Critique of the complete PF game system

[exelsisxax]

Now that PF is well and truly done (despite books 2-6 of the ACG AP never being released), I'd like to discuss how we think it did. What about PF is well designed and makes for a better RPG experience, what is badly designed? I'd like this to be as objective as possible, and not relative to 3.5(while removing multiclass penalties is obviously good, "no MC XP penalties" is not a meaningful feature of PF). I also want to avoid noting specific details. Sacred geometry being broken is far too specific to be worth mentioning itself, but could serve as an example of a larger point. Also, if there was a problem that has since been solved during PF’s life cycle by either paizo or 3pp, that could be another interesting point of discussion. So i’ll start this off with some of my own, with a few of the biggest issues in PF’s design.


Critique:
Not sure how to arrange this, but a core flaw in PF is that it is not one game, but several rather different games that the same PCs can transition through. Low and high level play are fundamentally different in scope and scale, enough that amputating high-level play from the campaign is taken as one of the obviously sensible methods of play. This results from and feeds into several different issues.
-The problem of the caster/martial disparity. The game at level 2 is something that all classes can directly participate in. At level 16, the game has transformed into something that spellcasters can participate in, and martials can contribute - if they aren’t under-geared, and if the spellcasters help them out. This is a fundamental source of imbalance between player characters.
-Opposition becoming immune to things rather than advancing in any reasonable manner. This also contributes to the above, where spellcasters have a great many tools at their disposal even against “magic immune” opponents and martials are incapable of dealing meaningful damage without magic item support. Combat maneuvers inevitably run up against CMD: no or flat-out immunity with anything except the most specialized builds with a lot of opportunity cost.

Specialization is powerful (sometimes too powerful) but also has a very high opportunity cost in most cases (frowns at prepared casters). Specialization is rewarded heavily, often resulting in strategies that are only specialized. On top of progression often slamming into walls of immunities, this can lead individual PCs to be one-trick ponies with a trick that doesn’t work. There is also the problem that some tactics simply require a significant amount of investment to access at all, leading to pretty basic fantasy character tropes coming online at level 5 or later due to being gated behind feats that should be core functionality. It’s also kind of boring to have one really good tactic that is simply better than anything else you can do.

More on the caster/martial disparity: martials are restrained in that they have limited build resources that are permanently allocated to accomplish anything, and are almost always parts of feat chains with long lists of prerequisites. On the other hand, spells have no prerequisites except for trivial ability score minimums that can easily be met at level 1. Casters have access to far more spells than any martials have feats or talents, exacerbated by each spell able to be a fully independent function,often rivalling the capability of specialized martials. Prepared spellcasters can also switch out the most powerful feature in the game to a totally new set of spells every day, rather than being locked in to anything.

Rocket tag combat. It is not a problem that combat is short, but PF combat is often decided simply by which side goes first and can deliver some overwhelming control effect or wipe opponents out before they can act. This is caused by a combination of the action economy structure, high damage to health ratio, and the way defenses are implemented in PF. Almost every defense is either an immunity or a chance to ignore an effect or not be hit. There are very few mitigation defenses other than DR and ER, and those can be bypassed or ignored relatively easily.


Praise:
Great interactions between setting lore and many PC options. It is very clear where guns are from and WHY guns are from that area. Deities, domains, regional archetypes, are all substantive mechanical levers for players and GMs to use, rather than everything in the game requiring copious refluffing if you want anything other than the most rose-tinted boring european fantasy.

The symmetry and transparency between PCs and NPCs. Ease of play is improved by everything using the same mechanics and with creatures of all types working in the same fundamental ways, and when you can generate them in the same way.

The content. Oh, the content. I don’t think I need to go on at length about how useful it can be to have at one’s disposal possibly the most content ever produced for a TTRPG, especially with all of it available online. The AoN is a godsend, although it could be said that plain noninteractive PDFs are not the best distribution format at all anymore. Both AoN and the D20pfsrd are far superior ways of navigating all that content, and even the PRD was such a useful tool before it was deprecated.


There’s definitely more, who wants to do a better job of articulating them than I? Does anyone disagree with any presented so far?

[Zanos]

Not to be rude, but are any of these criticisms unique to PF? I largely agree, its just that most of the issues outlined here are present in 3.5 as well and are a result of PF being a copy paste of 3.5 with some tweaks.


Great interactions between setting lore and many PC options.
I actually disagree here. I think theming is important for a setting, and PF is far too kitchen sink for my taste, even more so than 3.5 was.

[Kurald Galain]

it is not one game, but several rather different games that the same PCs can transition through. Low and high level play are fundamentally different in scope and scale,
This is an explicit design feature (to be fair, one that it shares with 3E, 2E, and OD&D). 4E/5E/P2 have the opposite design philosophy, i.e. that high-level play is similar to low-level but with higher numbers. I don't think there's anything wrong per se with either kind of design.


Rocket tag combat. It is not a problem that combat is short, but PF combat is often decided simply by which side goes first and can deliver some overwhelming control effect or wipe opponents out before they can act.
Have you heard of the distinction between combat-as-sport and combat-as-war? PF at high level is pretty much combat-as-war (again, a feature that it shares this with 3E, 2E, and OD&D). I get the impression that you prefer combat-as-sport (which is PF at low level, and it shares with 4E/5E/P2). There's nothing wrong per se with either approach.

As a metaphor, it strikes me that you're critiquing a platform game for not playing like a first-person shooter. I mean, it clearly doesn't, but then it wasn't designed to, and it has a different audience.

[Psyren]

Sacred geometry being broken is far too specific to be worth mentioning itself, but could serve as an example of a larger point.

If I could distill a larger deficiency out of this specific example, it would be their reluctance to issue any kind of FAQ or errata or tweaks to material in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting product line. The "core" products (e.g. anything with Advanced or Ultimate in the title) got plenty, but the PCS line got very very few by comparison. They stayed shackled to a reprint model for issuing errata that I frankly consider to be too dated for modern gaming. With the internet, issuing official updates and clarifications for broken material is cake, and thanks to the OGL model and wikis they can be reasonably assured that everyone will see it. once it was.

With that said, I do like the Campaign Setting line overall because it dovetailed really well with the core releases. For example, they would have an almost setting-agnostic book release (e.g. Advanced Race Guide, Advanced Class Guide, Occult Adventures), and then shortly after that release a related PCS book that says "all right, now here's where you can find {shiny new thing} in Golarion so you can use it in your campaigns more effectively" (e.g. Inner Sea Races, Advanced Class Origins, Occult Mysteries respectively.) I liked that way better than the WotC model, which was to print most of the new stuff in a Greyhawk book and then include a sidebar that says "here's where you can find {thing} in Faerun and Eberron", but then routinely forget to do the reverse when they made FR and Eberron material.

[Gnaeus]

Pro. The PFSRD is amazing. Having every rule, every feat every spell in a portable searchable format is so powerful it can’t be understated. Every game should do this. We are taking a break from 3.PF systems and playing GURPS and my other group is playing Hackmaster, and reading through horrible books or PDFs going “What does that (spell/feat/ability/combat style/merit) do?” makes me see red. It’s 2020 not 1980.

Con: I don’t really care about caster martial imbalance so much as pretending it doesn’t exist. PF had the advantage of looking back at what was broken in 3.5 and the opportunity to present information responsibly. I understand how backwards compatibility was a good thing and it drew me and a lot of people to the system. And they did fix slightly more things than they broke. But really, how about warning tags. Like “Strong: this spell/class/feature may have large impacts on campaigns and should be viewed with caution by players or Game Masters” or “Weak: this spell/class/feature is thematically appropriate or included for backwards compatibility but may present balance issues in play”.

[exelsisxax]

Not to be rude, but are any of these criticisms unique to PF? I largely agree, its just that most of the issues outlined here are present in 3.5 as well and are a result of PF being a copy paste of 3.5 with some tweaks.

No, none of these are unique to PF and I am not in any way attempting to single those things out. All are also 3.5 problems, of course. I just don't want to talk about the differences between 3.5 and PF in either direction, it should stand alone for critique.



I actually disagree here. I think theming is important for a setting, and PF is far too kitchen sink for my taste, even more so than 3.5 was.

I think that golarion's complete lack of any focus or consistency on any large scale are a separate issue from what I was pointing out. The good thing about PF is that after creating the gray maidens in the lore, there re now items that refer to them and mechanics for interacting with that lore. Even if numeria is kind of a nonsense land of robots and spaceships ploughed into tribal lands, having instant access to content that directly mechanizes those things is good.


This is an explicit design feature (to be fair, one that it shares with 3E, 2E, and OD&D). 4E/5E/P2 have the opposite design philosophy, i.e. that high-level play is similar to low-level but with higher numbers. I don't think there's anything wrong per se with either kind of design.

I was unaware that is was a goal, can you provide developer commentary on that? I do not consider references to different level scales as confirmation that the authors intended to create effectively different games. If that was the intent, they did a bad job. All the classes you make for an RPG should be able to effectively contribute in all of its components. At the very least, it should have been mentioned somewhere in a GM-facing book that the nature of the system fundamentally changes at different levels.

low-level play with higher numbers is ALSO a PF problem from my perspective, but of an entirely different kind than the above.



Have you heard of the distinction between combat-as-sport and combat-as-war? PF at high level is pretty much combat-as-war (again, a feature that it shares this with 3E, 2E, and OD&D). I get the impression that you prefer combat-as-sport (which is PF at low level, and it shares with 4E/5E/P2). There's nothing wrong per se with either approach.

As a metaphor, it strikes me that you're critiquing a platform game for not playing like a first-person shooter. I mean, it clearly doesn't, but then it wasn't designed to, and it has a different audience.

I have heard of those, but I can't see where that distinction connects to my critiques. I prefer combat as war as far as I can tell, I just think that a non-interactable combat stage is a design failure. "everything immediately dies on contact" is also a terrible outcome for a fantasy game that as far as I am aware is intended to be an effective delivery vehicle for fantasy tropes and stories, which don't have that kind of stories.

But in this metaphor, the platform game at some point actually does turn into a first-person shooter without having been advertised as such. I can only consider it a failure that the developers accidentally made a different kind of game.

[zlefin]

I don't see why we should exclude "relative to 3.5" stuff. To me, one of the most important questions for any design is: did it accomplish what it set out to do? For PF, the top goal was to provide a tweaked 3.5 for those who liked it. It did that quite well; being highly compatible but with some of the issues fixed and a number of quality of life improvements which made the game more fun/easier to play.

The archetype system worked out quite well in practice; providing an easy way to support a wide variety of character designs within the confines of a level/class based system.

[Selion]

I have the feeling that this disparity between Spellcasters and martial classes is more a theorycrafting argument than an issue of actual games.
I played the last two chapters of wrath of the righteous, I had a wizard, specialized in summons. I was an average character in the group in terms of power, the undiscussed absolute powerhouse of the group was the ranger. There was situations on which my support as a spellcaster was plain mandatory, but without my comrades' help I couldn't have survived in dungeons filled with cr 17 minions with high HPs, high saves and high SR.
Most forum discussions resolve around situations that simply don't happen in actual play unless players are too much power focused or the DM is not enough competent in balancing the environment.
This bias includes:
- enemies absolutely unprepared against magic. At high levels magic is something expected, you cannot expect you could charm-dominate-scry easily a king or a noble.
- 1/day encounters. One of the major weaknesses of spellcasting classes is the need of sparing resources through multiple grinding encounters.
- favourable environment: teleport and divination locked places are a thing, a common thing, at high levels, just as monsters immunities, automatic dispel traps, antimagic fields and so on.

I'm positive that Spellcasters have a higher ceiling in respect to other classes, and that some spells are just too good (emergency force sphere?), But e few overpowered spells imho shouldn't be taken in account in a general discussion about the game system. Some problems are possible in some table in which players select just the better options and the DM allows some shenanigans, but tier 5 and tier 1 classes may definitely play together with the same weight in the story.

[Kurald Galain]

I have the feeling that this disparity between Spellcasters and martial classes is more a theorycrafting argument than an issue of actual games.
That is entirely my experience as well.

That also means that expecting (or demanding) Paizo to fix some theory-op level 17+ issue is, well, wildly missing the point.

[Rynjin]

I have the feeling that this disparity between Spellcasters and martial classes is more a theorycrafting argument than an issue of actual games.
I played the last two chapters of wrath of the righteous, I had a wizard, specialized in summons. I was an average character in the group in terms of power, the undiscussed absolute powerhouse of the group was the ranger. There was situations on which my support as a spellcaster was plain mandatory, but without my comrades' help I couldn't have survived in dungeons filled with cr 17 minions with high HPs, high saves and high SR.


Mythic is...a whole 'nother ball game. I can see how a fairly unoptimized caster could feel small compared to a Mythic martial that's even halfway decently optimized. However, there ARE ways to make a Mythic caster even further beyond a Mythic martial. Which in essence is a fairly small part of the caster/martial disparity in a nutshell; casters have a much higher ceiling.

However, the "non-theorycraft" part of it is that the problem with casters is that they can do things martials can't; participate in parts of the game that martial characters simply can't touch. However, the reverse isn't true.

The problem with skills is the big one. Quick example: Spider Climb (which comes online at level 3, mind you) complete obviates the need for the Climb skill to ever exist. A 20th level character optimized to use the Climb skill cannot match the ability of a 3rd level caster using a single spell slot.

At the table, this isn't necessarily an issue, but illustrates the point simply enough that there are issues with how versatile the magic system is. Or, more accurately, how NON-versatile non-magic systems are.

[upho]

-The problem of the caster/martial disparity. The game at level 2 is something that all classes can directly participate in. At level 16, the game has transformed into something that spellcasters can participate in, and martials can contribute - if they aren’t under-geared, and if the spellcasters help them out. This is a fundamental source of imbalance between player characters.
I have the feeling that this disparity between Spellcasters and martial classes is more a theorycrafting argument than an issue of actual games.
That is entirely my experience as well.

That also means that expecting (or demanding) Paizo to fix some theory-op level 17+ issue is, well, wildly missing the point.It seems to me that both these views are based on over-simplified and/or over-generalized theoretical assumptions rather than reality.

First, it appears the assumption behind the first view is based on a "Tier-style" measure of overall class power, seemingly comparing the classes' performance in a generic "standard" game intended for low-op builds, failing to recognize that a high-op build of any PC class will break such a game. Instead, this assumption is focused on the fact that e.g. "the high-op wizard breaks the game into more pieces than the high-op fighter", largely ignoring that this fact has little relevance in practice.

Second, the assumption behind the first view also appear to miss that in a more challenging game actually intended for high-op builds, the high-op wizard's superiority relative the high-op fighter is typically far less pronounced - and is IME even less likely to be problematic - than that superiority is when comparing the same high-op builds in the generic "standard" game intended for low-op builds. Most notably, in the game intended for high-op builds, the high-op fighter is arguably as superior to the high-op wizard in combat challenges as the wizard is to the fighter in non-combat challenges.

That is, the high-op build of one class is likely to render the high-op build of the other class about as irrelevant/powerless/over-shadowed in the respective category of challenges. Or more precisely: the wizard simply won't have the numbers or relevant action economy to be effective against the combat opponents able to actually challenge the fighter, while the fighter lacks the versatile and powerful utility tools to deal with the non-combat challenges able to actually challenge the wizard.

In contrast, when these high-op builds are played in a generic "standard" game intended for low-op builds, the wizard is instead often more effective than the fighter also in combat challenges, since the wizard can in such a game make great use of the class' far greater array of effective offensive abilities against relatively weak opponents, while the fighter's advantages in numbers and action economy are instead likely to be wasted on overkill. (And yes, all opponents in such a "standard" game are definitely weak when compared to the combat capabilities of both high-op builds.)

Third, the assumption behind the second view that C/MD is "some theory-op level 17+ issue" instead appears to miss that in your average group of players, a full caster PC has a considerably greater risk of causing unintentional and serious balance issues than a martial PC. Likewise, balance issues caused by OP caster options/combos are typically far less easily identified by your regular group than issues caused by the martial counterparts.



-Opposition becoming immune to things rather than advancing in any reasonable manner. This also contributes to the above, where spellcasters have a great many tools at their disposal even against “magic immune” opponents and martials are incapable of dealing meaningful damage without magic item support. Combat maneuvers inevitably run up against CMD: no or flat-out immunity with anything except the most specialized builds with a lot of opportunity cost.I don't think this is the whole truth. A full bab class typically only requires rather modest optimization and few highly specialized investments to reliably and consistently beat the average CMD of level appropriate foes and make great use of at the very least two different maneuvers even at 20th (and not rarely also with a few additional maneuvers the build hasn't even attempted to boost specifically with any investments).

But yes, martials typically do have to specialize further than casters, and their effectiveness is typically more affected by game specifics (WBL tweaks, access to specific items etc).


I'm positive that Spellcasters have a higher ceiling in respect to other classes, and that some spells are just too good (emergency force sphere?), But e few overpowered spells imho shouldn't be taken in account in a general discussion about the game system. Some problems are possible in some table in which players select just the better options and the DM allows some shenanigans, but tier 5 and tier 1 classes may definitely play together with the same weight in the story.In terms of combat power - or rather how challenging foes a build can be expected to reliably and effectively deal with in combat - during practically all levels except perhaps the very earliest, I'm pretty certain that for example a fighter has a considerably higher ceiling than any full caster. (As a practical example, I doubt you'll find any caster able to reliably one-shot multiple balors before high levels, while a fighter can do so at 9th.)

Crap, RL calling! I'll continue as soon as I find the time.

[Selion]

Mythic is...a whole 'nother ball game. I can see how a fairly unoptimized caster could feel small compared to a Mythic martial that's even halfway decently optimized. However, there ARE ways to make a Mythic caster even further beyond a Mythic martial. Which in essence is a fairly small part of the caster/martial disparity in a nutshell; casters have a much higher ceiling.

However, the "non-theorycraft" part of it is that the problem with casters is that they can do things martials can't; participate in parts of the game that martial characters simply can't touch. However, the reverse isn't true.

The problem with skills is the big one. Quick example: Spider Climb (which comes online at level 3, mind you) complete obviates the need for the Climb skill to ever exist. A 20th level character optimized to use the Climb skill cannot match the ability of a 3rd level caster using a single spell slot.

At the table, this isn't necessarily an issue, but illustrates the point simply enough that there are issues with how versatile the magic system is. Or, more accurately, how NON-versatile non-magic systems are.

Just to give you context, my wizard was far from unoptimized:
I used the void elemental school, so that with mythic coupled arcana I could give a -8 to saving throws without a save and cast a spell as a standard action, strategy which I used in a boss fight to cast quickened planar binding and force cage with a penalty on enemies save of -8, which didn't end the fight because one of the "minions" used miracle to break the force cage.

I still was overshadowed by optimized martials in combat, though. The ranger would put out several hundreds of damage consistently without expending resources, I needed to expend mythic powers for everything to pierce enemies resistances, and I couldn't do that in multiple fights.

I think that a party of 5 Wizards would have had more troubles than a mixed party in that context

[exelsisxax]

I'm positive that Spellcasters have a higher ceiling in respect to other classes, and that some spells are just too good (emergency force sphere?), But e few overpowered spells imho shouldn't be taken in account in a general discussion about the game system. Some problems are possible in some table in which players select just the better options and the DM allows some shenanigans, but tier 5 and tier 1 classes may definitely play together with the same weight in the story.


That is entirely my experience as well.

That also means that expecting (or demanding) Paizo to fix some theory-op level 17+ issue is, well, wildly missing the point.

The easily achievable state of total party imbalance is rare mostly because people are taking actions to avoid it. Most games do not occur at the most problematic levels, most spellcasters do not optimize, and most GMs explicitly or as a matter of course do not permit a great deal of things that are the largest problems. It's a giant cooperative rule 0 that limits the problem, not that it somehow exists only in theory.

[Psyren]

I'm going to (or at least try to) avoid rehashing the Caster Martial Disparity thing yet again because there have been a million billion threads about that already. It's pretty unrealistic to have expected PF to totally do away with that given that their primary goal was both continuation of and compatibility with D&D 3.5. For some it's a bug, for others a feature, some think PF hit the sweet spot while some think it didn't go far enough and some actually prefer 3.5 because you could do even more unbalanced things there (hello, Item Familiar, Bloodlines, Ice Assassin Aleax etc.). You're never going to reconcile all those people and it would be a fool's errand to try.


Mythic is...a whole 'nother ball game. I can see how a fairly unoptimized caster could feel small compared to a Mythic martial that's even halfway decently optimized. However, there ARE ways to make a Mythic caster even further beyond a Mythic martial. Which in essence is a fairly small part of the caster/martial disparity in a nutshell; casters have a much higher ceiling.

However, the "non-theorycraft" part of it is that the problem with casters is that they can do things martials can't; participate in parts of the game that martial characters simply can't touch. However, the reverse isn't true.

My biggest critique of Mythic is that I can find several abilities there (martial abilities in particular) that I'd be comfortable with high- or even mid-level non-mythic characters having. For example, you shouldn't need to be mythic to jump during a charge - nor even to jump and grab a flying creature during a charge to try and bring it down. What Mythic should let you do is jump from the ground to the top of a castle, or to add a bunch of metaphysical mass to that flyer that you grab so they can't stay in the air even magically, or to ignore spell failure in any armor+shield, or to cause natural 1s to not autofail. That's the kind of stuff that feels Mythic.

[Rynjin]

Just to give you context, my wizard was far from unoptimized:
I used the void elemental school, so that with mythic coupled arcana I could give a -8 to saving throws without a save and cast a spell as a standard action, strategy which I used in a boss fight to cast quickened planar binding and force cage with a penalty on enemies save of -8, which didn't end the fight because one of the "minions" used miracle to break the force cage.

I still was overshadowed by optimized martials in combat, though. The ranger would put out several hundreds of damage consistently without expending resources, I needed to expend mythic powers for everything to pierce enemies resistances, and I couldn't do that in multiple fights.

I think that a party of 5 Wizards would have had more troubles than a mixed party in that context

For non-Mythic? Yeah, that sounds pretty good.

But for the stuff that a Mythic caster can actually pull off? It's well off from the top.

I've never played a wizard, but at least when I played an Oracle, it was possible to wipe entire encounters of multiple CR 16+ creatures with a single casting of Mythic Holy Word; no save.



My biggest critique of Mythic is that I can find several abilities there (martial abilities in particular) that I'd be comfortable with high- or even mid-level non-mythic characters having. For example, you shouldn't need to be mythic to jump during a charge - nor even to jump and grab a flying creature during a charge to try and bring it down. What Mythic should let you do is jump from the ground to the top of a castle, or to add a bunch of metaphysical mass to that flyer that you grab so they can't stay in the air even magically, or to ignore spell failure in any armor+shield, or to cause natural 1s to not autofail. That's the kind of stuff that feels Mythic.

100% agreement on the first part, though your examples below still seem kind of underwhelming for Mythic. "Causing nat 1's not to autofail" doesn't seem very Mythic to me, and it needed less of that (I actually do think that's a Champion ability, for attack rolls) and more abilities like Seven League Leap.

[Asmotherion]

I like that casters have a more straightforward progression in PF than 3.5

You don't need to experiance levels 1-4 hiding behind the party's tank, and can actively contribute.

You also don't need to feel like you're cheating for playing a tier 1 class, as high levels are more balanced than 3.5

[Psyren]

100% agreement on the first part, though your examples below still seem kind of underwhelming for Mythic. "Causing nat 1's not to autofail" doesn't seem very Mythic to me, and it needed less of that (I actually do think that's a Champion ability, for attack rolls) and more abilities like Seven League Leap.

I think breaking a rule as fundamental as that can be a Mythic ability, but it can be a low one.

I might go through the Mythic martial abilities (Champion, Guardian, Trickster etc) and list the ones I think should be Mythic and the ones I think shouldn't.

And there are several non-mythic abilities I think should be baseline parts of the system, like Power Attack and Awesome Blow, rather than needing feats.

[ngilop]

I just cannot wrap my head around the people who are claiming that full casters underperform against martials. Especially the guy who played a Mythic Conjuer?

Does he put the balance at how much damage per round you can do?

Because being able to do 200-ish damage per round to me, is nowhere near the power level of literal dozen of spells that say 'YES" or 'No' to any obstacle and that BEFORE mythic abilities evenc ome into the discussion.

[AntiAuthority]

I think Pathfinder 1E had good ideas, the only real issue is I feel the backwards compatibility thing may have hindered it in some ways. There were some posts from a while ago on the Paizo forums where they mentioned they needed to do certain things to make it backwards compatible, as they weren't sure Pathfinder would do as well if they veered too much from 3.5E, but that's their choice so whatever.

I suppose one of my gripes is how multi-classing can be more effective than a higher level, pure class... I'm aware people enjoy breaking the game, so whatever. This sort of segs into my main issue with the system.

About the martial-caster disparity... I have plenty of thoughts on this. Truthfully, I'm not too bothered by Tier 1 or 2 classes for the most part, just bothered that nobody at Paizo thought the obvious solution wasn't to significantly buff martial characters as well (though a former Paizo employee admitted that probably would be the best solution later on). So the martial-caster thing is mostly my main gripe with Pathfinder.

Going over some material, they were taking the right steps towards fixing it, but I think the main issue is they locked certain abilities behind feat taxes. For example, Power Attack, Trip, Cleave, etc. should probably be things martial characters get from just being martial characters. Even things like the Weapon Mastery Feats should probably be things martial characters get upon leveling up. Being able to make someone bleed out is something anyone can do with a bladed weapon, much like how anyone can be stunned if they're hit hard enough/in the right way... Class featutures, but whatever. Essentially you get the ability to do more things just from leveling up as opposed to being able to hit people for more damage being the only noticeable thing.

Another issue is not being able to Full Attack and move normally unless there's some obscure rule I'm unaware of (I recall someone mentioning one in 3.5E). The iterative attacks part is isn't something I'm a fan of, but I think this was part of the backwards compatibility issue. Maybe a way to do AoE for martial characters, spillover damage or something. Maybe better scaling damage too based on BAB, or reduce HP Bloat, either one...

Another issue is the lack of skill points, as this would at least help martial classes gain some form of utility. Maybe allow high enough skills to do fantastic things? Seems like a missed opportunity.

Maybe not needing to rely on magic items to be effective, such as inherent bonuses every level or so... My characters felt sort of useless the higher they got in level, and I'd spend plenty of time trying to figure out the best gear to use and was perfectly aware my character was gear dependent. Also felt weird the character that wasn't a magic user was also relying on magic...

About Mythic... I saw the best comparison for the disparity... Pathfinder casters become (from a thematic point, not literally) mythic beings just from leveling up to be able to things you'd see in mythologies, Pathfinder martials.. Literally need mythic tiers to do the same thing. I LIKE the idea of Mythic Tiers, I honestly think some of their abilities should have been integrated into standard class progression beyond a certain point (Seven League Leap for example).

I suppose a lot of my issues with PF were mostly because of the backwards compatibility thing. That and trying to balance "reality warper" with "normal people." I wish this former Paizo employee (https://seankreynolds.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/ex-su-and-martial-characters/) had come to this conclusion sooner, while working on the game, but eh, what's done is done.

That aside... Yeah, I don't find too many problems with Pathfinder.

[Elves]

I have the feeling that this disparity between Spellcasters and martial classes is more a theorycrafting argument than an issue of actual games.

Even put aside the power of the spells, you still have the problem that per-day spells is a lousy balance mechanism because it's so swingy. A class who can go nova always has a practical advantage over one who can't. Vancian system doesn't work for game balance.

[Thunder999]

The caster martial disparity is there, but it's usually not a combat thing, because loads of damage is a very effective thing to bring to fights and by high levels you can generally rely on magic items, or friendly casters if you're feeling cheap, to ensure you're able to deliver it, not to mention item mastery and conduit feats.

The main issue is that martials are quite boring out of combat, the casters are doing stuff like calling outsiders, chatting with an acquaintance on the other side of the planet, making their own demiplanes and other crazy stuff, and the best you can do is make some skill checks to interact with NPCs.

[Psyren]

I suppose a lot of my issues with PF were mostly because of the backwards compatibility thing. That and trying to balance "reality warper" with "normal people." I wish this former Paizo employee (https://seankreynolds.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/ex-su-and-martial-characters/) had come to this conclusion sooner, while working on the game, but eh, what's done is done.

SKR's complaint is really overblown; instead of rewriting the entire system, you can just give martials some Su abilities. (PF already does this via some rage powers, rogue talents, ki powers etc.)

[AntiAuthority]

The main issue is that martials are quite boring out of combat, the casters are doing stuff like calling outsiders, chatting with an acquaintance on the other side of the planet, making their own demiplanes and other crazy stuff, and the best you can do is make some skill checks to interact with NPCs.

More or less, martial characters aren't pulling off insane stunts like that. If they could, say, change the landscape, travel vast distances in incredibly short amounts of time, travel the planes or some such, sure... But they're generally doing the same thing they've been doing since Level 1, which is hit things/sneaking. It doesn't feel like they've improved beyond getting bigger numbers. While a Caster goes from being able to put people to sleep or buff themselves to creating tornadoes, erasing memories and opening holes in reality... In addition to bigger numbers for when they choose to go nova.

[Kurald Galain]

Aaaand let's rename this thread to "why martials are so much weaker than casters", because by now we're just rehashing that old debate again.

[DrMartin]

pathfinder's best accomplishment is, in my opinion, reaching a solid paradigm for the hybrid classes (warpriest, magus, hunter, etc). They are all fun to play and cover some great character archetypes.

Golarion as a setting has a wiki detailed enough that any player can google up something and find some inspiration for his character's origin or goals or affiliations with organisations etc, while having enough space left empty and undefined for each group to play in "their own" setting.

[upho]

I just cannot wrap my head around the people who are claiming that full casters underperform against martials.While there is as mentioned some hard facts behind that claim when it comes to combat prowess/effectiveness and high-op PCs in games with appropriately challenging combat, I'm also unable to wrap my head around any claim that this would be true when it comes to non-combat challenges, or in either category of challenge in less demanding games (assuming builds of roughly equal op-level).


Especially the guy who played a Mythic Conjuer?AFAICT, both the wizard and ranger compared by that poster seemed to have rather modest combat power relative their level and mythic tiers. So my guess is that the ranger build was simply slightly more optimized for the type of combat the game focused on, meaning pretty straight-forward scenarios against foes without much in the way of powerful active and/or varied combat abilities.

At least off the top of my head, assuming both PCs where roughly equally well played, I can't find any other equally plausible explanations for how what appears to be a very moderately optimized damage focused ranger could be considered to have outperformed the wizard, especially not in higher levels/tiers and certainly not in most non-combat challenges.


Does he put the balance at how much damage per round you can do?It does seem so. But to be fair, considering the seemingly rather modest op level and the implied nature of the game, direct hp damage is IME often considerably more effective than it is for higher op levels and/or in games with more demanding and varied challenges.


Because being able to do 200-ish damage per round to me, is nowhere near the power level of literal dozen of spells that say 'YES" or 'No' to any obstacle and that BEFORE mythic abilities evenc ome into the discussion.Yeah. Not to mention most forms of minionmancy being easily made into more effective hp damage tools in most games.

[Selion]

While there is as mentioned some hard facts behind that claim when it comes to combat prowess/effectiveness and high-op PCs in games with appropriately challenging combat, I'm also unable to wrap my head around any claim that this would be true when it comes to non-combat challenges, or in either category of challenge in less demanding games (assuming builds of roughly equal op-level).

AFAICT, both the wizard and ranger compared by that poster seemed to have rather modest combat power relative their level and mythic tiers. So my guess is that the ranger build was simply slightly more optimized for the type of combat the game focused on, meaning pretty straight-forward scenarios against foes without much in the way of powerful active and/or varied combat abilities.

At least off the top of my head, assuming both PCs where roughly equally well played, I can't find any other equally plausible explanations for how what appears to be a very moderately optimized damage focused ranger could be considered to have outperformed the wizard, especially not in higher levels/tiers and certainly not in most non-combat challenges.



I do know there are better ways to optimize a wizard, especially with mythic options , eg magic missile for 600 DMG at unlimited range, the things is, how often this happens in actual games? And if it happens, it's the system to be complained or the single overpowered options?
I myself said that Spellcasters have a higher ceiling in optimization, but if an official content introduced a 5th level spell "kill any creature without a save or Sr" should we say that the entire system is broken because of that spell?
What if that effect was instead applied to an arrow in official content , would archery be overpowered just because of it?

In non combat cases, I assure you that in places protected by magic a comrade with high disable devices skill (enough to overcome DC 50) has been crucial. I had not a spell which could work in that situation. My intervention has been crucial in other situations, though, as it's expected in a roleplaying game in which everyone should occasionally have the spotlight

[Peat]

The big central thing about Pathfinder was it aimed to give you nigh endless options for playing just about anything conceivable in fantasy literature, and to cater to game styles from beer and pretzels to deep and gamist, and that's going to be a major feature or a major bug depending on how a table works with that.

And I guess most of my beefs with it is when they shied away from offering a bunch of options for certain things, or when they got scared of offering too much power and watered down a lot of the options, which mainly focuses on the difficulty curve of getting versatility/non-hitting with sticks/narrative changing options etc.etc. with martials. Don't really need to go into detail as they're well known. But it's not just there. To pick a tiny example - look at the VMC and how they gave a set list of revelations for characters to pick from. Allowing Bards or Sorcerers to round around with + CHA to armour rather than +DEX isn't really any more broken than allowing Oracles to do it, or allowing Bards/Sorcerers to do it with a one level dip.

My one minor annoyance is they kept Prestige Classes as a vestige of 3.5 but really didn't do much with them. I get they wanted people to do single class characters but a lot of the time, they just offered no reason to be used instead of single class archetypes. One of those why bother things?

[TotallyNotEvil]

Honestly, the more I play it, the more I like PF. It simply does so many things right:
- Plentiful and relevant class features. By and large, even the more humble classes can look forward to a decent chassis all the way to 20.
-- The above ties into another point: frequent meaningful choices. Choose which Exploits or Blessings or Tricks or whatever flavor of ability you have, often every couple levels. This means even the basic class can churn out meaningfully different characters even before taking into account the plentiful feats.
- Archetypes: An elegant way of turning the already versatile classes into veritable play-doh. Any weaker classes can get trivially patched this way, too. That you can mix and match compatible ones is even better.
- Hybrid classes: So very well balanced, so distinctive, so fun to play. The sweet spot in a sweet spot game.
- Largely balanced for most of the game. For non-theory crafting exercises, the floors are higher and the ceilings are lower, at least in my experience.

What I don't like can more or less be summed up as "give Martials more nice things". They can kill things dead so very easily, all it takes it a big stick and Power Attack and you are set, just give them some nicer out of combat stuff. Combat maneuvers could be easier at higher levels, I suppose.

The hybrid classes and initiators largely solve the above problems, tho.

I legit have very few complaints about PF that some book or the other hasn't solved.

[Dmitriy]

Positive

A lot of cool new balanced classes. While Pathfinder kept the caster-martial imbalance, it has also introduced many classes with 6/9 spellcasting, which many people consider to be the most balanced classes in the game. They have a field of specialty, but their spellcasting, together with other features, typically makes them able to meaningfully contribute outside of it, too. On the other hand, they are not powerful enough to easily obliterate anything in their way

Class tiers aren’t necessarily bad. The caster-martial imbalance can actually be called a positive thing, too, because people have known about it for a long time and can put it to use. This means that experienced GMs can actively use it while building their adventures, or while choosing the possible classes for their players. E.g. if you want a low-power, low-magic game, you can only allow T4 and T5 classes, but easily let the players pick T1-T2 classes for an epic fantasy campaign.

What could be improved here was making the tiers more official.

There are house rules for everything. Pathfinder has been out there for a long time. I believe, all of its significant problems have already been found, and there are solutions for them readily available.


Negative

When class tiers actually hit in, it can be painful. The caster-martial imbalance will probably not be an issue for you if you are aware of it and/or if optimization levels are higher among the mundane players in your party. The problem is when it strikes you suddenly, when you least expect it. For example, you have not read any guides, but instead, buy the Corebook and the Game Mastery guide. Your Monk starts picking what sounds cool, and finds out that he can only deal damage, and can do it very weakly, while the Wizard who picked what sounded cool can at least somehow participate in every encounter after getting a few levels. Yes, an inexperienced player is unlikely to make their first character a God Wizard, but you don’t need a God Wizard to overshadow a Monk with your save-or-lose ability.
A God Wizard fully utilizing crafting feats can practically have 200% WBL and leave any Fighter totally behind.

Trap options. It’s those things that sound cool but are not. That’s all those “Red” or “Orange” or “1 star out of 4” options from optimization guides, and it’s bad, those options shouldn’t have existed in this way. As with class tiers, it strikes the inexperienced GMs.

Level 1 is a very bad place to be at. Your character hasn’t got the character-defining abilities of your class yet, a single critical hit can one-shoot you even if you are a Fighter (Orcs, looking at you). Two critical hits are almost guaranteed to kill you outright. Even at level 2, it’s still quite possible, and certain features are still lacking. This might sound too narrow, but levels 1 and 2 are what a typical beginner would see first, but probably should not.

Speaking about Orcs, many monsters are very badly designed. CR is supposed to help GMs build meaningful encounters, but in many cases, it’s just useless, monsters being significantly weaker or stronger than their CR suggests. As an example, compare those mighty Orcs to pitiful Goblins: both are CR 1/3, but are they really of the same threat levels? 3 goblins is clearly a very easy encounter, while 3 Orcs can kill your level 1 party with just a few rolls in their favor.

Pathfinder is too complex. There is simply too much to remember, especially for beginner players. The Core Rulebook is astonishingly long at its 576 pages. There have been a lot of books published, and it’s a boatload of material that you need to read through if you want to make powerful characters. If you don’t optimize and play, to the extent possible, a “rules-light” game in Pathfinder, there are still too many rules to learn.

This makes it hard to make new players join Pathfinder, and many would advise anybody inexperienced with d20 systems against learning it, playing e.g. Dungeon World or D&D 5e. In fact, I can’t even imagine how many pages of guides I have read before actually playing my first game.

Splatbooks interact in funny ways. It appears that many things published for Pathfinder haven’t really been given thorough testing. While certain things like Sacred Geometry don’t need anything but the Core Rulebook to break games and are just plain bad design, others only start being broken once you bring another splatbook, and then another one.

Hard to homebrew. Pathfinder is not that “badly” designed because people writing it were incompetent idiots, they were not. It’s because 3.5e, its parent, had doomed the child to being too complex, and when you have a complex system, it’s very hard to change it. Look at the many homebrew options posted at various forums, web-sites, et al. People creating them often clearly lack system mastery needed to introduce new things to the game, but that doesn’t mean that they lack common sense.
Testing every option that you want to introduce against all those splat books is just nigh impossible.

Social skills are awfully designed. A competent “Diplomancer” could solve most encounters by talking to correct people, and “talking to correct people” just means making a few dice rolls. On the other hand, when used against PCs, they make perfect frustration builders, because social skills actually work like mind control in Pathfinder.
There are ways to design social interactions far better.

Pathfinder often has more dungeon-crawling that role-playing. Many say that Pathfinder actually isn’t a good system for role-playing at all, and focuses a lot more on clearing dungeons and killing dragons.

Because of the game’s complexity, many options have to be banned in Pathfinder Society Organised Play. I am not talking about the Butchering Axe that deals 3d6 points of damage and shouldn’t have been made such in the first place, but take for example the Wordcasting rules — they are not overpowered, they are, in fact, weaker than standard spellcasting in most cases. However, they are banned.
There are many other options in PFS that are banned for no apparent reason.
I don’t know about the current state of things, but some years ago I knew people who could only play PFS and never home games because they were either very antisocial or didn’t have a time slot to play RPGs weekly.

Cheap character death starting at mid-to-high levels. If you die, your party Cleric casts Raise Dead and then Restoration, or your party Druid casts Reincarnate. It costs 3,000 gp at level 7, which is about 13% of your wealth: not pocket change, but not too painful either. As you progress, this cost lowers in comparison to how much you have.

Alignments are still a very bad representation of human moral values. I have simply seen too many debates about what it means to be Lawful Good and what it doesn’t mean. As another example, many players won’t understand the difference between playing an Evil-aligned character and being an IRL jerk, which is why it’s often a good idea to ban Evil alignments.

[EldritchWeaver]

SKR's complaint is really overblown; instead of rewriting the entire system, you can just give martials some Su abilities. (PF already does this via some rage powers, rogue talents, ki powers etc.)

I think being able to ignore if an effect is Ex or Su does make the game simpler. If two tags interact in half different places with the rest of the system and then differ only in place, they aren't worth to keep separated. If that helps players and designers by not letting them restricted by the gym fallacy, then this is a bonus. I don't see it that this ends up rewriting the entire system.


Class tiers aren’t necessarily bad. The caster-martial imbalance can actually be called a positive thing, too, because people have known about it for a long time and can put it to use. This means that experienced GMs can actively use it while building their adventures, or while choosing the possible classes for their players. E.g. if you want a low-power, low-magic game, you can only allow T4 and T5 classes, but easily let the players pick T1-T2 classes for an epic fantasy campaign.

What could be improved here was making the tiers more official.

This is a prime example of the biggest flaw of the Tier system: It ignores that people can badly optimize characters regardless of class. The wizard drops down to Tier 5 easily under such circumstances. A wizard needs to be god wizard to fall into Tier 1. Unfortunately, the Tier system does not help in distinguishing what options result in which Tier.


Splatbooks interact in funny ways. It appears that many things published for Pathfinder haven’t really been given thorough testing. While certain things like Sacred Geometry don’t need anything but the Core Rulebook to break games and are just plain bad design, others only start being broken once you bring another splatbook, and then another one.

That is simply due to the fact that not everyone can remember every rule and thus cannot crosscheck unforeseen results easily. In particular results, which require bits and pieces from over half a dozen splatbooks to emerge as superbroken, like the various TO builds. Public playtests help to some extent by allowing people to come up with the combinations earlier, but errataing is required too.

[Dmitriy]

This is a prime example of the biggest flaw of the Tier system: It ignores that people can badly optimize characters regardless of class. The wizard drops down to Tier 5 easily under such circumstances. A wizard needs to be god wizard to fall into Tier 1. Unfortunately, the Tier system does not help in distinguishing what options result in which Tier.

I totally agree with you that a badly-optimized Wizard will perform badly. However, I think, you underestimate how bad things actually are.
Look at the Fighter. If he picks bad feats, he is more or less stuck with them. Even if he understands that he is weak, he can't swap too many feats, retraining costs a lot, and replacing expensive weapons costs even more.

Look at the Wizard now. Today he prepared useless spells, but he prepares other spells today. If they turn out to be useless too, he will prepare the third set for tomorrow. This is what makes T1 classes T1, it's the ability to swap one option for another every day, not just their sheer amount of power.

Also, the class tiers are written with equal optimization in mind. To play a competent Fighter, you need to be very careful with your numbers. If you are that careful while playing a Wizard, you become the God Wizard, while a Fighter is just competent.

A competent Fighter can deal damage. A competent Wizard can solve entire encounters.



That is simply due to the fact that not everyone can remember every rule and thus cannot crosscheck unforeseen results easily. In particular results, which require bits and pieces from over half a dozen splatbooks to emerge as superbroken, like the various TO builds. Public playtests help to some extent by allowing people to come up with the combinations earlier, but errataing is required too.

Well, certainly, it's hard to test any content written for Pathfinder, for this exact reason: there are too many rules available. However, this is the flaw that I was discussing: it's very, very hard to acquire the system mastery needed to introduce your own content without breaking the game. It's not good when it's hard to introduce something new, it's bad.

[Psyren]

I think being able to ignore if an effect is Ex or Su does make the game simpler. If two tags interact in half different places with the rest of the system and then differ only in place, they aren't worth to keep separated. If that helps players and designers by not letting them restricted by the gym fallacy, then this is a bonus. I don't see it that this ends up rewriting the entire system.

I dont care about the tag itself, so much as I care about it being possible to know which abilities are considered to be magic and which aren't, and that there is a separation. 5e for instance dispensed with the tag, but was still (mostly) clear that some abilities are the result of magic (like a druid's wild shape or a monk's ki) and some aren't.

[Lucas Yew]

I generally agree with the OP, especially that the C/MD is rotten bad, and some points for the quote below;


Not sure how to arrange this, but a core flaw in PF is that it is not one game, but several rather different games that the same PCs can transition through. Low and high level play are fundamentally different in scope and scale, enough that amputating high-level play from the campaign is taken as one of the obviously sensible methods of play. This results from and feeds into several different issues.
-The problem of the caster/martial disparity. The game at level 2 is something that all classes can directly participate in. At level 16, the game has transformed into something that spellcasters can participate in, and martials can contribute - if they aren’t under-geared, and if the spellcasters help them out. This is a fundamental source of imbalance between player characters.
-Opposition becoming immune to things rather than advancing in any reasonable manner. This also contributes to the above, where spellcasters have a great many tools at their disposal even against “magic immune” opponents and martials are incapable of dealing meaningful damage without magic item support. Combat maneuvers inevitably run up against CMD: no or flat-out immunity with anything except the most specialized builds with a lot of opportunity cost.

These could be arranged a bit more if, 1) martials get less gear dependent, getting math fixers for accuracy and expected damage + participation enablers like magic/rare-metal treatment for physical attacks via fixed class features, 2) and give them serious buffs to skills, which are less numbers but more capabilities (like high level Acrobatics letting them fall from orbit and land upright with no damage at-will), plus flat on more skill points for virtue of being a non-caster would be right on.

[Dmitriy]

These could be arranged a bit more if, 1) martials get less gear dependent, getting math fixers for accuracy and expected damage + participation enablers like magic/rare-metal treatment for physical attacks via fixed class features, 2) and give them serious buffs to skills, which are less numbers but more capabilities (like high level Acrobatics letting them fall from orbit and land upright with no damage at-will), plus flat on more skill points for virtue of being a non-caster would be right on.
Sounds very similar to what Mythic tiers give to characters. Giving automatic bonus progression (ABP) without cutting WBL down should partially solve the problem, too.

_____________________

Another thing of note: many options in the game are stupidly overpowered. Look at some spells like Simulacrum and Blood Money used together.

[upho]

SKR's complaint is really overblown; instead of rewriting the entire system, you can just give martials some Su abilities. (PF already does this via some rage powers, rogue talents, ki powers etc.)Well, at least it seems SKR himself used to believe the difference between the two was way greater than it is per RAW (AMF interaction is the only mechanical difference). Ex abilities aren't - and shouldn't be - any more beholden to RL physics than Su ones are.


I dont care about the tag itself, so much as I care about it being possible to know which abilities are considered to be magic and which aren't, and that there is a separation. 5e for instance dispensed with the tag, but was still (mostly) clear that some abilities are the result of magic (like a druid's wild shape or a monk's ki) and some aren't.Why do you find the separation important if it doesn't have any mechanical impact?


My one minor annoyance is they kept Prestige Classes as a vestige of 3.5 but really didn't do much with them. I get they wanted people to do single class characters but a lot of the time, they just offered no reason to be used instead of single class archetypes. One of those why bother things?Yeah, the game would probably be better off if 80% of the Paizo PrCs didn't exist, as they offer very little in the form of unique mechanics and are otherwise simply traps for people who don't have a PhD in PF.


Also, the class tiers are written with equal optimization in mind. To play a competent Fighter, you need to be very careful with your numbers. If you are that careful while playing a Wizard, you become the God Wizard, while a Fighter is just competent.

A competent Fighter can deal damage.Not this again. :smallsigh:

No, a fighter doesn't have to invest in any damage boosters in order to be arguably the most effective class in the game in combat. No, a fighter doesn't have to be high-op in order to ignore their damage potential and still be a very competent combatant. And yes, higher level actually high-op fighters can beat every opponent ever published by Paizo in combat, typically including when facing several opponents of CR 27 - 30 simultaneously and with very little preparation, some of them without even breaking a sweat. IOW: in practice, the PF fighter doesn't have much in common with its 3.5 predecessor. You should try playing one sometime!


A competent Wizard can solve entire encounters.Right. Remove the most outrageous caster cheese and GM fiat not allowed in most sane games (bind/call/gate unique high CR creatures, Sacred Geometry, Tromp L'oeil, glimpse of the Akashic, generous interpretation of the term "statistics" in army across time description, etc.) and try build a straight 20th level full caster (without Mythic tiers and using only a published race with less than 11 RP) capable of fighting for example first Cthulhu and Hastur, followed by successfully making it through victorious in the final level of Rappan Athuk (the "impossible" version with max number of opponents), immediately followed by fighting Nocticula, Pazuzu and Shax, and finally Baba Yaga, all as written and all in the same day. Good luck.

(Coincidentally, I very recently ran a straight fighter 20 through the above gauntlet (also including a bunch of the highest DC traps, haunts and hazards), and she came out victorious with very little trouble. In fact, most of the opponents didn't have much of chance and were beaten before they could act after initiative was rolled. And the fighter in question has a pretty pathetic DPR. She can very easily trip, bull rush and dirty trick Cthulhu though, despite his Colossal size, CMD of 98 and fly speed, and likewise she has no problems with the many DC 40+ saves or the opponents' save bonuses above +40.)

That said, I agree martials do need greater versatility outside of combat, at least in higher levels.

[Psyren]

Well, at least it seems SKR himself used to believe the difference between the two was way greater than it is per RAW (AMF interaction is the only mechanical difference). Ex abilities aren't - and shouldn't be - any more beholden to RL physics than Su ones are.

For starters he's wrong about that - it also applies to dead magic areas/planes, and some with impeded magic and wild magic traits as well. They also have a caster level (RC 119) which can help them interact with things like detect magic that have a result for "nonspell effects."

Second, I don't think I agree with the second part either. Ex abilities can certainly violate physics, but I think there should be limits to what they can achieve too. I wouldn't be on board with Ex Resurrection or Ex Gate or Ex Wail of the Banshee for instance.


Why do you find the separation important if it doesn't have any mechanical impact?

As noted above it does have mechanical impact (and still does even in 5e, so clearly there was value in keeping it.)

As for why it matters to me, the answer to that is a bit on the long side - we had a whole thread hashing that out (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?600999-Critiquing-the-quot-Guy-At-The-Gym-quot-Fallacy&p=24268180&viewfull=1#post24268180) that ended up with people divided pretty strongly into two camps. That link is to one of the more succinct summaries of the debate, but the whole thing after that point is I would say worth a read if you're really that interested in my position and the counterarguments.

[Dmitriy]

Not this again. :smallsigh:

No, a fighter doesn't have to invest in any damage boosters in order to be arguably the most effective class in the game in combat. No, a fighter doesn't have to be high-op in order to ignore their damage potential and still be a very competent combatant. And yes, higher level actually high-op fighters can beat every opponent ever published by Paizo in combat, typically including when facing several opponents of CR 27 - 30 simultaneously and with very little preparation, some of them without even breaking a sweat. IOW: in practice, the PF fighter doesn't have much in common with its 3.5 predecessor. You should try playing one sometime!

Right. Remove the most outrageous caster cheese and GM fiat not allowed in most sane games (bind/call/gate unique high CR creatures, Sacred Geometry, Tromp L'oeil, glimpse of the Akashic, generous interpretation of the term "statistics" in army across time description, etc.) and try build a straight 20th level full caster (without Mythic tiers and using only a published race with less than 11 RP) capable of fighting for example first Cthulhu and Hastur, followed by successfully making it through victorious in the final level of Rappan Athuk (the "impossible" version with max number of opponents), immediately followed by fighting Nocticula, Pazuzu and Shax, and finally Baba Yaga, all as written and all in the same day. Good luck.

(Coincidentally, I very recently ran a straight fighter 20 through the above gauntlet (also including a bunch of the highest DC traps, haunts and hazards), and she came out victorious with very little trouble. In fact, most of the opponents didn't have much of chance and were beaten before they could act after initiative was rolled. And the fighter in question has a pretty pathetic DPR. She can very easily trip, bull rush and dirty trick Cthulhu though, despite his Colossal size, CMD of 98 and fly speed, and likewise she has no problems with the many DC 40+ saves or the opponents' save bonuses above +40.)

That said, I agree martials do need greater versatility outside of combat, at least in higher levels.



Would you mind sharing your build and the details of this "gauntler" challenge?
By the way, I don't play in the epic levels myself, but yes, I've heard that at this point, a lot of cheese stops working (e.g. any saving throw will be made), so new cheese is needed.

[Quertus]

Second, I don't think I agree with the second part either. Ex abilities can certainly violate physics, but I think there should be limits to what they can achieve too. I wouldn't be on board with Ex Resurrection or Ex Gate or Ex Wail of the Banshee for instance.

IRL, we call Ex Resurrection "mouth to mouth", "CPR", or any number of other things. Yes, it has limits - and so does everything else.

IRL, we call Ex Wail of the Banshee a "concert", where the music (and lights) can cause epileptic fits or even death.

Ex Gate… that one's trickier. Ask Lovecraft? But… probably "dreaming" qualifies?

[Batcathat]

IRL, we call Ex Resurrection "mouth to mouth", "CPR", or any number of other things. Yes, it has limits - and so does everything else.

This one feels like too much of a stretch. Bringing back the actually dead and bringing back the dying isn't just a difference in scale.

[Tvtyrant]

This one feels like too much of a stretch. Bringing back the actually dead and bringing back the dying isn't just a difference in scale.

So just make it so someone isn't actually dead for a lot longer? "He's only mostly dead" is a legitimate trope for this.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

It's also totally possible to bring someone back from clinical death; without lasting damage, even. It's brain death that's impossible for modern science to reverse.

[Psyren]

IRL, we call Ex Resurrection "mouth to mouth", "CPR", or any number of other things. Yes, it has limits - and so does everything else.

IRL, we call Ex Wail of the Banshee a "concert", where the music (and lights) can cause epileptic fits or even death.

Ex Gate… that one's trickier. Ask Lovecraft? But… probably "dreaming" qualifies?

I can't tell if these are attempts at being tongue-in-cheek or not, that's always been tricky through text.

As a reminder though, D&D Resurrection is much more than mere resuscitation, given that it can completely reconstruct your body from even the smallest remains.

[Batcathat]

It's also totally possible to bring someone back from clinical death; without lasting damage, even. It's brain death that's impossible for modern science to reverse.

Sure. But Resurrection can't just bring someone back even if they're braindead but even if they've started to decompose or there's no body at all. Which is why I felt that comparing CPR to Resurrection isn't just comparing apples to oranges, it's comparing apples to zebras.