them all be balanced with each other, and not sacrifice much variety in the process. You could remove power from wizards, and still have wizards, and you could add power to fighters, and still have fighters. It's hard, but it's possible, and any other contention is mistaken.

[ArcturusV]

I suppose this comes down to the age old concepts that have existed in DnD for a long time. Pathfinder just didn't really think to consciously change it. And I do think it would require a conscious change of the very concept, not just an attempt at balance but going back to the foundation.

This concept can be summed up in:

"What can magic do? Well... anything. It's magic."

and

"What can non-magical people do? Well... umm... stuff we deem moderately realistic. It's not magic. They're bound to the rules of reality as we think of them."

As long that concept remains, the gulf remains no matter how you try to balance it. 4th closed it, mostly because they shifted the concept from "Well... anything. It's magic" to "It's just another, different way to accomplish the same thing" mechanically. So the gap closes.

But yeah. It's all down to that "Well magic isn't REAL, so it shouldn't be bound by Reality" and "Well... swordfighters/thieves/martial artists ARE real, so they should be bound to Reality."

[Spuddles]

SKR's feat point system (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/featpointsystem.html) seems to have some relevance to this discussion. It seems pretty clear, just looking at it, that its creator has little understanding of D&D 3.5 balance. Leadership costs 8, natural spell costs 5, weapon specialization costs 10, and two weapon fighting costs frigging 11. I don't know the extent to which that understanding effected pathfinder's balancing, but it seems telling at the very least.

SKR... Pelor, what a joke. Not that I'm any good at game design, but at least I have the sense to know that. I think he is one of those people who plays a particular way, and if you don't play the game like him, then you're doing it wrong. Which is a bummer because his rules don't suggest that fireball is better than stinkinh cloud, but he seems to be a fireball and TWF is totally awesome so let's make ot bad sort of dude.


I've always though it was interesting that Pathfinder Sociaty sticks it's fingers in it's ears and goes "LALALAI'MNOTLISTENINGLALALA" on the problems in it's own system through GM fiat at lower levels, banning of higher levels and banning of crafting as a basic kiss off to the fact that they KNOW they took something broken and made it the best thing ever for every caster.

It's ridiculous that PF was all "we're fixing 3.5", then doesnt fix it to the extent that post-level 12 is banned because, well, it's ridiculously broken. Broken not just in a gamist sense, but simulationism breaks down when you basically get to play the Avengers in pseudo-medieval pseudo-earth.


Okay, that's pretty interestin--




What?! Weapon Specialization costs twice as much as Natural Spell? But...why?



:smalleek:

But...improved critical and improved disarm aren't even that great in the first place and...

Oh god...

You should find SKR's PF TWF&flurry monk errata. He had a little freak out on the Paizo boards.


There's a reason SKR is....not looked upon favorably by pretty much anyone in the optimization, homebrewing, or theorycrafting community. I've heard second or third-hand that his interpersonal conduct on the Paizo forums leaves something to be desired as well, but can't confirm that.

I have never interacted with the guy, but the way he got bent out of shape over flurry of blows and twf was ridiculous. He basically said monks couldnt do both because it didn't make any sense. Something along the lines of "they only have two arms!!" When it was pointed out monks can RAW use headbutt, that a kung fu master should be able to beat the crap out of someone, and the penalties from twf made it not so bad, he on the spot issued errata so he didnt lose the argument.

Another paizo developer then showed up in the thread and was basically like "SKR is the boss and this is official errata now but I kinda wish it didnt go down this way".

I found all this with google, so it's probably still out there. The whole debacle left a bad taste in my mouth regarding SKR.


Understand that quadratic wizards and linear warriors is not a bug its a feature.

Seriously you are telling reality to sit down and shut up.

This goes back well before 3.0, unless some ancient foggie wants to tell me how different it was in Chainmail days or something I'd imagine its at the begining. Many spells have not changed much, I remember dread Imprisonment in BG II and many a save scum before I got the right spells figured out to counter it.

Pathfinder is built as a compatible update to 3.5, it was never all that likely to resolve this and frankly wasn't trying. There's some obvious patches (wall of iron having no gold value) but all the basic things are the same. Why? Because that was the idea, there was no more 3.5 so they started their own to keep publishing new material in the same mold. Most of their books are setting pieces or adventures, not splatbooks detailing five new elf variations.

Pathfinder is mechanically less interested in making everybody equal then in making everybody fun to play. They aren't entirely uninterested (polymorph was fixed, etc) but the broad structure is still there. Casters still get a bigger more open box of tools to choose from, thus have more options, thus played to win tend to end up higher in power.

Of course changing that and it wouldn't look like D&D anymore, Wizards tried it and ended up with 4E. You like 4E good for you, but its just not the same game anymore whether its good/bad or just different.

More to gameplay then simple perfect balance anyways. Yeah it sounds nice for everybody to be equally effective, but that makes no sense given the range of potential threats an adventurer can face.



Having been there I would say it would have been for cause not some jackboot thugs in groupthink.

Or its changed since.

I think this is more or less it. Mundanes arent allowed to do cool stuff because they are mundane. Magic is magic. That's why a level 3 wizard gets to be stealthier than a level 3 rogue. It's "balanced", mechanically, on the fact that a level 3 wizard only gets to out sneak the rogue for ten or so minutes a day.

It really grinds my gears when someone is like "you could never do that in real life; take a -20 penalty and you need two useless feats." Bro, I am a level 10 barbarian; I'm a super hero. You didn't complain about Iron Man "hacking DNA" and the hulk and every other retarded superhero breaking every law of thermodynamics with absolutely no explanation.

I think it has to do with the nerd communities obsession with swords. Some of them know some things about swords, so they want the swords to match what they know about swords. But no one knows anything about magic, so hey, whatever, here's a spell that wins you everything forever. I guess we'll make it fair by saying you can only cast it a limited number of times.

Paizo also flat out doesn't like optimizers. They're **** is written so poorly that it's basically, "hey if this could be abusive and you abuse it, you have a bad DM." I feel that there is a real over reliance of rule 0 in their material.

[edit]
on my phone. I apologize for my grammar, diction, and syntax. Editing is too difficult to fix it. :(

[peacenlove]

I can't say that I've played a full game of Pathfinder, though I have played a game of 3.P before. However, from what I've gathered, Pathfinder still seems to preserve the wide gap between casters (wizards, clerics, druids, sorcerers, psions, etc.) and mundanes (rogues, fighters, etc.)

Now, I do understand that whether or not Pathfinder has buffed or nerfed casters overall is a bit controversial on this board. The intent of this thread is not to discuss this. Regardless of whether casters were indeed strengthened or weakened, and regardless of whether mundanes were indeed strengthened or weakend, as far as I can tell there is still a very wide gulf between them.

I also understand that the idea of full casters tending to overshadow mundanes in mid-to-high-op games might also be controversial, but that's not the intent of this thread either.

The intent of this thread is to ask: IF it is true that casters were overshadowing mundanes in 3.5, and IF it is true that Pathfinder did not fix this, then WHY was it not fixed?


In my humble opinion, the game has evolved but the designers didn't.
In 2nd edition the wizard had just enough spell slots to make the fight easier allowing the fighter (who could dish out reliable damage and soak up just as much) to finish it. Cleric was party buffer / negative condition removal kit.
PF designers still think that after 13+ years, the game will still be the same. Wizards will use the spells to aid in, not dominate battles, and out of combat scenarios will be resolved with "roleplaying" (despite every adventure asking for knowledge, sense motive and a staggering amount of every other skill. Once or twice per adventure most commonly so a cleric with 2 spell slots giving him +5 to the skill will be more useful than the party face).
They still worship the "balanced" formation (fighter, cleric, rogue, wizard) of the party, despite 3.5 edition dishing this concept altogether in the middle of its lifetime (DMG2 has suggestions when the party deviates from this "holy formation") and despite the fact that a rogue deals LESS damage than a fighter, and less reliably too.
PF is new material of course but in many ways a step behind, sometimes reinventing the wheel (wordcasting - abandoned) and sometimes not even bothering to do so (disinterest over ToB, psionics and just about every other alternate magic system)
Another angle would be that as a free product (pfsrd) and continuation of 3.5 edition, it has a positive reaction, leading to the misleading conclusion that everything is okay with the product.

[Killer Angel]

But yeah. It's all down to that "Well magic isn't REAL, so it shouldn't be bound by Reality" and "Well... swordfighters/thieves/martial artists ARE real, so they should be bound to Reality."

...and when you try to give meleers, something with some magical flavor (ToB?), you'll have flame wars about wuxia and so on...

[Spuddles]

D&D is also incredibly modular and tries to be everything for everyone, from hogwarts to beowulf, call of cthulhu to bram stoker's dracula.

A coherent, elegant, balanced system is kind of impossible, I think, when you want to cover as many genres and game types.

Rules oddities do lead to some strange in game behavior, like low level wizards with tower shields and magebred riding dogs.

But there is enough stuff for dnd that with attentive players and dm, you can literally play anything, including concepts that arise out of rules intersections themselves, like flask rogues (RIP) or intelligent sandwiches.

[Elderand]

Understand that quadratic wizards and linear warriors is not a bug its a feature.

Seriously you are telling reality to sit down and shut up.

This goes back well before 3.0, unless some ancient foggie wants to tell me how different it was in Chainmail days or something I'd imagine its at the begining. Many spells have not changed much, I remember dread Imprisonment in BG II and many a save scum before I got the right spells figured out to counter it.

Actually if you go back far enough you realise that the designer knew the wizard was much more powerful than the fighter. They didn't try to balance it by making the spell less powerful or the fighter better, that's a modern approach. But they did balance it. How ? Fighter could use more magic items and more importantly wizard needed far more XP than anything else to level up. So they were easily 1 or 2 level behind.

[Miranius]

Pathfinder, as well as D&D 3.5, are "high fantasy", meaning that magic and mythological creatures are way up and above what vanilla mortals can do. That`s simply the idea behind the genre.

In essence: "Fighters make holes in things, mages alter reality." If you want to change that, you might want to look for more realistic "low fantasy" settings or low magic campaigns with restricted class choices (or have a great DM that shapes things so the non-casters can shine just as much).

[stack]

A good example of a system where there is balance between casters and everyone else is Legend. (www.ruleofcool.com) After the lowest levels everyone can do cool impossible stuff. Of course, it was written by people who understand what was wrong with 3.5. (I understand it originally evolved from the test of spite on this very board)

[Elderand]

A good example of a system where there is balance between casters and everyone else is Legend. (www.ruleofcool.com) After the lowest levels everyone can do cool impossible stuff. Of course, it was written by people who understand what was wrong with 3.5. (I understand it originally evolved from the test of spite on this very board)

It's important to note that legend did achieve balance by utterly expunging some concepts. At best you get 42 spells, ever. Want to play a character who has plenty of spells but need to think ahead and plan for a situation (IE a wizard in term of flavor) better look elsewhere, all legend has is the equivalent of sorcerers. You can call yourself a wizard but you're not going to look like a dnd wizard.

[Sarone]

Understand that quadratic wizards and linear warriors is not a bug its a feature.

Seriously you are telling reality to sit down and shut up.

This goes back well before 3.0, unless some ancient foggie wants to tell me how different it was in Chainmail days or something I'd imagine its at the begining. Many spells have not changed much, I remember dread Imprisonment in BG II and many a save scum before I got the right spells figured out to counter it.


That is accurate, at least to me. Unless there is a secondary source (scrolls, wands, magic items, etc.), Spells are a finite source versus a "warriors" (ie. Rogue, Fighters, and etc.) feats and abilities.

Best example I think of is Anti-Magic Shell (or other abilities that takes magic out of the picture): Against a caster, most if not all of his "abilities" are negated, leaving him with few combat options and barely much more in the defense options (if any, since wizards don't get martial and armor proficiencies) while clerics face a serious drawback (though not completely negated). A martial class, like fighter, rogue, or barbarian, might miss that magic weapon or armor but can still put the four feet, 20 pounds of steel (or other weapon of choice) into into or through an opponent.

In addition, it depends on the DM/GM: One might have it where Casters are the gods that some people think they are, while another might have it where the caster is not to be trusted since the "magic" is barely understood.

At least, that's my assessment.

[Philistine]

@OP: There are/were a number of problems that contributed to the situation. One is that Paizo seems to understand game design even less than WotC did when they were first bringing 3.0 to book via wholesale copy-pastaing in material from prior editions with no consideration of how the old material would interact with the new rules (and with woefully inadequate playtesting). Pathfinder mostly just carried that legacy material forward.

Added to that, Paizo (at least, to whatever extent SKR speaks for them) seem to be positively inimical to the very idea of "balance." My takeaway impression from the aforementioned Flurry vs TWF discussion was that as far as he's concerned, if you're the kind of player who is concerned with game balance, then you're a Bad Player and he doesn't want you playing his game anyway. (I don't recall if he actually said that in so many words - ISTR that he did, but posting from the phone makes verifying that less convenient.)

The whole Mages Uber Alles thing, OTOH, seems not to have played a part in it. That whole attitude seems to be primaily an artifact of 3E, in which WotC basically removed every limitation, drawback, inconvenience, and/or vulnerability from the use of magic - in each case, not because "magic should have no limits" but because "this makes playing a spellcaster less fun." The "magic means telling Reality to sit down and shut up" thing was an accident rather than a deliberate design goal - in other words, a bug. Look at the source material! Howard, Lieber, Tolkien… You just don't see a lot of nigh-omnipotent mages running around as viewpoint (read: player) characters in the literature - not until you get stories that were themselves inspired by D&D (including but not limited to D&D tie-in novels). If a setting has magic on par with what a 3E Wizard can do at all, that power tends to be reserved for the villains (or the gods).

[Eldan]

That is accurate, at least to me. Unless there is a secondary source (scrolls, wands, magic items, etc.), Spells are a finite source versus a "warriors" (ie. Rogue, Fighters, and etc.) feats and abilities.

Best example I think of is Anti-Magic Shell (or other abilities that takes magic out of the picture): Against a caster, most if not all of his "abilities" are negated, leaving him with few combat options and barely much more in the defense options (if any, since wizards don't get martial and armor proficiencies) while clerics face a serious drawback (though not completely negated). A martial class, like fighter, rogue, or barbarian, might miss that magic weapon or armor but can still put the four feet, 20 pounds of steel (or other weapon of choice) into into or through an opponent.

In addition, it depends on the DM/GM: One might have it where Casters are the gods that some people think they are, while another might have it where the caster is not to be trusted since the "magic" is barely understood.

At least, that's my assessment.

Sadly, that's not how it works anymore in third edition.

First of all, Antimagic fields are small and easy to avoid: they have to be centered on the one casting them. That means the only person who have to enter it are those who have to get into melee range with the one casting it.

Second, wizards have, in third edition, plenty of spells that are not affected by antimagic fields. Anything that does not require spell resistance. Since in an antimagic field, a lot of the common defenses against casters also stop to work, you might actually be easier to kill after you cast it.

Third, fighters need their equipment much more than wizards. A wizard without equipment can still cast spells. But at higher levels, a fighter without equipment can do, well, basically nothing.

[Sarone]

Sadly, that's not how it works anymore in third edition.

First of all, Antimagic fields are small and easy to avoid: they have to be centered on the one casting them. That means the only person who have to enter it are those who have to get into melee range with the one casting it.

Second, wizards have, in third edition, plenty of spells that are not affected by antimagic fields. Anything that does not require spell resistance. Since in an antimagic field, a lot of the common defenses against casters also stop to work, you might actually be easier to kill after you cast it.

Third, fighters need their equipment much more than wizards. A wizard without equipment can still cast spells. But at higher levels, a fighter without equipment can do, well, basically nothing.

So that means a dragon with access to Antimagic shell/field (or anything that will take Magic out of the picture or at least negates some of its effects ) wouldn't dare attack a wizard in melee combat?

Also, would it be worth the research to find an "antimagic field" that would negate/allow* other kinds of magic as well (deny or allow the following: arcane, divine, (blank) school, etc.)?

Yes, they might be small and easy to avoid, but that's where placing, planning, and tricking your opponent comes into play (also calls for being prepared). Realizing what is where and it's relation to you becomes extremely important.

You're right on third, everyone needs equipment. Without factoring location, terrain, and circumstances, everyone wants to keep their equipment intact. Unfortuantely, it is those circumstances without the equipment, or when it has some of it's abilities negated, that makes you think.

And unless that broadsword is made out of cardboard, it's still going to hurt when you put it into someone, regardless if it's a mundane sword or a +5 Vorpal.

However, I do like this conversation (though to some people might find it repetitive and old).

*Thanks to The Glyphstone for the suggestion. Was thinking it but probably wasn't clear enough.

[stack]

It's important to note that legend did achieve balance by utterly expunging some concepts. At best you get 42 spells, ever. Want to play a character who has plenty of spells but need to think ahead and plan for a situation (IE a wizard in term of flavor) better look elsewhere, all legend has is the equivalent of sorcerers. You can call yourself a wizard but you're not going to look like a dnd wizard.

True, but they still get a good deal of versatility. The 'do anything wizard' is a bug, really. Legend caster's get a wider toolbox than others, though more limited in uses. Spell are, overall, less powerful individually as well. Have to see exactly where the balance falls when 1.0 is released though, previously some have thought casters underpowered.

[stack]

So that means a dragon with access to Antimagic shell/field (or anything that will take Magic out of the picture or at least negates some of its effects ) wouldn't dare attack a wizard in melee combat?

Also, would it be worth the research to find an "antimagic field" that would negate other kinds of magic as well (for example: deny arcane, deny divine, deny (blank) school, etc.)?

Yes, they might be small and easy to avoid, but that's where placing, planning, and tricking your opponent comes into play (also calls for being prepared). Realizing what is where and it's relation to you becomes extremely important.

You're right on third, everyone needs equipment. Without factoring location, terrain, and circumstances, everyone wants to keep their equipment intact. Unfortuantely, it is those circumstances without the equipment, or when it has some of it's abilities negated, that makes you think.

And unless that broadsword is made out of cardboard, it's still going to hurt when you put it into someone, regardless if it's a mundane sword or a +5 Vorpal.

However, I do like this conversation (though to some people might find it repetitive and old).

I believe there are issues with tricking/ambushing wizards after a certain point. Smart divination usage and all that.

[Augmental]

Also, would it be worth the research to find an "antimagic field" that would negate other kinds of magic as well (for example: deny arcane, deny divine, deny (blank) school, etc.)?

Antimagic fields already deny both arcane and divine magic.

[Eldonauran]

Understand that quadratic wizards and linear warriors is not a bug its a feature.

I am of this mind as well. Class 'balance' doesn't mean a thing to me as long as the playing is fun. I'd worry about balance between the classes when D&D becomes a PvP game and ceases to be a team game.

[The Glyphstone]

Antimagic fields already deny both arcane and divine magic.

I think he means selective antimagic - an antimagic field that cuts off divine magic, but permits arcane magic, or vice versa.

[Elderand]

True, but they still get a good deal of versatility. The 'do anything wizard' is a bug, really. Legend caster's get a wider toolbox than others, though more limited in uses. Spell are, overall, less powerful individually as well. Have to see exactly where the balance falls when 1.0 is released though, previously some have thought casters underpowered.

I'm not saying it's a bad way to do things mind you, just that legend is not going to be able to replace every concept that exist in dnd. Legend is not going to be a 1 for 1 replacement.

[stack]

I'm not saying it's a bad way to do things mind you, just that legend is not going to be able to replace every concept that exist in dnd. Legend is not going to be a 1 for 1 replacement.

Agreed, though I don't think a 1:1 replacement CAN be balanced.

[Zubrowka74]

One thing I'd like to point out : a large portion of the playground admits that there'a a huge gap between casters and mundane. But as soon as someone nerfs the wizard, there's an uproar. Or if everything is crushed to tier 3 classes, it looks like an MMO - D&D 4.0 for example.

I've said it and I'll say it again : Wizards are supposed to be unbalanced. That's the very definition of magic. You're breaking rules. Otherwise you get "boring" magic : you do Xd6 damage with magic, the fighter does the same damage with his big weapon, so is the rogue with his two daggers. I played the Neverwinter beta (based on 4e) and it feels like this. Same mechanics, different fluff.

But hey, don't it's an RPG folks! Used to be that all fighters were the same or almost. It's the way you played them that made them unique. One was a two-handed brute from the northland, the other a militaristic gladiator from the decadent south. On paper there werent many differences. The great Gygax said it : you can even play without any mechanics!

[Soras Teva Gee]

I think this is more or less it. Mundanes arent allowed to do cool stuff because they are mundane. Magic is magic. That's why a level 3 wizard gets to be stealthier than a level 3 rogue. It's "balanced", mechanically, on the fact that a level 3 wizard only gets to out sneak the rogue for ten or so minutes a day.

I'd dispute that mundanes can't do "cool" things in PF.

And that you evidently don't think much of limited duration is something I consider a bit of a myopia on the part of people that talk about optimizers. Seriously as the GM yeah that is the easiest thing in the world to limit, ("oh it took you ten minutes to search and you found nothing your spells gone") so yeah having an actual scout is probably a better idea.

The limitation on daily resources is there to be used, it just doesn't scan well to the (often unconsciously) PvP focused arguments of optimization that demand cold hard static numbers or its worthless trash. Bonuses for the bonus god, stats for the stat throne

Not saying that's you in particular but that's my long term take on "optimization" theory, long on numbers short on actual creativity in application. Like I would argue item crafting isn't ever actually "broken" for all the havoc it can bring because a GM has to actively allow it time wise... but it looks great on a "start at level 15 WBL" sort of purely on paper build.

That all said the Rogue is easily the most outdated class in Pathfinder. The game has moved on between the compression of skills and not being Gygaxian death dungeons full of TPK traps. You want to be the Rogue you play an Archeologist.


It really grinds my gears when someone is like "you could never do that in real life; take a -20 penalty and you need two useless feats." Bro, I am a level 10 barbarian; I'm a super hero. You didn't complain about Iron Man "hacking DNA" and the hulk and every other retarded superhero breaking every law of thermodynamics with absolutely no explanation.

If I'm reading a comic book I don't mind that because that's what superheroes are about. Even there versimillitude is pretty continually lost as nerds become more aware that "hacking DNA" is pretty BS and declare it BS therefore sucky. It why they don't use radiation mutation except by tradition, nobody would take it seriously.

At any rate that may be what comics are about... but not what Conan and Tolkien are about

Even then sometimes I want to play actual Batman or maybe Captain America, not Superman.

That anything goes sort of approach creates the sort of "when everyone is special, no one is" sort of trap.



Paizo also flat out doesn't like optimizers. They're **** is written so poorly that it's basically, "hey if this could be abusive and you abuse it, you have a bad DM." I feel that there is a real over reliance of rule 0 in their material.

Frankly that's a healthier attitude on the whole.

The balance game isn't a game that can be won while having a variety of mechancial flavor. Nor is everyone willing to embrace different "fluff" as the only difference.

Also optimizers are only a fraction of the whole, plenty of people either don't bother or actively dislike it. Go check say this very board's RP section and see if its an unbroken sea of Wizards and CoDzilla or Pun Pun wannabes. If it is I haven't noticed.

As published Paizo realized that just going to what a fraction of the online community says isn't a healthy way to make money in the long run. Why did PF kill dead levels? Not because Fighters were underpowered, but because just getting a couple of number bonuses every couple of weeks isn't that fun and rewarding anymore. Lack of fun effects more people then actual power, that it helped Fighters and Barbarians is only a side effect.

Not that I don't wish PF had done a little more like how they handled concentration to make defensive casting not trivial. I don't imagine that it would solve every problem but simple and pervasive changes to how you cast spells can have a lot of impact. Imagine if standard casting was 1 round or even one full round action. Cast and move, nope. Better stop that meleer on the first spell or you are going to be eating full attacks and AoOs. I'm sure there's ways around this but thats a whole lot of vulnerability opened up that's just plain not there right now.


...and when you try to give meleers, something with some magical flavor (ToB?), you'll have flame wars about wuxia and so on...

That that book is divisive at all is the best evidence of the problem it poses.

That crunch is not completely separate from fluff.

Also you give someone a bunch of "special attacks" that do extra stuff with a sword you are changing the perception of sword combat. Nor is it something with a terrible lot of basis in Western thought, I've fenced and if say a parry had a name other then a direction I never knew it. Nor did you have time to put on elaborate manuvers.

Not that I don't like wuxia and anime, I do, but its basically all gishing to me and therefore not always what I want to do.


Actually if you go back far enough you realise that the designer knew the wizard was much more powerful than the fighter. They didn't try to balance it by making the spell less powerful or the fighter better, that's a modern approach. But they did balance it. How ? Fighter could use more magic items and more importantly wizard needed far more XP than anything else to level up. So they were easily 1 or 2 level behind.

Well that's something, my experience with pre 3.0 is limited to BG I & II where while certainly my warriors were contributing I flat out needed magic to beat the major enemies. And magic would also take me apart if I didn't have magic in place to counter it.

I don't think different XP tracks would fly today though, however effective it might be.

There's something to be said for a reintroducing an item disparity I think though. Or something like it.

[Saidoro]

SKR's feat point system (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/featpointsystem.html)

feats which are considered the appropriate power level for their 1-featcost (10 feat points in this system) and by which we can use to evaluate the cost of other feats (much like how magic missile is a benchmark for spells because it's the best 1st-level spell, and how fireball is your typical 3rd-level area attack spell, etc.) .
I... What? How? People actually think this?

[Soras Teva Gee]

I... What? How? People actually think this?

Sure it works on everything and never misses, what's NOT to love. Cast and roll for damage, done.

Try your color spray against a CR 1 skeleton some time. And grease doesn't kill.

(No I'm not arguing that Magic Missile is the best level 1 but its has other virtues as an option and you are melodrama-ing something fierce there.)

[Saidoro]

Magic missile has too high an opportunity cost to be useful unless you're using some sort of odd metamagic which makes use of its handy properties(Fell drain or dazing, basically). Anything it's actually strong enough to kill on its own is something you're better off either ignoring or letting you minions mundanes deal with.

[Eldan]

One thing I'd like to point out : a large portion of the playground admits that there'a a huge gap between casters and mundane. But as soon as someone nerfs the wizard, there's an uproar. Or if everything is crushed to tier 3 classes, it looks like an MMO - D&D 4.0 for example.


That's not really true. I don't even care much about how strong wizards are. But I want versatile characters. I'll gladly play in a game that bans all T1s and T2s, as long as I can still grab a binder or beguiler.
Its not about the power. But I want access to fun abilities like many illusions and enchantments are in third edition. Really, one of my main problems I have in 4th edition is that most abilities are geared towards combat and are very short-term and limited in effect. I really don't care about any ability that deals damage, in most cases.

[Theodoxus]

This hasn't been my observation... Granted, I'm playing in a fast Pathfinder (Tome of Battle being used by one cleric) game, a slow Kirthfinder game and a newly started slow Pathfinder only campaign.

By far, the most powerful characters in the groups have been the Cleaving fighter who can wade into a group of 15+ monsters and destroy them all in a single turn. This is followed by not far behind with a zen archer monk who can easily top 100+ DPR into a single target, bypassing all by the first shot of DR - typically taking out all but the most butch of boss mobs. They're both 7th level.

The wizard is still just casting fireballs and being fairly unoptimized, though he also brings a lot of utility - though not of the God kind.

We have a cleric that's gone into Crusader (ToB) and eventually Vindicator. He's a decent front liner, matching up with our paladin - but they're both designed to be meat shields for the fighter and monk. The party Bard is just knowledge and buffs and brings no offensive capabilities of his own.

The Kirthfinder game really puts mundanes into the spot light - but mostly by granting them magic-esque abilities that might as well be magic.


Other than warping time and space and doing fantastical stuff, full casters don't offer much that mundanes can't accomplish - with the right build.

[Soras Teva Gee]

That's not really true. I don't even care much about how strong wizards are. But I want versatile characters. I'll gladly play in a game that bans all T1s and T2s, as long as I can still grab a binder or beguiler.
Its not about the power. But I want access to fun abilities like many illusions and enchantments are in third edition. Really, one of my main problems I have in 4th edition is that most abilities are geared towards combat and are very short-term and limited in effect. I really don't care about any ability that deals damage, in most cases.

Which is probably another part of why PF probably didn't go farther.

Casters are mighty popular and not just for their nominal superiority.

[illyrus]

I'd like there to be more of a difference between a fighter and a peasant that took some armor and weapon proficiency feats outside of their chance to deal damage and similar. If it takes a sort of wuxia route to accomplish it I'm fine with that.

There are systems that do a good job of it imo, it is just much more difficult for me to get a group willing to play them over Pathfinder because they're unwilling to branch out.

[Augmental]

By far, the most powerful characters in the groups have been the Cleaving fighter who can wade into a group of 15+ monsters and destroy them all in a single turn. This is followed by not far behind with a zen archer monk who can easily top 100+ DPR into a single target, bypassing all by the first shot of DR - typically taking out all but the most butch of boss mobs. They're both 7th level.

The wizard is still just casting fireballs and being fairly unoptimized, though he also brings a lot of utility - though not of the God kind.

That's the thing - you're comparing an optimized fighter to an unoptimized wizard.


Other than warping time and space and doing fantastical stuff, full casters don't offer much that mundanes can't accomplish - with the right build.

Another way to view it is "Full casters can accomplish anything that mundanes can with significantly less dedication, and warp time and space on top of that."

[Karoht]

Two major reasons I can think of.
1-Paizo believes in the Tier system for the same reasons WoTC does/did
2-They were afraid of the kneejerk style reactions typical with fan backlash. The automatic responses of 'they changed it now it sucks.' Kneejerks like that kill sales.

[Marnath]

Another way to view it is "Full casters can accomplish anything that mundanes can with significantly less dedication, and warp time and space on top of that."

Not to mention how many spells out there amount to "no you can't hurt me, just lay down and die." Many of a caster's tricks are things that a mundane simply can't do anything about no matter how optimized they are.

[Eldan]

This hasn't been my observation... Granted, I'm playing in a fast Pathfinder (Tome of Battle being used by one cleric) game, a slow Kirthfinder game and a newly started slow Pathfinder only campaign.

Other than warping time and space and doing fantastical stuff, full casters don't offer much that mundanes can't accomplish - with the right build.

True. It might just be me, but I just don't enjoy playing mundanes much. Sure, I'll pick up a trickster or conman archetype now or then, a rogue or factotum or bard, in D&D, but I enjoy mages much more. I love magic. I love writing about magic. I have a gigantic thread on this forum where I've rewritten and probably at least slightly nerfed wizards.

Your last sentences confuses me a bit. "Other than warping time and space"... what else is there to a wizard?

[Psyren]

Understand that quadratic wizards and linear warriors is not a bug its a feature.

Seriously you are telling reality to sit down and shut up.

This goes back well before 3.0, unless some ancient foggie wants to tell me how different it was in Chainmail days or something I'd imagine its at the begining. Many spells have not changed much, I remember dread Imprisonment in BG II and many a save scum before I got the right spells figured out to counter it.

Pathfinder is built as a compatible update to 3.5, it was never all that likely to resolve this and frankly wasn't trying. There's some obvious patches (wall of iron having no gold value) but all the basic things are the same. Why? Because that was the idea, there was no more 3.5 so they started their own to keep publishing new material in the same mold. Most of their books are setting pieces or adventures, not splatbooks detailing five new elf variations.

Pathfinder is mechanically less interested in making everybody equal then in making everybody fun to play. They aren't entirely uninterested (polymorph was fixed, etc) but the broad structure is still there. Casters still get a bigger more open box of tools to choose from, thus have more options, thus played to win tend to end up higher in power.

Of course changing that and it wouldn't look like D&D anymore, Wizards tried it and ended up with 4E. You like 4E good for you, but its just not the same game anymore whether its good/bad or just different.

More to gameplay then simple perfect balance anyways. Yeah it sounds nice for everybody to be equally effective, but that makes no sense given the range of potential threats an adventurer can face.



Having been there I would say it would have been for cause not some jackboot thugs in groupthink.

Or its changed since.


The problem with truly balancing mundanes and casters is that it is hard to do without making martial classes feel like spellcasters, or nerfing casters so much to the point where they no longer have much room for customization.

I will not say one way or the other for myself, but 4th ed tried to balance all the classes and some claim that it changed the game so radically that it no longer felt like D&D.

These guys get it.

[Abaddona]

Other than warping time and space and doing fantastical stuff, full casters don't offer much that mundanes can't accomplish - with the right build.
Well, actually yes - mundane just needs different build for each of things he wants to accomplish and caster simply needs to rest some time to change his spell selection (hell, just simple mundane crafting: 20 level warrior needs few days to make masterwork greatsword, 20 level wizard needs like 6 seconds, one spell slot and also far less skill points, not that by that level this warrior needs that sword but it's actually sad when you think that your mundane hero after saving lots of princessess cannot even retire and make a decent living using skills he possessed during his adventures).

[Elderand]

Your last sentences confuses me a bit. "Other than warping time and space"... what else is there to a wizard?

Doing everyone else job better than they do themselves ?

[Prime32]

Two major reasons I can think of.
1-Paizo believes in the Tier system for the same reasons WoTC does/did
2-They were afraid of the kneejerk style reactions typical with fan backlash. The automatic responses of 'they changed it now it sucks.' Kneejerks like that kill sales.What are you talking about? :smallconfused: The tier system has nothing to do with how the games were designed, it's a list written up by players who found the imbalances in the system. No game is supposed to have tiers. And this whole thread is about Paizo designers rejecting the concept of tiers.

[Karoht]

What are you talking about? :smallconfused: The tier system has nothing to do with how the games were designed, it's a list written up by players who found the imbalances in the system. No game is supposed to have tiers. And this whole thread is about Paizo designers rejecting the concept of tiers.
You are entirely correct.
However, there are reasons that the 3.5 design team made those decisions which lead to players noting the severe gap (and later naming it the tier system). Paizo had to be aware of that gap, or the Tier system itself, or both, when they made Pathfinder. Which means they likely agreed with it's underpinnings for the same reason WoTC did.

Or they copy/pasta'd that badly and didn't playtest diddly squat.

[ArcturusV]

Not to mention the Tiers have nothing to do with raw power (excepting low tiers being the lack of raw power) so much as Build Versatility. And heck, if you look at 3.0 books like the handbook to Wizards and Sorcerers (Tome and Blood I think it was?), WotC had a very poor grip of what spellcasters were and where their power was. They basically ranked the schools of magic in complete reverse from what most players would, held up Evocation Blasting as the epitome of what a Wizard could ever do.

[Psyren]

No game is supposed to have tiers.

I disagree with this; simpler classes serve a purpose too. I still meet people that would rather play a Fighter or Barbarian than a Magus or Alchemist or Eldritch Knight, despite the latter being objectively superior martial choices. Options are wonderful but some people want to just full attack, and others want to just buff them and stand back. I'm in a Dragon Age campaign right now (a 3d6 system which also has tier disparity) where immediately two of our players chose to be Dwarf Warriors.

Once you've mastered the simpler class, and through it gotten your feet wet in the system as a whole, you can then move on to a more complex one. Being a Wizard or Druid is great but many people just don't want to deal with all that choice right off the bat, if ever.

Yes, the Wizard can take the Fighter's job if he really wants. He can Polymorph, Bull's Strength, Transformation etc. and wade into the fray. The real question is will he, and should he? The system allows for lots of approaches that players simply choose not to do. I'm not saying the system is fine as a result, but if the players are having fun that's really all that matters. If you have the kind of casters that can't contain themselves and simply have to play their class to its potential, then yes, you're going to end up wanting a more balanced system. There's nothing wrong with that either. But it doesn't seem to be a problem for a great many groups out there.

[Prime32]

I disagree with this; simpler classes serve a purpose too. I still meet people that would rather play a Fighter or Barbarian than a Magus or Alchemist or Eldritch Knight, despite the latter being objectively superior martial choices. Options are wonderful but some people want to just full attack, and others want to just buff them and stand back. I'm in a Dragon Age campaign right now (a 3d6 system which also has tier disparity) where immediately two of our players chose to be Dwarf Warriors.

Once you've mastered the simpler class, and through it gotten your feet wet in the system as a whole, you can then move on to a more complex one. Being a Wizard or Druid is great but many people just don't want to deal with all that choice right off the bat, if ever.There's no reason a simple class can't also be good.

[Psyren]

There's no reason a simple class can't also be good.

I define "good" as "can handle level appropriate challenges" which anything T4 and up can do. Even Fighter, Monk, and Gunslinger can get there with the right archetypes.

[ArcturusV]

Actually... there kinda is. At least when you talk about a system with as much stuff put out as PF/3rd edition.

Lets say I made a simple class. It's a Fighter. With fixed feats rather than floating bonus feats (e.g.: First level is Improved Initiative, second is Power Attack, etc, etc, etc) with Good Saves across the board, and +2 BAB per level.

It is a simple class. Everything is printed on the table/description that you need. Other than hunting down magical equipment effects. I could make it simpler even by taking a VoP style thing, nix the bonus feats, say no Gear, but you get flat bonuses like Natural Armor, Unarmed Damage, etc, as you level.

But it still wouldn't be "Good". Except maybe as a dip in the usual Martial Class mess where people are something like a Fighter2/Barb2/Ranger2/Paladin2.

Because while it is simple, and it's defined as being the "Best" in some regards. Sharing "All good saves" with the Monk as the only class that also has it. Best BAB in the game. Presuming I find good, solid feats/bonuses for it... it still won't count as "Good" compared to the Spellcasters... well outside really bad ones like the Healer class.

Because when you think of "Good" classes around the table, actually playing you don't think about "Wow, that guy has +10 to Reflex, Fort, and Will saves". You think "Wow... that guy just shut down an entire encounter with a single action" or "... he dropped a MOUNTAIN on our enemy!" and similar things. You think about the guy who always has an ace up his sleeve for any situation, rather than the guy who has only one thing they can do with any proficiency.

And that's where Spellcasters are "Good".

[Abaddona]

But why should I tone down my potential and play less efficiently just because someone wants to play a class which isn't able to compete? And one more thing: fighters and such simply aren't able to effectively participate in social adventures (requiring diplomacy or just simply skill ranks) - wizard can compensate with his spells, fighter player at the same time can go to sleep because he simply can't contribute.

[Psyren]

It is a simple class. Everything is printed on the table/description that you need. Other than hunting down magical equipment effects. I could make it simpler even by taking a VoP style thing, nix the bonus feats, say no Gear, but you get flat bonuses like Natural Armor, Unarmed Damage, etc, as you level.

But it still wouldn't be "Good".

That the depends on the bonuses you give it; again, level-appropriate challenges are the barometer here. Is flight one of the bonuses your example doles out in place of wealth? How about ghost touch? Elemental damage? Freedom of movement? Negative energy protection?

A fighter can buy or find all those things, or receive them as buffs from the party's casters. And he is expected to do so because the monsters certainly have them, or require those abilities to defeat them. But if all you hand out are AC bonuses and bonuses to hit, then I agree, that wouldn't be "good."


But why should I tone down my potential and play less efficiently just because someone wants to play a class which isn't able to compete? And one more thing: fighters and such simply aren't able to effectively participate in social adventures (requiring diplomacy or just simply skill ranks) - wizard can compensate with his spells, fighter player at the same time can go to sleep because he simply can't contribute.

If you must have the spotlight in every encounter then there's nothing wrong with that, it simply means 3.5/PF may not be the best system for you. There's a lot of games out there.

You're also assuming the player who chose Fighter wants to be social/diplomatic. Not everyone does. If they do, there are classes and builds that let them do both.

[ko_sct]

Lot's of peoples do not find balance really important, and in general I tend to agree, I do not mind a bit of imbalance in a game.

BUT, that doesn't mean there isn't a problem with the balance in 3.5/pathfinder.
Sure, the problem isn't as big when you don't have pvp, but it's still here. To illustrate, here what happened in a game I ran a few year ago.

There was two players, a druid and a psion, when they reached lvls 15-17, this happened:
The druid chose to play as some kind of melee fighter, he would polymorph in some kind of huge beast, and stack long-lasting buffs until he had 500+ HP, 5 or 6 attacks doing in the 100+ dmg each, immunity to death effects as well as resistances all elements, the ability to fully heal all of his HP 4-5 time per day and could take out several dozens of weaker monsters in a single mid-level spell.

The psion decided to play more as caster, he chose divination spells, anti-divination protection, teleport and dimension-travel spells as well as summons and save-or-die and no-save-just-die.

Guess who did almost everything and who got fed up of doing nothing ? That's right, the psion could simply divination => planeshift => teleport => timestop => full nova => teleport and fix pretty much everything I threw at them, when I made their target impossible to divine, he still often had the right power for every single encounters a threw at them.

The worse here ? That druid was still INSANELY more powerful than any mundane and had a lot more options at his disposal than a fighter or barbarian will ever have.

So, even whit no pvp, the imbalances in a system can still show.

[illyrus]

Options are wonderful but some people want to just full attack, and others want to just buff them and stand back.

I don't see how them having a few more options would prevent them playing the class in simple manner. It is possible to play a spellcaster in a simple manner that is as effective as martial classes played in a simple manner.

To take a pre-existing set of martial options available in the book, is there a particular game balance reason why fighters, monks, rogues, barbarians, and other mundane classes do not start off with all the improved versions* of combat maneuvers at level 1? I'm not saying that a change that like would modify their placement in the tier system or anything or boost their overall power. As a player though being able to start with a variety of options past "swing sword to chip off hp" even if I never took advantage of it would be nice.

*And the ability to take any of the greater maneuvers as feats without needing prereq ability scores.

[ArcturusV]

That's always irritating Abdonna, though I'd say that's more down to Player/DM dynamics rather than a mechanical thing. Too often the mechanical thing is brought up when I don't feel like it's entirely valid.

I like examples, if you can't tell. So throw out a common scenario. You're in a town following up the trail of some scholar you need to track down to find some key to advance the plot.

Which is a fairly typical, standard scenario in my experience.

Wizard/Sorcerer/Cleric: Can cast some divinations to figure out where this scholar is hiding out.

Druid: Can use some animals called forth/companions to help him scan the city and create a quick spy network to find all the bolt holes that might not be readily apparent to mere human senses.

Bards/Rogues: Can use skills like Social Skills to ingratiate themselves with someone who might know what they want to know.

"Fighter" classes: Could use Intimidation to try and track them down. Can also use violence, go smack someone to within a few HP of their life until they feel like telling you what you want to know (Or pointing you to someone who does know). Use indiscriminate arson to flush out the various hiding spots ("Oh, people like to hide in the old warehouses by the wharf? Well there's no hiding spot left after I torch them.").

Granted, these options could also be employed by other people. But heck, it doesn't mean they're even halfway decent at it. There's, in threatening terms, a big difference between leaving someone bloody and being a hulking brute with a sword at their neck than being a wizard who can't reliably hit that middle ground (Someone is alive, or they're dead, or they're lucky. You can't really control it that much) easily. Or the skinny little punk with a short bow.

Course, all adventurers regardless of class or skill points has max ranks in Arson...

[Psyren]

The irony there is that Druid is actually a higher tier than Psion :smalltongue:

Psions being allowed to nova is a separate issue entirely and one that must be solved at the DM level. Any class will find it hard to keep up with one.

[Abaddona]

Well - I like play meele guys but I also want to contribute to play in ways more significant that "i stay in the way of horde of monsters taking punishment so the caster can drop fireball on them (or Black Tentacles)" or "I hit things with sword hard". One of ways to do this is craft or knowledge checks (I am great fighter and I know every danger which we will be facing... or, well, except I'm not...) - for example when you don't want to bash doors and don't have rogue (someone with lockpicking) yoou can also use craft to dismantle said doors - it's just takea forever (and you don't really has skillpoints to do that also) and wizard can simply use one of his 2nd level spells (or simply buy a scroll).

And as for casters - well of course I can basically play as a buffbot so the fighter guy can have some fun but to be honest - it's not fun for me and i doubt that this is fun for the fighter guy also considering that he probably knows that I'm playing in a way to not make him look bad.

[navar100]

But why should I tone down my potential and play less efficiently just because someone wants to play a class which isn't able to compete? And one more thing: fighters and such simply aren't able to effectively participate in social adventures (requiring diplomacy or just simply skill ranks) - wizard can compensate with his spells, fighter player at the same time can go to sleep because he simply can't contribute.

Yes he can. A 10th level Pathfinder fighter can have +10 to Diplomacy at 10th level and 10 Charisma, +16 if the skill is really, really important enough to him to spend a feat on Skill Focus, +17 with a trait. More likely Perception would have such dedication, but the option is there for the diplomatic Fighter if a player wants one.

Edit: Actually, if he has a trait bonus for Diplomacy then at 10th level it's +20 because it would be a class skill, +14 if not having skill Focus.

[Sarone]

But why should I tone down my potential and play less efficiently just because someone wants to play a class which isn't able to compete? And one more thing: fighters and such simply aren't able to effectively participate in social adventures (requiring diplomacy or just simply skill ranks) - wizard can compensate with his spells, fighter player at the same time can go to sleep because he simply can't contribute.

Right, be cause people feel so comfortable about the guy being able to cast charm on them. That won't go badly if and when they find out it was done to them...

Unfortunately, it comes down to circumstances. While social encounters aren't the fighters area of expertise, neither is it for the wizard (and don't even bring up magic). And depending on what has been done in campaign, the fighter is going to be more trusted in some circles while a wizard will have an easier time in others.

That is one reason why role playing (not roll playing (letting dice do the acting)) is the decider. Your wizard can get himself all sproced up and all, but if his personality is that of a river trout, ain't going to matter who he talks to (and will make the situation worse in certain cases). Meanwhile the person playing the fighter, covered in dirt and sweat, can get the information and a far more enjoyable time through asking the right questions and swapping stories at the local tavern.

Again, Rule 0 will have priority over anything else. But outright dismisal of the fighter in a social encounter is just as dangerous as saying he doesn't know anything about a certain monster.

In general, the dice is just a guideline, not the end all, be all.

[Psyren]

Well - I like play meele guys but I also want to contribute to play in ways more significant that "i stay in the way of horde of monsters taking punishment so the caster can drop fireball on them (or Black Tentacles)" or "I hit things with sword hard".

And that's fine! There's nothing wrong with that at all. It just means that straight Fighter may not be for you, you'll have more fun with a melee class that can do other things. (Or more accurately, is designed to do other things - as Navar said you can make a fighter that can do other things if you want, it will just use resources that could go towards your fighting ability.)

But what you should understand is that "I hold the horde of monsters at bay" or "I send his head flying with one swing" IS enough for some people. They may not even be that interested in the game itself - they just want to hang out with their friends and participate, so they want something that doesn't take a whole lot of system mastery to pilot. Let the nerds in dresses come up with strategy, I'm here to hit what they tell me I should hit. Heck, I've even met players who do play casters regularly, but just want a campaign where they can unwind and not worry about spell slots or area of effect placement.

WotC is beginning to realize there are people like that too - the 5e designers are discussing the true role of the Fighter, and the value of having classes that are faster to pick up, yet capable of doing less overall than others. For instance, in one blog post on 5e where they talk about warlord-style "inspiration healing" they mention that it makes sense that healing like that would only work if the character can hear you, i.e. if they are conscious, so quickly healing a character who is bleeding out might still be something only a cleric or other magic-user could pull off.



And as for casters - well of course I can basically play as a buffbot so the fighter guy can have some fun but to be honest - it's not fun for me and i doubt that this is fun for the fighter guy also considering that he probably knows that I'm playing in a way to not make him look bad.

I think you're presuming a bit much when you talk about what other players find fun. Again, a newer player won't necessarily care that you're holding back, since they know you understand the game better and so could outshine them easily if you really tried. Again, for most players, the ability to participate and be useful is all they want, not necessarily being the lynchpin or fulcrum around which the party turns.

A fighter holding back the monsters so the wizard can cast the encounter-winning spell is being useful. He may not be the main reason for the party's victory, but many players are okay with that. Similarly, the fighter great cleaving the goblins that the elf wizard put to sleep may not be the deciding factor, but he can easily be having fun all the same.

[Killer Angel]

(it was ToB)



That that book is divisive at all is the best evidence of the problem it poses.

That crunch is not completely separate from fluff.

Also you give someone a bunch of "special attacks" that do extra stuff with a sword you are changing the perception of sword combat. Nor is it something with a terrible lot of basis in Western thought, I've fenced and if say a parry had a name other then a direction I never knew it. Nor did you have time to put on elaborate manuvers.

Not that I don't like wuxia and anime, I do, but its basically all gishing to me and therefore not always what I want to do.

Absolutely yes: ToB is divisive.
And the reason, IMO, is exactly this: when you start from the perspective that "magic bends reality while mundane must adhere to it", then you have a problem of imbalance. You can fix it in two ways: you nerf magic OR you improve mundane with some kind of (different) magic.
The latter, will create unsatisfied players, if they believe in the "mundane shouldn't go too far from reality's laws"

[Soras Teva Gee]

There's no reason a simple class can't also be good.


I define "good" as "can handle level appropriate challenges" which anything T4 and up can do. Even Fighter, Monk, and Gunslinger can get there with the right archetypes.

What Psyren said, when you don't take a PvP perspective "good" changes a fair bit.

I'll add that while nominally possible the simple answer is that options you have to optimize the more likely you are to come out on top.

The only even loosely possible counter is to install a wall between tasks. PF has a reasonable one between casters and actually doing damage. Polymorph is sane and specializing in it makes you MAD. Blasting (as before) requires pretty heavy metamagic support to keep up with full attacks. For good measure there's less "save-or-loose" around. Like Glitterdust, now a save every round for blinding. Finger of Death does damage not death.

You can still enable victory just fine with magic, but that's not overpowered... that's good teamwork.


A fighter can buy or find all those things, or receive them as buffs from the party's casters. And he is expected to do so because the monsters certainly have them, or require those abilities to defeat them. But if all you hand out are AC bonuses and bonuses to hit, then I agree, that wouldn't be "good."

I had an interesting discussion not long ago where I pointed out that at level 1 in response to Color Spray it isn't terribly hard to give a fighter 12-14 Dex/Wis and Iron Will with some trait support taking it higher and thus a not unreasonable save for the level. Before I knew it though I was being asked how I could do that and still have Power Attack?

I never mentioned Power Attack.

I dare say there's a certain myopia that presumes a Fighter must clearly always accentuate their damage per round. Even if for the particular challenge that doesn't make a lot of sense.


You're also assuming the player who chose Fighter wants to be social/diplomatic. Not everyone does. If they do, there are classes and builds that let them do both.

With a trait you can add Diplomacy anyways. And a bonus to it. Having extra skill for it can be irritating but human and/or extra skill favored class bonus.

And you already have intimidate which has some supporting feat abilities for use in combat so its not precisely just throwing points away to buy a decent Cha.

And a high Cha if you can happen to swing it lets you take Eldritch Heritage (Abyssal or Orc) for a big tasty strength boost.

[kardar233]

The limitation on daily resources is there to be used, it just doesn't scan well to the (often unconsciously) PvP focused arguments of optimization that demand cold hard static numbers or its worthless trash. Bonuses for the bonus god, stats for the stat throne

I'd like to repost something I said a while back here:


I just want to make a distinction here:

Arena Fallacy: Arguing the relative effectiveness of classes in standard PvM play by pitting two classes directly against each other in a PvP style.

This is distinct from:

The "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmoKhFJRUOk&feature=player_detailpage#t=52s) Argument: This is directly comparing competing class features, like comparing the Wizard's level 1 spell list to the Druid's. Done correctly, this isn't a fallacy, as you're comparing the capabilities of two classes.

Arena Fallacy: "In-game, a Psion is much better than a Wizard because the Psion can make Black Lotus Extract which kills Wizards easily."

Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better Argument: "Wizard 1 is a better control caster than Druid 1 as Grease and Colour Spray are better than Entangle."

Just because I'm directly comparing the abilities of two classes or characters doesn't mean that I'm focused on PvP.



Also optimizers are only a fraction of the whole, plenty of people either don't bother or actively dislike it. Go check say this very board's RP section and see if its an unbroken sea of Wizards and CoDzilla or Pun Pun wannabes. If it is I haven't noticed.

Optimization in character building is a tool, not an end goal. The ultimate goal of any game is to have fun, and it's very difficult to have fun when you're playing Pun-Pun, as you can just say "I win". The vast majority of optimization is done to a concept, where the player might not take the objectively most effective choice as it may not fit into the character concept, instead choosing the flavour of the character and then taking choices that are effective within that flavour.

As an example: I've got a character who may (someday) end up in an actual campaign. He's a LE piece of work who believes that the best way to enforce order is to have everybody so terrified of him that they'll fall in line and he uses a blade so drenched in blood that it's turned light red.

Now, that would be pretty difficult to build as a Wizard. Not only are the Fear spells generally not too great, it would be quite difficult to make him a gish as well (especially as the best PrC for Fear casting is 1/2 BAB).

A Clericzilla could work, but again, not much in the way of good Fear.

I ended up building him as a Paladin of Tyranny->Ghost-Faced Killer. Now, that might not be the most powerful choice, but with some optimization, I can use multitudes of save debuffs, Fear effects and Charisma stat to all sorts of bonuses to make him a Fearful killing machine.


Also you give someone a bunch of "special attacks" that do extra stuff with a sword you are changing the perception of sword combat. Nor is it something with a terrible lot of basis in Western thought, I've fenced and if say a parry had a name other then a direction I never knew it. Nor did you have time to put on elaborate manuvers.

Wow. Let me tell you something about Western sword fighting. Have you ever heard of Lichtenauer? Fiore? Naming your guards, moves and attacks is a classic part of Western sword fighting. Hell, if you've seen the Princess Bride, you've heard of Bonetti's Defense. We don't know what it was, but it's named after Rocco Bonetti, a fencing master from the late 1500s; however, it didn't do him much good as he was killed in a street duel.

[Psyren]

Absolutely yes: ToB is divisive.
And the reason, IMO, is exactly this: when you start from the perspective that "magic bends reality while mundane must adhere to it", then you have a problem of imbalance. You can fix it in two ways: you nerf magic OR you improve mundane with some kind of (different) magic.
The latter, will create unsatisfied players, if they believe in the "mundane shouldn't go too far from reality's laws"

Or you can not fix it. Mages can do more... because they're mages. This isn't a big problem for many players.



I ended up building him as a Paladin of Tyranny->Ghost-Faced Killer. Now, that might not be the most powerful choice, but with some optimization, I can use multitudes of save debuffs, Fear effects and Charisma stat to all sorts of bonuses to make him a Fearful killing machine.

Have you checked out Shneekey's Takahashi no Onisan Samurai build? One of the best fear-based fighters I've ever seen.

[kardar233]

Have you checked out Shneekey's Takahashi no Onisan Samurai build? One of the best fear-based fighters I've ever seen.

Of course. However, I didn't want to focus so hard on the Fear effects that I neglected his combat ability, so he manages to be a fairly nasty Leap Attacking charger. Also, the Paladin base gives him a lot more tools than a Samurai would have, like Divine Grace, Turn Undead for Travel Devotion, and Smite.

[Kelb_Panthera]

(it was ToB)



Absolutely yes: ToB is divisive.
And the reason, IMO, is exactly this: when you start from the perspective that "magic bends reality while mundane must adhere to it", then you have a problem of imbalance. You can fix it in two ways: you nerf magic OR you improve mundane with some kind of (different) magic.
The latter, will create unsatisfied players, if they believe in the "mundane shouldn't go too far from reality's laws"

The problem is that the underlined is fallacious thinking even for a simple warrior (the NPC class).

Non-magical classes have completely outstripped reality by mid-levels even before you consider their gear.

Consider this feat of endurance that a warrior with the elite array can perform (str 15, con 14). He can run at a full sprint for one minute and 36 seconds while carrying 200lbs of gear before he even has a chance of becoming too winded to continue and in that time cover nearly the length of 3 football fields (2.8 to be precise). Mind, this is an NPC class with -no- magical gear at level 1.

Professional athletes that have dedicated significant portions of their lives to training their strength and endurance can only match portions of this.

But nobody plays a warrior, so let's look at a 1st level barbarian (same stats) in a rage. He can run for 2 minutes and 12 seconds, again at a dead-sprint, and cover over half a mile with that same 200 lbs of gear; something no person IRL could do.

This is just one example of what a "mundane" character can do with only basic stats.

Non-magical characters are breaking away from reality from the very start of the game. Trying to hold them to certain arbitrarily determined aspects of "realism" is absurd. If you want your mundanes to mirror reality, neither 3.X nor pathfinder is the right game.

(the above examples use the 3.5 rules since I do not know if pathfinder changed any of the relevant rules, though I highly doubt it.)

[Killer Angel]

Or you can not fix it. Mages can do more... because they're mages. This isn't a big problem for many players.

Well, of course the problem arises only if.


The problem is that the underlined is fallacious thinking even for a simple warrior (the NPC class).

Non-magical classes have completely outstripped reality by mid-levels even before you consider their gear.

(snip)

I know it and you know it, but nonetheless, the "lack of realism" is a touchy argument, with many contradictions lying around. Your fighter can jump a mountain, but to fly is a different world...

[Soras Teva Gee]

I'd like to repost something I said a while back here:

Just because I'm directly comparing the abilities of two classes or characters doesn't mean that I'm focused on PvP.

The beauty of my words in parenthesis is I've already disregarded mere claims that you yourself are not. Sorry but its a macroscale opinion built up from years of observation. Nothing you can say here is going to change it.

And I frankly see both examples there as very PvP in mind set, specifically because who is more effective overall is more directly competitive against a broader range of foes. Sure there might be a specific exception or two around, but any sufficiently diverse range of options should see that happen.


Optimization in character building is a tool, not an end goal. The ultimate goal of any game is to have fun, and it's very difficult to have fun when you're playing Pun-Pun, as you can just say "I win". The vast majority of optimization is done to a concept, where the player might not take the objectively most effective choice as it may not fit into the character concept, instead choosing the flavour of the character and then taking choices that are effective within that flavour.

Which is all lovely but I've seen too many "Help me build a fighter" "Go play a warblade and stop sucking instead" exchanges over the years to think that actual common practice.



I ended up building him as a Paladin of Tyranny->Ghost-Faced Killer. Now, that might not be the most powerful choice, but with some optimization, I can use multitudes of save debuffs, Fear effects and Charisma stat to all sorts of bonuses to make him a Fearful killing machine.

Hmm in Pathfinder my intial thought on doing that is use Intimidating Prowess and Dazzling Display. The first you add your strength to Intimidate and the second lets you demoralize everything in 30' feat. Theres other abilities to build on that too.

Can be applied to a bunch of classes actually. Though not using magic.



Wow. Let me tell you something about Western sword fighting. Have you ever heard of Lichtenauer? Fiore? Naming your guards, moves and attacks is a classic part of Western sword fighting. Hell, if you've seen the Princess Bride, you've heard of Bonetti's Defense. We don't know what it was, but it's named after Rocco Bonetti, a fencing master from the late 1500s; however, it didn't do him much good as he was killed in a street duel.

I remain unimpressed. See real world maneuvers aren't going to be special, they're at best good for a single situation or are more like a broad philosophical approach to a situation. Parry is just a special word for moving a sword to in a way that happens to block another.

And having fenced I have yet to find the RPG that captures the feel of it. Skyward Sword did okay for a video game and I guess counts-ish. For D&D all the permutations of actual fencing really would be so minor they are handled in the statistical form via the attack roll. Some kind of opposing roll system would maybe capture real swordplay better or what we see with some of the dex options.... but those maneuvers are just not ToB or 4E powers.

They are openly and honestly from wuxia and anime which is all great, but its "fancy special attack" not simple swordsmanship.

And really whether you think I'm right or wrong does matter because you can observe that I have plenty of company in not being the same by the whole evolution of things including Pathfinder's whole existence.

[Twilight Jack]

Every time I see one of these threads, I always fight the urge to defend Paizo and the Pathfinder system. I rarely do, because I happen to agree with most of the balance critiques that are being leveled against the system. The balance between classes really does break all to pieces given even the most rudimentary levels of optimization. Casters really do dominate mundane classes at all levels of play, unless the players are ignorant of good optimization or else have a strict gentlefolk's agreement not to engage the ruleset in that fashion. The critics are right.

So why do I always want to defend Pathfinder? Because their stated mission from the outset has been to preserve and continue the legacy of 3.x, on behalf of those who wanted to keep playing the game they loved, with official support from a company that loved it too. At their stated mission, they've done very well, no matter what balance issues persist.

Fourth Edition attempted to redesign the system from the ground up in order to address the real, deep flaws in the 3.x engine, and a goodly chunk of the player base rebelled. That rebellion is what gave rise to PF in the first place. How stupid would it have been to repeat WotC's mistake by completely breaking down the same system they sought to "save"? Their very existence as a game is based upon the fans' resistance to big changes.

Before you can fairly address Pathfinder's failure to bridge the power gap between wizards and warriors, you first have to acknowledge all the ways in which the 3.x iteration of D&D blew that gap open in the first place. If Pathfinder is the rightful heir to 3.x, then it's going to reflect the fundamental design philosophies of its forebear.

Without engaging in a pedantic exploration of D&D history, pre-3.x editions of D&D had far fewer issues with the LFQW problem. That isn't to say that they didn't exist, but they didn't generally crop up until much higher levels, and they were far more easily mitigated by a smart DM and the limitations on magic that were built right into the rules.

Along came the 3E design team and systematically stripped out or softened every single one of these limitations and baked their changes into the new engine in a way that made them very hard to undo (one of the side-effects of a "unified" system). Their motives were noble; they wanted to make playing a magic-user more "fun," especially at low levels. The problem is that they didn't really test the results of those changes at higher levels, especially once the wizard's tactics evolved beyond, "I cast fireball." So yeah, the casters became more "fun" for novice players at the expense of breaking the game wide open once they were used to even a fraction of their potential.

The problem with putting the blame for failing to fix this at the feet of SKR (difficult gentleman though he may be) and the rest of the PF design team is that to fix it requires them to either undo much of that fundamental work (much of which is intrinsic to the very core of 3.x D&D's identity as a game system) or to move forward from it in directions that threaten their their own unique proposition to the RPG market (namely, that they continue to develop and support the 3.5 system while preserving its core in amber for those who still love it).

[olentu]

Which is all lovely but I've seen too many "Help me build a fighter" "Go play a warblade and stop sucking instead" exchanges over the years to think that actual common practice.

You really believe that choosing a number of options out of a larger pool of options so as to better achieve a desired result is not common practice.

[Abaddona]

Soras Tova Gee - and how should i mechanically represent slashing beneath enemy shield to cut his feet off? Cause this was rather common tactical maneuver which maked sense and at the same time was rather effective. Or I don't know - bashing his head with swords hilt (gouging eye for example)?

Fighters have 2+int skill points so they simply may only become good at few things other that hitting things with things. Wizards may become a lot better at those other things by casting low lewel spells - which they can swap on daily basis.
Of course intimidating random people or burning random things is good way to contribute - when you play someone not nice and want to cause problems for the party - if not then you still must wait for someone to make those gather information checks. Personally i dont like rolling during social encounters (hey I gave perfectly reasonable arguments and then rolled "1" - how NPC should now react and what we can do to make situation better?) and prefer roleplaying but sadly not every DM agrees to that (and some still require you to roll in addition to roleplaying).

[13_CBS]

Interesting...

A related question, on the topic of "closing the casters-mundane makes it not 3.5 anymore":

JaronK came up with a quick-and-dirty fix for 3.5 balance issues once--if I remember correctly, it involved limiting the available base classes to Tier 3s (and maybe Tier 4s): Beguilers, Dread Necromancers, Warmages, ToBs, Factotums, etc. No Wizards, no Clerics, no Druids, and...I think no Monks and Paladins. :smallconfused: And so forth.

In the above situation, I suspect that there still will be a gap between caster and non-casters, but the gap is also almost certainly reduced. For the above situation, in your opinion...

1) Do the classes start feeling "samey"? This is a common criticism I hear leveled against 4e.

2) To what extent does this quick-and-dirty fix solve the "problem" of casters overshadowing non-casters?

3) Does it still "feel" like 3.5?

[kardar233]

The beauty of my words in parenthesis is I've already disregarded mere claims that you yourself are not. Sorry but its a macroscale opinion built up from years of observation. Nothing you can say here is going to change it.

And I frankly see both examples there as very PvP in mind set, specifically because who is more effective overall is more directly competitive against a broader range of foes. Sure there might be a specific exception or two around, but any sufficiently diverse range of options should see that happen.

Well, I'll have to dismiss your statement on grounds of it being entirely anecdotal. In my two years of active membership in this forum it's only on very rare occasions that I have seen people go "numbers numbers numbers" for a build that's actually going to be in a game. My data and your data are equally valid.

The latter really isn't about PvP, though. If there was a feat that was identical to Weapon Focus in every way (including qualifying for prerequisites) but gave a +2 to hit rather than a +1, it would be objectively better than Weapon Focus. In that case, is there a reason to choose Weapon Focus instead? Not really. Will a Fighter who chooses that feat rather than Weapon Focus have a slight advantage in a PvP scenario? Sure. Is that the reason you would take it? Not at all; it's simply more effective than Weapon Focus, so take it instead.

That's obviously an extremely simplified version of my argument, but the message I'm trying to get across is that comparing classes or build choices against each other doesn't mean that it's a PvP comparison; it's a comparison of effectiveness.



Which is all lovely but I've seen too many "Help me build a fighter" "Go play a warblade and stop sucking instead" exchanges over the years to think that actual common practice.

That happens because the standard assumption here is that someone who wants to "build a fighter" wants to build an effective character who hits people with swords (or whatever weapon) and thinks that playing a Fighter is a good way to go about that. Because the general consensus (at least, of the prolific posters here) is that the Warblade fills the same conceptual space as the Fighter, as a martial-focused weapon wielder, people want to help the OP choose a more effective version of that.

This is an extension of what I was saying before with Weapon Focus; it's believed that the Warblade fills the same conceptual space as the Fighter (thus satisfying the thematics that the OP wants) while being more effective, and thus is a similar decision to taking the previously-detailed feat over Weapon Focus. I understand that you disagree that the Warblade shares that conceptual space, but as your opinion is not shared by many of our more prolific posters the Warblade is suggested in case the OP doesn't share your opinion.

Now, if the OP posted again to say "I actually want to play the Fighter class, for [valid reason], so I'd like build advice on that" then sure, I'd tell him to play a Goliath Dungeoncrasher and take Knockback, but as many of the newcomers here don't know of Tome of Battle (I definitely didn't) it's important to lay out that option.




Hmm in Pathfinder my intial thought on doing that is use Intimidating Prowess and Dazzling Display. The first you add your strength to Intimidate and the second lets you demoralize everything in 30' feat. Theres other abilities to build on that too.

I have a version of the build lined up for Pathfinder too (as many of the groups here prefer PF, to my irritation), using Cornugon Smash and similar, but it's not nearly as elegant or effective. Still, PF doesn't have nearly as much quality support for Intimidation as 3.5, because most of PF's Intimidation options have a high action cost (like Dazzling Display) and are generally short on payoff, without things like Imperious Command.



I remain unimpressed. See real world maneuvers aren't going to be special, they're at best good for a single situation or are more like a broad philosophical approach to a situation. Parry is just a special word for moving a sword to in a way that happens to block another.

I would disagree, but as your background is in fencing and mine is in Italian longsword and sidesword I don't think I'm going to change your mind. I will say that, for example, low-level Iron Heart maneuvers are quite accurate: Punishing Stance could easily be a description of Vom Tag, and Steel Wind is a stramazzone, for example. To me, it stands to reason that as martial characters blow past today's limits of human capability their maneuvers will as well.


And having fenced I have yet to find the RPG that captures the feel of it. Skyward Sword did okay for a video game and I guess counts-ish. For D&D all the permutations of actual fencing really would be so minor they are handled in the statistical form via the attack roll. Some kind of opposing roll system would maybe capture real swordplay better or what we see with some of the dex options.... but those maneuvers are just not ToB or 4E powers.

I've heard that The Riddle of Steel is very good for this. As far as videogames go, do yourself a favour and check out Clang (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260688528/clang).

[eggynack]

Interesting...

A related question, on the topic of "closing the casters-mundane makes it not 3.5 anymore":

JaronK came up with a quick-and-dirty fix for 3.5 balance issues once--if I remember correctly, it involved limiting the available base classes to Tier 3s (and maybe Tier 4s): Beguilers, Dread Necromancers, Warmages, ToBs, Factotums, etc. No Wizards, no Clerics, no Druids, and...I think no Monks and Paladins. :smallconfused: And so forth.

In the above situation, I suspect that there still will be a gap between caster and non-casters, but the gap is also almost certainly reduced. For the above situation, in your opinion...

1) Do the classes start feeling "samey"? This is a common criticism I hear leveled against 4e.

2) To what extent does this quick-and-dirty fix solve the "problem" of casters overshadowing non-casters?

3) Does it still "feel" like 3.5?
I usually argue for that exact fix myself, but I thought I'd add some clarification. The ideal is a party with a maximum of two tiers of distance between any two party members, but those tiers can be anywhere you want. Thus, you can have a party that goes 1-3, 2-4, 3-5, or 4-6. You could play any of those games, and the characters in the party would all be roughly balanced. Not perfectly, obviously, but roughly. Of course, as in the one tier or no tier difference versions, you can shrink the gap. That would be where your tier 3-4 game would fit, as would a tier 1-2 game, and even an only tier 3 game. All of these games have far more balance than 3.5, and I don't think they sacrifice much to get there. This is especially true if you include tier 3 in the game, because that tier has the broadest range of character types and classes. As I've mentioned, you can have a perfectly fine, sameness free enviroment, involving nothing but tier 3 classes.

[Acanous]

Personally I believe the gap could have been bridged somewhat by the CMB/CMD system, had that been done with more favor to melee.

Look at the Power Attack and Skill Focus feats. They provide additional benefits at higher levels with no cost (Though PA is nerfed twice from 3.X, and Buffed once.)
Personally, I feel it would have done a world of good if things like "Improved Bull Rush" incorporated Greater and so on, as part of the feat.

They tied Combat Maneuver feats to BAB already. So why not grant you some extra utility at say, BAB 6 and 11? The Fighter can now pick up 4 feats to do 4 different things in combat, and he does them all better at lv 6, and masters them at 11. He can pick up additional feats that make him better with weapons, or give him bonuses when charging, or even go for two-weapon fighting.

This would not change the Caster/Mundane dynamic, but at least it would allow mundanes to have nice things.

[Man on Fire]

I can't say that I've played a full game of Pathfinder, though I have played a game of 3.P before. However, from what I've gathered, Pathfinder still seems to preserve the wide gap between casters (wizards, clerics, druids, sorcerers, psions, etc.) and mundanes (rogues, fighters, etc.)

Now, I do understand that whether or not Pathfinder has buffed or nerfed casters overall is a bit controversial on this board. The intent of this thread is not to discuss this. Regardless of whether casters were indeed strengthened or weakened, and regardless of whether mundanes were indeed strengthened or weakend, as far as I can tell there is still a very wide gulf between them.

I also understand that the idea of full casters tending to overshadow mundanes in mid-to-high-op games might also be controversial, but that's not the intent of this thread either.

The intent of this thread is to ask: IF it is true that casters were overshadowing mundanes in 3.5, and IF it is true that Pathfinder did not fix this, then WHY was it not fixed?

The idea that casters had far more tools to use in their toolboxes than their mundane party members seems to be one of the most widely-understood things on places like Giantitp, Minmax (and its previous iterations), even on WotC's own home boards. Yet, Pathfinder [apparently] did not completely fix this issue. From what I've gathered, it looks like Paizo seemed to agree with the idea only partially at most--certain extremely broken spells were fixed (or so I hear), but not all of them, and plenty more still cause trouble.

So what I'm wondering is--why wasn't it fixed?

My current hypotheses are...

1) Paizo did not believe there was such an issue. For whatever reason, they believed that all that was needed was a bit of tweaking for some spells--otherwise, casters are relatively balanced relative to mundanes.

2) Paizo agreed that, in theory, casters were overshadowing mundanes, but also believed that their target audience is not the type to play at a sufficient optimization level such that the caster-mundane gulf is much of an issue. If most of their target audience was playing non-optimized blaster wizards, healbot clerics, and sword & board fighters, then going through the titanic effort of fixing the caster-mundane balance problem would not have been worth it.

3) Paizo agreed that, in theory, casters were overshadowing mundanes, but misunderstood the problem at a fundamental level that they believed their current solutions to the problem to be sufficient.

Could anyone else shed some light on this? This phenomenon has always intrigued in game design, where players relatively quickly reveal fundamental balance problems and designers are very slow to fix them, if the problems are acknowledged at all.

Paizo wanted their product to be compatible with 3.5 so everybody who didn't liked 4e could jump to Pathfinder and use it combiend with their 3.5 books. That prevented them from making too drastic changes.

Also, massive nerf to casters and buff to mundanes (seeing as one of mundane 4e classes, Warlord, is tier 1) put off 3.5 audience Paizo wanted to get.

[navar100]

Soras Tova Gee - and how should i mechanically represent slashing beneath enemy shield to cut his feet off? Cause this was rather common tactical maneuver which maked sense and at the same time was rather effective. Or I don't know - bashing his head with swords hilt (gouging eye for example)?

Fighters have 2+int skill points so they simply may only become good at few things other that hitting things with things. Wizards may become a lot better at those other things by casting low lewel spells - which they can swap on daily basis.
Of course intimidating random people or burning random things is good way to contribute - when you play someone not nice and want to cause problems for the party - if not then you still must wait for someone to make those gather information checks. Personally i dont like rolling during social encounters (hey I gave perfectly reasonable arguments and then rolled "1" - how NPC should now react and what we can do to make situation better?) and prefer roleplaying but sadly not every DM agrees to that (and some still require you to roll in addition to roleplaying).

That line of thinking means you won't accept a player who is not very sociable in real life playing a charismatic ladies' man ambassador because the player just doesn't have the words or mannerisms to reflect such a character. By that same logic, no player who is not built like Arnold Schwarzeneggar in his prime should ever play a barbarian. Only priests, rabbis, imams, etc. can play clerics. Only the corner store psychic can play a wizard. Only someone recently paroled can play a rogue. I wouldn't mind Debbie Harry in my group playing a bard, but if I want to play one I shouldn't have to have been on The Voice or American Idol to do it.


Interesting...

A related question, on the topic of "closing the casters-mundane makes it not 3.5 anymore":

JaronK came up with a quick-and-dirty fix for 3.5 balance issues once--if I remember correctly, it involved limiting the available base classes to Tier 3s (and maybe Tier 4s): Beguilers, Dread Necromancers, Warmages, ToBs, Factotums, etc. No Wizards, no Clerics, no Druids, and...I think no Monks and Paladins. :smallconfused: And so forth.

In the above situation, I suspect that there still will be a gap between caster and non-casters, but the gap is also almost certainly reduced. For the above situation, in your opinion...

1) Do the classes start feeling "samey"? This is a common criticism I hear leveled against 4e.

2) To what extent does this quick-and-dirty fix solve the "problem" of casters overshadowing non-casters?

3) Does it still "feel" like 3.5?

No. He did not say that at all. What he recommended was that players play classes within two Tiers of each other. You can have a balanced game with wizards, clerics, and druids if the warrior classes are crusaders, warblades, and duskblades. You can have a balanced game with fighters, monks, and paladins if the spellcasters are beguilers, warlocks, and incarnates.

This is if you care about "balance". Personally I don't hold "balance" as something to be worshipped and get to enjoy campaigns with one player as the wizard and another is a fighter. I'm usually the cleric, and in one campaign the fighter player was not upset or bothered, at all, that I had DMM Persistent Spell.

[Twilight Jack]

No. He did not say that at all. What he recommended was that players play classes within two Tiers of each other. You can have a balanced game with wizards, clerics, and druids if the warrior classes are crusaders, warblades, and duskblades. You can have a balanced game with fighters, monks, and paladins if the spellcasters are beguilers, warlocks, and incarnates.

This is if you care about "balance". Personally I don't hold "balance" as something to be worshipped and get to enjoy campaigns with one player as the wizard and another is a fighter. I'm usually the cleric, and in one campaign the fighter player was not upset or bothered, at all, that I had DMM Persistent Spell.

It's also worth noting that many groups (of which a few posters here are representative) never have any of the aforementioned balance problems at all, while remaining entirely ignorant of the tier system. At their tables, the ubercharging fighter was the height of overpowered munchkinism, and they love Pathfinder for fixing Power Attack to tone that mess down.

[13_CBS]

No. He did not say that at all. What he recommended was that players play classes within two Tiers of each other. You can have a balanced game with wizards, clerics, and druids if the warrior classes are crusaders, warblades, and duskblades. You can have a balanced game with fighters, monks, and paladins if the spellcasters are beguilers, warlocks, and incarnates.

No, I specifically remember Jaron typing up a quick and easy fix for not just balancing the classes but also limiting some of the dirtier things full casters could do. His solution involved banning Tier 1s and 2s at the very least (I can't quite remember if he also banned 5s and 6s). *Goes off to see if he can find this post*

[eggynack]

No, I specifically remember Jaron typing up a quick and easy fix for not just balancing the classes but also limiting some of the dirtier things full casters could do. His solution involved banning Tier 1s and 2s at the very least (I can't quite remember if he also banned 5s and 6s). *Goes off to see if he can find this post*
Yeah, you're actually right. Option 3 in the tier system for classes (http://www.brilliantgameologists.com/boards/?topic=1002.0) lists something like what you say. I still prefer the two tier range system, because it allows a broad range of balance points, though option 3 certainly wouldn't judge me for preferring that.

[13_CBS]

Yeah, you're actually right. Option 3 in the tier system for classes (http://www.brilliantgameologists.com/boards/?topic=1002.0) lists something like what you say. I still prefer the two tier range system, because it allows a broad range of balance points, though option 3 certainly wouldn't judge me for preferring that.

Come to think of it, it might have been in a random post he made in some thread here. Welp, time to comb the rest of giantitp!

*Packs saddlebags* A long journey awaits me, brothers and sisters. When I will return, I do not know, but return I shall. :smallcool:

[ArcturusV]

2 tier swing probably wouldn't be bad. Though I'd suggest not having the high tier ever be tier 2.

I mean Tier 2 classes are basically "Everything a tier 1 is, but lacking daily build reshuffling". So you'd, at the table, really be running tier 1 with 3s and 4s.

[eggynack]

2 tier swing probably wouldn't be bad. Though I'd suggest not having the high tier ever be tier 2.

I mean Tier 2 classes are basically "Everything a tier 1 is, but lacking daily build reshuffling". So you'd, at the table, really be running tier 1 with 3s and 4s.
Yeah, the tier 2-4 range is probably the worst one. It's probably not as bad as all that, because it costs a sorcerer a lot to approximate a barbarian. A barbarian in a party with a sorcerer could probably have a good time. Another example is the rogue. In a wizard party, the wizard can do stuff like prepare knock or other various stealthy spells. For sorcerers, that kind of maneuver has a really high opportunity cost. It's probably the worst tier range for it, but I think that even 2-4 can work as a balanced party.

[13_CBS]

*Unpacks saddlebags* huh, I guess that journey didn't take all that long. :smallconfused:


I actually played around with this idea by making a new set of 11 core classes to replace the old. Note this makes some use of T4 classes.

Wizard, Rogue -> Factotum
Druid -> Wild Shape Ranger (regular Ranger also available)
Sorcerer -> Warmage, Warlock, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer
Cleric, Paladin -> Crusader
Fighter, Barbarian -> Warblade
Ranger remains, but Wild Shape Ranger is allowed
Bard remains
Monk -> Unarmed Swordsage (regular Swordsage also available)
Binder added

So the new base classes are Factotum, Ranger (including Wild Shape Ranger), Warmage, Warlock, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Warblade, Swordsage (including Unarmed variant), Bard, and Binder. You've got nice quick and easy translations of the old classes... obviously a Crusader or Wild Shape Ranger can't do everything a Cleric or Druid can, but we wouldn't expect a T3 class to completely duplicate a T1.

JaronK

[Svata]

Okay, that's pretty interestin--




What?! Weapon Specialization costs twice as much as Natural Spell? But...why?



:smalleek:

But...improved critical and improved disarm aren't even that great in the first place and...

Oh god...

Actually on a rogue with a rapier, improved critical is pretty decent. Threaten on a 15 and up? Now, if only it applied to sneak attack...

But the rest? Yeah, that's pretty terrible. Ok, nevermind, its AWFUL.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Soras Tova Gee - and how should i mechanically represent slashing beneath enemy shield to cut his feet off? Cause this was rather common tactical maneuver which maked sense and at the same time was rather effective. Or I don't know - bashing his head with swords hilt (gouging eye for example)?

Broadly speaking you don't.

You score a critical or just empty their hit points and the flavor text is "Seeing an opening you cut low piercing the raiders defenses and slicing his leg clean off"


Fighters have 2+int skill points so they simply may only become good at few things other that hitting things with things. Wizards may become a lot better at those other things by casting low lewel spells - which they can swap on daily basis.

Fighters 2 skills continues to be completely ridiculous you won't find arguement there. Especially in PF where Barbarians are no longer illiterate.

That's not really something they are in conflict with Wizard with though. The Rogues have that issue... but the Rogues are probably the worst off class in Pathfinder. Actually that's probably less from spells then from how you can probably just bash open a chest/door/etc, your GM will probably get you through if its important anyways, and triggering traps creatively is often more fun then disabling them. And the game isn't Tomb of Horrors anymore.




JaronK came up with a quick-and-dirty fix for 3.5 balance issues once--if I remember correctly, it involved limiting the available base classes to Tier 3s (and maybe Tier 4s): Beguilers, Dread Necromancers, Warmages, ToBs, Factotums, etc. No Wizards, no Clerics, no Druids, and...I think no Monks and Paladins. :smallconfused: And so forth.


Might work mechanically just fine, but nothing ditching very core and iconic class is going to fly that well.

People who don't have problems with the current balance aren't going to like being told they can't go to an old standby because its too strong/weak. And they probably aren't the ones you worry about.


Well, I'll have to dismiss your statement on grounds of it being entirely anecdotal. In my two years of active membership in this forum it's only on very rare occasions that I have seen people go "numbers numbers numbers" for a build that's actually going to be in a game. My data and your data are equally valid.

If it was so open I wouldn't have nearly the issue with it I do.


That's the sort of numerical thinking though I'm talking about. The
That's obviously an extremely simplified version of my argument, but the message I'm trying to get across is that comparing classes or build choices against each other doesn't mean that it's a PvP comparison; it's a comparison of effectiveness.

Too simplistic to work there. Seriously the exact same but more? We both know damn well that's not going to be the case and if it was it wouldn't even be a comparasion it would be would be "hey weapon focus got an upgrade" and in a perfect world simply put out as an update to weapon focus. Something Paizo sorta (but not) has in disorganized fashion with their engagement on the web.

Also btw the way your are basically arguing that because its not 100% something it might as well be 0%. I'm perfectly aware there are that effectiveness considerations that are useful and something every player should learn something of.

I do not find such things to make up more then a sizable minority though.


That happens because the standard assumption here is that someone who wants to "build a fighter" wants to build an effective character who hits people with swords (or whatever weapon) and thinks that playing a Fighter is a good way to go about that. Because the general consensus (at least, of the prolific posters here) is that the Warblade fills the same conceptual space as the Fighter, as a martial-focused weapon wielder, people want to help the OP choose a more effective version of that.

Next you will tell me people on the internet are known for their restraint, even temper, and pleasant behavior.

No it happens because arrogance is pervasive virtue of all nerdoms (this is an incarnation) and even those not actively lording their supposed mental superiority allow the net too warp their view of reality and the scale of the "problems" and what their solutions are.

Also not to raise the horse skeleton and turn it into a lich just so it can be beaten for eternity.... a Warblade does not fill the same conceptual space. It may fill the same tactical space but it only becomes the same if you think crunch and fluff are completely divorced and unimportant.

That was ultimately tried, it is called 4E. Heck I'm fine with people liking 4E even, but Pathfinders whole existence and presumable profitability make it a simple fact I was not alone in disliking it for taking all the IMHO bad trends I saw from ToB writ to the whole game.


This is an extension of what I was saying before with Weapon Focus; it's believed that the Warblade fills the same conceptual space as the Fighter (thus satisfying the thematics that the OP wants) while being more effective, and thus is a similar decision to taking the previously-detailed feat over Weapon Focus. I understand that you disagree that the Warblade shares that conceptual space, but as your opinion is not shared by many of our more prolific posters the Warblade is suggested in case the OP doesn't share your opinion.

I must have cast detect thoughts because I deleted that exact comparasion in the other direction a being completely different.

The Pathfinder Fighter is a straight upgrade, its Weapon Focus +2. Same idea turned up a few degrees. With abilities like Weapon Training this is almost pretty literal.

A Warblade is a gish with weapon oriented spells refluffed to "not use magic" (unless they do, I can never keep straight which disciplines are and aren't) whatever their effectiveness they simply don't take the same approach to a problem a Fighter does.

And seriously however you take the fluff for your character behind the scenes its obvious that's the case simply from things like how they have 9 levels and the formatting on the entries.

Also "prolific posters" are always a small minority so if thats your standard consider some sodium chloride on using it to shape your opinions. That's more of a fandom thing in general then simply here. History is littered with the ruins of fandoms that mistook their representation. Classic example would be Firefly being (a supposedly) huge cult classic cancelled before its time with a vigorous following campaigning for its revival, and then the movie gross was lackluster at best at the box office. Somebody had a brain and kept the budget small, but even back then blockbusters had stopped being remarkable returns.


Now, if the OP posted again to say "I actually want to play the Fighter class, for [valid reason], so I'd like build advice on that" then sure, I'd tell him to play a Goliath Dungeoncrasher and take Knockback, but as many of the newcomers here don't know of Tome of Battle (I definitely didn't) it's important to lay out that option.

Words do not describe how sad this makes me.

No really.


I would disagree, but as your background is in fencing and mine is in Italian longsword and sidesword I don't think I'm going to change your mind. I will say that, for example, low-level Iron Heart maneuvers are quite accurate: Punishing Stance could easily be a description of Vom Tag, and Steel Wind is a stramazzone, for example. To me, it stands to reason that as martial characters blow past today's limits of human capability their maneuvers will as well.

IIRC stances are the ones that function as modes. Those are one of the neato gems in ToB that's worth emulating in my book. Because that actually meshes well with being a style of martial arts covering an entire approach. Something that making a tornado of fire can't also say

And even ignoring Desert Wind just for the sake of argument (not that ToB really separates the schools itself) even ones that started maybe almost plausible at least as often as not got into the outright implausible/magical. Now sure this is a world of magic, but that sort of transition inherently invokes a different set of expectations. Namely a genre shift from High Fantasy to wuxia and/or anime particularly shonen.

Now I like those genres, heck I think on a real good day I might even like a Swordsage since it does something I can't in normal 3.5... but they aren't something that "fixes" the Fighter by changing his entire style however more effective it is is essentially besides the point..


I've heard that The Riddle of Steel is very good for this. As far as videogames go, do yourself a favour and check out Clang (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260688528/clang).

I'd buy it.

Course not that I dislike all the fake as all heck sword fighting games I've played either.

[123456789blaaa]

<snip>
Words do not describe how sad this makes me.

No really.
<snip>

Why? :smallconfused: Unless I'm misinterpreting his statement, it doesn't seem like he's saying he'l tell the player he'll have to play a goliath Dungeoncrasher if the player wants to be a fighter. He's just giving it as an example build option.

[Psyren]

Why 2-tier range? I see no problem with a T3-T4 game - you can handle every challenge (with a little wealth) and gamebreaking power is limited.

[Raven777]

Yeah, the tier 2-4 range is probably the worst one. It's probably not as bad as all that, because it costs a sorcerer a lot to approximate a barbarian. A barbarian in a party with a sorcerer could probably have a good time. Another example is the rogue. In a wizard party, the wizard can do stuff like prepare knock or other various stealthy spells. For sorcerers, that kind of maneuver has a really high opportunity cost. It's probably the worst tier range for it, but I think that even 2-4 can work as a balanced party.

I'm a Sorcerer with Paragon Surge (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/p/paragon-surge) (Extended Arcana (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/expanded-arcana)). Or less cheesy, a Mnemonic Robe (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/vestment-mnemonic) and a Scroll of Knock. Where is your god now, Rogue? Muhahahahahaha *snork* hahaha.

As for the crux of the discussion. I like game balance as it is right now. I feel Pathfinder is exactly where I like it. Less overwhelming than 3.5 and its million books, less flat and generic than 4.0 and its perfectly equal, perfectly uninspiring "balance". I like my Sorcerer being flaboyantly over the top while raising the dead and chugging Fireballs, secure in my cheesy self-disbelieved Shadow Evoc'd Resilient Sphere, while the barbarian plays meatshield hacking at Ogres that can't reach me because they're dumb. I like that style. Maybe Paizo saw a significant portion of their audience felt the same?

[eggynack]

I'm a Sorcerer with Paragon Surge (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/p/paragon-surge) (Extended Arcana (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/expanded-arcana)). Or less cheesy, a Mnemonic Robe (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/vestment-mnemonic) and a Scroll of Knock. Where is your god now, Rogue? Muhahahahahaha *snork* hahaha.
I guess that's fair. I'm mostly talking about 3.5, as that's what the balancing I use is built for. I heard that sorcerers got some serious upgrades in pathfinder, so that could change the balancing some. I generally view a 2 tier range as the maximum allowable range for a balanced game, at least at moderate levels of optimization. You can easily have a tier 3-4 game, a tier 1-2 game, or just a tier 5 game, and be perfectly balanced and happy. I see a rogue being outclassed by a sorcerer, but not so outclassed that he feels useless. Still, it's definitely the least balanced of the set. A warblade will probably feel more at home in a wizard party, and a fighter will likewise not be too outclassed in a factotum party. I suppose that the absolute ideal of balance is only having a single tier, but discussing maximum allowable distance is more important in my view.

[Psyren]

The sorcerer class is more powerful in Pathfinder, but the actual spells are still stronger in 3.5. For instance, 3.5 polymorph is much stronger, and PF has nothing close to Celerity, Wings of Flurry, Streamers or Arcane Fusion.

[eggynack]

The sorcerer class is more powerful in Pathfinder, but the actual spells are still stronger in 3.5. For instance, 3.5 polymorph is much stronger, and PF has nothing close to Celerity, Wings of Flurry, Streamers or Arcane Fusion.
Yes, but from what I understand pathfinder made it easier to approximate a rogue. Invisibility is worse in 3.5 where it doesn't allow you to effectively get a +20 to move silently checks, and unless you use some way around it, adding knock to your list has an opportunity cost. I'd personally never take it on a sorcerer, because unlike a wizard, you're giving up more than a spell slot. Generally, sorcerers are able to gain large swaths of effectiveness in 3.5. However, the fact that the sorcerer generally has to pick those large swaths permanently means that the rogue can find a niche much more easily than he would with a wizard. Wizards do completely invalidate rogues, because they can switch to a stealth class overnight. It's definitely the most strained of the two tier gap parties, but I think that it's a workable game. I will note that the summon elemental reserve feat hits rogues pretty hard though.

[Abaddona]

Soras Tova Gee -> so in other words something like "i got lucky and hacked his leg off" compared to "i bashed his shield with mine distracting my opponent and creating an opportunity to chop his limb off"? Because this seems rather rational combat option to me. Or for example bashing his armor with blunt weapon hoping that said armor gets broken (along with enemy's bones). Or simply spitting in his eyes to blind him briefly. All that are pretty mundane and at the same time rather reasonable maneuvwers (if someone wants to be more exotic he can try alcohol + torch combo but i wouldn't try that at home). And considering that hit points are rather "battle stamina" than "health" there is place to many more options for tiring your oponent in combat out and at the same time save own strenght (for example blocking in a way that force of the hit gets minimalized). In other words there is much place for mundane melee types to get nice things other than "i run at him and full attack" or i got lucky and choped his head off" even without making them "magic-like".
(oh, and i agree that using handheld set of kobolds to disarm traps is great fun, especially for party halfling rogue who now may stand waaay over there with the rest of the party during whole procedure :-) )


Navar100 -> hmmm, pretty much. I don't require that guy playing party face should be charismatic, witty and so on but hey - he should at least try to roleplay and not only "i'm convicing him to my point of view. Wohoo, natural 20!". I know that there are situations when handwavium should be applied to improve quality of fun (appraising loot and haggling with merchants over it's price was fun for the first time, several sessions later it is boring as hell) but when important plot-related negotations with high officials in town are solved in a way "DM flavor text - rolling dice - more DM flavor text - more rolling" it gets ridiculous (as much as when NPC cleric begs us to save her beloved and then doesn't want to go with us even when we pointed out that: we don't have healers in our party, goblins are not nice and said beloved could be critically wounded and requiring immediate cure spells/heal checks to save his life - cause d20 didn't like me that day).

[kardar233]

If it was so open I wouldn't have nearly the issue with it I do.

I really don't think optimizers have a "hidden agenda" where they have to have the biggest possible numbers all the time.


Also btw the way your are basically arguing that because its not 100% something it might as well be 0%. I'm perfectly aware there are that effectiveness considerations that are useful and something every player should learn something of.

I do not find such things to make up more then a sizable minority though.

I... really don't know what you're trying to say here. :smallconfused:


Also not to raise the horse skeleton and turn it into a lich just so it can be beaten for eternity.... a Warblade does not fill the same conceptual space. It may fill the same tactical space but it only becomes the same if you think crunch and fluff are completely divorced and unimportant.

Not everyone shares your view that the crunch of the Warblade is a poorly disguised caster. I've seen new players take to Tome of Battle really easily because its mechanics are in some places similar to casting, but they don't think of it as "a caster, but with swords".


The Pathfinder Fighter is a straight upgrade, its Weapon Focus +2. Same idea turned up a few degrees. With abilities like Weapon Training this is almost pretty literal.

The Pathfinder Fighter is pretty terrible in comparison to the 3.5 one; it's lost a whole bunch of feat support (like the excellent Stand Still, the aforementioned Intimidate stuff especially coupled with Zhentarim Soldier, damage multipliers like Leap Attack, etc.) and the tools it retained took heavy nerfs such as the Trip tree. It also lost the Martial Study and Martial Stance feats, which could give it some much-needed options. Also, it lost Dungeoncrasher, which was by far one of my favourite melee play styles.


A Warblade is a gish with weapon oriented spells refluffed to "not use magic" (unless they do, I can never keep straight which disciplines are and aren't) whatever their effectiveness they simply don't take the same approach to a problem a Fighter does.

And seriously however you take the fluff for your character behind the scenes its obvious that's the case simply from things like how they have 9 levels and the formatting on the entries.

That's your opinion. I post on threads about Fighters suggesting Warblades in case they may agree with me on them sharing the Fighter's conceptual space, in which case they'll have a character laid out neatly for them as the Warblade is very intuitive to build and doesn't require really any specific build advice. If they decide that the Warblade is too much like a gish, then I'm happy to help them build a Fighter or such.


Also "prolific posters" are always a small minority so if thats your standard consider some sodium chloride on using it to shape your opinions.

I'm not using them to judge a standard, I'm explaining why just about every "help me build a fighter" thread has a "have you looked at the Warblade?" post in it, as many of said posters share my view that the Warblade occupies the same conceptual space as the Fighter, and as such is not much different in build advice than saying "take Power Attack and Shock Trooper".


Words do not describe how sad this makes me.

No really.

Perhaps the statement was worded incautiously. Let me try again.

Now, if the OP posted again to say "I actually want to play the Fighter class, for [valid reason], so I'd like build advice on that" then sure, I'd suggest that he might want to play a Goliath Dungeoncrasher with Knockback, but as many of the newcomers here don't know of Tome of Battle (I definitely didn't) it's important to lay out that option.

If that's not your issue with the statement, then I don't know what is.


And even ignoring Desert Wind just for the sake of argument (not that ToB really separates the schools itself) even ones that started maybe almost plausible at least as often as not got into the outright implausible/magical. Now sure this is a world of magic, but that sort of transition inherently invokes a different set of expectations. Namely a genre shift from High Fantasy to wuxia and/or anime particularly shonen.

And again, this goes back into the Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards debate. I believe that high-level martial characters shouldn't necessarily be bound by our ideas of what humans are capable of, and should be able to perform exceptional feats that you might write off as "too wuxia". A high-level warrior should be able to hurl his blade at his opponents, carving through opponents before ricocheting back to his hand (Lightning Throw), or parry arrows and bullets (Wall of Blades), or sense the motion of an invisible enemy (Hearing the Air).


Now I like those genres, heck I think on a real good day I might even like a Swordsage since it does something I can't in normal 3.5... but they aren't something that "fixes" the Fighter by changing his entire style however more effective it is is essentially besides the point..

I disagree.


I'd buy it.

Course not that I dislike all the fake as all heck sword fighting games I've played either.

I went to the Kickstarter launch party for it a few weeks ago. Really cool. The game is quite unpolished at this point, but the control scheme is working pretty well so that's the groundwork laid.

[Eldan]

The melee combat System was written to be very Abstract.

Here's whta happens in the rules:
You roll a 20, followed by a 15. You roll (1d8+3)*2 damage. The enemy is reduced to -3 hit Points.

Here's what it Looks like in game:
"You step forward and your shield crashes against that of your enemy, temporarily throwing him off-Balance. With a low lunch, you get under your opponent's defence and strike his leg. Blood spurts from the severed artery and as your enemy falls, you finish him with a blow to the gut."

At least in AD&D and very early third Edition, this was assumed to happen. A single attack roll represents trading complicated maneuvers, a half dozen strikes, lunges, parries and sidesteps.

If you want more detailed mechanics than that, you should probably look into homebrew, the tome of battle and other Systems.

[ArcturusV]

I think most people intuitively grasp that, even if they also claim they don't, Eldan. It's just an interesting phenomenon I've noticed when I've DMed with various groups.

Obviously a ranged projectile is going to be a single attack per roll. You don't burn 5 arrows on a single roll after all. So they have that idea percolating in their head that an attack roll is a single attack. Same with spells that require attack rolls, etc. So this thought is in their minds and they start to think of an attack roll as a single strike.

Now as a DM, in order to help people get their heads into the game world a bit and not think of it entirely as a game during combat (If you know what I mean, that tendency to forget Roleplaying because the dice got busted out), I call out for Deathblows. Where, when a player drops an enemy I tell them to basically describe HOW they dropped the enemy, give us some color. Most players really get into it. But it's the melee players who really get into it, because even though they will tell you that an attack roll represents one specific attack... it's not what they do when given the chance to describe and embellish. Instead you got them talking about 5 strike combos that left their opponent on their knees and disarmed before lopping off a head, or how they batted aside several failed attempts by the target to defend themselves before unleashing the final blow, etc.

[Emperor Tippy]

To the OP, because Pathfinder never tried. Not that I think they would have succeeded (I have a fairly low opinion of Pathfinders game designers) but they never really made the attempt.

You can do it but it requires that you be willing to go back to the basics.

Take as just one example, at level 5 a fighter get's the ability to move up to an additional (level in full AB class*10) feet split up however he desires (moving 80 feet in one move action at level 5, for example or have five 40 foot move actions). Seems a perfectly mundane ability and one that is perfectly reasonable but it suddenly opens up tons of tactical and strategic options for the fighter and provides benefits all the way up to level 20. Now add in an additional move action each round at, say, level 13. Level 15 might have "Always on Alert (Ex): The fighter is so used to combat and so aware of his surroundings that he always gets to act in a surprise round, can not be surprised or flat footed, always gets a surprise round, and gains his fighter level as a bonus to initiative checks". Again perfectly reasonable, perfectly mundane, and significantly improves the fighter without breaking his feel. Level 20 might have "Lighting Reflexes (Ex): The fighter can as an immediate action usable (fighter level/4) times per day gain a full round of actions." Again perfectly reasonable, perfectly believable, and a great capstone.

Bah, now I'm really tempted to actually homebrew up a full 20 level fighter class that preserves the feel, remains wholly mundane, and yet makes the fighter the best straight melee combatant character around.

----
Re-balancing spell casters is a royal pain. For one, you have to go through the entire spell list spell by spell to do it.

[DMVerdandi]

The melee combat System was written to be very Abstract.

Here's whta happens in the rules:
You roll a 20, followed by a 15. You roll (1d8+3)*2 damage. The enemy is reduced to -3 hit Points.

Here's what it Looks like in game:
"You step forward and your shield crashes against that of your enemy, temporarily throwing him off-Balance. With a low lunch, you get under your opponent's defence and strike his leg. Blood spurts from the severed artery and as your enemy falls, you finish him with a blow to the gut."

At least in AD&D and very early third Edition, this was assumed to happen. A single attack roll represents trading complicated maneuvers, a half dozen strikes, lunges, parries and sidesteps.

If you want more detailed mechanics than that, you should probably look into homebrew, the tome of battle and other Systems.

Took the words right out of my mouth.
The heavy abstraction is the problem. You can make up fancy eloquent crap till the cows come home, and everything you just said can still amount to attack,full attack, bull rush, charge, sunder, and grapple.

In REAL life, it is hardly abstracted that much. If you are a rookie, everything is without art, but even for someone who has never boxed for example, they possess the inherent ability to jab, straight, and hook. All of those do DRASTICALLY different things. Then you can perform those punches on various parts of the body for different effects. Don't even talk about all the other ish you can do with your body. Knees, pokes, fish-hooks, kicks, scratches, ect.


DND is no where near that.
And that is horrible.
Magic on the other hand is not abstract AT ALL. It is completely grounded in it's own physics and logic, with every single spell doing something different. There are lots of things to do, so there are lots of spells.


Bonus fighter feats COULD have been the difference, except they were made into feats in the first place. Had you made THEM maneuvers, taken away the pre-requisites, and focused on the styles as individual schools that could be bought into, then it would have been perfect.

Imagine, the fighter has a maneuver list from 1-9, with these as the schools:

Two weapon fighting
Blades
Archery
Unarmed
Pole-arms
Evasion
Shield and Armor Defence
Footwork
Thrown

If Attacks,Boosts, Counters And stances were all on the list, it would be full very easily.
Not only that, but these maneuvers would be purchased through spending XP and gold for tutors who don't teach for free.
No upper limit to maneuvers known, just as much as you can purchase.

With that, the fighter would have gained VARIETY. Not only that, but it would remain very general and curt for those who like that.

Finally,perhaps not having a recharge mechanism would have worked.



Everyone catching my drift here?
The Idea behind the TOB maneuver system was PERFECT.
The execution was hit or miss.
How do you fix it?

Throw out the schools for ones deemed more appropriate, CREATE NEW MANEUVERS (totally possible and easy), And Make Martial versions of the PHB melee classes.


Had a TOB 2 come out, that would have been awesome.
Exploring martial maneuvers that don't come from the 9 schools of reshar.

For me, people's complaint with TOB is that is too wu-jen, when they want a wizard. Fine, but that is because of fluff only. Not because they have techniques that they use.

What about flying armbars, and spinning elbows? High kicks and thrusts?
DND made a mistake putting combat maneuvers on the feat lists. They should have been on Maneuver lists. No Prerequisites short of not reaching Proper Initiator level and not spending XP on it.


Magic has the superior mechanic, not ONLY because it does fantastic things, but because all of those fantastic things are DETAILED,ORGANIZED, PLENTY, AND EASY TO AQUIRE.

Once Martial techniques become Detailed, organized, plenty, and easy to acquire, they still aren't as powerful per say, because of the setting, HOWEVER, they become more fun to play within themselves. And that is what matters.

I should be able to have two different grapples that do two different things in one chapter that is easy to rate on a power scale, easy to find, is unique to the class(GROUP), and an actual class feature.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

My problems with Tome of Battle are threefold;

1) Flavor focused on eastern archetypes rather than western ones, or at least the more magical versions of eastern archetypes. Said archetypes have always had more than a bit of magic in them in the form of Ki or however you want to call it and ToB takes such abilities quite a bit further towards the supernatural. Had the flavor focused entirely on nonmagical ideas, we would have had far fewer complains about "wuxia". Giving options to meleers, even real-life impossible ones, is perfectly doable without giving them a magical flavor.
Example: Pathfinder monk with the Martial Artist archetype. Most of the abilities this guy gets are obviously superhuman (i.e. "I never get tired, ever!") but all of them are flavored either as physical prowess or high skill. Yes, this guy is not very powerful (though that depends on build) but we're talking flavor here.

2) Ability themes/names focused on supernatural effect groups (i.e. fire, shadow, earth, time) rather than physical combat themes (i.e. blade weapons, archery, armor use, endurance, speed). This is about half the reason ToB classes are called supernatural to begin with and I see no reason whatsoever for the maneuvers to have such themes.
Examples: Why in the name of Asha Vahishta would you name a maneuver "Diamond Nightmare Blade" and not something like "Greater Penetrating Strike"? The first name is obviously supernaturally themed while the latter could be a purely martial ability just fine. Ditto with things like "Iron Heart Surge" -why not rename it "Heroic Determination". The "Five-Shadow Creeping Enervating Bull****" gets the Golden Facepalm award on how not to name martial abilities, or any abilities in general. You want to give meleers energy-draining or ability-draining attacks? Hercules is your friend - he's the guy that dips his arrows in Hydra poison/blood to make their wounds incurable since 3000 BC. So give your meleers some Improvised Poison ability to add a material component to their attacks to net a given effect such as hydra poison for ability drain, undead blood for energy drain, beholder ichor to ignore magical defenses and so on and so forth. Availability for material components similar to a wizard's non-costly material components.


3) The new classes essentially working as melee casters. What happened to ranged combat? What happened to passive defenses? What happened to tactics/skill use?
Examples: OK, the ToB classes know a bunch of maneuvers, right? But they only happen remember some of them at a time and once a maneuver is used they inexplicably forget it or something. And then in various random and arbitrary ways, they get access to that maneuver again. Does this remind you of anything? :smallsigh:
As for stances, the idea is good - first among two or three good ones in the book IMHO. But it was never expanded enough to make it as important as maneuvers and they didn't include a class that focused primarily on stances either - which I'd have liked to see.

[eggynack]

@ Belial:
Those problems just seem so minor. The first two problems are basically the same problem, and if you make some simple changes that fix them in your eyes, the third one might be fixed too. Can't you just call the warblade a fighter and call diamond nightmare blade greater penetrating strike? It's a bit of a hassle, but it's far more of a hassle to get fighters anywhere close to as interesting as warblades in terms of game play. I personally wouldn't make the changes, because I don't dislike the flavor, but even if fluff isn't completely mutable in your eyes, it's far more mutable than mechanics.

Thus, the third issue is the only one with real merit in my opinion. Ranged combat seems like a real oversight to me, because it means that there's basically no tier 3 option for ranged combat. I really don't think that casting and ToB are as indistinguishable as you do though. The recovery mechanics separate them from the one and done nature of vancian casting, and the way that maneuvers require each other as prerequisites is a far cry from the school specialization system. Additionally, ToB classes just play really differently from wizards. Most of their abilities are inextricably tied to combat, and there are a lot that are just dealing more damage than a normal hit. They also often have an incentive to just attack folks, so they're pretty attached to classic melee combat. I don't really understand what you mean by passive defenses and skill use. It seems like the ToB classes get plenty of both, especially compared to something like a fighter.

[Eldan]

By the way, for anyone interested:

Head over to the homebrew Forum. I have a thread up that's, rather awkwardly, called Un-Vancianing the Tome of Battle. I started out with the idea of dropping the entire idea of preparing maneuvers ahead of executing them, but the talk got a lot more complicated since then. We're now talking about stances influencing what strikes and Counters you can make, offensive and defensive stances, stances giving more or less power to certain strikes and other such ideas. For now, we're just throwing ideas around, any additional Input would be welcome.

[Raineh Daze]

Belial: one of your complaints with ToB is that the maneuvers... do not have the blandest possible names? Can you explain to me why mundanes cannot have things with fancy, non-descriptive names, and must forever be stuck with stating what they do in the most simplistic terms?

I've always viewed maneuver recovery as requiring to be in the right frame of mind and physical condition to execute whatever it is. How you get back into it is determined by the exact class.

Though I wonder why they made the fire-related one full of supernatural stuff and didn't just mention something about flammable oils or alchemist's fire or something. :smallconfused:

[eggynack]

Though I wonder why they made the fire-related one full of supernatural stuff and didn't just mention something about flammable oils or alchemist's fire or something. :smallconfused:
I don't see why the swordsage wouldn't have access to actually magical stuff, and the same is true for the crusader. Monks have access to some actually magical abilities like ki strike, diamond mind, abundant step, quivering palm, empty body, and perfect self. I basically just picked out the ones with the supernatural tag, though you could take away some of the more mundane ones, and add in slow fall if you want. Swordsages, being apparently based on monks, should be able to do some magical things. They're also called a blade wizard in the flavor, so it wouldn't make any sense at all for them not to have access to magical stuff. Crusaders have access to devoted spirit, which is significantly less magical than stuff that the paladin gets access to, like magic. The only class that shouldn't have access to magical stuff is the warblade, and they don't really get access to magical stuff. I mean, there's probably some sort of counter example, but you could probably build a full warblade that feels completely mundane.

In conclusion, I feel like we've created a weird double standard where ToB is concerned. The base classes are free to have access to crappy magic all they want, but hand something magical to a tome of battle class and all hell breaks loose. Not every ToB class is based on the fighter after all, and only fighters, rogues, and barbarians are non-magical out of the PHB. I think the double standard is really that mundane characters are allowed to have access to magic stuff, as long as that magic stuff isn't any good.

[Terazul]

In conclusion, I feel like we've created a weird double standard where ToB is concerned. The base classes are free to have access to crappy magic all they want, but hand something magical to a tome of battle class and all hell breaks loose. Not every ToB class is based on the fighter after all, and only fighters, rogues, and barbarians are non-magical out of the PHB. I think the double standard is really that mundane characters are allowed to have access to magic stuff, as long as that magic stuff isn't any good.

Basically. Fun fact, if the Swordsage had every maneuver it had access to (That's all of Shadow Hand, Desert Wind, and the other schools it has access to), It'd still be less magical than the monk (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11289033&postcount=127), because even including the supernatural schools, the monk has more inherently Su stuff than it does Ex. Not even taking into account that stuff like spell resistance and speaking with all living things are Ex, here.

And yeah, names happen. Someone's gonna come along and post those old fencing manuals with names for all the strikes and things, eventually. I still feel the names are mostly there so people can know what they're talking about when they explain what they're doing, but beyond that, there's really no need for them to come up. I also still don't get where everyone gets this supposed "mystical east" feeling from. Besides the occasional "channeling his Ki" which can easily be replaced with "directing his willpower", or "priming his technique" half the time. Is it really that big of a deal?

[Eldan]

Well, I agree that Five Shadow Creeping Ice Enervation Strike would be laughable even in Naruto, but otherwise, it's really not all that bad. Minotaur Charge? Manticore Parry? Absolute Steel Stance? Nothing about that is especially Eastern to me. If I think Eastern, I think those much sillier naming conventions that I occasionally see in Exalted Threads. "Sevenfold Enlightenment of the Lotus Drifting on the Evening Breeze" or whatever. That's too much. Something that has what it does ("Parry", "Charge", "Throw") and a slightly flowery description in the Name? Not a Problem. "Island of Blades" is no more out there than "Whirlwind Strike", "Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound", "Sword of Subtlety" or "Golemsbane Scarab". Those are all core.

[Elderand]

Well, I agree that Five Shadow Creeping Ice Enervation Strike would be laughable even in Naruto, but otherwise, it's really not all that bad. Minotaur Charge? Manticore Parry? Absolute Steel Stance? Nothing about that is especially Eastern to me. If I think Eastern, I think those much sillier naming conventions that I occasionally see in Exalted Threads. "Sevenfold Enlightenment of the Lotus Drifting on the Evening Breeze" or whatever. That's too much. Something that has what it does ("Parry", "Charge", "Throw") and a slightly flowery description in the Name? Not a Problem. "Island of Blades" is no more out there than "Whirlwind Strike", "Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound", "Sword of Subtlety" or "Golemsbane Scarab". Those are all core.

Mordenkainen's faithful hound doesn't count, it's not flowery at all. You get a faithful hound and it was invented by Mordenkainen.

[peacenlove]

I don't see why the swordsage wouldn't have access to actually magical stuff, and the same is true for the crusader. Monks have access to some actually magical abilities like ki strike, diamond mind, abundant step, quivering palm, empty body, and perfect self. I basically just picked out the ones with the supernatural tag, though you could take away some of the more mundane ones, and add in slow fall if you want. Swordsages, being apparently based on monks, should be able to do some magical things. They're also called a blade wizard in the flavor, so it wouldn't make any sense at all for them not to have access to magical stuff. Crusaders have access to devoted spirit, which is significantly less magical than stuff that the paladin gets access to, like magic. The only class that shouldn't have access to magical stuff is the warblade, and they don't really get access to magical stuff. I mean, there's probably some sort of counter example, but you could probably build a full warblade that feels completely mundane.

In conclusion, I feel like we've created a weird double standard where ToB is concerned. The base classes are free to have access to crappy magic all they want, but hand something magical to a tome of battle class and all hell breaks loose. Not every ToB class is based on the fighter after all, and only fighters, rogues, and barbarians are non-magical out of the PHB. I think the double standard is really that mundane characters are allowed to have access to magic stuff, as long as that magic stuff isn't any good.

The funnier thing is that they are treated by people as similar to spellcasters despite not sharing anything else with them (no spell slots, no 8 hour preparation time, no books/dragon ancestry/licking the boots of a deity etc, no bonus maneuvers dependent on a stat etc.)

[Elderand]

The funnier thing is that they are treated by people as similar to spellcasters despite not sharing anything else with them (no spell slots, no 8 hour preparation time, no books/dragon ancestry/licking the boots of a deity etc, no bonus maneuvers dependent on a stat etc.)

And for every points they don't share with spellcaster, they share just as much with them.

Tome of battle was built on the same mechanical base as spellcasting and it shows.

[eggynack]

The funnier thing is that they are treated by people as similar to spellcasters despite not sharing anything else with them (no spell slots, no 8 hour preparation time, no books/dragon ancestry/licking the boots of a deity etc, no bonus maneuvers dependent on a stat etc.)
Indeed so. I think that in order to break the stigma of being identical to spell casting, we should skip changing maneuver names and flavor entirely. Instead, we can borrow a page from the warlock's play book and rename things like first level maneuvers into something more unique. It could be as simple as calling them least, lesser least, lesser, lesser moderate, moderate, greater moderate, lesser epic, epic, and greater epic maneuvers. It could also be as complex as calling them something like poke, push, slap, headbutt, punch, stab, slash, pummel, and eradicate. The world is our oyster.

By the way, I decided to go with pink for my new joking yet not really sarcasm color. What do ya guys think?

Edit: On second thought, pink is kinda wearing on the eyes. Plum seems a bit less like that. This is a super important thing.

Double edit: I'm just going to shift it back to normal for now, based on public opinion. If anyone can't tell it's a joke, they can just read this edit right here. Also, I just arbitrarily appropriated olive for meta-comments.

[Snowbluff]

Eggynack, I love you but that's really hard to read.

That'd be done in grey, mixed with some blue, with a touch of pink, but that would be entirely unreadable without someone's eyes bleeding.

[Reverent-One]

By the way, I decided to go with pink for my new joking yet not really sarcasm color. What do ya guys think?

If you spare my eyes now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.*

*Just quoting Taken there in case anyone doesn't recoginize it.

[eggynack]

Eggynack, I love you but that's really hard to read.

That'd be done in grey, mixed with some blue, with a touch of pink, but that would be entirely unreadable without someone's eyes bleeding.
D'aww thanks. Anyway, that's why I'm brainstorming these things instead of just tossing them out there without any questioning. It's a color that I've needed on multiple occasions, cause sometimes it's not clear that you're making a joke, and what you're using isn't quite sarcasm. I suppose that what we must take from this is that a good color has to be dark. I think that green has been appropriated for sincerity, and I remember using purple for something else, but maybe olive could work? It doesn't seem to be that annoying of a color. I dunno, it just feels like a pink variant is ideal for joking for some reason. Less ideal for readability though. *sigh* I suppose I can go to emoticons, but that just feels so overplayed. :smallfrown:

[Elderand]

D'aww thanks. Anyway, that's why I'm brainstorming these things instead of just tossing them out there without any questioning. It's a color that I've needed on multiple occasions, cause sometimes it's not clear that you're making a joke, and what you're using isn't quite sarcasm. I suppose that what we must take from this is that a good color has to be dark. I think that green has been appropriated for sincerity, and I remember using purple for something else, but maybe olive could work? It doesn't seem to be that annoying of a color. I dunno, it just feels like a pink variant is ideal for joking for some reason. Less ideal for readability though. *sigh* I suppose I can go to emoticons, but that just feels so overplayed. :smallfrown:

Forum hipster much ? :P

[eggynack]

Forum hipster much ? :P
I guess it's not so much that it's overplayed. They just strike me as a bit on the obnoxious side for most purposes. Broadly understood color coding seemed like such an efficient and brilliant idea when I first started seeing it pop up hereabouts. I might use one on sparse occasions, but I generally see it as a path of last resort. I don't begrudge others for using them, but it tends not to be my style. :smallcool:

[Flickerdart]

And for every points they don't share with spellcaster, they share just as much with them.

Tome of battle was built on the same mechanical base as spellcasting and it shows.
The only similarity between ToB and casters is that both draw their main class features from a 9-level list of abilities that they gradually learn. What are the other things they share? No SR, no "fire and forget", no components, items of maneuvers work differently, maneuvers have other maneuvers as prerequisites...

Unless you intent to use "maneuvers do stuff that isn't plain damage" as your argument for maneuvers = spells, you have no ground to stand on. And if you do want to use that argument, then excuse me a moment while I shed a tear for the exact reason 3.5 melee wasn't allowed to have nice things.

[Raineh Daze]

I have some sort of face glued to 90% of everything I ever say. XD

[Elderand]

The only similarity between ToB and casters is that both draw their main class features from a 9-level list of abilities that they gradually learn. What are the other things they share? No SR, no "fire and forget", no components, items of maneuvers work differently, maneuvers have other maneuvers as prerequisites...

No fire and forget ? That's just blatantly untrue. Maneuver are fire and forget the only difference is how long it take to get them back compared to spells.
Also having to ready maneuver is a clear analogue to having to prepare spell in advance. And it doesn't fit at all.

And no it's not a you have to take a stance to get into the proper position to use a maneuver, that's what stance do and that fits. Preparing maneuver is more akin to "at the start of the day I decide that for some reason I'll be able to use this special kick or punch or sword flourish but not this other one. " It make no sense whatsoever for supposedly non magical abilities. None. It only make sense in direct comparaison with spells.

The designer could have gone any number of way with maneuvers, they chose to make it very close mechanicly to spellcasting, with a couple tweaks here and there. I believe they did this because it makes it easier to play with, if you are used to vancian casting you can get the maneuver system relatively rapidly.

It may not be fluffed as magic but it is clearly based on the spellcasting mechanic.

[Raineh Daze]

Consider it a requirement of physiological and psychological preparation: when you're exerting yourself like that, you don't want to be tense, and you're not going to remember everything, and if you do use it, using the exact same thing an instant later is going to strain something.

[3WhiteFox3]

No fire and forget ? That's just blatantly untrue. Maneuver are fire and forget the only difference is how long it take to get them back compared to spells.
Also having to ready maneuver is a clear analogue to having to prepare spell in advance. And it doesn't fit at all.

And no it's not a you have to take a stance to get into the proper position to use a maneuver, that's what stance do and that fits. Preparing maneuver is more akin to "at the start of the day I decide that for some reason I'll be able to use this special kick or punch or sword flourish but not this other one. " It make no sense whatsoever for supposedly non magical abilities. None. It only make sense in direct comparaison with spells.

The designer could have gone any number of way with maneuvers, they chose to make it very close mechanicly to spellcasting, with a couple tweaks here and there. I believe they did this because it makes it easier to play with, if you are used to vancian casting you can get the maneuver system relatively rapidly.

It may not be fluffed as magic but it is clearly based on the spellcasting mechanic.

Just because it has similarities does not mean that it's based on spellcasting. Psionics has similar ideas to the D&D magic system but no one complains about the Psion being derivative of the Sorcerer. No, in fact, people often laud it for being different, where there are as many differences between spellcasting and manifesting as there are between ToB and spells.

Also, maneuvers are not fire and forget. The vast majority still require you to do something in order to use them. Be that an attack roll or skill check, that's much different that casting that typically relies on putting an effect on the battlefield or on an opponent and they have to save against those effects (and not all effects require saves).

[Elderand]

Just because it has similarities does not mean that it's based on spellcasting. Psionics has similar ideas to the D&D magic system but no one complains about the Psion being too much like the Sorcerer. No in fact people often laud it for being different, where there are as many differences between spellcasting and manifesting as there are between ToB and spells.

Also, maneuvers are not fire and forget. The vast majority still require you to do something in order to use them. Be that an attack roll or skill check, that's much different that casting that typically relies on putting an effect on the battlefield or on an opponent and they have to save against those effects (and not all effects require saves).

By fire and forget I mean that you can use the maneuver exactly as many time as you prepared it. For all intent and purpose you have slots for maneuvers. Just like spells. And some spell, if not most, also require other actions than just casting. How many spell require an attack of some form ? A lot of them.

I believe one of the reason why there is a controversy over ToB is because it's defender spend so much effort claiming it's not like the magic system at all. If defender of tob said "yes ToB can be great as a powerboost for martial character and it's similar to magic so it's easy to learn and use" rather than "No ! it's nothing like magic at all !" things would go much smoother.

[eggynack]

By fire and forget I mean that you can use the maneuver exactly as many time as you prepared it. For all intent and purpose you have slots for maneuvers. Just like spells. And some spell, if not most, also require other actions than just casting. How many spell require an attack of some form ? A lot of them.

I believe one of the reason why there is a controversy over ToB is because it's defender spend so much effort claiming it's not like the magic system at all. If defender of tob said "yes ToB can be great as a powerboost for martial character and it's similar to magic so it's easy to learn and use" rather than "No ! it's nothing like magic at all !" things would go much smoother.
The problem is that it's actually not much like magic at all. It has some cosmetic similarities, but the way they actually play is completely and utterly different. The only real similarities are that they prepare stuff, and that the stuff they prepare is in 9 levels. Apart from that, there's really just nothing there.

[Elderand]

The problem is that it's actually not much like magic at all. It has some cosmetic similarities, but the way they actually play is completely and utterly different. The only real similarities are that they prepare stuff, and that the stuff they prepare is in 9 levels. Apart from that, there's really just nothing there.

For most peoples those two things are what define the magic system. Everything else is finagling.

[eggynack]

For most peoples those two things are what define the magic system. Everything else is finagling.
Actually, I think that for most people, what defines the magic system is magic. Everything else is finagling.

[Flickerdart]

No fire and forget ? That's just blatantly untrue. Maneuver are fire and forget the only difference is how long it take to get them back compared to spells.

Also having to ready maneuver is a clear analogue to having to prepare spell in advance. And it doesn't fit at all.

Stances are at-will. Maneuvers are gotten back for free for 2/3 of the classes during the encounter, and immediately after the encounter/with an action for Swordsages. All casters have to rest and then prepare spells all at once. It isn't even close to the same thing.


And no it's not a you have to take a stance to get into the proper position to use a maneuver, that's what stance do and that fits. Preparing maneuver is more akin to "at the start of the day I decide that for some reason I'll be able to use this special kick or punch or sword flourish but not this other one. " It make no sense whatsoever for supposedly non magical abilities. None. It only make sense in direct comparaison with spells.
At the start of the day? Try "with five minutes of practice at any time of the day". Clearly you need to re-read the book.

[Elderand]

It doesn't matter if you can get them back whithin a round of using them or whether you can change your maneuvers with 5 minutes instead of 8 hours. Those are details. The very basic of the system remains vancian. You have slot, you can fill them with special effects and you can only use these effects as many times as you have alloted them to the slot. That is the basis of the vancian system, not needing 8 hours of rest to get it back.

The fact that maneuver can be gotten back and changed more easily doesn't make it not vancian, it just mean the designer considered it weak enough that it wouldn't break the game if the classes could use them more often compared to spells.

[eggynack]

It doesn't matter if you can get them back whithin a round of using them or whether you can change your maneuvers with 5 minutes instead of 8 hours. Those are details. The very basic of the system remains vancian. You have slot, you can fill them with special effects and you can only use these effects as many times as you have alloted them to the slot. That is the basis of the vancian system, not needing 8 hours of rest to get it back.

The fact that maneuver can be gotten back and changed more easily doesn't make it not vancian, it just mean the designer considered it weak enough that it wouldn't break the game if the classes could use them more often compared to spells.
Yeah, but you can say things like that about literally any two classes in the game. Hey look, wizards and fighters are basically the same. They both get bonus feats, they both sometimes make attack rolls, and they both have only one good save. Everything else is just details. The fact that you can use a maneuver multiple times per encounter rather than once a day is incredibly relevant to gameplay. Likewise, having the various maneuvers have prerequisites is very relevant for character creation.

[Snowbluff]

I guess it's not so much that it's overplayed. They just strike me as a bit on the obnoxious side for most purposes. Broadly understood color coding seemed like such an efficient and brilliant idea when I first started seeing it pop up hereabouts. I might use one on sparse occasions, but I generally see it as a path of last resort. I don't begrudge others for using them, but it tends not to be my style. :smallcool:
Eggynack, I find that when I mix all of the marker colors together I get brown. We should have more brown on the forum. :smallwink:

Yeah, but you can say things like that about literally any two classes in the game. Hey look, wizards and fighters are basically the same. They both get bonus feats, they both sometimes make attack rolls, and they both have only one good save. Everything else is just details. The fact that you can use a maneuver multiple times per encounter rather than once a day is incredibly relevant to gameplay. Likewise, having the various maneuvers have prerequisites is very relevant for character creation.

This is actually my argument for why gunslingers and witches should have archetypes. The logical extreme is that Warblades should be a Wizard ACF.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Just to poke one more hole in elderand's argument; you can't ready a maneuver more than once. There are no slots, you've either readied the maneuver or you haven't. Using it more than once in the same encounter -requires- that you use the class' refresh mechanic.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Consider it a requirement of physiological and psychological preparation: when you're exerting yourself like that, you don't want to be tense, and you're not going to remember everything, and if you do use it, using the exact same thing an instant later is going to strain something.

You need to understand why this doesn't matter:

You are trying to argue an IC justification for an OOC problem.

If you don't want ToB to be copying the magic system... you have to actually not do that. Meaning you tear down the entire book and start effectively from scratch. Starting with a completely different progression from the 9 level system.

Of course that's actually a lot of work and would be totally new territory, so its completely understandable why they didn't do that. Alternately you use a different but existing system like feats, but that's inherently more limited.

Then again if you view ToB as recreating wuxia/anime's much more stylized super abilities then copying the magic system makes perfect sense.

At any rate whatever they could have done or why they did copy the magic system. It doesn't matter how its fluffed at all if you happen to be of the opinion that mundane abilities should function mechanically differently from magic.

Mechanical function is important because it shapes how you actually play the game.

Ignoring that creates a situation rather like wanting to play Final Fantasy IV and instead being handed God of War... because they're totally similar and all about fantasy badasses with uber powers kicking the ass out godly beings with giant weapons.

Even ignoring all the different in-story reasons the two are different doesn't change one is a standard old school JRPG and the other is Action-Adventure.

[Raineh Daze]

Wait, what, so your argument for 'it's magic' is basically 'you get access to a new group of powers every two levels'? Using a sane design format and not making the classes woefully underpowered like nigh on every other mundane means it must be magic, because of similarity of arrangement? :smallconfused:

...also, if you really dislike the wuxia flavouring... then ignore it. Swear I saw somebody who'd replaced everything his warblade could do with german fencing terms. Everything. The fluff is mutable.

You can use D&D to model sci-fi if you just rename things, for a start.

[Snails]

I suppose this comes down to the age old concepts that have existed in DnD for a long time. Pathfinder just didn't really think to consciously change it. And I do think it would require a conscious change of the very concept, not just an attempt at balance but going back to the foundation.

To be fair, the 3e designers back circa 1999 were under enormous pressure to produce a game with the "feel" of 1e/2e. It was rational to include a lot of warts to achieve that. What you or I would might think is a better game today would have had a frostier reception back in 2000.

3.5 did not want to rock the boat, so it included most of the flaws of 3.0. They wanted it to be a 98% seamless transition for 98% of the players.

Paizo was simply exploiting an opportunity created by WotC choosing to abandon 3e. They too wanted PF to be a 98% seamless transition from 3.5 for 98% of the players. That was the business strategy imperative. Any statement by Paize to the contrary would be pretentious posturing, exploited to generate excitement. They would be crazy to have been sincere about a rewrite; they proved to not be crazy.

[SSGoW]

Every time I see one of these threads, I always fight the urge to defend Paizo and the Pathfinder system. I rarely do, because I happen to agree with most of the balance critiques that are being leveled against the system. The balance between classes really does break all to pieces given even the most rudimentary levels of optimization. Casters really do dominate mundane classes at all levels of play, unless the players are ignorant of good optimization or else have a strict gentlefolk's agreement not to engage the ruleset in that fashion. The critics are right.

So why do I always want to defend Pathfinder? Because their stated mission from the outset has been to preserve and continue the legacy of 3.x, on behalf of those who wanted to keep playing the game they loved, with official support from a company that loved it too. At their stated mission, they've done very well, no matter what balance issues persist.

Fourth Edition attempted to redesign the system from the ground up in order to address the real, deep flaws in the 3.x engine, and a goodly chunk of the player base rebelled. That rebellion is what gave rise to PF in the first place. How stupid would it have been to repeat WotC's mistake by completely breaking down the same system they sought to "save"? Their very existence as a game is based upon the fans' resistance to big changes.

Before you can fairly address Pathfinder's failure to bridge the power gap between wizards and warriors, you first have to acknowledge all the ways in which the 3.x iteration of D&D blew that gap open in the first place. If Pathfinder is the rightful heir to 3.x, then it's going to reflect the fundamental design philosophies of its forebear.

Without engaging in a pedantic exploration of D&D history, pre-3.x editions of D&D had far fewer issues with the LFQW problem. That isn't to say that they didn't exist, but they didn't generally crop up until much higher levels, and they were far more easily mitigated by a smart DM and the limitations on magic that were built right into the rules.

Along came the 3E design team and systematically stripped out or softened every single one of these limitations and baked their changes into the new engine in a way that made them very hard to undo (one of the side-effects of a "unified" system). Their motives were noble; they wanted to make playing a magic-user more "fun," especially at low levels. The problem is that they didn't really test the results of those changes at higher levels, especially once the wizard's tactics evolved beyond, "I cast fireball." So yeah, the casters became more "fun" for novice players at the expense of breaking the game wide open once they were used to even a fraction of their potential.

The problem with putting the blame for failing to fix this at the feet of SKR (difficult gentleman though he may be) and the rest of the PF design team is that to fix it requires them to either undo much of that fundamental work (much of which is intrinsic to the very core of 3.x D&D's identity as a game system) or to move forward from it in directions that threaten their their own unique proposition to the RPG market (namely, that they continue to develop and support the 3.5 system while preserving its core in amber for those who still love it).


I liked your post and it made me want to say something..

3.0/3.5/PF D&D is not D&D. It was a radical change from the system that was 1e and 2e that made it more videogamey and is an entirely different system.

What people don't get is that when WoTC made 3.0 they completely overhauled and screwed with the game in a way that it isn't really a surprise when they did it going from 3.X to 4.0.

People (especially on these forums) forget that 3.5/PF is not the original D&D. People who play 3.5/PF and talk of it as if it is "the true D&D" are like people who play Super Mario Galaxy without ever realizing that Super Mario Brothers 3 was a game. I'm not saying 1/2e was better just that there is so much language and fighting between 3.X and PF and 4.0 that people forget that people saw 3.0 the same way as people saw 4.0 (changed to much, videogamey, out for money).

My biggest gripe versus Paizo is that they are dillusional jerks who lied. They shouted "BALANCE" but then didn't even try to deliver.

[WhatBigTeeth]

For most peoples those two things are what define the magic system. Everything else is finagling.

Actually, I think that for most people, what defines the magic system is magic. Everything else is finagling.
For most people sweeping and unsupported generalities are inaccurate.

Wait...

[eggynack]

For most people sweeping and unsupported generalities are inaccurate.

Wait...
That was essentially the point I was trying to make. You can replace many of his arguments with opposing arguments, and they'll have about the same degree of truth. You can say that many people think the magic system is defined by vancian casting, and you can say the magic system is defined by spell variety, and you can say the magic system is defined by the fact that it contains magic. All of these things are basically true. The inaccurate part of both claims, and the thing I was trying to highlight, is when we say "everything else is finagling". The magic system is defined by many things to many people, and simplifying it down to only the aspects that are somewhat similar to ToB is a fallacious argument. Specifically, it's the fallacy of composition, because it asserts that two things having one element in common means that they might as well be the same thing.

[georgie_leech]

That was essentially the point I was trying to make. You can replace many of his arguments with opposing arguments, and they'll have about the same degree of truth. You can say that many people think the magic system is defined by vancian casting, and you can say the magic system is defined by spell variety, and you can say the magic system is defined by the fact that it contains magic. All of these things are basically true. The inaccurate part of both claims, and the thing I was trying to highlight, is when we say "everything else is finagling". The magic system is defined by many things to many people, and simplifying it down to only the aspects that are somewhat similar to ToB is a fallacious argument. Specifically, it's the fallacy of composition, because it asserts that two things having one element in common means that they might as well be the same thing.

I'd have gone with "Old TV programs are black and white. Penguins are black and white. Therefore penguins and old TV programs are the same thing."

[eggynack]

I'd have gone with "Old TV programs are black and white. Penguins are black and white. Therefore penguins and old TV programs are the same thing."
Yeah, that probably would have made the argument better. I like having some cool symmetry and parallelism in my arguments though. It's possible that the fact that my argument directly goes against his might act in opposition to the fact that it indirectly does so. I shall henceforth consider the use of value neutral logical claims.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Wait, what, so your argument for 'it's magic' is basically 'you get access to a new group of powers every two levels'?

...also, if you really dislike the wuxia flavouring... then ignore it. Swear I saw somebody who'd replaced everything his warblade could do with german fencing terms. Everything. The fluff is mutable.

You can use D&D to model sci-fi if you just rename things, for a start.

Well if you want to convince me your class isn't using magic in a D&D then you starting by using the magic system isn't the best way to go about it. And they totally did use the magic system.

Not that that's the only thing magical going on in the game by a long shot. And I remain unimpressed with fluff jobs to "justify it" or just because you can't use an AMF on it. Because if I'm being perfectly honest anyone with Evasion has a magical ability given how it ends up working.

And to a point magic that's "not magic" is okay. Actual realism would make for a boring game. And there's something to be said for being actual heroes, and how modern culture is looking for bigger thrills requiring bigger deviations from reality.

ToB... too far. You can't take a book openly claiming its ties to wuxia/anime and put it alongside Tolkienesque fantasy and claim they are interchangable. Giving martials a bunch of spells is well over the line I can keep vesimilitude and write off as just the same.


Using a sane design format and not making the classes woefully underpowered like nigh on every other mundane means it must be magic, because of similarity of arrangement? :smallconfused:

First I find the "woefully underpowered" more then a bit oversold as an idea. Especially in Pathfinder. Sure the classes are not "equal" but it comes up far less in play then on paper batting builds back and forth.

Second I find actual effectiveness to be something like my fourth or fifth priority when building a character.

So your portrayal of the need isn't something I find a compelling argument.


...also, if you really dislike the wuxia flavouring... then ignore it. Swear I saw somebody who'd replaced everything his warblade could do with german fencing terms. Everything. The fluff is mutable.

Didn't I just say I rather like that. I mean heck my avie comes from an artschool not even hiding its eastern influences. But that whole thing with your suggestions: this makes it worse.

You are tell me that if I just close my eyes and pretend God of War will become Final Fantasy IV and I can enjoy it just as well.

My response is essentially "No I don't" and so I will put God of War back on the shelf to go find Final Fantasy IV. If you find that particular example too ridiculous in particular, it would be the same with say Legend of Zelda. Maybe even a Tales series. If you can make that leap thats all well and good for you, but it doesn't convince me to buy what you are selling.

And its basically why Pathfinder exists. People like me didn't care for ToB, or more particularly cared less for it being touted as a model to "fix" things, and when that view won out birthing 4E... we took our business elsewhere.

[georgie_leech]

You are tell me that if I just close my eyes and pretend God of War will become Final Fantasy IV and I can enjoy it just as well.

My response is essentially "No I don't" and so I will put God of War back on the shelf to go find Final Fantasy IV. If you find that particular example too ridiculous in particular, it would be the same with say Legend of Zelda. Maybe even a Tales series. If you can make that leap thats all well and good for you, but it doesn't convince me to buy what you are selling.



The difference being all of those, aside from having different mechanics, themes, music, and characters is that the fluff isn't mutable. The graphics displayed is the story they are telling. As opposed to D&D, where, baring a ridiculously ambitious and super-human DM, the events take place in our imaginations. Mechanically, I roll a d20 and compare my attack bonuses, but I imagine a series of swings and counters, parries and blocks. In other words, it's a bit nonsensical to compare reimagining a mental picture with pretending you're playing a vastly different game.

[Grytorm]

Ignoring the fight about ToB a few things stand out why magic is so much more powerful. First mages have a lot of utility abilities that can be used to outshine mundanes out of combat. Secondly the magic system is more complex than the combat system so there is a lot more room to find exploits and overpowered things. Third wizards don't have to specialize what they are going for and can just pull out a new set of tricks every day. Fourth spell casters have a lot of tools for dealing with combatants and mundanes do not get sufficient counter measures.

Sometimes I want to make my own RPG even though I know I have little design experience and would never get it done.

[Soras Teva Gee]

The difference being all of those, aside from having different mechanics, themes, music, and characters is that the fluff isn't mutable. The graphics displayed is the story they are telling.

You could put out Mod to use the engine with now effectively identical stories and characters and I would still take my business elsewhere. Broadly speaking anyways, the occaisonal Something Completely Different can be fun but I wouldn't consider it a good standard operating procedure.


Ignoring the fight about ToB a few things stand out why magic is so much more powerful. First mages have a lot of utility abilities that can be used to outshine mundanes out of combat. Secondly the magic system is more complex than the combat system so there is a lot more room to find exploits and overpowered things. Third wizards don't have to specialize what they are going for and can just pull out a new set of tricks every day. Fourth spell casters have a lot of tools for dealing with combatants and mundanes do not get sufficient counter measures.

Sometimes I want to make my own RPG even though I know I have little design experience and would never get it done.

Essentially the why of it but some of things are overstated.

For example its all well and good to potentially have just the right spell, but did you prepare it today when you need it? That sort of thing is easier said then practiced and that Knock isn't going to be doing anybody any good if you don't need it.. Why I like spontaneous casters with scrolls

Also the mythical battlefield control the more I look at the more I find it tends to practice a bit of lazy thinking when your opponenets aren't dead. Sooner or later someone is going to get through that solid fog, are you prepared to kill it when it does. Now in a party that's not a problem because someone probably is ready to kill it once the caster softens things up. Is the caster more effective, I guess. But if I'm playing a fighter I'll be glad of the spell that divides the enemies into more killable packages for me to slaughter. Win win.

Summoning is still a big hole though.

[georgie_leech]

You could put out Mod to use the engine with now effectively identical stories and characters and I would still take my business elsewhere. Broadly speaking anyways, the occaisonal Something Completely Different can be fun but I wouldn't consider it a good standard operating procedure.



You appear to have missed my point. To use the modding exaple, that would be like pretending you're playing Shadowrun, which uses a completely different core mechanic. To reiterate, reimagining a mental picture is not an onerous task that completely changes the game.

[nobodez]

You appear to have missed my point. To use the modding exaple, that would be like pretending you're playing Shadowrun, which uses a completely different core mechanic. To reiterate, reimagining a mental picture is not an onerous task that completely changes the game.

Except, you could totally play Shadowrun with both an TPS engine and the D&D rules (though I'm not sure how much work would be required for both).

[Snails]

Ignoring the fight about ToB a few things stand out why magic is so much more powerful. First mages have a lot of utility abilities that can be used to outshine mundanes out of combat. Secondly the magic system is more complex than the combat system so there is a lot more room to find exploits and overpowered things. Third wizards don't have to specialize what they are going for and can just pull out a new set of tricks every day. Fourth spell casters have a lot of tools for dealing with combatants and mundanes do not get sufficient counter measures.


That is a good list.

One of the reasons I am dissatisfied about Tier Analysis is that it does not map to my personal gaming experience in any useful way. IME the bigger problem is that most mundanes make their living standing next to Very Dangerous And Angry Things, while most spellcasters do not. The result is a Fighter dies 3X as often for the same rewards, which means that the rewards do not actually end up being equal. That is the Real Gap that seems to matter.

On paper the delta between magic and mundane is greater in 3e than 1e/2e. IME at the table, the Real Gap is probably slightly smaller than in 1e/2e, because Fighter types have more flexibility and the battlefield more fluid.

I am doubtful that "I have a brilliant idea: Make wizards weaker!" would matter much. That does not change the dynamic by which standing next to Very Dangerous And Angry Things tends to be hazardous. In fact, it might make it worse. The Party is usually spellcaster heavy. Is a weakling Wizard an improvement when the Fighter is down on his luck?

[Twilight Jack]

I liked your post and it made me want to say something..

3.0/3.5/PF D&D is not D&D. It was a radical change from the system that was 1e and 2e that made it more videogamey and is an entirely different system.

By which it would be fair to say that 1e AD&D wasn't D&D either. It bore just as many radical changes from the 1974 source material as the 3.x iteration did from 2e AD&D. Note that I'm not actually making that claim, merely extrapolating a logical conclusion from your claim. Debating what is/isn't the One True D&D is a journey down a rabbit hole of nerd rage from which there is no return.


What people don't get is that when WoTC made 3.0 they completely overhauled and screwed with the game in a way that it isn't really a surprise when they did it going from 3.X to 4.0.

People (especially on these forums) forget that 3.5/PF is not the original D&D. People who play 3.5/PF and talk of it as if it is "the true D&D" are like people who play Super Mario Galaxy without ever realizing that Super Mario Brothers 3 was a game. I'm not saying 1/2e was better just that there is so much language and fighting between 3.X and PF and 4.0 that people forget that people saw 3.0 the same way as people saw 4.0 (changed to much, videogamey, out for money).

I definitely agree with you that GitP members have a tendency to favor the 3.x iteration over earlier editions of D&D, sometimes in a way that seems blind to the game's pre-millennial history. It's only been 13 years since the release of 3.0, and the game existed just fine for 26 years before that.

On the other hand, this site originated as a forum for Rich Burlew to discuss and design for 3.x D&D and now hosts a very prominent webcomic based on that ruleset. It's not terribly surprising that the community's focus remains primarily directed thus.


My biggest gripe versus Paizo is that they are dillusional jerks who lied. They shouted "BALANCE" but then didn't even try to deliver.

Except that they did. Allow me to submit that the biggest balance issues remaining in Pathfinder are "pro" issues. They require a very high level of system mastery to effectively exploit, and so are utterly inconsequential to the vast majority of the player base.

One thing that is often overlooked in discussions of character optimization in 3.x and Pathfinder is that Tier 1-2 classes are difficult for most people to play effectively. You really have to know what you're doing to make a Godwizard sing, not just when building the character but at the table as well. There's not much room for error, especially in the mid-level game. One poorly chosen spell (or even a well chosen one, cast at the wrong place and time) can be the difference between victory and defeat.

For casual players who don't know or care about the extremes of the tier system, Paizo delivered a much better balanced game, when compared directly with 3.5 and the experiences of most players.

In my own experience, the 3.x balance issues that caused the most problems in play were as follows: stacking metamagic reductions, DMM Persist Clerics, uberchargers, chain trippers, grenade rogues, Druids, and low-level SoL spells. These issues caused problems in 3.x because they were easy to understand and exploit, even for relatively casual players. Pathfinder patched those problems rather handily, closing down the loopholes which led to the most commonly experienced imbalances. From that perspective, PF delivered on its promise of better balance in spades.

As anecdotal evidence, I submit the following: I currently play in a PF group in which one player is a Diviner who is optimized on paper to a pretty solid degree. Another player is a Synthesist Summoner. The rest of the group is a S&B Fighter, a Barbarian, a multiclassed Ranger/Rogue, and a Cleric (me). There are no balance difficulties because neither the Diviner nor the Summoner have the patience or the expertise to make their classes operate in the fashion that they do in the world of the character optimization boards. They just aren't solid enough tacticians to make the choices from round to round that would allow them to dominate the game the way they are theoretically supposed to (I'm just there for the company, so I purposely keep my Cleric nice and mellow). The fighter, the barbarian, and the ranger/rogue are having a grand old time, love the improved "balance" of PF over 3.x, and remain blissfully unaware of their squalid existence at the bottom of the tier system.

To refocus and conclude, my own observation is that Pathfinder delivered a better balanced game to most of their actual customers. To balance it for the pros would have required a thorough overhaul, which ran against their stated intention of preserving 3.5 more or less intact.

tl;dr: They didn't lie. They just weren't talking to you (or me, but I knew that going in).

[Philistine]

Except that in 3E, the Clerics and Druids also make their livings by standing next to dangerous angry things. (The Wizards can do the same, but usually have bigger fish to fry.) And the spellcasters can easily do melee combat better than the classes designed specifically to do melee combat and only melee combat.

[eggynack]

Except that they did. Allow me to submit that the biggest balance issues remaining in Pathfinder are "pro" issues. They require a very high level of system mastery to effectively exploit, and so are utterly inconsequential to the vast majority of the player base.

I disagree with this, and thus the remainder of your claims. Casting a single powerful spell is not a maneuver requiring a vast amount of system mastery. You just need to know a spell is good, and cast it. Something requiring a very high level of systems mastery means that it requires skill to use, not just that something isn't necessarily your first choice. A pathfinder wizard could easily just happen upon grease, and then he will be living up to his tier to some extent. Similarly, solid fog appears virtually identical to its 3.5 version, and that spell is crazy. There are lots of balance issues remaining in pathfinder, because as I understand it, wizards still have access to a lot of the same crazy spells they had in 3.5. Will every wizard automatically be better than every fighter, just by virtue of tier? No, and that wasn't even true in 3.5. However, if both characters are playing to a reasonably similar degree of optimization, the fighter is going to be outclassed.

@Snails, your claim is just demonstrably incorrect. Beguilers and warmages can fight enemies without ever getting close to them, and warblades and crusaders generally need to attack to be effective. The former classes and the latter classes are generally balanced. The warmage is actually outclassed by the close range warblade and crusader.

[navar100]

Except that they did. Allow me to submit that the biggest balance issues remaining in Pathfinder are "pro" issues. They require a very high level of system mastery to effectively exploit, and so are utterly inconsequential to the vast majority of the player base.

One thing that is often overlooked in discussions of character optimization in 3.x and Pathfinder is that Tier 1-2 classes are difficult for most people to play effectively. You really have to know what you're doing to make a Godwizard sing, not just when building the character but at the table as well. There's not much room for error, especially in the mid-level game. One poorly chosen spell (or even a well chosen one, cast at the wrong place and time) can be the difference between victory and defeat.

For casual players who don't know or care about the extremes of the tier system, Paizo delivered a much better balanced game, when compared directly with 3.5 and the experiences of most players.

In my own experience, the 3.x balance issues that caused the most problems in play were as follows: stacking metamagic reductions, DMM Persist Clerics, uberchargers, chain trippers, grenade rogues, Druids, and low-level SoL spells. These issues caused problems in 3.x because they were easy to understand and exploit, even for relatively casual players. Pathfinder patched those problems rather handily, closing down the loopholes which led to the most commonly experienced imbalances. From that perspective, PF delivered on its promise of better balance in spades.

As anecdotal evidence, I submit the following: I currently play in a PF group in which one player is a Diviner who is optimized on paper to a pretty solid degree. Another player is a Synthesist Summoner. The rest of the group is a S&B Fighter, a Barbarian, a multiclassed Ranger/Rogue, and a Cleric (me). There are no balance difficulties because neither the Diviner nor the Summoner have the patience or the expertise to make their classes operate in the fashion that they do in the world of the character optimization boards. They just aren't solid enough tacticians to make the choices from round to round that would allow them to dominate the game the way they are theoretically supposed to (I'm just there for the company, so I purposely keep my Cleric nice and mellow). The fighter, the barbarian, and the ranger/rogue are having a grand old time, love the improved "balance" of PF over 3.x, and remain blissfully unaware of their squalid existence at the bottom of the tier system.

To refocus and conclude, my own observation is that Pathfinder delivered a better balanced game to most of their actual customers. To balance it for the pros would have required a thorough overhaul, which ran against their stated intention of preserving 3.5 more or less intact.

tl;dr: They didn't lie. They just weren't talking to you (or me, but I knew that going in).

Applause!
Ditto with the people I play with.

[Eldonauran]

***snip***

tl;dr: They didn't lie. They just weren't talking to you (or me, but I knew that going in).

I am in complete agreement. While I frequent the optimization boards (and highly suggest each and every DM do as well), I tend to play bit more on the casual side. My fellow PCs (when I am not DMing) are also familiar with high optimization but rarely do they play spellcasters. I typically fill that role simply because I like spellcasting and don't mind UMDing wands of cure light wounds (if playing a non-divine caster) to keep them on their feet between battles.

I jumped ship and landed on Pathfinder, without once glancing back. Now and then I convert a spell or feat over to pathfinder but I really don't feel the urge, or need, to go back to 3.5e.

[Twilight Jack]

I disagree with this, and thus the remainder of your claims. Casting a single powerful spell is not a maneuver requiring a vast amount of system mastery. You just need to know a spell is good, and cast it. Something requiring a very high level of systems mastery means that it requires skill to use, not just that something isn't necessarily your first choice. A pathfinder wizard could easily just happen upon grease, and then he will be living up to his tier to some extent. Similarly, solid fog appears virtually identical to its 3.5 version, and that spell is crazy. There are lots of balance issues remaining in pathfinder, because as I understand it, wizards still have access to a lot of the same crazy spells they had in 3.5. Will every wizard automatically be better than every fighter, just by virtue of tier? No, and that wasn't even true in 3.5. However, if both characters are playing to a reasonably similar degree of optimization, the fighter is going to be outclassed.

Interestingly, Pathfinder's solid fog (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/spells/solidFog.html) is way nerfed from its 3.5 incarnation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/solidFog.htm), so it's telling that you would choose it as one of your examples. Grease has been effectively nerfed as well, in that skill consolidation makes it more likely that a target possesses at lease some level of Acrobatics, and that rogues don't automatically get sneak attacks on characters within the area.

To your larger point, knowing when and where to cast spells for maximum effect and how to place yourself to avoid retaliation is the system mastery of which I spoke. The mere existence of a powerful spell is not sufficient, especially because many obviously broken spells in 3.5 did get nerfed in PF (as demonstrated above). System mastery for a Wizard means selecting the right spells to deal with the threats you expect to face, casting them at the right place and time, knowing how to properly pace yourself, and how to protect your ability to rest on your own timetable (to allow you to go nova when necessary). It means knowing which spells to scribe as scrolls, which particular spells best shut down which opposing tactics, what magic items are most important to supplement your strengths/shore up your weaknesses, and how to make best use of your minions (er, allies :smallamused:) to achieve objectives with the least effort and risk.

There's a lot more to it than just picking a few good spells and phoning it in. If all of the above is trivial for you, then congratulations. You are one of the pros to which I was referring. Most players have a much tougher time of it when the dice are flying, even when they've got grease and solid fog prepared.

[Snowbluff]

Twilight Jack, tell me how when Timmy has been doing when his Bonded Item gets lost/stolen/destroyed.

[Soras Teva Gee]

I disagree with this, and thus the remainder of your claims. Casting a single powerful spell is not a maneuver requiring a vast amount of system mastery. You just need to know a spell is good, and cast it. Something requiring a very high level of systems mastery means that it requires skill to use, not just that something isn't necessarily your first choice. A pathfinder wizard could easily just happen upon grease, and then he will be living up to his tier to some extent.

Grease is a good example of how reasonable teamwork is confused for dominance by one member.

It does not kill, it has a small area, and anything not in it to start needs a mere DC 10 to avoid or maybe has the movement to just go around. Anything actually tripped with a bit of cleverness can just crawl out. Against two or more foes they literally just have to not be adjacent for you to have to pick your target, and with close range on your own the other might charge you next roung. Used on an item it effects only one enemy and hopes that you aren't fighting something with natural attacks, something like a spiked gauntlet, or just has a spare weapon. And same issue with multiple targets.

I certainly recommend it but the caster who casts this at best isn't "winning", they're helping they're whole team to win by slowing down some enemies a bit. That sounds to me more like a win win.


Similarly, solid fog appears virtually identical to its 3.5 version, and that spell is crazy.

3.5: Creatures more 5ft
PF: Creatures move 1/2 speed

Which of course since it ends means if you have to cross the maximum 20' radius means if you can move 40' you can clear it. As opposed to needing 4 moves to cross it

Nevermind all the stuff you can't target someone out of sight with.


Twilight Jack, tell me how when Timmy has been doing when his Bonded Item gets lost/stolen/destroyed.

Playing the Barbarian.

[eggynack]

Yeah, sometimes I use the dumb half of my brain. Still, I contend that pathfinder likely has plenty of broken spells, though I obviously don't know them nearly as well as I know the ones in 3.5. I've heard good things about snowball, and it seems pretty great just looking at it. Sleet storm was really good in 3.5, and it looks unchanged from its original incarnation. Invisibility was apparently buffed in power level from 3.5, due to skill consolidation, and grease lasts minutes/level now for some reason. Wizards still get access to stuff that fighters can't even really touch, like flight and teleportation. By my understanding, flight was actually made more inaccessible to fighters due to the fly skill.

Really, I'm not the almighty expert on this stuff. I'm just some guy who's been reading the onslaught of pathfinder threads in the last few days. My impression from the whole thing is that wizards are roughly unchanged, and the alterations made to combat maneuvers actually means that fighters are worse than they were in 3.5. If I'd ever actually played the system, or if I cared about it for longer than a few days, I'd probably have way more examples. It's just how things are. You cast things that look good, and if they're good you cast them again, and if they're bad then you put a big mental x next to it in your spell book. Fighters don't have that luxury. If they pick a bad feat, then that's their feat, and it sticks to them even if it's bad or if it's non-applicable. It actually means that sorcerers and fighters are often worse for a new player, because choices are so set in stone. Wizards are good because they have options, as I mentioned. I prepare solid fog, and I cast it, and I notice that it doesn't work how I thought it did, so I just cast something else and do something else the next day. My dumb brain wouldn't really effect my long term abilities as a caster at all. Also, solid fog still seems pretty sweet, though obviously not as sweet.

[Snowbluff]

Playing the Barbarian.

But not every optimizer is playing the Wizard, Soras. That is a non-answer.

[Soras Teva Gee]

But not every optimizer is playing the Wizard, Soras. That is a non-answer.

Spike (http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr11b) is playing the Wizard.

Or were you using a different Timmy?

[Snowbluff]

Spike (http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr11b) is playing the Wizard.

Or were you using a different Timmy?

So only competitive players play wizards.
It was a hypothetical question, if you did not understand.
Thank you. That was eye-opening.

[Eldonauran]

Really, I'm not the almighty expert on this stuff. I'm just some guy who's been reading the onslaught of pathfinder threads in the last few days. My impression from the whole thing is that wizards are roughly unchanged, and the alterations made to combat maneuvers actually means that fighters are worse than they were in 3.5.
Pathfinder may look like it did not change much but, I assure you, I am still being surprised at things it has changed and liking it.

For instance: (bolded for effect)

Fighters don't have that luxury. If they pick a bad feat, then that's their feat, and it sticks to them even if it's bad or if it's non-applicable. It actually means that sorcerers and fighters are often worse for a new player, because choices are so set in stone.


At 1st level, and at every even level thereafter, a fighter gains a bonus feat in addition to those gained from normal advancement (meaning that the fighter gains a feat at every level). These bonus feats must be selected from those listed as Combat Feats, sometimes also called “fighter bonus feats.”

Upon reaching 4th level, and every four levels thereafter (8th, 12th, and so on), a fighter can choose to learn a new bonus feat in place of a bonus feat he has already learned. In effect, the fighter loses the bonus feat in exchange for the new one. The old feat cannot be one that was used as a prerequisite for another feat, prestige class, or other ability. A fighter can only change one feat at any given level and must choose whether or not to swap the feat at the time he gains a new bonus feat for the level.
Link for your convenience (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter)

Fighters get good stuff in Pathfinder. Its just not immediately apparent.

[ArcturusV]

Vorthos for life.

But Spike isn't really playing Wizards, to be fair Spike will never (given a choice) play any option that has even a chance for defeat if they can help it. Spike is more than Optimizer. It's the usual Pun-Pun invincibility stuff.

Thus an "Optimizer" is more akin to a Johnny than a Spike, as the Optimizer is usually more interested in playing with themselves, and showing off their combos and neat tricks they come up with. Least when you're talking about people who are getting their fun out of optimization. Optimizers not of the Pun-Pun level are Combo Player Johnnys.

[eggynack]

Pathfinder may look like it did not change much but, I assure you, I am still being surprised at things it has changed and liking it.

For instance: (bolded for effect)



Link for your convenience (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter)

Fighters get good stuff in Pathfinder. Its just not immediately apparent.
That's really not that much, especially when compared to the wizard's comparative day to day and minute to minute versatility. It's especially not that helpful given pathfinder's apparent love of long feat chains. For example, let's say that you decided to be a tripper, and then subsequently decided to stop being a tripper because it was pretty nerfed in pathfinder. Unlike 3.5, where you'd have between one and two feats that need switching out (depending on the new chain's reliance on combat expertise), now you have between two and three feats to switch out. The process is so slow that it would take you about 8-12 levels to switch out greater trip, improved trip, and combat expertise for something like improved unarmed strike, improved grapple, and greater grapple.

Granted, the conversion would likely go in the opposite direction, and doubly granted, the fighter gets other feats during that time, but the feat switching really isn't all that helpful. There're rules to swap out feats for other feats in 3.5 on a level by level basis, and I still don't think it's enough to give the fighter versatility. The fighter's ability to adapt to change can't be based on how close he is to leveling, and it certainly can't be based on how close he is to leveling up to four times. At least it can't if he's trying to compete with the wizard in any meaningful way.

[Raineh Daze]

Fighters get good stuff in Pathfinder. Its just not immediately apparent.

This means that you have to survive three levels, then four levels, with bad feat choices, and can only retrain one per level. Also, that's three levels of sucking before you can try and fix it. Not really a good thing. :smallconfused:

[Twilight Jack]

Ack!!! If you guys are going to start discussing this in terms of MtG Timmy/Johnny/Spike Design Theory, I'm going to open up a whole can of Forge G/N/S Theorycraft on this thread. Then salt the frelling earth. :smallwink:

[Snowbluff]

Ack!!! If you guys are going to start discussing this in terms of MtG Timmy/Johnny/Spike Design Theory, I'm going to open up a whole can of Forge G/N/S Theorycraft on this thread. Then salt the frelling earth. :smallwink:

Unfortunately, it is this sort of antagonistic behavior I've come to expect from PF apologizers. Not that there's anything wrong with you. You placed a smilie.

:smallsmile:

I just think a bunch of the rules are rather... anti-Timmy (A term I have appropriated). Some of these things are rather strange, like the Bonded Item. I heard VoP is poorly designed as well.

[Raineh Daze]

I just think a bunch of the rules are rather... anti-Timmy (A term I have appropriated). Some of these things are rather strange, like the Bonded Item. I heard VoP is poorly designed as well.

One magic item. Plus one ki per two levels. That's it. How many threads can this one fact come up on in one day? :smallconfused:

[eggynack]

One magic item. Plus one ki per two levels. That's it. How many threads can this one fact come up on in one day? :smallconfused:
Well, someone brought it up in that first thread about the feat points system. I thought that it'd fit in well with the pathfinder changes handbook, so I mentioned it over there. To my knowledge, this would make three. Also, it's a ki point every level. Still woefully inadequate though.

[Snowbluff]

Vital Strike is seeming pretty weak, as well. That's a combat feat, for those keeping count.

[Prime32]

One magic item. Plus one ki per two levels. That's it. How many threads can this one fact come up on in one day? :smallconfused:It also prevents you from entering monk PrCs, since swearing a vow causes you to lose Still Mind... for some reason.


Vital Strike is seeming pretty weak, as well. That's a combat feat, for those keeping count.If the effects of Improved+Greater Vital Stike were built in, it wouldn't be so bad.

[eggynack]

It also prevents you from entering monk PrCs, since swearing a vow causes you to lose Still Mind... for some reason.
What, really? So it does. Why would that be true? It just seems so arbitrary and punitive.

Edit: Do you have any examples of those monk PrC's? A good list of some kind would be helpful for that pathfinder changes handbook thing, and I'm also all curious and stuff.

[Starbuck_II]

It also prevents you from entering monk PrCs, since swearing a vow causes you to lose Still Mind... for some reason.

If the effects of Improved+Greater Vital Stike were built in, it wouldn't be so bad.

Vows are better for Ninja as they lose nothing (they lack Still Mind but as a KI user can take vows)

[Prime32]

What, really? So it does. Why would that be true? It just seems so arbitrary and punitive.

Edit: Do you have any examples of those monk PrC's? A good list of some kind would be helpful for that pathfinder changes handbook thing, and I'm also all curious and stuff.Searching "Still Mind" on the SRD, swearing a Vow of Poverty prevents you from using the following:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/monk/archetypes/paizo---monk-archetypes/martial-artist
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/uncommon-races/arg-duergar/gray-disciple-monk-duergar
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/monastic-legacy-combat
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/monk/archetypes/paizo---monk-archetypes/zen-archer
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/monk/archetypes/paizo---monk-archetypes/ki-mystic
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/monk/archetypes/paizo---monk-archetypes/maneuver-master
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/c-d/champion-of-irori
There may be some things that didn't come up.

It's definitely the most common prereq for monk PrCs in 3.5, which doesn't help with porting.

[eggynack]

Searching "Still Mind" on the SRD, swearing a Vow of Poverty prevents you from using the following:

There may be some things that didn't come up.

It's definitely the most common prereq for monk PrCs in 3.5, which doesn't help with porting.
Ah, so generally archetypes as opposed to prestige classes. It still seems far more relevant than the loss would look at first glance. I shall port it over, such that our understanding of changes from pathfinder will be more complete.

[Yahzi]

Every time I see one of these threads...
Thanks for the well-reasoned and written post. I think it's exactly right.

[navar100]

Vital Strike is seeming pretty weak, as well. That's a combat feat, for those keeping count.

I disagree it's weak. It's not uberpowerful everyone must have it you're the suck if you don't, but no feat needs to be such to be worth taking. Nor does a feat need to be used every time all the time. It would have been nice if the Vital Strike series was one feat that scaled with level. It would have been nice if many feats scaled with level. If colloquial you hate Pathfinder chose not to take the opportunity to scale feats, that's your taste and that's it.

Anyway, back to the Vital Strike feat itself. It is useful when you're getting only one attack anyway. It works well enough with great swords, a commonly used weapon, and anyone who knows will benefit from Enlarge Person a lot as a matter of party strategy. It works for players who are more interested in just doing damage, as in you can't use Vital Strike with Cleave that some people complain about. It's not for everyone and doesn't have to be.

[Snowbluff]

Thanks for the well-reasoned and written post. I think it's exactly right.
Rereading it, I think it has no bearing or value in this discussion. People play the games in groups with different values and optimization levels. We knew this. That doesn't mean PF is immune to criticism. They failed in their objective, and some of us are not happy with the illusion Jack seems to support.

I disagree it's weak. It's not uberpowerful everyone must have it you're the suck if you don't, but no feat needs to be such to be worth taking. Nor does a feat need to be used every time all the time. It would have been nice if the Vital Strike series was one feat that scaled with level. It would have been nice if many feats scaled with level. If colloquial you hate Pathfinder chose not to take the opportunity to scale feats, that's your taste and that's it.

Anyway, back to the Vital Strike feat itself. It is useful when you're getting only one attack anyway. It works well enough with great swords, a commonly used weapon, and anyone who knows will benefit from Enlarge Person a lot as a matter of party strategy. It works for players who are more interested in just doing damage, as in you can't use Vital Strike with Cleave that some people complain about. It's not for everyone and doesn't have to be.
There are ways to use this feat, but it will suck for Timmy, and McIceAssassin would rather have his fingers in a tastier pie. It kind of does have to be for everyone, or there'd be no point to using a system whose best trait is mechanical character building.

Not to mention you mostly want qualities over quantities. Numerical bonuses are nice, but they do nothing to address the Gap.

[Reverent-One]

Rereading it, I think it has no bearing or value in this discussion. People play the games in groups with different values and optimization levels. We knew this. That doesn't mean PF is immune to criticism. They failed in their objective, and some of us are not happy with the illusion Jack seems to support.

Just because you don't like their approach doesn't mean it's an illusion. It does have relevance because it speaks to their goal (which as Jack points out, they had at least some success with). You're right that it doesn't make PF immune to criticism, but it also means that a choice they made that someone may not like because they have different desires for the system (due to playing at a different optimization level as one example) may not have been the wrong one for their goal.

[Snowbluff]

Just because you don't like their approach doesn't mean it's an illusion.
A bad assumption, RO.

It's an illusion as in it's misdirection. It 'presents' balance without having actually having it. I am trying to stay on topic concerning the gap between casters and mundanes with this statement. Optimization level only develops other issues, like the ones concerning Arcane Bond or VoP.

[Reverent-One]

A bad assumption, RO.

It's an illusion as in it's misdirection. It 'presents' balance without having actually having it.

Actually having balance wasn't going to happen without abandoning their primary goal, a backwards compatible game that continues support for a 3.5-like system. Spot fixes were the best that there was going to be. Jack's point is about which spot fixes they focused on, and it fits with my experience and knowledge of the rules.

[Snowbluff]

Actually having balance wasn't going to happen without abandoning their primary goal, a backwards compatible game that continues support for a 3.5-like system. Spot fixes were the best that there was going to be. Jack's point is about which spot fixes they focused on, and it fits with my experience and knowledge of the rules.There primary goal is conflicting with the goal that would legitimize it as an improvement.

This is another issue. It's not completely backwards compatible thanks to thinks like removing Concentration as a Skill (Another Optimization level conundrum.) I assume PF as a standalone system, anyway. Because that's how it typically functions.

[olentu]

Actually having balance wasn't going to happen without abandoning their primary goal, a backwards compatible game that continues support for a 3.5-like system. Spot fixes were the best that there was going to be. Jack's point is about which spot fixes they focused on, and it fits with my experience and knowledge of the rules.

Perhaps perfect balance is not attainable. However that does not mean that they made things as good as they could have with their "spot fixes" or even better for practical purposes.

[Reverent-One]

There primary goal is conflicting with the goal that would legitimize it as an improvement.

Disagree, the system could be an improvement with absolutely zero balance fixes, there's far more to the rules than just what tier classes are.


This is another issue. It's not completely backwards compatible thanks to thinks like removing Concentration as a Skill (Another Optimization level conundrum.) I assume PF as a standalone system, anyway. Because that's how it typically functions.

Compare it's compatibility to 3.5's compatibility with 4e, or Exalted, or World of Darkness. Are there changes? Certainly, but the base mechanics are the same or similar, conversion is not overly difficult, and you can move over from one to the other without too much difficultly. There's little reason you can't bring in most of 3.5's material that's not been directly replaced, short of the DM just wanting to limit sources.

EDIT:

Perhaps perfect balance is not attainable. However that does not mean that they made things as good as they could have with their "spot fixes" or even better for practical purposes.

*Shrugs*
I've never claimed it's as good as it's going to get/could be, and to my understanding, neither did Jack. That said, I do think they made things better for practical purposes. But that's just from my experience.

[Snowbluff]

Perhaps perfect balance is not attainable. However that does not mean that they made things as good as they could have with their "spot fixes" or even better for practical purposes.
Exactly.

Disagree, the system could be an improvement with absolutely zero balance fixes, there's far more to the the rules than just what tier classes are. Not really. These are books. The fluff is mutable, and the crunch is not. This is a crunch discussion, and people can make their own fluff.


Compare it's compatibility to 3.5's compatibility with 4e, or Exalted, or World of Darkness. Are there changes? Certainly, but the base mechanics are the same or similar, conversion is not overly difficult, and you can move over from one to the other without too much difficultly. There's little reason you can't bring in most of 3.5's material that's not been directly replaced, short of the DM just wanting to limit sources.

No, as in I've read the conversion document, and Diamond Mind doesn't work anymore. There just guidelines, but they have to do everything so we have a standard point of discussion. We shouldn't need to consult a DM on everything.

EDIT/Sidenote: If anyone has a suggestion for a PF skill to replace Concentration for ToB/Melee, I'd like to hear it. :smallsmile:

[olentu]

Disagree, the system could be an improvement with absolutely zero balance fixes, there's far more to the the rules than just what tier classes are.

You may want to give some examples.



*Shrugs*
I've never claimed it's as good as it's going to get/could be, and to my understanding, neither did Jack. That said, I do think they made things better for practical purposes. But that's just from my experience.

Ah well, I suppose there is nothing more to say on this matter as one can't do much with an anecdote.

[Reverent-One]

Not really. These are books. The fluff is mutable, and the crunch is not. This is a crunch discussion, and people can make their own fluff.

I was talking about crunch. Despite what you seem to think, which classes have the most theoretical power doesn't make up the entirety of the crunch.


No, as in I've read the conversion document, and Diamond Mind doesn't work anymore. There just guidelines, but they have to do everything so we have a standard point of discussion. We shouldn't need to consult a DM on everything.

So was 3.5 not backwards compatible with 3.0 then?

EDIT:

You may want to give some examples.

Dead levels, potential over-complexity in the rules, skill system. All things that could be changed and potentially improved without balance between the classes being the goal.

[navar100]

EDIT/Sidenote: If anyone has a suggestion for a PF skill to replace Concentration for ToB/Melee, I'd like to hear it. :smallsmile:

Sense Motive
Knowledge (Martial Lore)
Autohypnosis

[olentu]

Dead levels, potential over-complexity in the rules, skill system. All things that could be changed and potentially improved without balance between the classes being the goal.

Ah you mean the goal of the change. I assumed you meant the outcome of the change.

If we are just talking about goals then any change of any sort can be added without balance being a consideration. But just because the person making the changes was not considering balance that does not mean that balance should be disregarded when evaluating the changes.

[Reverent-One]

Ah you mean the goal of the change. I assumed you meant the outcome of the change.

They could be changed without significantly affecting balance as well.

[Snowbluff]

I was talking about crunch. Despite what you seem to think, which classes have the most theoretical power doesn't make up the entirety of the crunch.
Um... no? Tiers are not entirely theoretical. They're relative. I wasn't referring to tier originally, but if that's how you perceive my position, whatevs.


So was 3.5 not backwards compatible with 3.0 then?No. I think they managed to cover it.

Heck, the game was better for the mistakes they made in the conversion 3.0/3.5 documents. Does Pathfinder have Monstrous Hairy Spider as a race in the Bestiaries?


Dead levels, potential over-complexity in the rules, skill system. All things that could be changed and potentially improved without balance between the classes being the goal.
And then they did not. The melee classes that handled dead levels the best seemed to be the later ones in 3.5. The ones we do not see in PF. PF seems to handle a lot of dead levels with numerical bonuses.

Casters never really had dead levels, since they would usually get a new spell or spells per day every level. Now to compensate for "dead levels", casters have gotten a bunch of other benefits instead.

Not that I think dead levels are much of an issue in my play.

[georgie_leech]

Dead levels are a good point. Not that I like flat numerical bonuses for them (after all, fighters still got BAB at level 3 in 3.5), but I can at least appreciate what they were trying to do.

[olentu]

They could be changed without significantly affecting balance as well.

I suppose that is possible. Likewise it is possible that it could move things closer or further from balance. Theoretically possible outcomes are relatively unimportant.

[Reverent-One]

Um... no? Tiers are not entirely theoretical. They're relative. I wasn't referring to tier originally, but if that's how you perceive my position, whatevs.

I didn't say they were, my point remains that there's more to the rules than just the relative balance between the classes.


No. I think they managed to cover it.

3.5 removed a skill or two as well, and to my understanding wasn't an effortless job for the DM of porting over things either. PF seems similar, saying one is backwards compatible and the other is not seems to be bias speaking.


And then they did not.

But you agree at least that 3.5 (or most any system, 3.5 merely being the topic at hand) could theoretically be improved without changing the balance of the classes?

EDIT:

I suppose that is possible. Likewise it is possible that it could move things closer or further from balance. Theoretically possible outcomes are relatively unimportant.

When my point is that improvements could be made to the system without changing the balance of the classes, it's pretty darn important.

[olentu]

EDIT:


When my point is that improvements could be made to the system without changing the balance of the classes, it's pretty darn important.

Ah I think you misunderstand. I am not saying that it is not important to your point, I am saying that your point about what could have theoretically happened is rather disconnected from the rest of the discussion.

[Snowbluff]

3.5 removed a skill or two as well, and to my understanding wasn't an effortless job for the DM of porting over things either. PF seems similar, saying one is backwards compatible and the other is not seems to be bias speaking.Where their classes dependent on those mechanics? I've been hard pressed to try and find things that don't have a document fix.

I could yell "Bias!" back at you, but that would be about as productive as you saying it to me in the first place.


But you agree at least that 3.5 (or most any system, 3.5 merely being the topic at hand) could theoretically be improved without changing the balance of the classes?

I didn't say they were, my point remains that there's more to the rules than just the relative balance between the classes.
Nah. The changes I've seen made for balance happen to coincide with the ones that fix the some of the other issues. ToB doesn't have much in the way of dead levels, and the system can make frontliners somewhat competent.

Having a hard time wording this, but you might be wrong about the balancing thing. There is more to classes than tier, but their crunch is final. It is represented through tier, and the difference was noted in this thread. It's not a non-issue.

[Reverent-One]

Where their classes dependent on those mechanics? I've been hard pressed to try and find things that don't have a document fix.

I could yell "Bias!" back at you, but that would be about as productive as you saying it to me in the first place.

*Shrugs* Pathfinder is generally considered an easy port from 3.5, you're the exception rather than the norm here.


Nah. The changes I've seen made for balance happen to coincide with the ones that fix the some of the other issues. ToB doesn't have much in the way of dead levels, and the system can make frontliners somewhat competent.

Having a hard time wording this, but you might be wrong about the balancing thing. There is more to classes than tier, but their crunch is final. It is represented through tier, and the difference was noted in this thread. It's not a non-issue.

Doesn't change that the system's crunch could be changed without really changing the balance between the classes. Changes to races for example could have little effect on the balance of classes themselves, short of some races getting "ZOMG awesome" abilities with specific classes.

[Snowbluff]

*Shrugs* Pathfinder is generally considered an easy port from 3.5, you're the exception rather than the norm here.
I don't know. Sounds like a generalization I wouldn't bet on.



Doesn't change that the system's crunch could be changed without really changing the balance between the classes. Changes to races for example could have little effect on the balance of classes themselves, short of some races getting "ZOMG awesome" abilities with specific classes.

Actually, the best example of this is PF. They changed a lot crunch, but balance was no better for it. Melee still kind of sucks, unless you're a paladin. They aren't so great. Healing changes are nice, but Smite is still rather awkward. They aren't really mundane, either. I kind of have a newfound disrespect for PF. I could handle it before, but now other people are telling me the system is ineffectual.

So can we agree that PF has a gap between mundane and casters, it's a problem, and it's there because Paizo wouldn't do anything about?

[Reverent-One]

I don't know. Sounds like a generalization I wouldn't bet on.

Well, for example, there's this old thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151641) about converting where literally everyone who weighed in the matter says it's not hard.


Actually, the best example of this is PF. They changed a lot crunch, but balance was better for it. Melee still kind of sucks, unless you're a paladin. They aren't so great. Healing changes are nice, but Smite is still rather awkward. They aren't really mundane, either. I kind of have a newfound disrespect for PF. I could handle it before, but now other people are telling me the system is ineffectual.

I'm assuming there's a typo or something in that bolded section, or else you've had a fast change of heart...


So can we agree that PF has a gap between mundane and casters,

Yes.


it's a problem,

Not anymore than it was in 3.5. So it falls somewhere around "would be nice if it got fixed, but can well be played and enjoyed without it".


and it's there because Paizo wouldn't do anything about?

Well, not quite not anything, but generally they didn't fix it because they had reasons not to, sure.

[Snowbluff]

Well, for example, there's this old thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151641) about converting where literally everyone who weighed in the matter says it's not hard. ToB not mentioned once. What the heck. :smallyuk:

Not that easy equates to working, in my case.



I'm assuming there's a typo or something in that bolded section, or else you've had a fast change of heart...Yes, sorry. Fixed.



Not anymore than it was in 3.5. So it falls somewhere around "would be nice if it got fixed, but can well be played and enjoyed without it".
Except ToB's mundanes were better later one. Wizards were still being wizards, but ToB closed the gap, even if marginally. ToB not being OGL is the greatest loss when working with PF. PF is worse off, from what I can tell.



Well, not quite not anything, but generally they didn't fix it because they had reasons not to, sure.Yeah, like we see people being awful and go "Not my problem KTHXBAI." Demonstrating terrible behavior is fine if a corporation does it.

[Reverent-One]

Not that easy equates to working, in my case.

The rulesets working together easily is pretty much the definition of compatibility.


Except ToB's mundanes were better later one. Wizards were still being wizards, but ToB closed the gap, even if marginally. ToB not being OGL is the greatest loss when working with PF. PF is worse off, from what I can tell.

There's a lot more to 3.5 besides ToB, which isn't the fix for everyone.


Yeah, like we see people being awful and go "Not my problem KTHXBAI." Demonstrating terrible behavior is fine if a corporation does it.

Let me correct myself, because they generally had good reasons not to, sure.

[olentu]

Let me correct myself, because they generally had good reasons not to, sure.

You really don't like saying what exactly you are talking about, do you.

[Reverent-One]

You really don't like saying what exactly you are talking about, do you.

It's not anything new.


Actually having balance wasn't going to happen without abandoning their primary goal, a backwards compatible game that continues support for a 3.5-like system.

That goal's a valid, decent one in my book.

[Snowbluff]

The rulesets working together easily is pretty much the definition of compatibility.

No. Easy is subjective.
Compatible would be an objective term, that I just demonstrated does not apply here.



There's a lot more to 3.5 besides ToB, which isn't the fix for everyone.
Nothing else really compares. If people won't take their medicine, that's there prerogative. I do cry a little each day when people whine about casters, but refuse to be helped on the mundane front.



Let me correct myself, because they generally had good reasons not to, sure.Intention and action are not the same thing. Do something bad for all the right reasons and you're still doing something bad.



That goal's a valid, decent one in my book.
But if it's backwards compatible, they couldn't make many effective changes. :smallconfused:

I am happy with how much we are getting if we switch.

[Reverent-One]

No. Easy is subjective.
Compatible would be an objective term, that I just demonstrated does not apply here.

Not really. You haven't demonstrated why they're not compatible, and being easy is a result of being compatible.


Nothing else really compares. If people won't take their medicine, that's there prerogative. I do cry a little each day when people whine about casters, but refuse to be helped on the mundane front.

Crazy idea, maybe the "medicine" isn't for everyone. People's ideas of fun are different after all.


Intention and action are not the same thing. Do something bad for all the right reasons and you're still doing something bad.

I don't think they did anything bad either. I like what they did, to point to where it's spoiled me and short of significant out of game reasons, wouldn't go back to 3.5.


But if it's backwards compatible, they couldn't make many effective changes. :smallconfused:

I am happy with how much we are getting if we switch.

Effective to fixing the gap? No, they largely can't, that's what I've been saying. Effective in making the game more fun? As I said above, they've done a decent job at that for me.

[olentu]

It's not anything new.



That goal's a valid, decent one in my book.

You were just saying the same thing over again. Huh, I certainly wouldn't have guessed that.

That being said all those same ends could have been done with 3.5 supplementary material.

[Reverent-One]

You were just saying the same thing over again. Huh, I certainly wouldn't have guessed that.

So why did you have to ask? I thought that point was fairly self-explanatory myself (though given I've had to clarify it a few times for Snowbluff now, I guess it only is for people other than the one I'm primarily responding to).


That being said all those same ends could have been done with 3.5 supplementary material.

Supplementary material like Pathfinder?

[olentu]

So why did you have to ask? I thought that point was fairly self-explanatory myself (though given I've had to clarify it a few times for Snowbluff now, I guess it only is for people other than the one I'm primarily responding to).



Supplementary material like Pathfinder?

Eh, probably it was because I was not understanding your meaning. If you like I can just make something up whenever I find myself confused.

No I mean actual supplementary material or do you quite literally consider pathfinder not a different (although similar) system.

[Snowbluff]

So this whole time you've been wasting my time with what I thought was a real discussion to end it with "I liked it?"

Excuse me, but what bearing did any of that have to the conversation. "I liked it?" It was a crunch discussion. You liking it is fine, but it really doesn't matter for the sake of the Gap. If the issues are be disregarded, your group has more to do with your enjoyment than the system, judging from my own experience.

Crazy idea, maybe the "medicine" isn't for everyone. People's ideas of fun are different after all.
My statement address the contradiction with "Fighters sucks" and "I don't want ToB, you weaboo." Substantial pptions are a nice thing, but melee don't have nice things... but they won't take options. It's this glorious problem is one of the reasons why that I think PF fails as a system.

[Reverent-One]

No I mean actual supplementary material or do you quite literally consider pathfinder not a different (although similar) system.

It's basically a set of third party houserules for 3.5, intended to be able to be used with 3.5 material. Paizo's ability to make what you would consider to be actual supplementary material is limited by the OGL and the fact that they're third party, but given the main goal of PF is to continue 3.5, I'm willing to group them together.


So this whole time you've been wasting my time with what I thought was a real discussion to end it with "I liked it?"

Excuse me, but what bearing did any of that have to the conversation. "I liked it?" It was a crunch discussion. You liking it is fine, but it really doesn't matter for the sake of the Gap.

You said it was bad, so saying I don't think it's bad is at least as valid and relevant. If you don't like that, then don't start bringing the value judgements in yourself. I acknowledged there was a gap several posts ago, so obviously we weren't debating whether or not there was one.

[Snowbluff]

You said it was bad, so saying I don't think it's bad is at least as valid and relevant. If you don't like that, then don't start bringing the value judgements in yourself. I acknowledged there was a gap several posts ago, so obviously we weren't debating whether or not there was one.
The problem with that would be that mechanically there is a gap, and that it definitely exists. Claiming it's not a problem is not conducive to generating a solution, which would be the next step. Even if you do not think it's a problem, the mechanics behind the problem are there.

[Mighty_Chicken]

Game designers think magic should be able to do everything, and swords should only open holes in stuff.

But I found out this in Adventurer Conqueror King's blog (http://www.autarch.co/blog/heroic-combat-adventurer-conqueror-king):


In ACKS, we've tried to restore the Fighter (and related classes) to his pre-eminence on the battlefield. If you want to envision what we think a high-level fighter should be like, read about the legendary Achilles' rampage through the battlefields of Troy, or watch any Japanese samurai movie in which one man stands against ten (...)

-At 1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th level, fighters get +1 on their damage rolls.

-If a fighter kills an opponent, he may immediately advance 5' and attack again, up to a maximum number of times equal to his level.

(...)

Consider now our 8th level Fighter from above. In ACKS, he'd need a 5+ to hit hobgoblins (80% likelihood). His average damage would be 1d8+2 [Str] +1 [sword] + 3 [fighter damage bonus], meaning his minimum damage is 7 and his average damage is 10.5. He will kill a hobgoblin on every hit, which will allow him to attack again. We should expect him to kill about 4 hobgoblins per round. He could kill a maximum of 9 (1 for his base attack, plus 8 additional attacks).

I'm not really discussing mechanics here, but tropes.

I have a college professor who likes to point that 80's action movies are all based on ancient mythology structure (because of the influence of Star Wars and Josepah Campbell's work). What does Rambo do? He kills literally dozens of people by himself, to the point of being completely unrealistic. An that's exactly what Achylles did in the Illiad. He killed waves after waves of strong, able, skilled Trojan men, many of them princes or people who had 10 years of experience in the battlefield.

In a similar manner, Siefried killed a damn dragon by himself. Can you imagine someone killing a dinosaur? With a big knife?

I know Wizards tried to keep fighters "mundane" because they needed to contrast sword with sorcery, and that's a good thing. But warriors in mythology and fiction and do awesome, impossible things D&D warrior can't do.

So what game designers really forgot about is how physical might can be fantastical without looking supernatural. They forgot of how mysterious it can look just by itself. I read an article about how the protagonist of the Illiad wasn't Achylles. It was Might itself. Might either destroyed or changed everything. It was used by Achylles and the other warriors, but none of its users was bigger than itself - all warriors, both greek and trojan, end up destroyed, defeated or ruined in the end. Might can detroy everything. RPG designers forgot how mythological pure Might can be.

[olentu]

It's basically a set of third party houserules for 3.5, intended to be able to be used with 3.5 material. Paizo's ability to make what you would consider to be actual supplementary material is limited by the OGL and the fact that they're third party, but given the main goal of PF is to continue 3.5, I'm willing to group them together.

I see. Well it seems like that makes it rather difficult to have a discussion on the subject.

[Reverent-One]

The problem with that would be that mechanically there is a gap, and that it definitely exists. Claiming it's not a problem is not conducive to generating a solution, which would be the next step.

First, you weren't trying to put forward a solution at the time, but merely claiming that pathfinder did a bad thing by not fixing the gap. As such, a counter-argument about whether or not what Paizo did is a bad thing is valid. Secondly, you do realize that if there isn't a problem, then you don't need to generate a solution, right? So the first step, before you go around trying to make a solution, is to figure out exactly if there is a problem, and if so, specifically what it is.

[Twilight Jack]

Wow, step away for just a few hours and the whole place goes galloping off at breakneck speed.

There was some stuff that Snowbluff said to which I wanted to respond, but the conversation's gone too far forward at this point. C'est la vie.

If you will indulge me though, let me ask a simple question of the Pathfinder detractors.

Is 3.5 your preferred edition of Dungeons & Dragons to play these days?

[Psyren]

I have a college professor who likes to point that 80's action movies are all based on ancient mythology structure (because of the influence of Star Wars and Josepah Campbell's work). What does Rambo do? He kills literally dozens of people by himself, to the point of being completely unrealistic. An that's exactly what Achylles did in the Illiad. He killed waves after waves of strong, able, skilled Trojan men, many of them princes or people who had 10 years of experience in the battlefield.
...
I know Wizards tried to keep fighters "mundane" because they needed to contrast sword with sorcery, and that's a good thing. But warriors in mythology and fiction and do awesome, impossible things D&D warrior can't do.


But you're mistaken - D&D warriors can do that. A skilled warrior slaughtering droves of lesser-skilled opponents? Killing was never (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0102.html) the fighter/barbarian's problem. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0611.html) Their problem is that's ALL they can really do. And that's really only a problem if the player wants to do more than that, or more precisely, do more than that without taking magic items and party buffs into account.

For many folks, simple class + items + party is all they really need. Some don't even want the magic items to change things up. ToB is a beautiful thing but it's still a lot to digest all at once, especially for a newer player.

[ArcturusV]

Well... kinda? The Kobold Effect is a real thing, particularly in systems without the Heroic Fray (Old Alt Rule I found in 2nd that gave fighters additional attacks per melee for being outnumbered by more than 3-1) rule. There comes a point where, at the very least because of Critical hits, an equal mass of 1/3 HD Kobolds ends up being a hard fight for a Fighter.

Criticals, never your Friend, it's the friend of NPCs, there's a lot more of them out there. They're going to hit that natural 20 a lot more often.

Similarly the fighter types tend to suffer when trying to go mano-a-mano with something big, bad, and ugly, due to their usually limited options. Or rather their effectiveness is usually more a product of their gear than their training.

[eggynack]

I think there's a mistake in comparing pathfinder directly to core, at least in terms of balance. There's this weird disconnect of assessment where people think that looking at ToB is misdirection of some kind. It doesn't have identical flavor to fighters, so it can't work as a replacement. The same goes for beguilers and totemists too, I guess. The fact of the matter is, when ToB came out, Wizards had a much better idea of what the game's balance looked like. BAB and feats weren't nearly as important as actual scaling abilities, and the power level of wizards and the like is ridiculous. It's a thing that I think they learned through observation.

The point, I think, is that pathfinder didn't. They had this huge opportunity to develop a game that started out with the lessons that 3.5 game design decisions taught us, and they just didn't. If warblades aren't a perfect substitute for fighters, then they certainly could have been while retaining their power level. The sad truth is, it wouldn't have been that difficult for Pathfinder to close the gap between casters and mundane. They could have printed wizards on a power level similar to beguilers, and printed fighters on a power level similar to warblades, and the game would work really well. So, I guess that the reason why there's a gap between casters and mundane, where there really shouldn't be, is that pathfinder failed to understand the things that we, as a community, have been figuring out for years. The tier system could have been more than a guideline for DM's and players. It could have been a guideline for game designers, and it didn't hash out that way.

[Augmental]

While social encounters aren't the fighters area of expertise, neither is it for the wizard (and don't even bring up magic).

Why not? There are wizard spells that can help in social situations (not just charm person). Not bringing them up is like not bringing up a fighter's bonus feats in a combat situation.

[kardar233]

If you will indulge me though, let me ask a simple question of the Pathfinder detractors.

Is 3.5 your preferred edition of Dungeons & Dragons to play these days?

Yes it is. Mainly for the incredible modularity of classes and concepts, and the feeling of accomplishment when you fit together a beautiful build.

I've got a couple relevant quotes I've stored up:


3.5 requires a lot more investment, both time and monetary. it's a lot like Linux, you can do pretty much anything with it, including screw up. 3.5 doesn't baby you. It doesn't handhold you, and the designers were, in some places, intentionally trying to create trap options for people who don't know how mechanics work.

That said, *You can do anything* in 3.5. There is literally no concept you cannot play, no adventure you cannot have. It's all dependant on your group and your DM, but there's rule support for everything. If you want to have an interplanar adventure trying to stop the madness of a once-great-king from infecting his kingdom and bringing psychic rot to the multiverse and letting in an elder evil from the beyond, there's rules for all of it, stats for the elder evil, and it all works and makes a modicum of sense.


This is the thing about optimized builds. The good ones, the ones that represent real practical optimization rather than some theoretical monstrosity, the ones that optimizers might actually play: they aren't jumbles. They aren't excuses. They are one single story, told the best way possible. They are works of art, and a player builds one because they have a story to tell, and they want a character whose every build choice sings it.

Can't remember whose quote the first is, but the second was Urpriest, I think.


The point, I think, is that pathfinder didn't. They had this huge opportunity to develop a game that started out with the lessons that 3.5 game design decisions taught us, and they just didn't. If warblades aren't a perfect substitute for fighters, then they certainly could have been while retaining their power level. The sad truth is, it wouldn't have been that difficult for Pathfinder to close the gap between casters and mundane. They could have printed wizards on a power level similar to beguilers, and printed fighters on a power level similar to warblades, and the game would work really well. So, I guess that the reason why there's a gap between casters and mundane, where there really shouldn't be, is that pathfinder failed to understand the things that we, as a community, have been figuring out for years. The tier system could have been more than a guideline for DM's and players. It could have been a guideline for game designers, and it didn't hash out that way.

Yeah, this is the thing that frustrates me the most. It's not like they were unaware of the moves WotC was making towards better balance with the later books like Magic of Incarnum and Tome of Battle. They chose to ignore them. I can only think of a few reasons to do so, and from what comments I've read from SKR and Jason Bulmahn I'm sadly convinced that they are totally ignorant of the massive 3.5 knowledge base that's built up over the years.

It also irritates me that people continue to give them money for their rulesets. I've had some good times with their adventures, though.

[eggynack]

Is 3.5 your preferred edition of Dungeons & Dragons to play these days?
By the way, I forgot to answer this, but yes. It is indeed. The fact of the matter is that I would probably like pathfinder fine were I to play it, particularly because I like 3.5 which is a similar system. The issue, as I noted above, is that pathfinder had an opportunity to really repair things, and it didn't. I've argued, at least once, that imbalance on a macro scale can have a positive effect on a game. However, just having a balanced game is probably a better thing. I don't know if I've mentioned this, though I suspect I have, but SKR's design philosophy is really odd. It seems like he simultaneously hates power gaming and high optimization, and yet he helped to engineer a system that encourages those things. It seems somewhat counter-intuitive.

I personally enjoy making great use of system mastery in order to continually hone concepts and ideas, which is why I enjoy a rules heavy system like 3.5. It often seems like character design is this enormous puzzle with millions of pieces, and you can put them together in an infinite number of ways. There's a certain joy to being presented with a character idea, and working within those restrictions to produce a character that matches that idea as closely as possible, while optimizing their ability to carry out on their plans. Additionally, you're always learning new things, which is wonderful. I'm surprised on a constant basis by all of the little idiosyncrasies of the system. I like the fact that the game inadvertently allows you to become a psionic sandwich, or hit an enemy an infinite number of times, or save the game, or even gain every ability in the game, as well as every ability outside of it, at level one. Those things inspire me, to dig deeper, to think harder, to gain a better depth of understanding.

[Snowbluff]

Wow, step away for just a few hours and the whole place goes galloping off at breakneck speed.

There was some stuff that Snowbluff said to which I wanted to respond, but the conversation's gone too far forward at this point. C'est la vie. Sorry. Wouldn't have let that happen if I knew RO was planning on running me in circles.


If you will indulge me though, let me ask a simple question of the Pathfinder detractors.

Is 3.5 your preferred edition of Dungeons & Dragons to play these days?
Yep. It's been said here, but 3.5 is pretty rules heavy and a rather large system. It facilitating conversation and character optimization is why I can play it without even playing it. It's pretty sweet. :smallcool:

I keep running up against the PF equivalents of my fave 3.5 material and come up disappointed. Or just not seeing the classes and feats I liked before. As a standalone system, it pretty much gives me the middle finger.

[eggynack]

I keep running up against the PF equivalents of my fave 3.5 material and come up disappointed. Or just not seeing the classes and feats I liked before. As a standalone system, it pretty much gives me the middle finger.
Yeah, I didn't bring it up before, but the relative deficiency of options in pathfinder means that it's much less interesting to me. You can just do so many things in 3.5, and solve the same exact problem in so many different ways, that it's just crazy sometimes. You can even solve the exact same problem by using multiple different systems. Want to hit enemies unarmed? You can build a monk 2/ psywar 18 with tashalatora, or just stick together a swordsage, or even a totemist. You can also make up a barbarian, with like frostrager, fist of the forest, and bear warrior in varying combinations. There are probably even more options if I'm using things that aren't just off the top of my head, and that is just super cool. You can do more than just build any archetype of character. You can build any archetype of character in a million different ways.

[Raineh Daze]

The main thing I like about PF is the ability to look through the SRD and produce a samurai riding an intelligent, plate-armour wearing T-Rex. Then see if I can get something from 3.5 and have them dual-wielding crystal naginata. Ludicrously impractical? Yes. Too fun a mental concept to pass up on? Yes.

Prefer 3.5 because there's more stuff in general, though. It's just that the PF SRD has that sort of potential on it.

[Lycar]

Yep. It's been said here, but 3.5 is pretty rules heavy and a rather large system. It facilitating conversation and character optimization is why I can play it without even playing it. It's pretty sweet. :smallcool:

I keep running up against the PF equivalents of my fave 3.5 material and come up disappointed. Or just not seeing the classes and feats I liked before. As a standalone system, it pretty much gives me the middle finger.

Excuse me, do I get this right? For about 3 pages you have been telling everyone about how dissatisfied you are what Pathfinder did to the metagame of building character builds? Mechanical artifacts that are supposed to give some rules-bones to the fluffy flesh of character concepts? :smallconfused:

If that is the case then almost everything you said is practically irrelevant for anyone who is more concerned about playing the actual game as opposed to the rules. :smallannoyed:

Allow me to clarify: At its heart, every RPG is a game of make-believe. We just have rules for them so they don't devolve into shouting matches. Now what the rules should do is to allow the make-believe to function in the way the players want it to.

D&D is about heroic fantasy, larger-then-life-heroes saving entire multiverses. Or at least, that is what it sets out to support. You can have a game a couple numbers smaller in scope and it still works. But scale the scope down too far and it doesn't work anymore: D&D is not good at 'gritty realism' for example.

But back to the rules: In heroic fantasy, swordsmen are considered heroic if they can defeat scores of other swordsmen, mystical beasts and the occasional wizard (and if they are doing if for Good rather then Evil obviously). Basically they work within the rules of the world, but more so. They can only sword things but they excel at that.

Wizards, on the other hand, do not work within the rules of the world but rather bend, break or outright mutilate them in order to further their aims. Heroic or villainous.

So from the very concept of the game you try to emulate with your rules, you are bound to certain limitations. Swordsmen can only do what can be done with swords without bending or breaking the rules of the world. Maybe a truly epic hero can get away with bending the rules, but go a step beyond that and you no longer have a swordsman, you have, essentially, a wizard.

Now wizards, by their very definition, do not need rules to enable them to do things, like swordsmen do, but rather rules that limit what they can do.

So that swordsmen and wizards can appear in the same story without anyone asking 'Why do the God-Wizards bother to lug those muggles around?' or 'What does the Sword-God need those pointy-hatted nerds for?'.

As for magic, the limiting factor in D&D is the vancian magic system. The things magic can do are very clearly defined by the spells that exist. You want to do something? If there is a spell for it, you can. If that spell happens to be of too high a level for you to cast, however, you can't. If you have run out of appropriately high-level spell slots, you can't do it today.

So far so good. But the thing that really makes the gap between casters and fighters so obviously glaring in D&D 3.x is that magic's limitations pretty much stops there.

Oh sure, magic can be countered... with other magic. But that is the same thing as saying that a sufficiently skilled swordsman can counter Sword-God.

No, what I am talking about is that in 2nd. Ed. there were a lot more things that could stop a caster cold in his tracks. For example, spells not happening instantaneously.

In 3.x, casting a spell may be a so-called 'standard action', effectively it still happens in null time: Your initiative count comes up, you announce the spell you cast, *BAM*, instant effect. Unless someone deliberately readied an action to stop you (and thus risking effectively losing his turn if you would do anything but cast a spell), you cast with impunity.

And no, a Concentrate check is not a means of limiting the caster since any skill check in 3.x is trivially easy to make irrelevant.

In 2nd Ed. on the other hand, casting a spell actually took time. A spell would need a certain amount of 'segments', or initiative counts, to cast. For example, a wizard's turn might come up on initiative count 16. He announces to cast a spell with a casting time of 8 segments.

Now two things happen that are an important deviation from how 3.x works (and make both editions incompatible by the way): If anyone happens to be acting in between initiative count 16 and 8, when the spell is finished casting and takes effect, they can attempt to interrupt the spell casting without having to jump through loops to do so. All it takes to interrupt the caster is to successfully damage him.

Those two goblin archers acting at 14 and 9 (or an enemy caster trying to wedge a quick disspell in between)? If one of them score a hit on the wizard... And that is the second thing: In 2nd Ed., if the caster takes damage during the casting of the spell, the spell fizzles without saving throw.

Combine this with the infamous 5-foot-step-of-impunity as I like to call it and you can see how much harder the 3.x edition of the game made it to limit casters by the actions of other characters, especially non-casters.

Back to the make-believe game. Quick, ask yourself, what is more in line with your image of heroic fantasy: The evil wizard just standing in his throne room or study, all alone (because he doesn't need minions, he's a wizard after all), firing off world-shattering spells with but a snap of his finger and all the non-wizard heroes are incapable of laying a finger on him, let alone a good swording?

Or maybe you imagine the villain caster hiding behind a wall of ablative meat armour, the heroic fighters hacking their way through as the heroic caster counters the villains magic with his own, desperately preventing the villain from finishing his spells or at least countering them in time to prevent him from obliterating the party. And finally the heroic swordsman manages to breach the wall and step up to the evil wizard. The wizards backpedals, frantically waving his hands and uttering arcane words of power in a desperate attempt to get his spell off.

But the swordsman won't let that happen. First of all, not losing contact with an enemy just because he takes a few steps back is integral to the very thing swordsmen are good at: Swording. And even though the enemy ducks and weaves, he is much less skilled at ducking and weaving then were his warrior minions, now laying in a bloody heap because Swordsman was much better at swording then they were at ducking and weaving...

Well you get the picture. If that is what you imagine heroic fantasy to be like, the changes from 2nd. Ed. to 3.x rules made D&D a lot worse at depicting it because they severely limited the ways characters can interact with casters in a fight.

Back to Pathfinder. They nerfed a couple of problematic spells and left others untouched. They gave more power to some classes. Wizards too. Where they needed it. At the lowest of levels. Cantrips at-will isn't overpowered. It just means junior wizards can contribute without lugging crossbows around.

Did they do anything about the impunity with which caters can dominate the game?

They did something. The Step Up feat is a thing (although in my opinion, every class with a full BAB progression ought to have that as a class feature). Concentrate checks are being replaced by caster level checks that you can actually fail.

Why didn't they do more?

Two words; Backward compatibility.

They could have changed the way Wizards work. But to do it in a way that actually makes a significant difference, you would lose backward compatibility. Reinstating casting times would do a lot to allow non-casters to affect casters in a fight. But it would also complicate the game. After all, it would make the caster player effectively act twice a turn at the table: Once when he announces the spell he casts, another time when it takes effect.

This, for example, was a change they didn't make.

Another way to reign in casters is using a spell point system... with a slow recharge. Sure, casters can still go nova but it will cost them. Better to conserve your power for when it is really needed. Although that can lead to the wizard-in-a-box problem: You keep your party wizard in a padded box until you fight your way to the BBEG, then you open the box, wizard goes nova, end of BBEG. :smalltongue:

So essentially you might end up replacing one problem with another. This too they didn't do. Because the gap between casters and non-casters is a known issue (not even a problem to some) and there are also known solutions. A problem with a known solution is solved. It does not mean that the problem ceases to exist but it means it stops being, well, problematic.

Don't fix something if your fix creates more problems then it solves. Maybe the people at Paizo thought long and hard about how to bridge the gap without rewriting the whole system, concluded that they didn't have a panacea either and decided to make do with small patches they felt confident wouldn't hurt.

So unless you have a fix that 'is still D&D', don't point fingers. :smallamused:

[eggynack]

Or you could just fix wizards by limiting their access to the spell list, beguiler style. That seems perfectly compatible in a backward fashion, given that I'm taking the idea from 3.5. Also, why do you keep talking about things that you think reduce verisimilitude in game when he was complimenting the character design system? Those two things don't have all that much to do with each other.

[Snowbluff]

Lycar:

Stormwind Fallacy.

I don't need a system to roleplay.

McIceAssassin know the rules and has a spell selection that allows him to mitigate the need for ever making a Concentration Check. Timmy will be the only one in danger of these rules. This makes Step Up a joke, and you're only hurting the casters who are trying to play fair.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Why is there a gap between character classes? Because if you want a balanced game you can go play 4th edition. That's the dirty secret. 4th edition is the most balanced version of D&D. If you want freedom of character choice, some options and combinations will always end up being better simply because there are so many options and unforeseen combinations.



Basically, I'm tired of talking about how to fix the system, or why it hasn't been fixed because I don't think that it can be fixed and still provide players with meaningful choices in how they create their characters.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Lycar:

Stormwind Fallacy.

I don't need a system to roleplay.


Like most time logical fallacies are invoked it fails to actually mean much. Because Stormwind simply says something is not 100% the case.

Whoop de do. This merely requires the original contention to be changed from a range between 0% and 100%, something in my opinion people already realize and they are really arguing "While it may not be all the time but it is 85% of the time and that's too high!" or some variation there of.

Seriously they sound all cool and everything but invoking fallacies, especially made up ones from the net comes across less like an actual argument and more like the old debate trick where you don't need to win, just make the other side look like they were wrong.

I know you contend you can roleplay just fine and still be optimized. That doesn't mean something is actually representative of the whole.

And at best its just a defense against a specific charge, you aren't actually creating any positive point in your favor with it.


Why is there a gap between character classes? Because if you want a balanced game you can go play 4th edition. That's the dirty secret. 4th edition is the most balanced version of D&D. If you want freedom of character choice, some options and combinations will always end up being better simply because there are so many options and unforeseen combinations.



Basically, I'm tired of talking about how to fix the system, or why it hasn't been fixed because I don't think that it can be fixed and still provide players with meaningful choices in how they create their characters.

That 3.5 is actually played, that PF exists, and that by accounts I've seen 5E will be in some way going back to that says that the "problems" aren't actually stopping people from having an enjoyable experience.

[eggynack]

Why is there a gap between character classes? Because if you want a balanced game you can go play 4th edition. That's the dirty secret. 4th edition is the most balanced version of D&D. If you want freedom of character choice, some options and combinations will always end up being better simply because there are so many options and unforeseen combinations.



Basically, I'm tired of talking about how to fix the system, or why it hasn't been fixed because I don't think that it can be fixed and still provide players with meaningful choices in how they create their characters.
But you're, y'know, wrong. Balance isn't some thing that you just want and you have it. Balance is something we're always working and striving for. In core, they had 11 classes. Three of them were tier one, one was tier two, one was tier three, three were tier four, and three were tier five. Those numbers tend so far towards the extremes. Fully half of the tier one classes were made in core, and all but one of the tier three classes were made outside of core.

The game can be fixed, because in many ways, it was. They developed system after system that generally lived right in the middle of the tier system. The idea that variety and balance are mutually exclusive is ridiculous. If anything, the game's variety and its balance were directly correlated. The ideal isn't that you won't be able to optimize a character. The ideal is that you won't have a situation wherein an entire branch of class is sub-optimal. You should be able to play as a wizard in a party with a fighter, and have a non-broken game. Later 3.5 books allow that, and I don't know the extent to which pathfinder does. As I noted previously, there were many lessons 3.5's developers learned from core, and they applied them to later books. Pathfinder did not apply those lessons, despite the fact that it's entirely reasonable that they would be capable of doing so.

[Snowbluff]

Like most time logical fallacies are invoked it fails to actually mean much. Because Stormwind simply says something is not 100% the case.

Whoop de do. This merely requires the original contention to be changed from a range between 0% and 100%, something in my opinion people already realize and they are really arguing "While it may not be all the time but it is 85% of the time and that's too high!" or some variation there of.

Seriously they sound all cool and everything but invoking fallacies, especially made up ones from the net comes across less like an actual argument and more like the old debate trick where you don't need to win, just make the other side look like they were wrong.


And at best its just a defense against a specific charge, you aren't actually creating any positive point in your favor with it.


I know you contend you can roleplay just fine and still be optimized. That doesn't mean something is actually representative of the whole. Excuse me, but I am not in a defending position. Until you can generate proof that a majority of optimizers can not roleplay and optimize at the same time, you do not have an argument. It's up to present evidence for your case. I will politely wait for something substantial to present itself.

[Reverent-One]

Sorry. Wouldn't have let that happen if I knew RO was planning on running me in circles.

Hey, don't blame me for containing a discussion you started.

[137beth]

Nothing else really compares. If people won't take their medicine, that's there prerogative. I do cry a little each day when people whine about casters, but refuse to be helped on the mundane front.

I cry a little each day when people say that ToB is the one and only way to help mundane characters.

[eggynack]

I cry a little each day when people say that ToB is the one and only way to help mundane characters.
I guess it isn't. There's some other systems out there, but they tend to be even less mundane than tome of battle. Like, psychic warriors and totemists tend towards melee, but I don't know if you'd call them mundane.

[Clistenes]

I guess it isn't. There's some other systems out there, but they tend to be even less mundane than tome of battle. Like, psychic warriors and totemists tend towards melee, but I don't know if you'd call them mundane.

There are a few prestige class that can strenghen warriors. Not putting them at the same level of spellcasters, mind you, but I think warrior and skillmonkey classes were never supposed to be at the same level as spellcasters.

If you read a fantasy book from before D&D became popular, magic users are in an entirely different category than everybody else. The wizard is the guy who can bend the rules of nature, while everybody else are just normal guys, braver and stronger than usual, but nothing else.

The tier gap isn't a problem at low levels, when the wizard is a bumbling apprendice who sucks like everybody else.

The tier gap shouldn't be a problem at middle levels while playing a game with a lot of emphasis on roleplaying: The difference between a wizard and a fighter is a lot like the difference between a prince and a commoner, one has more resources than the other, so the second has to use creativity and ingenuity to solve problems the first one can solve snapping his/her fingers (and hence, the second one should often receive more XP).

The tier gap is a problem if you are playing a high-level straight dungeon crawl focused on fights and riddle-like challenges, then. It's better to have teams that are close to each other in power and versatility. I think that by that point most warriors will have multiclassed into optimized builds, anyway, and wouldn't be so far below spellcasters (who plays a 20th level fighter?).

About the classes in the ToB, I would like them more if they had more kung-fu-flavored fluff. A theory about ki, and a history of the movement and techniques, and how they spred, and all that. I think the ToB classes should be members of secret orders, dojos or monasteries, ninja or Shao-lin monk or Shinsengumi samurai style. Most of the NPC fighting men should be knights, fighters, barbarians and warriors.

[Raineh Daze]

I want to know where this 'spellcasters are infinitely superior in all fantasy' thing came from, because I'm not seeing it. Let alone as justification for 'swordsmen are pathetic'. :smallconfused:

... and King Arthur could pretty much blind an entire battlefield simply by drawing his sword. Then there's things like the Dolorous Stroke... sometimes, the results of mundane guys doing mundane things are completely ludicrous. Not so in D&D. Nope, got to be realistic, because obviously all fiction is like that. :smallsigh:

[eggynack]

There are a few prestige class that can strenghen warriors. Not putting them at the same level of spellcasters, mind you, but I think warrior and skillmonkey classes were never supposed to be at the same level as spellcasters.

If you read a fantasy book from before D&D became popular, magic users are in an entirely different category than everybody else. The wizard is the guy who can bend the rules of nature, while everybody else are just normal guys, braver and stronger than usual, but nothing else.

The tier gap isn't a problem at low levels, when the wizard is a bumbling apprendice who sucks like everybody else.

The tier gap shouldn't be a problem at middle levels while playing a game with a lot of emphasis on roleplaying: The difference between a wizard and a fighter is a lot like the difference between a prince and a commoner, one has more resources than the other, so the second has to use creativity and ingenuity to solve problems the first one can solve snapping his/her fingers (and hence, the second one should often receive more XP).

The tier gap is a problem if you are playing a high-level straight dungeon crawl focused on fights and riddle-like challenges, then. It's better to have teams that are close to each other in power and versatility. I think that by that point most warriors will have multiclassed into optimized builds, anyway, and wouldn't be so far below spellcasters (who plays a 20th level fighter?).

About the classes in the ToB, I would like them more if they had more kung-fu-flavored fluff. A theory about ki, and a history of the movement and techniques, and how they spred, and all that. I think the ToB classes should be members of secret orders, dojos or monasteries, ninja or Shao-lin monk or Shinsengumi samurai style. Most of the NPC fighting men should be knights, fighters, barbarians and warriors.
I think you might be understating the power gap a bit. There's really absolutely no melee class so optimized that it can compete with a reasonably optimized wizard at 20th level. By reasonably optimized, I mean a wizard 20 who knows his good spells from his bad ones. This includes tome of battle classes. At low levels, the tier gap is absolutely a problem. I could make an argument about the wizard, but it tends to go around in circles some, so I'll make one about the druid instead. They're essentially a wizard and a fighter taped together at that level, while a fighter is merely a fighter. That gap only grows more pronounced over time, as the druid gains access to wild shape and better spells. Wizards stop running out of spells per day at pretty early levels, especially if you know the spells that tend to end encounters.

The truth of it is, there's no situation in which a wizard isn't just overwhelmingly powerful. A straight dungeon crawl is where the fighter gets closest to narrowing the power gap. In any kind of diplomatic or stealth mission, the fighter is left in the dust while the wizard does wizard things. The only way fighters can utilize creative solutions is through fiat, while wizards can employ actually creative solutions within the rules. In a rules heavy game like 3.5, rules are important.

[13_CBS]

Why is there a gap between character classes? Because if you want a balanced game you can go play 4th edition. That's the dirty secret. 4th edition is the most balanced version of D&D. If you want freedom of character choice, some options and combinations will always end up being better simply because there are so many options and unforeseen combinations.

Basically, I'm tired of talking about how to fix the system, or why it hasn't been fixed because I don't think that it can be fixed and still provide players with meaningful choices in how they create their characters.

Squirrel_Dude, a question: JaronK once came up with a quick fix where players could basically only play Tier 3 and 4 classes:


I actually played around with this idea by making a new set of 11 core classes to replace the old. Note this makes some use of T4 classes.

Wizard, Rogue -> Factotum
Druid -> Wild Shape Ranger (regular Ranger also available)
Sorcerer -> Warmage, Warlock, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer
Cleric, Paladin -> Crusader
Fighter, Barbarian -> Warblade
Ranger remains, but Wild Shape Ranger is allowed
Bard remains
Monk -> Unarmed Swordsage (regular Swordsage also available)
Binder added

So the new base classes are Factotum, Ranger (including Wild Shape Ranger), Warmage, Warlock, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Warblade, Swordsage (including Unarmed variant), Bard, and Binder. You've got nice quick and easy translations of the old classes... obviously a Crusader or Wild Shape Ranger can't do everything a Cleric or Druid can, but we wouldn't expect a T3 class to completely duplicate a T1.

JaronK

I posit that this variant, while perhaps not completely closing the caster-mundane game, goes a very long way to keeping things more balanced.

If you were to play in such a game, would it "feel" like 4e to you? I'm not asking this in a snide way, I'm legitimately curious about your opinion on the matter--I've been frequently told that to balance 3.5 could only ever lead to something like 4e, and I'm trying to see if that's completely true.

[Raineh Daze]

Cleric -> Crusader and Wizard -> Factotum continue to look like inappropriate replacements both thematically and mechanically. Or at least assigning things in the wrong line. :smallconfused:

[ArcturusV]

Note 13_CBS, that I think a lot of the "4th edition is all the same" comes less from the fact that classes are actually the same in fourth edition, and instead how 4th edition was originally taught to players and how WotC presented it in stuff like their Adventure Modules, RPGA, and Encounters Sessions.

Where everything was focused on almost plotless combat, roleplaying was discouraged (I had WotC approved DMs basically telling me to shut up for saying something as simple in the color column as saying I was using an overhead chop to the shoulder when I used a Holy Strike on my Paladin), Out of Combat solutions were discouraged (My Wizard told Nope because I tried to use my trained Diplomacy, Bluff, and Alter Self to trick my way past an encounter).

When you strip everything of it's flavoring (As they did in those market display events and such), and have anything approaching a unified mechanic, yeah, things are going to feel bland and the same.

It'd be like playing Magic: The Gathering and saying:

"I appropriate resource cards 212 and 213 to use Effect Card 315"

Instead of saying: "I draw power from my Swamp fueling a dark ritual who's evil powers I use to cast a hypnotic specter and grin maliciously as I await your next move".

But yeah. I really think that's where a lot of the "Sameness" claims come from, and why they exist. The first tastes of the game everyone got were in that watered down form where all RPing was quashed and all you were left was effectively playtesting a unified mechanic. And it's blatant focus on nothing but combat so the out of combat options were not options at all, so everyone felt like Wargame Pieces more than Characters.

So it's less a mention about how Balance makes things bland, but how flawed marketing makes things bland.

[Clistenes]

I think you might be understating the power gap a bit. There's really absolutely no melee class so optimized that it can compete with a reasonably optimized wizard at 20th level. By reasonably optimized, I mean a wizard 20 who knows his good spells from his bad ones. This includes tome of battle classes.

Yes, but I said "at that level all the warrior probably have already multiclassed into obtimized builds". What I mean is that, at that point, everybody probably has some caster levels. I think I have never seen any people go all the way up to level 20 without taking some spellcasting levels by the way, unless it was a game that started at high level.

I, for example, love paladins and rangers, but always take a level in a spellcasting class (usually divine) and a spellcasting PrC before/when hitting middle level. The character usually ends being still basically a ranger or paladin, but with much, much better spellcasting. And yes, the character isn't so good as a wizard with nines, but is isn't useless, either.

There are some non-spellcasting PrC that help to make the warrior classes more versatile. Those don't really close the gap in power, but make the fighting classes funnier to play.


At low levels, the tier gap is absolutely a problem. I could make an argument about the wizard, but it tends to go around in circles some, so I'll make one about the druid instead. They're essentially a wizard and a fighter taped together at that level, while a fighter is merely a fighter.

But the druid can't win alone at low levels, if the encouters are level-appropiate for the party. A low level a druid needs the rest of the team to survive. The problem with tiers is that low-tier classes feel useless, but that isn't a problem at low level, when every hit point is precious and a kobold with a crossbow (or several of them) can kill you.


That gap only grows more pronounced over time, as the druid gains access to wild shape and better spells. Wizards stop running out of spells per day at pretty early levels, especially if you know the spells that tend to end encounters.

Well, it's up to the DM to avoid the wizard ending encounters with low-level spells. And anyway, I don't like Magic Walmarts, so I think that wizards shouldn't have every spell that helps them solve every problem since low levels.


The truth of it is, there's no situation in which a wizard isn't just overwhelmingly powerful. A straight dungeon crawl is where the fighter gets closest to narrowing the power gap. In any kind of diplomatic or stealth mission, the fighter is left in the dust while the wizard does wizard things. The only way fighters can utilize creative solutions is through fiat, while wizards can employ actually creative solutions within the rules. In a rules heavy game like 3.5, rules are important.

You are right in that the wizard is always better prepared than the fighter, but if the game isn't about the party crossing hostile territory and facing encounter after encounter, they can be facing more varied and creative challenges, that can't be punched through with brute power, and they could have to take several tasks at the same time.

Also, if the characters are well inserted in their world, every one of them will have challenges and troubles in their world. The knight has to clean his father's honour and win the tourney on his own, the ranger has to get as many Circunstance bonuses as posible in order to beat the Diplomacy check and make amends with his king, and a Charm spell won't do, the rogue has to seduce that rich girl whose dad is a spellcaster who regularly checks for mind control.

And the Vancian system is the friend of the DM. If a middle-level wizard prepares a spell for every contingency he can imagine (foes with good Fort save, foes with good Ref save, foes with good Will save, foes with SR, mind-controlling spells, anti-mind-control spells, illusions, anti-illusions, divinations, anti-divinations, transport, dispelling, communication, defences agains every type of energy...etc.) he can't prepare many spells for every specific challenge.
Make foes go after the wizard, or at least always save some monsters in every encounter for him, keep him occupied with his own survival. And, if the wizard still wins the day on his own, send more monsters.

Of course the wizard is still more powerful and versatile, but, as I said at the beginning of the previous post, I think magic users were always intended to be more powerful by design. You can still make an entertaining game at low and middle levels with characters of different power levels.

If your game is all about beating problems with raw power, just don't play a fighter or even a warrior class at all.