JeenLeen
2017-11-14, 01:58 PM
Some threads about balance and melee vs. casters made me want to share a story from a game I was in. This is not really a commentary at all about caster vs. melee or balance. Rather, it's an oddity I found in an all-Tier 1 party around level 20.
We were
--Wizard focused on War Weaver PrC to cast buffs on the party (divination to predict which threats to counter) & control spells (various Save-or-Dies)
--Druid-zilla (mainly focused on buffing self + own buffs then ubercharging to deal hundreds of damage)
--Cleric-zilla (as Druid-zilla)
--Cleric-Thief (played by the DM, was our healer, trapfinding, but also a weaker ubercharger). Main job was to keep uber-chargers alive.
We were in a fight against some massive golems, knowing that a major boss fight was coming soon. The chargers were charging, and the war weaver had released his buffs. It seemed a waste to use save-or-dies when we were obviously winning, even a waste to throw some Orbs of Acid and similar weak spells prepared just in case... so the caster with the save-or-dies and other one-shots just stayed flying out of range while the martial-themed casters killed the enemy. (There was enough time urgency that we couldn't rest to recover spells, but not so much that it mattered whether the fight ended on round 5 or round 15.)
Was a boring fight for all involved.
This was shortly before the whole group (DM included) decided the game wasn't fun anymore because it took minutes to calculate all of our buffs to determine +to hit & +damage, and our super-casters could beat most anything, so the DM just told us the plot & we started another campaign.
I found it funny that the caster who focused on being a good caster would just be wasting his spells if he used them.
Also interesting was that none of us really intended to make game-breaking builds. Rather, as we became more savvy to the game mechanics during the campaign (which went from level 1 to 21 or 22), we rebuilt our characters to be more effective. It wasn't until late game that we really realized that we were way more optimized than the game intended. (When we one-shotted a Balor around level 17... that kinda drove the point home to us that we were stronger than an average party.)
EDIT: for honesty, let me state that I realize my title is slightly misleading, but I'm trying that for dramatic effect. This is meant as one example where, in a particular instance, being the casting-based caster was worse. In general, we were about equally active in fights and all felt like we contributed. (And the uberchargers were only as great as there were, to a good degree, because of the buffs and protections granted by the war weaver.)
We were
--Wizard focused on War Weaver PrC to cast buffs on the party (divination to predict which threats to counter) & control spells (various Save-or-Dies)
--Druid-zilla (mainly focused on buffing self + own buffs then ubercharging to deal hundreds of damage)
--Cleric-zilla (as Druid-zilla)
--Cleric-Thief (played by the DM, was our healer, trapfinding, but also a weaker ubercharger). Main job was to keep uber-chargers alive.
We were in a fight against some massive golems, knowing that a major boss fight was coming soon. The chargers were charging, and the war weaver had released his buffs. It seemed a waste to use save-or-dies when we were obviously winning, even a waste to throw some Orbs of Acid and similar weak spells prepared just in case... so the caster with the save-or-dies and other one-shots just stayed flying out of range while the martial-themed casters killed the enemy. (There was enough time urgency that we couldn't rest to recover spells, but not so much that it mattered whether the fight ended on round 5 or round 15.)
Was a boring fight for all involved.
This was shortly before the whole group (DM included) decided the game wasn't fun anymore because it took minutes to calculate all of our buffs to determine +to hit & +damage, and our super-casters could beat most anything, so the DM just told us the plot & we started another campaign.
I found it funny that the caster who focused on being a good caster would just be wasting his spells if he used them.
Also interesting was that none of us really intended to make game-breaking builds. Rather, as we became more savvy to the game mechanics during the campaign (which went from level 1 to 21 or 22), we rebuilt our characters to be more effective. It wasn't until late game that we really realized that we were way more optimized than the game intended. (When we one-shotted a Balor around level 17... that kinda drove the point home to us that we were stronger than an average party.)
EDIT: for honesty, let me state that I realize my title is slightly misleading, but I'm trying that for dramatic effect. This is meant as one example where, in a particular instance, being the casting-based caster was worse. In general, we were about equally active in fights and all felt like we contributed. (And the uberchargers were only as great as there were, to a good degree, because of the buffs and protections granted by the war weaver.)