Why so much OP 3rd party stuff?

[Togath]

It seems like, especially, ESPECIALLY with classes, a lot of 3rd party writers tend to go off on the balance...
...Which I'd think was an accident, if not for HOW off the balance not-too-infrequently goes.
Like, how is "15d6 weapon damage in a line, every other round" a balanced attack for a level 13 character to have? ^_^;
Or "attack twice for +3d6 damage on each attack" with no minimum level.
Like... surely this stuff would be noticed with playtesting, even a small amount, no?

[Zanos]

Like, how is "15d6 weapon damage in a line, every other round" a balanced attack for a level 13 character to have? ^_^;
Well, a 13th level sorcerer can fire a lightning bolt for 13d6+13 damage in a line every round, so...

[Togath]

Yeah, but not at will.
Plus, spells are their primary way of attacking. Sorcerer can't follow up a spell by clobbering someone for [weapon+buffs+12d6] in melee, while also maintaining full plate/ultra high dex ac and having d10 to d12 hd ^_^;
Plus a lot easier to defend against electricity damage than adamantite greatsword damage.

[Zanos]

Having an ability at will is not usually a significant advantage unless the ability is a short duration buff or has non-combat applications. If there aren't more than ten combat rounds in a day, being able to do a combat action ten times isn't meaningfully different from being able to do that same combat action a million times. And sure the sorcerer can't follow it up by having great AC, until they use their other spells to get better AC than wearing full plate would give and turning into a dragon.

I agree that a lot of the 3rd party content for martial characters was not well balanced, especially damage wise at low levels, but at double digit levels you have to compare what's already there before you call 3rd party content OP instead of just higher level pathfinder characters in general.

[legomaster00156]

At level 13, before including bonus spells from a high casting modifier, a Sorcerer has 6 spells of levels 0-5 every day, and 4 spells of level 6. Ignoring that damage is not the best thing a Sorcerer could be doing with his spells, let's assume every spell slot from level 3 have a Fireball in them, and level 4 slots have an Intensified Fireball in them. Let's make the level 5 slots Empowered Fireball, and the level 6 slots Dazing Fireball.
Level 3 slots are dealing 10d6 damage in a 20' radius. Level 4 slots are dealing 13d6 in a 20' radius. Level 5 slots are dealing 10d6+50% damage in a 20' radius. Level 6 slots are dealing 10d6 damage in a 20' radius and dazing all targets for 3 rounds.
At minimum, he can cast some form of Fireball every single round for 22 rounds per day, far longer than the average adventuring day.

[Red Fel]

Does this tie into your nearly identical, albeit more specific question elsewhere (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?512839-Balanced-alternatives-to-Path-of-War&p=21627264#post21627264)?

Because... Frankly, your statement is inaccurate. Maneuvers, for example, aren't "at-will." Yes, in a given day, a PoW class can use its maneuvers multiple times, but within an encounter, not so much. Warlords (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/classes/warlord), for example, must engage in "gambits" as a swift action to recover their maneuvers; Warders (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/classes/warder) must take a full round action to do nothing but recover. That's hardly "at-will."

I think we need to start with how you define "balanced," because that's a pretty loaded term with a lot of different meanings. Balanced as compared to what, exactly?

[Coretron03]

It seems like, especially, ESPECIALLY with classes, a lot of 3rd party writers tend to go off on the balance...
...Which I'd think was an accident, if not for HOW off the balance not-too-infrequently goes.
Like, how is "15d6 weapon damage in a line, every other round" a balanced attack for a level 13 character to have? ^_^;
Or "attack twice for +3d6 damage on each attack" with no minimum level.
Like... surely this stuff would be noticed with playtesting, even a small amount, no?

What exact source are you referring to? I am gonna assume pathfinder* Which if you are, although whatevery it is a blockbuster wizard can deal damage for a very long time due to only requiring 4th level spell slots for their 22d6+6 fireballs that can have their damage types changed between the 4 elements. Give blockbuster wizard 2 more levels so he can have spell perfection and they can do a 139 damage intensified empowered maximised fireball as a 4th level spell slot, followed up by a quickened intensified empowered fireball for 22d6+9 damage. Oh, and they also have all utility spells prepeared while they can spontaneously cast those fireballs by replacing a utility spells. Makes 13d6+13 every other round in a line(which is generally worse then fireballs Aoe) seem kinda small doesn't it? Of course, that isn't at-will but its a bit more powerful to make up for it.

*Because if its 3.5 most of the listed stuff doesn't rivial 1st party stuff for power at that level

Edit: Legomaster sort of ninja'd me, but his has literally no optmization in it past add metamagic to spells and mine gets alot more utility. As with Red fel I also wonder if it was tied in with the path of war question you ask because it seems to fit the sort of at-will part.

[JoshuaZ]

In general, the stuff by Dreamscarred, such as Path of War, is balanced. It may not seem that way to you for reasons already outlined, but one thing that's worth noting is that PoW has a very high floor even as the ceiling isn't too high. Pretty much any class has some range where it can be optimized. For example, wizards have a very low floor and a very high ceiling. Fighters have a low floor and a low ceiling etc. Since the PoW classes have a high floor they can come across as more OP than they would be otherwise, even though their features are designed to make serious abuse pretty hard.

More generally, it is worth noting that third party material always has a difficult position, and this was true in 3.5 also. If the material is too strong, no one will allow it. If it is too weak, no one will bother using it. This is complicated by the fact that many third party products are made by people who don't know much about what they are doing, and they get little feedback before publication. Note that this is not the case with PoW or other Dreamscarred material:the people doing it are very experienced designers, and everything goes through extensive playtesting.

[TheIronGolem]

Sorcerer can't follow up a spell by clobbering someone for [weapon+buffs+12d6] in melee, while also maintaining full plate/ultra high dex ac and having d10 to d12 hd ^_^;

That's kids' stuff compared to what a T1/T2 caster can do. Damage spells can do more damage to more targets, save-or-lose spells can end encounters with a standard action, and the defenses available to a spellcaster make AC and Hit Die size practically irrelevant.

I think you're falling into the same trap that makes people think Rogues are overpowered - you're overvaluing damage numbers, especially in the form of bonus damage dice.

[legomaster00156]

Legomaster sort of ninja'd me, but his has literally no optmization in it past add metamagic to spells and mine gets alot more utility. As with Red fel I also wonder if it was tied in with the path of war question you ask because it seems to fit the sort of at-will part.
Oh, that was intentional. The point was that this is what an incredibly unoptimized Sorcerer can do.

[Coretron03]

Oh, that was intentional. The point was that this is what an incredibly unoptimized Sorcerer can do.

Oh, I knew that it would be intentionally unoptmized because that wasn't even taking a bloodline into account which would add another 10 damage to the fireballs damage. Sorry if you took offense. My point was that a well made blasting wizard causes mundane to cry with their damage output.

[Grod_The_Giant]

In general, the stuff by Dreamscarred, such as Path of War, is balanced. It may not seem that way to you for reasons already outlined, but one thing that's worth noting is that PoW has a very high floor even as the ceiling isn't too high. Pretty much any class has some range where it can be optimized. For example, wizards have a very low floor and a very high ceiling. Fighters have a low floor and a low ceiling etc. Since the PoW classes have a high floor they can come across as more OP than they would be otherwise, even though their features are designed to make serious abuse pretty hard.
This is an important concept.

[Red Fel]

Oh, I knew that it would be intentionally unoptmized because that wasn't even taking a bloodline into account which would add another 10 damage to the fireballs damage. Sorry if you took offense. My point was that a well made blasting wizard causes mundane to cry with their damage output.

Which it seems that almost everyone except for the OP agrees with in this thread.

It's hard to call a martial class - even a PoW class - unbalanced when compared to casters in core, is the point. Even if you're only looking at HP damage. Of course, if you look beyond HP damage, casters are even more powerful, because they can do pretty much everything. PoW may have done a better job of balancing martials, but they only narrowed the gap somewhat; they couldn't bridge it.

[digiman619]

Which it seems that almost everyone except for the OP agrees with in this thread.

It's hard to call a martial class - even a PoW class - unbalanced when compared to casters in core, is the point. Even if you're only looking at HP damage. Of course, if you look beyond HP damage, casters are even more powerful, because they can do pretty much everything. PoW may have done a better job of balancing martials, but they only narrowed the gap somewhat; they couldn't bridge it.

Well, to be fair, that is an actual impossibility; the only way to make a martial that bridges that gap is to have a floor that is so high that it is above the optimization level of 90%+ of tables.

[Coidzor]

If I were offering people alternatives to Paizo's balance point, I'd certainly go up instead of making stuff that was weaker.

[legomaster00156]

If I were offering people alternatives to Paizo's balance point, I'd certainly go up instead of making stuff that was weaker.
Well, I mean, a spherecaster from Spheres of Power is pretty much objectively worse than a standard CoDzilla, but it's still an incredibly entertaining alternative magic system.

[Zanos]

In general, the stuff by Dreamscarred, such as Path of War, is balanced.
At low-medium levels, a lot of damage from maneuvers is over tuned, especially the ones that are just full-attack+.

[exelsisxax]

At low-medium levels, a lot of damage from maneuvers is over tuned, especially the ones that are just full-attack+.

Color spray. Encounter over. How is that better?

[digiman619]

Well, I mean, a spherecaster from Spheres of Power is pretty much objectively worse than a standard CoDzilla, but it's still an incredibly entertaining alternative magic system.

There are gods that are objectively worse a standard CoDzilla... in fact, virtually every character in fiction that isn't based on D&D is objectively worse than CoDzilla. What's your point?

[Zanos]

Color spray. Encounter over. How is that better?
A yes, the good old "d4/d6 with no armor gets within 15 feet of a creature that can kill him in one hit" gambit.

Not impressed.

Also if all the enemies in an encounter are in a 15ft cone your DM is a dingus.

[Coretron03]

Color spray. Encounter over. How is that better?

Or a second level heavens oracle (with awesome display). All encounters that aren't outright immune to colour spray are basically screwed because with 18 Cha you just enabled colour spray to be valid on pretty much anything for the next 7 levels. Plus you get a D8 hitdie and can wear actual armour. He never specfied who cast colour spray.

[Jormengand]

Well, to be fair, that is an actual impossibility; the only way to make a martial that bridges that gap is to have a floor that is so high that it is above the optimization level of 90%+ of tables.

Well, you could allow the player to choose between powerful and less powerful abilities, and then if a player just picked abilities that looked cool, they'd end up with a character that's okay in low optimisation. I know that I don't feel bad for putting mediocre options in my hypermundane classes, because they're still additional options and can never make the class's cieling worse by being there.

[digiman619]

Well, you could allow the player to choose between powerful and less powerful abilities, and then if a player just picked abilities that looked cool, they'd end up with a character that's okay in low optimisation. I know that I don't feel bad for putting mediocre options in my hypermundane classes, because they're still additional options and can never make the class's cieling worse by being there.

Yeah, that would be a good way to make a T2 martial, though if you want him to hit T1 he'd have to be able to swap them out daily, and best of luck convincing novice-to-moderate DMs that that wouldn't be OP.

[Coidzor]

Well, I mean, a spherecaster from Spheres of Power is pretty much objectively worse than a standard CoDzilla, but it's still an incredibly entertaining alternative magic system.

CoDzilla is something Paizo hates, rather than part of their balance point as I recall.

[digiman619]

Also if all the enemies in an encounter are in a 15ft cone your DM is a dingus.

Because having them all lined up in front of you for a line effect happens all the time.

[Coretron03]

Because having them all lined up in front of you for a line effect happens all the time.

I know your joking but the OP was the only one who said something about using line attacks to be fair and Zanos never claimed anything about them.

[Zanos]

Because having them all lined up in front of you for a line effect happens all the time.
Parallel discussion threads. Not comparing the same abilities.

CoDzilla is something Paizo hates, rather than part of their balance point as I recall.
If fixing CoDzilla was an actual goal of their design, I give it a 3/10.

[Jormengand]

Yeah, that would be a good way to make a T2 martial, though if you want him to hit T1 he'd have to be able to swap them out daily, and best of luck convincing novice-to-moderate DMs that that wouldn't be OP.

That's what I did, but while they can simply learn tricks on the fly, the low number of times per day that they can do it is probably enough to make it seem more reasonable to novice DMs (because they tend to be hung up on /day limits, as OP).

[Fizban]

Some people do not optimize as much as other people do. Some games are structured so that spellcaster's "so many spell slots and perfectly player oriented encounters it might as well be at-will," are not. For those games, yes, throwing a full strength untyped spell every other round in addition to being twice as tough as the guy who actually took a spellcasting class, is overpowered. There's a fallacy that just because a caster can do it, a martial should be able to do it at zero cost without losing their martialness because "it's only damage."

Granted, I haven't read all of PoW, but from what I've seen it's distinctly more powerful than ToB. Which matches with the rest of Pathfinder being more powerful than 3.5. ToB's blasty maneuvers were terrible, sure, but the maneuver described in the OP does indeed seem pretty OP to me. It is a core game conceit that abilities above X strength at Y level must have some sort of daily limit, and encounter limits are not daily limits no matter what number of encounters you claim are standard.

The only way to excuse it is to assume a higher level of optimization. You shift your focus from "this maneuver should deal as much as a spell," to, "the daily limit on spellcasting come from uses of free/reduced cost metamagic and only apply to your highest level slots anyway, so this at-will/encounter based ability is totally fine" Which makes it pretty obvious how thin the excuse is.

[Coretron03]

The only way to excuse it is to assume a higher level of optimization. You shift your focus from "this maneuver should deal as much as a spell," to, "the daily limit on spellcasting come from uses of free/reduced cost metamagic and only apply to your highest level slots anyway, so this at-will/encounter based ability is totally fine" Which makes it pretty obvious how thin the excuse is.
:smallannoyed:
Did you read the bit in my post saying it required 4th level spells slots? On a 13th level wizard? You know, the one with 7th level spells slots. How exactly is that using my highest level spells when I use a slot 2 levels below my maximum? Hell, cut the metamagic reduction and you end up with 6th level spells doing 22d6+6 with just core and 2 feat/outside of core. As I have also said, my point was a decent wizard that stays in 1st party sources can make martials cry from their damage. Legoman used a unoptimized at all sorcrer using 4rd level spell slots with one metamagic equaling the "OP 13d6+13 line damage" with no effort required 6 times per day before bonus spells and discounting other feats or anything, just a 3rd level spell intensified exactly as it was intended. Congrats, you leveled up and learned Craft:Strawman.


Also eariler stated, Path of war has a higher floor then normal fighters, while also having a higher ceiling which causes people who play lower op have a knee jerk reaction to the load of D6 POW classes dish out as they mostly work like "Deal X6 damage and ignore dr" Kind of attacks with some stances that give +X6 in some discplines.

[Psyren]

If fixing CoDzilla was an actual goal of their design, I give it a 3/10.

"Fixing" is a pretty loaded term. If by that you mean a properly built cleric or druid should have no chance of being melee powerhouses, then you're probably going to be disappointed. But if you thought that capability was fine with some tradeoffs but things like DMM Persist, Planar Shepherd, Shapechange and Master of Many Forms were overboard, like I did, then there's a lot in PF to like.

[Tuvarkz]

And to boot, a 13d6 fireball will likely beat a 15d6 line damage in use because the line will rarely get more than 2 enemies (unless the DM lines them up and it's him needing to space mobs around or the players lining them up and then it's justified because they made the effort needed for it), and that's with constantly moving around to get it up; and likely has the initiator as point of origin. A fireball can be thrown from afar and get many more enemies because it's an AoE sphere and not a line.

In terms of raw damage dealing, assuming one enemy makes the save and the other doesn't, it averages to -round 75 damage, which a martial can well do on his own already in one round by level 13. Numbers are perfectly fine.

[Der_DWSage]

Let's also turn this around.

A 13th level low-tier Fighter is going to deal 1d8 (Longsword) + 4 (Greater Weapon Specialization) + 2 (Weapon Training) + 3 (+3 weapon) + 1d6 (Elemental damage) + 8 (Power Attack) + 5 (Strength) damage. That gives us an average of 28 damage per hit. He's also got three chances to hit per round, but let's be honest, only two of those are likely to hit. (3 if they've got haste.) So let's bump that up to a rough average of 56 damage per round, as a hasting ally or Boots of Speed is a moderately expected thing by that level. Note that this is very little optimization, doesn't take critical hits into account, and has a sword-and-board Fighter. A two-handing Scimitar Fighter with +7 Strength is rather more expected, upping the damage to 37 damage per attack, and likely a 30% chance to threaten a critical hit. This only goes up when you factor in Advanced Weapon Training and the like.

A 15d6 damage attack deals an average of 52.5 damage. And as a line effect is unlikely to hit more than one target...it's on par with the expected damage output of a similarly levelled Fighter, with a chance for half damage while also not having the chance to miss. Just because it has a lot of d6s doesn't mean that they're dangerous, just that it looks like they are.

The 15d6 line...I'm assuming this is in reference to the Black Wind (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/disciplines-and-maneuvers/tempest-gale-maneuvers#TOC-Black-Wind) maneuver? I'd be more worried about the Save or Daze effect, as most CR 13 creatures have at least triple the HP you're concerned about, and more commonly quadruple. (And that's just equal-CR encounters. CR+3 or +4 is where it's actually supposed to be dangerous.)



Anyway. To answer the actual question? A lot of 3rd party developers feel the need to draw people to their products, and 'This is too strong, so tone it down' is more likely to get attention than 'this is weak enough to not be worth my time.' After all, the first one might only get nerfed by an attentive DM. The second is unlikely to be buffed by the same DM.

[Coretron03]

Since the OP references activating every other round that means he needs to spends a standard action (assuming stalker) to refresh the manuaver which dramatically lowers the DPR if thats the only thing he does which if he tries that he is down over 3 rounds to only 2 sets of 15d6 while a normal fighter could have al his attacks constantly. Black winds save for daze is pretty bad due to requiring 2 saves failed (both the reflex and the fortiude save) to get it for 1 round.

[Efrate]

Briefly flipping through PoW stuff with my limited pathfinder knowledge and I love it. Its ToB with more cool stuff. A lot of manuevers go xd6 damage blah blah blah, but again compare to a standard 4 encounter day with your caster being able to cast meaningful spells in all the rounds (combat lasts what 4 rounds max usually?), so 16 spells that are relevant and do something. Even if that is just more fistfuls of D6s.

By level 13, thats pretty unimpressive. Now if you are running 10 encounters a day, your casters are dead set on only blasting, that more powerful for you, and that is where you shine. Who runs 10 encounters a day though?

Its the same as a monster having an ability usable 3x/day and at will, it makes practically no difference because combat isn't going to last that long. Plus a lot of the path of war and to a lesser extent ToB is more anime style action, which pathfinder plays up a lot, so being able to do cool martial stuff is more than worth it.

My next path game I'm playing a Harbrigner because an INT SAD martial with reasonable skills to do neat stuff sounds amazing and like something I actually would love playing. No I still cannot compete with a well played caster but I get to do a lot of wuxia style cool stuff and thats worth it, thats what being the bestest sword swinger that ever swung is all about. When the prissy lil guy in a robe yawns and wiggles his finger and wins thats unsatisfying, but some high octane over the top fight scene culminating in some kind of super move though very trite and tropetastic, is still a heck of a good time and makes me want to play a martial.

[Fizban]

:smallannoyed:
Did you read the bit in my post
No. I skimmed enough to see that there was no point in participating in a drawn-out argument, but someone had already tried to declare that "everyone" disagreed with the OP. So I made my post in support. Let's look back at your post. . .

Yeah, nothing I didn't already predict.

Legoman used a unoptimized at all sorcrer using 4rd level spell slots with one metamagic equaling the "OP 13d6+13 line damage" with no effort required 6 times per day before bonus spells and discounting other feats or anything, just a 3rd level spell intensified exactly as it was intended. Congrats, you leveled up and learned Craft:Strawman.
Congrats, you leveled up and still didn't take any ranks in Spot: the point. Yeah, I'm done here.

[Andreaz]

It seems like, especially, ESPECIALLY with classes, a lot of 3rd party writers tend to go off on the balance...
...Which I'd think was an accident, if not for HOW off the balance not-too-infrequently goes.
Like, how is "15d6 weapon damage in a line, every other round" a balanced attack for a level 13 character to have? ^_^;
Or "attack twice for +3d6 damage on each attack" with no minimum level.
Like... surely this stuff would be noticed with playtesting, even a small amount, no?

Balanced compared to what, Togath?
Compared to fighters? Yeah, they're absurd powerhouses.
Compared to wizards? Well, they might scare the wizard for a round or two, then never again.
Those two are statements on the feebleness of fighters and the hax of casters, not the PoW martials you seem to be referring.
(Explanation coming once you voice your interest in hearing it)

Also, what are the classes supposed to be good at in combat?
Doing damage? Taking damage? Both? Controlling the fight? Empowering allies?

[Tohsaka Rin]

Is this the point where everyone remembers that:

1) New DMs panic at the thought of a level 2 fighter doing 100+ points of damage in a single attack.
Yet the fighter can be shanked down pretty quickly with a Color Spray, or a good sneak attack.

3) Pun Pun exists, but everybody's seen that trick already, boring.

Where is 2)?

2) The point where you realise there's a happy medium between the two extremes.

[Frosty]

If a lv 2 fighter is doing 100 damage per attack, I'd be worried too. Or am I not reading your point correctly?

[Der_DWSage]

(There's some white text about how easily said Fighter is taken down.)

More like new DMs panic at level 2 Fighters being able to down common CR 2 opponents in a single attack, but yes.

[Efrate]

Im getting 90 at level 2, not over 100 what am I missing?

[exelsisxax]

Im getting 90 at level 2, not over 100 what am I missing?

It's a joke about pathfinder. You can't actually get 90 DPR either.

[AmberVael]

Im getting 90 at level 2, not over 100 what am I missing?

11 damage.

[Efrate]

Critting with a doublehanded lance on a mounted spirited charge with 18 str and 2 dumped into power attack. Nm wasnt thinking crits 102. Best case scenario.

[Coretron03]

Critting with a doublehanded lance on a mounted spirited charge with 18 str and 2 dumped into power attack. Nm wasnt thinking crits 102. Best case scenario.

Power attack doesn't work that way in pathfinder, it is set at -1 attack and +1-3 damage (depending on how many hands are used and if its a off hand weapon or not) and scales with your BAB. Unless your talking about 3.5 this thread is based on pathfinder only stuff.

[SangoProduction]

11 damage.

Joke appreciated.

[Rynjin]

At-will abilities are incredibly overvalued. On that note, let's look at the Kineticist. A first party Paizo class.

You're talking about 15d6 in a line being OP. That's, on average, 52 damage.

The Kineticist can also, entirely at-will, deal 14d6+21 in a 30 ft. line (for those playing at home, that's an average of 70 damage).

Most people agree the class is really weak. The dev himself admits he torqued the class down to assure there was NO CHANCE of it being overpowered.

The difference between the Kineticist and Initiator? The Kineticist can do that every round. The Initiator does that once every 2 rounds.

The real kicker? This doesn't one shot even CR 10 cannon fodder that the Fighter is wrecking in a single round.

Loads of dice =/= Strong.

At-will =/= Strong.

[Coretron03]

Since the OP references activating every other round that means he needs to spends a standard action (assuming stalker) to refresh the manuaver which dramatically lowers the DPR if thats the only thing he does which if he tries that he is down over 3 rounds to only 2 sets of 15d6 while a normal fighter could have al his attacks constantly.
Quoting myself because if they want to spams it every other round that requires a standard action to refresh the manuavers.

[Andezzar]

Yeah, that would be a good way to make a T2 martial, though if you want him to hit T1 he'd have to be able to swap them out daily, and best of luck convincing novice-to-moderate DMs that that wouldn't be OP.What kind of maneuvers are you talking about? To get to T2 let alone T1 the class has to offer good solutions to (nearly) all problems the DM can throw at a character. I have yet to see a maneuver to gather intel, to negotiate etc.

[Starbuck_II]

Critting with a doublehanded lance on a mounted spirited charge with 18 str and 2 dumped into power attack. Nm wasnt thinking crits 102. Best case scenario.

At level 2, you can afford a couple buffs/potions.
Magic weapon adds +1 damage, Whetstone (not even a potion, reuseable) adds +1 damage, Enlarge person, etc.

So add 3 damage easily:
6 Str damage bonus (2 handed as it is a lance even when 1 handed), 3 PA (-1 hit) because feat with x3 Lance.
Then Crit x3.

So MAX 8 (well, 2d6 enlarge person means 12) from lance +7 Str, 3 PA +2 bonuses=24 x3 =72 x3 Crit =216.
Not enlarged: 19x3=then crit so 171.

Now average enlarged: 57x3=171
Now average not enlarged: 45x3=135.

[exelsisxax]

At level 2, you can afford a couple buffs/potions.
Magic weapon adds +1 damage, Whetstone (not even a potion, reuseable) adds +1 damage, Enlarge person, etc.

So add 3 damage easily:
6 Str damage bonus (2 handed as it is a lance even when 1 handed), 3 PA (-1 hit) because feat with x3 Lance.
Then Crit x3.

So MAX 8 (well, 2d6 enlarge person means 12) from lance +7 Str, 3 PA +2 bonuses=24 x3 =72 x3 Crit =216.
Not enlarged: 19x3=then crit so 171.

Now average enlarged: 57x3=171
Now average not enlarged: 45x3=135.

You never multiply multiples. A spirited charge with a lance deals 5x. You don't get any potions or buffs because you can't cast them, you're a martial, remember?

Assuming the best possible scenario: 5 * (8 + 7 + 3 + 1) = 95 damage, if you crit, confirm, and roll max damage 5 times in a row.

Of course, you could always add rage if you want a bit more, but that's still not breaking the game. That's still a 1 trick pony with nothing else to do in the game(or much to do in combat if you can't charge).

[Andezzar]

You don't get any potions or buffs because you can't cast them, you're a martial, remember?What's that supposed to mean? Of course non-spellcasters can buy potions and use (i.e. drink) them. You don't cast potions.

[exelsisxax]

What's that supposed to mean? Of course non-spellcasters can buy potions and use (i.e. drink) them. You don't cast potions.

The discussion is about the asserted overpoweredness of martial characters. Potions aren't a class feature of martial characters, so they can't get included. If they were, the argument would be "scrolls, therefore wizard all day long" and even the theoretical at-will ability of martial classes becomes actually irrelevant(in addition to any potential pitfalls of prepared casting).

The irony though is that scrolls are a wizard class feature, so the argument does work the other way around.

[Rynjin]

What kind of maneuvers are you talking about? To get to T2 let alone T1 the class has to offer good solutions to (nearly) all problems the DM can throw at a character. I have yet to see a maneuver to gather intel, to negotiate etc.

Initiators are nowhere near T2, let alone T1, but there are a few Maneuvers that aid in gathering intel (Veiled Moon lets you be an invisible, incorporeal, teleporting spy). Depending on what you mean by "negotiations" they could help there too.

[Andezzar]

The discussion is about the asserted overpoweredness of martial characters. Potions aren't a class feature of martial characters, so they can't get included. If they were, the argument would be "scrolls, therefore wizard all day long" and even the theoretical at-will ability of martial classes becomes actually irrelevant(in addition to any potential pitfalls of prepared casting).

The irony though is that scrolls are a wizard class feature, so the argument does work the other way around.Both scrolls and potions are items, so they can be bought with WBL by anyone. They may not be class features, but features of playing the game. If you exclude parts of the game the balance between classes can be shifted quite a bit.

You could also make the argument that having hands is not a class feature so the wizard cannot cast at all without applying the still spell feat. That notion is just as ridiculous.

[Coretron03]

Both scrolls and potions are items, so they can be bought with WBL by anyone. They may not be class features, but features of playing the game. If you exclude parts of the game the balance between classes can be shifted quite a bit.

You could also make the argument that having hands is not a class feature so the wizard cannot cast at all without applying the still spell feat. That notion is just as ridiculous.

However, Drinking potions requires actions (unless you took the right feats) and its kind of unfair to give someone how ever many actions to drink postion (with a short duration) in preparation for their charge. Plus that expends a pretty huge potion of level 2 wealth by level just buying all those potions.

[Debihuman]

The reason there is so much OP 3rd party stuff is because that is exactly what many players want. Have you ever looked at the Homebrew forums?

I have recently gotten a request to make cantrip rays that have ranged attacks at CL instead of BAB and do +1 damage per level. Rays are ranged touch attacks: BAB + Size + Dex. Cantrip rays do 1d3 damage. See ray of frost.

Nope not good enough because people want more power. Then the DMs want TPK monsters. It's vicious I say.

Debby

[Milo v3]

The reason there is so much OP 3rd party stuff is because that is exactly what many players want. Have you ever looked at the Homebrew forums?
Homebrew forum content is generally rather different in quality the 3rd party stuff that actually gets published for Pathfinder....

If we were talking about 3e though you'd be completely right, sooooo much ridiculous 3rd party stuff for 3e & 3.5e.

[Coretron03]

Homebrew forum content is generally rather different in quality the 3rd party stuff that actually gets published for Pathfinder....

If we were talking about 3e though you'd be completely right, sooooo much ridiculous 3rd party stuff for 3e & 3.5e.

I second this, but for pathfinder 3rd party stuff is generally balanced well. At least, The biggr ones like spheres of power and path of war are.

[AmberVael]

As a third party writer...

Get everyone in this thread to agree on what a balanced product is, and I'll deliver you a balanced product.

Hopefully that illustrates the difficulty. There are tons of different ideas of what constitutes balance. Not just among the players, either, but the publishers, and the writers who work for those publishers. Somehow we have to take all those views and compress them down into one workable product. And regardless of what is put out, someone is going to call it overpowered, and someone is going to say its underpowered. There's no clear signpost for where balance is.

So if everything looks overpowered to you, then your view of the balance point is probably just closer to the edge of the bellcurve than most. The responses in this thread definitely concur with that idea.

[Barstro]

As a third party writer...

Get everyone in this thread to agree on what a balanced product is, and I'll deliver you a balanced product.

Easy. I think everyone can agree with this statement.

"Balanced is my character being able to handle any situation as I see fit. Overpowered is an NPC or another person's character being able to handle any situation so that my character becomes useless"

Good luck :smallwink:

[AmberVael]

Easy. I think everyone can agree with this statement.

"Balanced is my character being able to handle any situation as I see fit. Overpowered is an NPC or another person's character being able to handle any situation so that my character becomes useless"

Good luck :smallwink:

I don't agree. :smalltongue:

[Barstro]

I don't agree. :smalltongue:
Oh well.

To be honest, I do not think anyone could ever agree on "balanced" because people want different things from the game and that desire changes their own perspective of balanced.

The original 5e came kind of close to it. Mundanes and casters alike started out with powers that were similar enough in both use and availability that they were so balanced as to be nearly indistinguishable. A scoop of vanilla is not the same as a scoop rocky-road-with -bubblegum, but at least neither of them are ten pounds of cheesecake.

I realize that 5e was riddled with differences in and among the classes, but they seemed much more homologous to me than any other system's classes.