Is It Just Me, Or Is There A Serious Power Imbalance

[Allistar]

So, this is my first game of pathfinder and something has really started to irk me. At least from what I'm seeing there is a massive power imbalance between the martial classes and the magical classes. In specific the marital no matter how hard they try just don't seem to ever reach the amount of devastation that the magic classes get.

To provide a bit of context, I have been playing in a campaign that has the following: A tiefling evocation wizard, a gnome cleric, a human warpriest, a dhampir rogue, and myself as a skinwalker transmutation wizard/barbarian multiclass. It's a bit unconventional, but the party works for the mostpart.

The main thing that gets me concerned is the fact that the evocation wizard is literally becoming a god at 3rd level. Due to the traits, and racial abilities that he chose he currently has an AC of 24 (with touch/flat footed AC not too far behind), DR 5 to all the elements, and ludicrous saves. He is also able to cast AOE spells capable of dealing 25 damage to multiple times per day. Not only that but he's not giving up a single thing skill wise in order to do it. He's become the party's arcane powerhouse that can't be touched. Meanwhile I'm able to get a full round attack at 2d4+1d6+6......... yay The rogue has it even worse off than me though, only being able to deal 1d8+1 with her rapier. This trend pretty much continues throughout every sphere of the game. He has so many skills in both the social and knowledge pillars of the game, so many combat abilities, and so many feats that we are basically useless. And it only gets worse with time, seeing as how at 17 level he will have the ability to cast a "maximized, intensified, mythic fire snake spell" which we calculated as dealing somewhere between 300-400 damage to 17 consecutive squares (I don't remember off the top of my head). compare that to me at 17th level where I can full round attack 1 person for 136 damage if every single attack hits and all of my elements work, etc, etc. (just to be clear, we all worked in tandem to help maximize each other's builds and that was the best this evoker min-max expert could do.)

In order to challenge the evoker the DM has started throwing lethal encounters at us left and right, and we can't keep up. The only alternative that the DM has expressed to us is using heavy control magic which would also screw us over. I'm seriously considering quitting this edition entirely because no matter where I look this seems to be a common occurrence. It also sucks that almost nothing I can do even as a weapon champion can keep up because the things I thought worked don't stack. This edition bombards you with choices, but if none of them matter then why play the game, especially if the caster is just going to run away with it anyways.

I have seriously been put off from this game as a whole and am genuinely curious if this is truly what this edition is like. Is the power imbalance usually this high?

[Manyasone]

Have a look at this, mate (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards)

EDIT: also, as others below said, what on earth is the tiefling evoker's build, because at 3rd level, only having 2nd lvl spells blasting 25 damage AoE's multiple times a day sounds pretty ridiculous....unless SoP (also noted below) is used, and even then...

[Psyren]

Pathfinder is sort of a continuation of 3rd edition, which had a similar imbalance between martial and spellcasting classes. You can't really get around it without either houserules (e.g. banning the high-tier casters), or some kind of gentleman's agreement (the preferred method) whereby anyone playing a powerful caster in a party of muggles/martials agrees not to unleash that caster's full potential and leave their colleagues behind.

With that said, you shouldn't really being seeing this kind of disparity as early as 3rd level, and without seeing your wizard player's build I can't vouch for how he's getting both his defenses and damage so high. I will say that your rogue should be doing much more damage per round (sneak attack and dual-wielding) so it sounds like the evoker might be the only player optimizing their build, which is going to make any balance problems far worse. And of course, if one player is optimizing a T1 class and the GM starts throwing tough fights at the group just to challenge that person, that can often cause the exact arms-race situation you describe.

The solution to your problem is to talk about it out of game - either the wizard needs to tone it down a notch, or all the rest of you need to be beefed up a bit, But if you're expecting the game system itself to enforce this kind of class balance irrespective of what the players are doing - then no, 3rd edition/Pathfinder may not be for you.

[Chaos Jackal]

Traits and racials affecting saves, AC and DR are irrelevant to a caster's abilities, since any player/tiefling can use them. Same deal with feats. I am a bit curious as to their picks, though it's probably not impossible to have these defenses. But you did say it's your first game, so maybe they're doing something against the rules or misunderstand what they're allowed to pick/stack/swap? For example, a tiefling with a natural armor increase via Scaled Skin has to give up two of the three DR 5 elemental resistances they normally get.

That being said, yes, a caster will pretty much always outshine a martial when both players have similar system mastery (or even if the martial player's is greater, as long as that difference isn't too great). If anything, an evoker is a bad example of this, as blasting is generally considered an inferior choice. At lv3, a wizard can Grease, Web or Glitterdust an encounter into history, for example. Clerics and other full casters have similar capability.

Yes, the disparity exists. It's a well-known, oft-quoted issue.

It does seem that this is worse than usual though. Not that full casters can't do insane things at low levels, contrary to popular belief, but martials typically stand a chance there. Say, at the very least, dual wield Sneak Attack from the rogue (and use Unchained rogue, vanilla rogue is terrible). Or Power Attack from you. Pretty basic things that don't take much optimizing. Things that, at least for the first few levels, keep your damage on par or higher.

Also, what multi-25-damage ability is your wizard using? An evoker's Intense Spells only adds 1 damage at this level, and they should have like 7 slots which do less than stellar damage if used for, say, Burning Hands and Scorching Ray and which, if they use every round, should be done within two encounters. Are you only running one encounter a day? Are you sure, as I mentioned in the first paragraph, that the wizard's build is legal?

[Allanimal]

the evocation wizard is literally becoming a god at 3rd level. Due to the traits, and racial abilities that he chose he currently has an AC of 24 (with touch/flat footed AC not too far behind), DR 5 to all the elements, and ludicrous saves. He is also able to cast AOE spells capable of dealing 25 damage to multiple times per day. Not only that but he's not giving up a single thing skill wise in order to do it. He's become the party's arcane powerhouse that can't be touched.


I normally play 3.5, my last pathfinder game was more than 5 years ago, so I i know i have missed out on the new stuff added since then. But this seems off.

While it is true that magic is king at high levels, At 3rd level, a wizard should not be a god. I suspect something is illegal on the build, house rules are in effect or rules are being misinterpreted.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Yep, you've run into the single biggest problem with the design of 3.P: spellcasting is the strongest and most versatile force in the game, and gets proportionally more so the longer you go.

You know what really irks me? Looking at 3.5 Rangers versus 3.5 Wizards, the latter gets wish at 17th level and the former gets Hide In Plain Sight. Somebody had to look at that at some point, and say "Yeah, that checks out. Warping reality in any conceivable way is totally comparable to the second level spell invisibility*, and I think this is balanced enough to work."

*Okay yes, there are drawbacks to invisibility that the Hide skill doesn't have (namely true seeing), but the reverse is also true (namely required investment), and the fact that a capstone is even debatably of the same power level as a spell that can be cast at 3rd level is downright pathetic.




Okay, I'm done venting now. Let's talk things that you can do about it.

The first, and the most necessary for any game really, is a gentleman's agreement to stay roughly within the same power level. For wizards, clerics, and other Tier 1 classes, that can mean deliberately nerfing yourself, but a more fun option is to spend your resources and optimization efforts aiding your party members instead of directly solving everything yourself. Rather than cast that souped up fireball to obliterate your enemies, cast polymorph on the barbarian and greater invisibility on the rogue. Full casters are outside my realms of expertise, though, so I don't know how well that will play with being an Evoker. Perhaps focus on battlefield control to make it easier for the party members without directly ending the fights yourself?

For future games, it might be worth checking out a tier list of the classes, and all choosing classes within 1-2 or so tiers of each other. This allows everyone to flex their optimization muscles without nearly as much risk of overshadowing other party members. In 3.5 that could be as simple as playing a Warmage (T4) or Warlock (T3) instead of an Evoker Wizard (T1) alongside the existing Barbarian (T4) and Rogue (T4); alternatively, switching to Sorcerer with a focus on evocation (T2) or Warlock (T3) for the Wizard, Warblade (T3) for the Barbarian, and Beguiler or Swordsage (both T3) for the Rogue if you want to buff the martials as well. I don't know Pathfinder well enough to offer the equivalents for that system, but here's a link with some examples. (https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Tier_System)

[digiman619]

As others have stated, no, it's not just you. Some third party writers have basically redone the magic and combat system so mages are more consistent (though with a lower total power), and martials (i.e., full and 3/4th BAB classes with little or no magic) get to do actually act like historical and fictional fighters (Using your shield to block the dragon's breath to those behind you, for example), as well as get into things that are classically caster-only, like raising the dead. They're called Spheres of Power (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/spheres-of-power) and Spheres of Might (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/spheres-of-might) respectively. I highly recommend them, but selling them to your DM might be tricky. The above links are to a free wiki with the rules in case you're interested, but don't want to buy anything.

[Thaneus]

You guys realized that, basically all of them are T1s except the poor rogue (if not using UC... its T5) and the warpriest (solid T3)?

The problem might be more related that they encountered a minmaxing famesearching narcist (correct me if I am wrong, but this character "concept" just strikes me that way) who optimized the heck out of all the options provided.

In session 0 normally the powerlevel should be a table discussion with a conclusion where everyone knows were you guys are heading, if left to each devices and just say "lets play a bit" you get suche a pile of madness

[Quertus]

Balance to the table.

Never get into an arms race with your players, because they cannot win.

It sounds like this group is failing to adhere to my maxims.

So, if your group cares about balance (which is absolutely *not* a requirement for a fun game), then *someone* (probably the GM) needs to set a power range (yes, balance is a range, not a point), and the group needs to work to get everyone within that range. Which can be accomplished by modifying builds, or even by the GM handing out artifacts & McGuffins to buff the weakest link(s).

The GM should have a nice, static module, designed for that power range, and not beef it up (or tone it back) unless asked to do so by the players. This way, the party can choose to run whatever within that range they enjoy.

For your specific question, I'm told that PF characters have the full tier range of 3e, but less variance between builds (higher floor, lower ceiling), so there's still no built-in balance, and less you can do to fix imbalance than in 3e.

[Kris Moonhand]

Allistar, can I ask you a question only tangentially related to your post? Why in the name of all that is holy are you playing a Wizard/Barbarian multiclass instead of a Bloodrager (https://aonprd.com/ClassDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Bloodrager)?

[Morty]

Spellcaster dominance is very much a universal and very hard to avoid flaw of the system, yes. That being said, "3rd level evoker" doesn't often figure in such cases. This looks like it took some serious optimization to work. Which is incidentally an imbalance as big or bigger than the non-caster/caster split.

[Gnaeus]

And it only gets worse with time, seeing as how at 17 level he will have the ability to cast a "maximized, intensified, mythic fire snake spell" which we calculated as dealing somewhere between 300-400 damage to 17 consecutive squares (I don't remember off the top of my head).?

I’m guessing this is some of the confusion. Unless there is some way to become mythic part way through game, that means party is mythic now. That probably explains 25 damage multiple times/day.

[Alcore]

I normally play 3.5, my last pathfinder game was more than 5 years ago, so I i know i have missed out on the new stuff added since then. But this seems off.

While it is true that magic is king at high levels, At 3rd level, a wizard should not be a god. I suspect something is illegal on the build, house rules are in effect or rules are being misinterpreted.

I love teiflings! I don't even need a book to go over it;


Tiefling gets +2 dex and int. Two feats, and due to DR elemental complaint I'll assume a vanilla race traits for now...

For ac;
Assuming he rolled an 18 it now becomes 20 which is ac 15, +2 more for armor of the pits feat. Sounds like a spell only offence so add leather armor. It tanks attack and provides minimal spell failure but is legal. Currently ac 19... mage armor spell can bump up to 23... can't get last ac point.

DR to three elements by default, a simple tiefling feat provides protection to the forth. I'll assume sonic wasn't considered.

Offence? Scorching ray would be about 5-19 damage. Requires attack roll... armor unlikely.



A little bloated but with just vanilla options a tiefling evoker can get near the target.

[HeraldOfExius]

For ac;
Assuming he rolled an 18 it now becomes 20 which is ac 15, +2 more for armor of the pits feat. Sounds like a spell only offence so add leather armor. It tanks attack and provides minimal spell failure but is legal. Currently ac 19... mage armor spell can bump up to 23... can't get last ac point.

The bonus from Mage Armor is an armor bonus, so it wouldn't stack with the leather armor, leaving this 3 points low instead of 1.

[Silvercrys]

Mage Armor doesn't stack with leather, but I can probably figure it out: if they're using the Mythic rules as implied by the reference to Mythic Firesnake, the Archmage path has a continuous Mage Armor effect that gives you 3+Tier armor. If they've done one mythic quest/milestone/whatever each level they'd be tier 2, which is +5 AC.

Tiefling would also have another mythic ability if they're tier 2, like the ability to cast spells from their spellbook spontaneously. One of the Archmage Arcana abilities allows you expend a Mythic Power use to add 2 to your caster level and add a Metamagic feat without increasing the spell's level, too... I believe you get 7 Mythic Power uses/day at Tier 2 but I'm a bit rusty.

[Gallowglass]

Allistar,

I hope you've heard all the voices who have posted so far. Please don't be thrown off of Pathfinder because of one bad egg of a player and one bad DM experience.

To summarize:


There is a disparity between spellcasters and martials. That is true.
However, that disparity normally doesn't show up until high mid levels (10th or higher)
The disparity all but disappears if you have 5-6 encounters each day. Only when the spellcaster can "NOVA" or use all his high power abilities in every encounter because you only have 1-2 encounters each day is it profound.
The information you have given about the Tiefling's build stinks to high heaven. It sounds like he is either cheating or has poorly mangled the rules.

[Willie the Duck]

Spellcaster dominance is very much a universal and very hard to avoid flaw of the system, yes. That being said, "3rd level evoker" doesn't often figure in such cases. This looks like it took some serious optimization to work. Which is incidentally an imbalance as big or bigger than the non-caster/caster split.

That's where I sit, too -- the OP has voiced a very real issue everyone seems to notice fairly quickly about spellcasters vs. non-spellcasters in 3e/PF. However, these disparities should not be insurmountable (on character getting good stat rolls or just play their character closer to said build's strengths should outpace it at this level) at that level, and certainly with an evoker as the spellcasting example. That leads me to wonder if the evoker is min-maxxed up the wazoo, the DM is using specific optional rulesets which favor casters (I'm unfamiliar with mythic, but it sounds like it synergizes well with casters), OP is missing something (such as limitations that the evoker has), or the playgroup is missing something (Someone seeing Dex bonus somewhere and reading it as Dex score, or the like). That leads to the interesting place where I want to tell the OP something like, "you're not wrong, buuuuut…. are you sure about all your numbers?"

[Calthropstu]

I agree with others that the evoker is probably throwing shenanigans.
But at 3rd level, you can be doing so much more damage.
Power attack, for one, will increase that +6 to a +10. You can then add other things onto yourself and weapon that will increase it further until you are one shotting many monsters. A decent cleave build can wreck quite a few encounter types, especially at this level.

[Silvercrys]

That's where I sit, too -- the OP has voiced a very real issue everyone seems to notice fairly quickly about spellcasters vs. non-spellcasters in 3e/PF. However, these disparities should not be insurmountable (on character getting good stat rolls or just play their character closer to said build's strengths should outpace it at this level) at that level, and certainly with an evoker as the spellcasting example. That leads me to wonder if the evoker is min-maxxed up the wazoo, the DM is using specific optional rulesets which favor casters (I'm unfamiliar with mythic, but it sounds like it synergizes well with casters), OP is missing something (such as limitations that the evoker has), or the playgroup is missing something (Someone seeing Dex bonus somewhere and reading it as Dex score, or the like). That leads to the interesting place where I want to tell the OP something like, "you're not wrong, buuuuut…. are you sure about all your numbers?"Mythic martials have some cool stuff, too, to be sure. Most of the martial paths can spend a Mythic Power to attack with a small bonus (like, target is flat-footed) as a swift action on top of their regular attacks.

Most of the Mythic feats for noncasters are actually pretty strong, like Furious Focus (Mythic) allowing you to negate your power attack penalty for a whole round instead of just the first attack (and even if you don't spend a MP it negates the penalty on all AoO, great for trip and other lockdown builds), and Critical Focus (Mythic) automatically confirming critical threats. Rapid Shot (Mythic) allows you to make 2 extra attacks instead of one or ignore the attack roll penalty.

It is another set of choices to optimize, though, and with almost no guides written for it because it's an optional rule set most people don't use. It's possible the martials took feats like Weapon Finesse (Mythic) that give options that should have been available in other ways (it adds Dex to damage instead of Str, so replaceable by Unchained Rogue or an Agile weapon or the Deadly Agility 3rd party feat or a bunch of other non-mythic feats if you don't mind wielding specific weapons in a specified way, etc.) while the Wizard's powerful stuff mostly comes from their path abilites (like the aforementioned "can prepare spells in 15 minutes instead of 1 hour and can prepare any spell as a swift action by spending a Mythic Power use" one, and continuous Mage Armor).

[John05]

It's not fair for us to call that evoker or DM a bad egg. All we can see it that the evoker chose to optimize for DPS to some extent for the low-encounter-per-day style that the DM is comfortable with. The other players didn't as much. The last part is a partial assumption on my part by how the OP is describing the party as "unconventional" and his/her own wizard/barbarian split.

While it's undeniable that full casters are generally stronger after the mid-levels and higher, IME a lot of imbalance comes from the mere fact that some players are just better at optimizing and metagaming. E.g. If Joe the party wizard *knows* his DM prefers throwing 8 encounters at the party without any rest in between, he may end up consciously or even subconsciously picking spells that last longer and are more useful than for a single encounter.

[Selion]

So, this is my first game of pathfinder and something has really started to irk me. At least from what I'm seeing there is a massive power imbalance between the martial classes and the magical classes. In specific the marital no matter how hard they try just don't seem to ever reach the amount of devastation that the magic classes get.

To provide a bit of context, I have been playing in a campaign that has the following: A tiefling evocation wizard, a gnome cleric, a human warpriest, a dhampir rogue, and myself as a skinwalker transmutation wizard/barbarian multiclass. It's a bit unconventional, but the party works for the most part.

The main thing that gets me concerned is the fact that the evocation wizard is literally becoming a god at 3rd level. Due to the traits, and racial abilities that he chose he currently has an AC of 24 (with touch/flat footed AC not too far behind), DR 5 to all the elements, and ludicrous saves. He is also able to cast AOE spells capable of dealing 25 damage to multiple times per day. Not only that but he's not giving up a single thing skill wise in order to do it. He's become the party's arcane powerhouse that can't be touched. Meanwhile I'm able to get a full round attack at 2d4+1d6+6......... yay The rogue has it even worse off than me though, only being able to deal 1d8+1 with her rapier. This trend pretty much continues throughout every sphere of the game. He has so many skills in both the social and knowledge pillars of the game, so many combat abilities, and so many feats that we are basically useless. And it only gets worse with time, seeing as how at 17 level he will have the ability to cast a "maximized, intensified, mythic fire snake spell" which we calculated as dealing somewhere between 300-400 damage to 17 consecutive squares (I don't remember off the top of my head). compare that to me at 17th level where I can full round attack 1 person for 136 damage if every single attack hits and all of my elements work, etc, etc. (just to be clear, we all worked in tandem to help maximize each other's builds and that was the best this evoker min-max expert could do.)

In order to challenge the evoker the DM has started throwing lethal encounters at us left and right, and we can't keep up. The only alternative that the DM has expressed to us is using heavy control magic which would also screw us over. I'm seriously considering quitting this edition entirely because no matter where I look this seems to be a common occurrence. It also sucks that almost nothing I can do even as a weapon champion can keep up because the things I thought worked don't stack. This edition bombards you with choices, but if none of them matter then why play the game, especially if the caster is just going to run away with it anyways.

I have seriously been put off from this game as a whole and am genuinely curious if this is truly what this edition is like. Is the power imbalance usually this high?

Your numbers seem a little bit off.
At low levels spellcasters do outperform martial classes, they are better in problem solving, to the point i often feel sorry using my abilities, but this doesn't happen in combat.
The only way i can think of reaching that damage at level 3 is with multiple castings of flaming sphere, at first round he'd do 10.5 average damage, in the second round he can use a movement action to control the previous sphere and a standard action to cast the next one, reaching 21 average damage for 1 round/level (assuming two failed saves), but this is a trick that works just at level 3, at higher levels the damage from flaming sphere doesn't increase.
A half decent barbarian would put out similar numbers: a 18 str barbarian at level 3 deals an average damage of 2d6+12 with power attack, he's not limited in daily uses and hits the enemy AC more efficiently than a wizard, who needs the enemy to fail a saving throw.
At high levels martials do a TON of damage, even more than spellcasters, but spellcasters simply have godlike powers which transmute the entire battlefield, so if your friend wants to stick with evocation it should not outshine martial builds so harshly.
I even don't understand how he reached AC 24, i assume that he used magic armor and shield, which i consider a poor choice of spells and action economy at low levels.
Furthermore, usually at low levels spellcasters seem strong if the master doesn't grind multiple combats per day, if they actually had to spare resources they would appear as weak classes.

What you described doesn't appear to me as a powerful build, if he instead used grease, color spray, web or glitterdust every combat, well, that would have been nasty.

EDIT: I didn't read the AOE part, so my guess on spell damage is wrong, i think Thunder999 had a better call, with flaming arc and the Spell Specialization feat. It's a optimized build, but not overwhelming IMHO.

[Phhase]

Even though Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards is a thing, I really don't think he should be QUITE that powerful by level 3...are you sure everything he's doing is aboveboard? That said, your dungeon master needs a quick course on rock-paper-scissors. You don't need to throw a Tarrasque at the party just because the wizard is a god.

Instead, just throw in an enemy with the ability to emit Silence. Doesn't really matter how. Plonk it next to the Wizard, and BAM. He's pretty much useless. Just being third level, he can't have Silent Spell yet (Probably). Against you though, Silence just makes you look more badass (And probably benefits the rogue). Or, you could throw a bunch of loud stuff at him, forcing him to make concentration checks every time he wants to cast. What's your wizard's favorite element? You could throw some creatures with that subtype at him. And if all else fails, you could just give an enemy a Rod of Absorbtion or Negation. That and spell resistance. They exist for a reason.

[Thunder999]

Wizard's are nice, but at level 3 he shouldn't be that big a deal, especially an evoker.

You say he's a 3rd level evoker so he's not got any of the best damage boosting tricks either.
Tiefling so only 2 feats, they'd be spell focus evocation and spell specialisation burning arc if we're going for damage, that only gets us to CL 5 though, for 5d6+1, average 18.5, the second target takes only 2d6+1 and the third and final a mere 1d6+1.
I suppose if your GM allows the PFS swap your scribe scroll for spell focus he could get empower spell and spend two traits to let him use it on burning arc (a move he'd regret later) he could get that up to 27.25 damage, but that's only the first target.

Then there's the AC, he'd need mage armour and shield up and an impossible 22 dex to hit 24 AC, or I suppose if he's facing an enemy of the right alignment he could do it with 18 dex and protection from evil. Only mage armour is an all day spell.

[Coventry]

I’m guessing this is some of the confusion. Unless there is some way to become mythic part way through game, that means party is mythic now. That probably explains 25 damage multiple times/day.

Pathfinder allows some insane damage stacking. Taken from Brewer's guide for the Blockbuster Wizard:

Wizard 2 (Evoker ... probably Admixture)/Sorcerer 1 (Orc Bloodline) with 20 Int
Feat: Spell Specialization (Burning Hands)
Trait: Magical Knack (wizard)

That wizard has 4 first level slots, but casts Burning Hands as a 5th level wizard (5d4 base damage). The Evoker specialization adds 1/2 damage per level (so, +1 damage). The Orc Bloodline adds +1 damage per die, so burning hands is dealing 5d4+6 in a cone. (average 18.5)

Being Crossblooded Sorcerer Orc+Red Dragon adds another +1 per die. (5d4+11, average 23.5)

Using the Pathfinder Society rules to swap Scribe Scroll for Spell Focus (Evocaton) opens up access to Varisian Tattoo (Evocation), which frees up the trait slot for something even nastier that does not come online until level 6 (Magical Lineage - Fireball).

And that's before Mythic, which cranks the damage die from 5d4 to 5d6. 5d6+11 averages out to 28.5 damage.

So, yeah ... 25 points of area damage at level 3, multiple times per day is definitely possible. Just don't run into a fire-immune creature.

[Allistar]

I'm so sorry that I don't have the exact build that the evoker is using, but yes I have talked to him about this. I have yet to see if this will change anything, but I guess we'll see this sunday. Thanks for all of your feedback and letting me know it's not just me.

Also a bit more context:I'm not playing a bloodrager because I like the feel of a weapon champion barbarian/ transmutation wizard who would eventually take eldritch knight, and become the gish tank/striker of the party. Basically I'm playing a muscle wizard that specializes in natural attacks. The best way I found to do this was the transmutation wizard who polymorphs himself into combat forms. Druids were banned so this was a close second, and I decided to do it because it looked fun. We've done some theory crafting as for how the build would work, and It seemed good until we figured out that most of the things we thought stacked didn't. Specifically, extra arms, extra attacks from the speed property (which would have been granted by an amulet of mighty fists) and the elemental damage dice from the flaming/frost/lightning/corrosive enchantments. I would have been able to get 16 attacks at colossal damage if I was to use "shape of the dragon III" Admittedly if my build were to actually work, it would be even more degenerate than this guy's but I still couldn't help but notice the massive gap that seems to creep in at the lower levels and eventually the growing problem of late game casting.

Against what the entire party thought, the rogue thought it would be a great idea if he were to give up sneak attack and take some kind of archetype that gave him bonus feats every level as well as a few bonuses I can't recall off the top of my head. He has it the worst out of all of us because he's basically a fighter, without anything that makes fighters good in this edition.

Admittedly this shouldn't be a problem for long, because as I get to level 5 or so my build starts to go into turbo mode with stuff like improved natural attacks, power attack, and all of those great things. Again thanks everyone, but I think i'm just going to roll with it until I'm able to switch characters.

[Psyren]

Against what the entire party thought, the rogue thought it would be a great idea if he were to give up sneak attack and take some kind of archetype that gave him bonus feats every level as well as a few bonuses I can't recall off the top of my head. He has it the worst out of all of us because he's basically a fighter, without anything that makes fighters good in this edition.

Yeah, this confirms my suspicion that the rest of the party was playing very suboptimally. You'll have problems with almost any fullcaster who isn't consciously holding back in a group this weak.

[Gwynfrid]

I'm so sorry that I don't have the exact build that the evoker is using, but yes I have talked to him about this. I have yet to see if this will change anything, but I guess we'll see this sunday. Thanks for all of your feedback and letting me know it's not just me.

Also a bit more context:I'm not playing a bloodrager because I like the feel of a weapon champion barbarian/ transmutation wizard who would eventually take eldritch knight, and become the gish tank/striker of the party. Basically I'm playing a muscle wizard that specializes in natural attacks. The best way I found to do this was the transmutation wizard who polymorphs himself into combat forms. Druids were banned so this was a close second, and I decided to do it because it looked fun. We've done some theory crafting as for how the build would work, and It seemed good until we figured out that most of the things we thought stacked didn't. Specifically, extra arms, extra attacks from the speed property (which would have been granted by an amulet of mighty fists) and the elemental damage dice from the flaming/frost/lightning/corrosive enchantments. I would have been able to get 16 attacks at colossal damage if I was to use "shape of the dragon III" Admittedly if my build were to actually work, it would be even more degenerate than this guy's but I still couldn't help but notice the massive gap that seems to creep in at the lower levels and eventually the growing problem of late game casting.

Against what the entire party thought, the rogue thought it would be a great idea if he were to give up sneak attack and take some kind of archetype that gave him bonus feats every level as well as a few bonuses I can't recall off the top of my head. He has it the worst out of all of us because he's basically a fighter, without anything that makes fighters good in this edition.

Admittedly this shouldn't be a problem for long, because as I get to level 5 or so my build starts to go into turbo mode with stuff like improved natural attacks, power attack, and all of those great things. Again thanks everyone, but I think i'm just going to roll with it until I'm able to switch characters.

Looks like your group thought about balance issues and everyone made it their goal to strongly optimize their characters. Unfortunately, Pathfinder is very complicated, so if this is your first game with the ruleset it's not at all surprising that some of you succeeded, and others didn't. This is a guarantee for major imbalance. It may be that your build blooms at a higher level and you eventually catch up with the party. However:
- The tiefling evoker and the others are also going to grow in power, fast.
- I don't see a way that the rogue will ever get to even remotely similar power compared to the rest of the group.

You have several solutions. As mentioned by several posters above, the DM could step in and get everyone to agree on roughly balanced builds. Or, you could wait for a few levels as you suggested, but in that case the rogue's player should probably think of changing to another class.

Or... Dare I suggest you take a look at Pathfinder 2nd edition? It takes major steps towards a better balance between classes. However, it does so in a way that disallows most bonus stacking options and cuts down on power level for all casters in the name of balance. Given what you're saying about your own character design thinking, there's a high probability that 2nd edition isn't going to be your cup of tea. So, I'm only leaving this here to let you know other options exist.

[Psychoalpha]

I think you kind of lost me when the party that's being outpowered by a full caster includes a rogue without sneak attack and a Barbarian/Wizard multiclass. >_>

[Calthropstu]

I think you kind of lost me when the party that's being outpowered by a full caster includes a rogue without sneak attack and a Barbarian/Wizard multiclass. >_>

Yeah, sounds a tad underpowered. Even an unoptimized straight fighter would beat either hands down.

I have joined such conversations in defense of martial classes many times in the past, but on this one? The characters in question are poorly built.

It's fine for rp purposes. I know plenty of people who play terrible builds because of the lulz. This one guy made a goblin sniper build that literally required 3 rounds of combat to set up before he began firing. It was hilarious, but underpowered to a fault. But it worked and it was fun.

This, however, sounds the opposite of fun. Either rebuild the caster to be weaker, or the other two characters to be stronger. You can get a lot of advice here on how to do that.

[Deadkitten]

I think you kind of lost me when the party that's being outpowered by a full caster includes a rogue without sneak attack and a Barbarian/Wizard multiclass. >_>

In all fairness, that rogue archetype is most likely the Phantom Thief archetype, which if your using Unchained Rogue as a base onst too bad in and of itself.

I think, at its worst, you end up with a the equivalent of a fighter that trades BAB for more skill points and utility.
Most definitely not the best yoi can do, but it has potential.

[Pugwampy]

Depends how generous you are with magic goodies and ability rolls.
Also levels and player experience .

I always suffered the opposite problem you have .