Combat, Feats, Magic, and how silly it all seems

[AnimeTheCat]

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about combat in 3.5 and Pathfinder, and I think I've come to the conclusion that it's pretty imbalanced from it's very conception. Here's what I mean;

Spellcasting just works. The spellcaster picks their spells from a massive list or from a monstrous list of scrolls, wands, staves, potions, etc and they just work. Point, click, done. No feats required, no real build resources required, if you mess it up you can fix it with some rest or with a little gold... it just works and it is non-impactful on resources. In terms of combat utility, spells are king of the hill. They range from simple damage or debuff, to combination damage and debuff or healing and buff. They can grant extra actions, bonuses to actual important (or all) saves, bonuses to hit and damage, initiative, etc. They're super useful to every facet of combat.

Then you get to anything other than spellcasting and... what happened? Grappling, take the feat and still suck at it. Tripping, you better devote all of your resources to being exceedingly good at it... and try not to trip quadrupeds. Sundering, take the feat and say goodbye to money. Disarming, take the feat and cry when you fight monsters with natural weapons. Power attacking, take the feat and cry while you whiff and deal no damage. Everything requires a feat, for whatever reason, and the benefits never expand, grow, or improve unless further feats are taken. And, because these are all feats, you're stuck with them (unless you spend way too much money retraining them). There are very few ways, outside of custom magic items, to get any feats for free (unlike scrolls, wands, etc).

From the moment combat was conceived in this way, anything other than a spellcaster was crippled. It seems strange to me that you have to spend build resources to be able to wildly swing your weapon. Power attack, as a feat, would be much better if it didn't incur an attack penalty at all, and just gave you extra damage. Let everyone power attack without a feat, in the normal power attack way. -1 to hit for +1 damage with a one handed weapon, -1 to hit for +2 damage with a two handed weapon (or one handed weapon in two hands). Take the feat improved power attack and now you don't suffer the penalties to hit, or they are drastically reduced. This would represent training to hone your strikes in more damaging ways, but wouldn't damage your ability to actually perform in combat. Would every primary melee combatant still always take the feat, sure, but it would be better and, if you're fine with the penalties anyway, maybe you won't take it!

I feel like the same should extend to grappling, tripping, overruning, unarmed combat etc. The way the combat maneuvers work with the feat should be the way they work without it, with a few notable exceptions such as improved overrun doesn't allow the target the option to avoid and they should still get that option without a feat. That sort of thing. An attack of opportunity foiling an unarmed strike or grapple attempt never made any sense to me. I would not call myself some highly trained warrior, but I've been in fights before with people who have had knives, nightsticks, and even firearms. I've had a week of hand to hand combative training in my whole life, of which 4 of the 5 days were classroom instruction. I have yet to not punch the intended person in the face, even as they try to hit me, avoid me, or are aiming a gun at me. I've taken a nightstick to the face and still managed to hit the other individual, push all of my body weight behind them, and bring them to the ground. The proposition that you must achieve some level of training to make your fists lethal or to be able to take an individual to the ground and wrap them up is silly, and one of the biggest failures of the system. These are things that normal, untrained, unrefined, basic people do. All the time. A human wrestling is no different from two dogs wrestling, they just do it. I would think that an individual trained to use a sword in combat would be prepared for an incoming strike while they attempt to punch an opponent. Basic combat involves use of more than the actual weapon you're using, it involves using your body, the weapon, and quickly putting them together in your mind to come up with the most effective defense and offense. Tripping people, punching people, bullrushing people, grabbing people, these are all basic tactics that any combatant of any walk of life will learn.

So, this is what I think D&D should do, or i guess should have done. Don't have "nonproficiency" penalties or require feats to achieve basic competency for basic combat tactics. Let feats represent specialization, additional training, or truly monumental abilities, not "I figured out how to punch somebody without getting stabbed" or "I figured out how to shift my body weight in to someone's chest without getting stabbed and getting stopped because the bad guy gave me an ouchy boo boo". Let all of this stuff be normal, in combat, and widely used. Let feats improve these things and make them have more impactful results. For example, instead of having Power Attack as a feat, just skip power attack and have a new feat called "Bloody Mess".
Bloody Mess [General, Fighter Bonus]
Normal: When you power attack, you can take a penalty to attack rolls up to your Base Attack Bonus for a bonus to damage. If you are using a one handed weapon, you gain +1 damage for each point of BAB penalty you take. If you are using a Two handed weapon or a One Handed weapon in two hands, you gain +2 damage for each point of BAB penalty you take. You may not power attack with a light weapon.
Benefit: When you power attack, ignore the first point of BAB penalty you take. This effectively grants you an additional +1 or +2 damage whenever you power attack, or lets you power attack for +1 or +2 damage without penalty. If you have other feats that let you ignore BAB penalties, these feast stack. For example, if you had the [insert feat] feat and this feat, you would be able to ignore 2 points of BAB penalty. Additionally, when you successfully hit with a power attack, you have learned to angle your weapon in such a way that you cause blood or viscera to splatter all over adjacent opponents. Enemies who are adjacent to the target must make a Reflex save to avoid being blinded by the gore. The DC is equal to 10+1/2 your BAB+your strength modifier. For every 5 points of BAB penalty you take on your attacks, the range of this ability increases by 5 feet (10 feet at -5 BAB, 15 feet at -10 BAB, 20 feet at -15 BAB, and 25 feet at -20 BAB). A creature who is affected by this can use either a standard or a move action to wipe the gore from their eyes, but doing so provokes an attack of opportunity. If a creature fails two consecutive saves, they are sickened for the duration of the combat.
Special: a fighter may select Bloody Mess as a bonus feat.

You may think, "Oh, that's really strong for a feat" or "What are the prerequisites" to which I would respond, "That's the point" and "nothing, why would there be?". There's such a heavy bias against non-spellcasters doing fantastical things and it shows in the fact that you have to take a feat just to be able to punch somebody without being attacked. If you're trained to swing a sword at somebody, delivering a punch is not so different. I think it all falls under the Guy at the Gym Fallacy (or whatever it's called) that we can't let "normal" people do fantastical things in a fantasy setting where wizards snort bat poop and fart out a fireball.

There's no real point to this, I have just been thinking about it recently as I've been running a new game and I just think that I needed to share my musings.

[noob]

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about combat in 3.5 and Pathfinder, and I think I've come to the conclusion that it's pretty imbalanced from it's very conception. Here's what I mean;

Spellcasting just works. The spellcaster picks their spells from a massive list or from a monstrous list of scrolls, wands, staves, potions, etc and they just work. Point, click, done. No feats required, no real build resources required, if you mess it up you can fix it with some rest or with a little gold... it just works and it is non-impactful on resources. In terms of combat utility, spells are king of the hill. They range from simple damage or debuff, to combination damage and debuff or healing and buff. They can grant extra actions, bonuses to actual important (or all) saves, bonuses to hit and damage, initiative, etc. They're super useful to every facet of combat.

Then you get to anything other than spellcasting and... what happened? Grappling, take the feat and still suck at it. Tripping, you better devote all of your resources to being exceedingly good at it... and try not to trip quadrupeds. Sundering, take the feat and say goodbye to money. Disarming, take the feat and cry when you fight monsters with natural weapons. Power attacking, take the feat and cry while you whiff and deal no damage. Everything requires a feat, for whatever reason, and the benefits never expand, grow, or improve unless further feats are taken. And, because these are all feats, you're stuck with them (unless you spend way too much money retraining them). There are very few ways, outside of custom magic items, to get any feats for free (unlike scrolls, wands, etc).

From the moment combat was conceived in this way, anything other than a spellcaster was crippled. It seems strange to me that you have to spend build resources to be able to wildly swing your weapon. Power attack, as a feat, would be much better if it didn't incur an attack penalty at all, and just gave you extra damage. Let everyone power attack without a feat, in the normal power attack way. -1 to hit for +1 damage with a one handed weapon, -1 to hit for +2 damage with a two handed weapon (or one handed weapon in two hands). Take the feat improved power attack and now you don't suffer the penalties to hit, or they are drastically reduced. This would represent training to hone your strikes in more damaging ways, but wouldn't damage your ability to actually perform in combat. Would every primary melee combatant still always take the feat, sure, but it would be better and, if you're fine with the penalties anyway, maybe you won't take it!

I feel like the same should extend to grappling, tripping, overruning, unarmed combat etc. The way the combat maneuvers work with the feat should be the way they work without it, with a few notable exceptions such as improved overrun doesn't allow the target the option to avoid and they should still get that option without a feat. That sort of thing. An attack of opportunity foiling an unarmed strike or grapple attempt never made any sense to me. I would not call myself some highly trained warrior, but I've been in fights before with people who have had knives, nightsticks, and even firearms. I've had a week of hand to hand combative training in my whole life, of which 4 of the 5 days were classroom instruction. I have yet to not punch the intended person in the face, even as they try to hit me, avoid me, or are aiming a gun at me. I've taken a nightstick to the face and still managed to hit the other individual, push all of my body weight behind them, and bring them to the ground. The proposition that you must achieve some level of training to make your fists lethal or to be able to take an individual to the ground and wrap them up is silly, and one of the biggest failures of the system. These are things that normal, untrained, unrefined, basic people do. All the time. A human wrestling is no different from two dogs wrestling, they just do it. I would think that an individual trained to use a sword in combat would be prepared for an incoming strike while they attempt to punch an opponent. Basic combat involves use of more than the actual weapon you're using, it involves using your body, the weapon, and quickly putting them together in your mind to come up with the most effective defense and offense. Tripping people, punching people, bullrushing people, grabbing people, these are all basic tactics that any combatant of any walk of life will learn.

So, this is what I think D&D should do, or i guess should have done. Don't have "nonproficiency" penalties or require feats to achieve basic competency for basic combat tactics. Let feats represent specialization, additional training, or truly monumental abilities, not "I figured out how to punch somebody without getting stabbed" or "I figured out how to shift my body weight in to someone's chest without getting stabbed and getting stopped because the bad guy gave me an ouchy boo boo". Let all of this stuff be normal, in combat, and widely used. Let feats improve these things and make them have more impactful results. For example, instead of having Power Attack as a feat, just skip power attack and have a new feat called "Bloody Mess".
Bloody Mess [General, Fighter Bonus]
Normal: When you power attack, you can take a penalty to attack rolls up to your Base Attack Bonus for a bonus to damage. If you are using a one handed weapon, you gain +1 damage for each point of BAB penalty you take. If you are using a Two handed weapon or a One Handed weapon in two hands, you gain +2 damage for each point of BAB penalty you take. You may not power attack with a light weapon.
Benefit: When you power attack, ignore the first point of BAB penalty you take. This effectively grants you an additional +1 or +2 damage whenever you power attack, or lets you power attack for +1 or +2 damage without penalty. If you have other feats that let you ignore BAB penalties, these feast stack. For example, if you had the [insert feat] feat and this feat, you would be able to ignore 2 points of BAB penalty. Additionally, when you successfully hit with a power attack, you have learned to angle your weapon in such a way that you cause blood or viscera to splatter all over adjacent opponents. Enemies who are adjacent to the target must make a Reflex save to avoid being blinded by the gore. The DC is equal to 10+1/2 your BAB+your strength modifier. For every 5 points of BAB penalty you take on your attacks, the range of this ability increases by 5 feet (10 feet at -5 BAB, 15 feet at -10 BAB, 20 feet at -15 BAB, and 25 feet at -20 BAB). A creature who is affected by this can use either a standard or a move action to wipe the gore from their eyes, but doing so provokes an attack of opportunity. If a creature fails two consecutive saves, they are sickened for the duration of the combat.
Special: a fighter may select Bloody Mess as a bonus feat.

You may think, "Oh, that's really strong for a feat" or "What are the prerequisites" to which I would respond, "That's the point" and "nothing, why would there be?". There's such a heavy bias against non-spellcasters doing fantastical things and it shows in the fact that you have to take a feat just to be able to punch somebody without being attacked. If you're trained to swing a sword at somebody, delivering a punch is not so different. I think it all falls under the Guy at the Gym Fallacy (or whatever it's called) that we can't let "normal" people do fantastical things in a fantasy setting where wizards snort bat poop and fart out a fireball.

There's no real point to this, I have just been thinking about it recently as I've been running a new game and I just think that I needed to share my musings.

I think that feat is really weak: if you wanted it to match with spellcaster power it should also splatter blood on a miss and be usable at a distance.

[AnimeTheCat]

I think that feat is really weak: if you wanted it to match with spellcaster power it should also splatter blood on a miss and be usable at a distance.

haha, sure. You're right. But compared to the existing Power Attack or the slew of other useless feats, this is leaps and bounds stronger as it give you a bonus to damage without penalty, gives you an always on debuff, and lets you compound it for better debuffs simply by doing what you'll already be doing. I feel like you're adding some sarcasm in there for effect with "useable at a distance" to showcase how much more powerful spells are, but I don't think that someone with a melee focus is going to be too concerned with being able to cut the air to do this, though... that wouldn't be a bad feat either I suppose.

EDIT: I'm not suggesting that the feat would match a martial with a spellcaster either, but it would make the inherent imbalance between the two styles of combat less impactful, in my opinion. This isn't proposed as a fighter fix, far from it (give the thing actual class features...) this is more about the inherent imbalance that a spellcaster doesn't need feats to do basic spellcaster things, but non-spellcasters have to hoard their sheckles to be able to do basic combat things.

[noob]

haha, sure. You're right. But compared to the existing Power Attack or the slew of other useless feats, this is leaps and bounds stronger as it give you a bonus to damage without penalty, gives you an always on debuff, and lets you compound it for better debuffs simply by doing what you'll already be doing. I feel like you're adding some sarcasm in there for effect with "useable at a distance" to showcase how much more powerful spells are, but I don't think that someone with a melee focus is going to be too concerned with being able to cut the air to do this, though... that wouldn't be a bad feat either I suppose.

EDIT: I'm not suggesting that the feat would match a martial with a spellcaster either, but it would make the inherent imbalance between the two styles of combat less impactful, in my opinion. This isn't proposed as a fighter fix, far from it (give the thing actual class features...) this is more about the inherent imbalance that a spellcaster doesn't need feats to do basic spellcaster things, but non-spellcasters have to hoard their sheckles to be able to do basic combat things.

There was no sarcasm: there is a major issue which is that non casters needs ridiculous investment to be good at range.
Removing the "range only feat" and "melee only feat" divide would help massively those that wants to be good both at range and melee.

[AnimeTheCat]

There was no sarcasm: there is a major issue which is that non casters needs ridiculous investment to be good at range.
Removing the "range only feat" and "melee only feat" divide would help massively those that wants to be good both at range and melee.

hmm... you're actually on to something there. In my personal thoughts, you would have Power Attack for your one handed and two handed attacks, and precise attacks for your light and ranged attacks (basically the same thing as power attack, but thrown weapons get the -1 for +2 bonus, light and other ranged weapons get the -1 for +1). I guess you're right that there's no reason to be stingy here, any time you make a power attack or precise attack, you proc Bloody Mess.

As for having it activate on a miss, there's just no way to really make that work at all. Plus, if a monster has SR, a spellcaster still needs to overcome that in order to have their spell work, so... I don't know. I think there's room for other abilities, class features, etc that could function without requiring a to-hit, such as like a thunderous strike attack that causes a target to make a save or be tripped (successful save treats the creature as if they were balancing a la grease spell) against a DC or attack roll that doesn't matter whether the attack hits or not, it's the sheer force behind the attack that is causing the save.

Because feats are basically always on, I think that there is right to be some limit to them, i.e. not cramming everything in to a single feat, but I do think that giving non-spellcasters a way to succeed even if an attack misses is a good call and would go a long way to balancing out capabilities in combat.

EDIT: As for investment in to ranged combat, I think that's another example of what could just exist without the feat. Make shooting multiple arrows as a standard action something any bow user can do, and then create feats to improve this, negate penalties completely, etc. Maybe manyshot just functions exactly as it does in the feat, but doesn't require the feat, and Precise Shot just... stops existing, and Precise shot is a bonus affect attached to any bow specialization feat. Rapid shot and Two Weapon Fighting are... tough. I would say that get rid of the improved and greater versions and leave it at that though. One feat is sufficient resource investment to specialize in something in my opinion.

[Melcar]

A lot of really interesting ideas...

I think you are generally on to something. While not exactly the same, I have been tinkering with the idea of allowing feats to be taken multiple times. Like there is only one non-epic feat that directly improves your grapple... why not be able to take Improved grapple multiple times to increase your specialization? That sort of things. I like your idea of power attack, which I might consider trying out my self, next time I DM...

[RandomPeasant]

Spellcasting just works. The spellcaster picks their spells from a massive list or from a monstrous list of scrolls, wands, staves, potions, etc and they just work.

What are saves? What is spell resistance? What are damage rolls? What are immunities? Spells absolutely don't "just work". There are lots of things you can do to stop any particular spell from working, and characters who specialize in a single spell absolutely do have to dedicate resources to ensure that spell isn't dead against whatever opposition they happen to face. Like, you're not wrong that mundanes get the short end of the stick, but overselling what casters can do doesn't help your case.

[AnimeTheCat]

What are saves? What is spell resistance? What are damage rolls? What are immunities? Spells absolutely don't "just work". There are lots of things you can do to stop any particular spell from working, and characters who specialize in a single spell absolutely do have to dedicate resources to ensure that spell isn't dead against whatever opposition they happen to face. Like, you're not wrong that mundanes get the short end of the stick, but overselling what casters can do doesn't help your case.

You do realize that there are lots of spells that are "Save of be X, on a successful save still Y" right? Spell resistance is easy to overcome, even without investment, and I'm not even talking about damage rolls in the abstract. The fact that you have to invest resources to swing your weapon really hard is bogus. A spellcaster need only level up to make a level 1 spell stronger. One costs resources at a much higher cost than the other.

And spellcasters never have to specialize in a single spell. That's kind of their whole shtick. If spell X doesn't work, they have spells Y, Z, A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Every spellcasting class gets more than 7 spells known, and they don't have to spend one of those spells known to learn "Cast Spells".

[noob]

You do realize that there are lots of spells that are "Save of be X, on a successful save still Y" right? Spell resistance is easy to overcome, even without investment, and I'm not even talking about damage rolls in the abstract. The fact that you have to invest resources to swing your weapon really hard is bogus. A spellcaster need only level up to make a level 1 spell stronger. One costs resources at a much higher cost than the other.

And spellcasters never have to specialize in a single spell. That's kind of their whole shtick. If spell X doesn't work, they have spells Y, Z, A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Every spellcasting class gets more than 7 spells known, and they don't have to spend one of those spells known to learn "Cast Spells".

Attacks have even more barriers including stuff like miss chance and things that just make your attack fail and cover and invisibility.

[DragonIceAdept]

This reminds me of the Tome Fighter project. They made martial feats scale based on BAB, and having more BAB than your opponent gave you a gigantic array of bonuses. Check it out.

For me, at its core, martials just aren't good enough at battlefield control. Think of something like Benign Transposition. It's one of the most useful spells in the game and it's 1st level!

[Dr_Dinosaur]

You should try Spheres of Power. It lets martials actually do things other than charge+full attack competently and requires casters to play the same game as the others for once

[Seerow]

You should try Spheres of Power. It lets martials actually do things other than charge+full attack competently and requires casters to play the same game as the others for once

Spheres of might/power is great, but still has some holes. Every martial character is still strongly encouraged to basically invest everything they have into one single trick that they can repeat indefinitely. And almost all melee characters are going to end up in berserker because you can just stack literally everything else into a brutal strike.

[liquidformat]

While I agree with your sentiment are noticeable differences in combat capability that come with trains. So while sure anyone can grapple, trip, disarm, bullrush and so on and so forth out the gate training makes a huge difference in your capabilities. So the initial penalty on these isn't horribly unreasonable nor is having a mechanic inside the system that represents your focus on utilizing these types of attacks. For example a person's natural reaction to being punched in the face is to close their eyes and also pause your movements, overcoming both of these takes a decent amount of training and utilizing this 'exploit' is a common tactic in most martial arts.

I personally think Improved Unarmed Strike should be added to Martial weapons it doesn't make sense why it is treated as an exotic weapon or just use weapon groups (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DLN1nYjfnK_UWmVrFn4DwPhIMJKkMlyHx2yefwZgT1M/edit?usp=sharing) which I think is a superior mechanic anyways. (I am still adding to it so let me know if you see anything missing or think something should be moved)

Here are some homebrew stuff I have been working on. There are a lot of feats that should be moved to just normal game mechanic rules, improved so they are worth taking, turned into skill tricks, or moved down from epic; so I have been working on a database of Adjusted Feats (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pFwSVo331SLpKZRV_1utDb_IBKt4lwNtXlPgEgpjX8w/edit?usp=sharing).

Another big consideration is the fact that mundanes rarely get to use swift and free actions and throughout their carrier even though they improve at using full attack actions they don't improve at using standard actions which seems strange. So here is a potential way for combat to be improved across the board based on BAB:

You get iteratives for full attack every 5 points of base attack bonus you have above 1 as normal.
At levels 8 and 15 - additional attack as part of a standard action.
This would limit the number of attacks in a standard attack action pre-epic to 3, giving the full-attack action still some merit and use, while not leaving anyone too in misery about their standard actions going to waste later.
+12 - 1 attack as swift action.
(maybe?) +19 - 1 attack as a free action.


Properties of this progression:

For the price of a standard and a swift, at BAB+15 you do get 4 extra attacks, but not technically a full attack action, which some bits of the game specifically interact with(hence why it's okay to get these a BAB earlier than a regular 4-attack full attack).
You get a nice progression in the mid levels, where you keep getting interesting new options regularly.
A default use of your swift action, which for certain builds is a very good idea.
Swift actions count as free. So anytime you can act - including around AoOs, immediate actions, etc.
1 attack as a free action is strong, but still pales in comparison to what casters do at these levels. Abuse potential is indeterminate. Food for thought. Only counterpoint might be that it adds more of the same rather than interesting things to do. Quantitative rather than qualitative. Martials are significantly better served by the latter.


*I actually like the idea of pulling the Called Shot Rules (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/called-shots/) from PF into the Sundering rules in 3.5 and combining the Improved Sunder and Called Shot Feats into one feat.

[RandomPeasant]

You do realize that there are lots of spells that are "Save of be X, on a successful save still Y" right?

Sure. And the effects you get out of those spells are less impressive than the effects you'd get from a more binary spell of the same level. Options don't exist in a vacuum. It may be that it is correct to take the lower variance option, but that does not make it costless.


Spell resistance is easy to overcome, even without investment, and I'm not even talking about damage rolls in the abstract.

Again, picking a spell that does not have a downside is not the same as not having a downside. I would rather hit someone with charm monster than orb of acid, even if the former allows spell resistance and the latter does not.


And spellcasters never have to specialize in a single spell.

Martials don't have to either. But some spellcasters choose to, by taking feats like Arcane Thesis.

[liquidformat]

This reminds me of the Tome Fighter project. They made martial feats scale based on BAB, and having more BAB than your opponent gave you a gigantic array of bonuses. Check it out.

For me, at its core, martials just aren't good enough at battlefield control. Think of something like Benign Transposition. It's one of the most useful spells in the game and it's 1st level!

I am bad at googlefu, do you have a link to the Tome Fighter project?

[Psyren]

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about combat in 3.5 and Pathfinder, and I think I've come to the conclusion that it's pretty imbalanced from it's very conception.
...
There's no real point to this, I have just been thinking about it recently as I've been running a new game and I just think that I needed to share my musings.

Not to discount all the thought you put into your OP, but this has been known for quite some time and there are numerous patches and fixes out there both in first- and third-party. None of them works universally for every table - I imagine if one did, the author would simply make a new d20 system of their own around them and make bank - but it shouldn't be terribly difficult to find one that works for yours. (General you meaning anyone, not specifically you.)

Using PF as an example - the base system doesn't eliminate this problem by any means, but it does help bring the martial-caster divide closer together than it was in 3.5 as a baseline. Then you can choose whether you want to buttress it further using martial buffs like the Stamina system + casting nerfs like Limited Spellcasting or Simplified Spellcasting, or supplant it entirely with the alternate combat engines like Spheres and PoW, or even both at once.


TL;DR yes, your first sentence is correct, but it's not exactly a revelation. The question rather is what specifically do you plan to do about it, particularly given that there are many OGL resources you can draw upon to save yourself a lot of work.

[DragonIceAdept]

I am bad at googlefu, do you have a link to the Tome Fighter project?

Here you go (https://sites.google.com/site/middendorfproject/frankpdf). It's the "Download the PDF" link. Be advised it's extremely powerful. The goal was to make fighters on par with tier 1 casters.

[AnimeTheCat]

Again, picking a spell that does not have a downside is not the same as not having a downside. I would rather hit someone with charm monster than orb of acid, even if the former allows spell resistance and the latter does not.
But why would you do either when grease is a lower level spell and is a failed save and be prone, successful save and be balancing?


Not to discount all the thought you put into your OP, but this has been known for quite some time and there are numerous patches and fixes out there both in first- and third-party. None of them works universally for every table - I imagine if one did, the author would simply make a new d20 system of their own around them and make bank - but it shouldn't be terribly difficult to find one that works for yours. (General you meaning anyone, not specifically you.)

Using PF as an example - the base system doesn't eliminate this problem by any means, but it does help bring the martial-caster divide closer together than it was in 3.5 as a baseline. Then you can choose whether you want to buttress it further using martial buffs like the Stamina system + casting nerfs like Limited Spellcasting or Simplified Spellcasting, or supplant it entirely with the alternate combat engines like Spheres and PoW, or even both at once.


TL;DR yes, your first sentence is correct, but it's not exactly a revelation. The question rather is what specifically do you plan to do about it, particularly given that there are many OGL resources you can draw upon to save yourself a lot of work.

I don't really think this was some sort of revelatory thing, everyone knows that spellcasters are better in nearly every way than non-spellcasters. I just think that the issue lies less with spells vs not spells, and more with the fact that in order to obtain a base level of competence in general combative things, you must invest more as a non-spellcaster. In order to be able to even rudimentarily attempt unarmed combat, you must use a feat or play a particular class. In order to have a ghost of a chance at holding on to even another medium sized humanoid, you must first spend two feats (improved unarmed strike, improved grapple) when those sorts of barriers to be ably to function in a very basic capacity are not existent for individuals who cast spells. A wizard doesn't need to have improved spell incantation and improved grappling spells in order for their black tentacles to be effective. That's what I'm getting at. The very fundamentals about how combat works on a basic level are already stacked against non-spellcasters, and they're the ones who are supposed to be "good" at combat things.

But I see what you mean. I know this isn't some "oh my goodness i've never thought about it that way" kind of thing, but I really don't think that the issue is so much that spellcasters get spells and non-spellcasters don't. I think the issue more lies in the fact that spellcasters just have to pick spells to be able to operate like non-spellcasters, and can change those on the fly, while non-spellcasters have to invest a multitude of build resources to keep up with spellcasters in situations where they should already be more competent to begin with. It's less an issue with the spells themselves, and more an issue with having to invest more limited resources to do those things, without gaining any additional benefit other than "i can do this one thing competently", not well, competently.

Now, what do I plan to do about it? Nothing really. I could certainly hombrew, houserule, tinker with, or adjust the rules, and I do so fairly regularly. Like I said, this is just something I've been thinking about recently and that I've decided I'm generally unhappy with how Pathfinder and D&D have both done it. Maybe one day I'll put some rules to a paper and market it, but not in the near future. Making my own system is really the only thing to "do" about it. This was more or less some way to share what I've been thinking because I've been isolated for a little over a year now and the discourse and discussion are helpful to my mental state.

[Psyren]

Well if you're just venting, obviously that's fine - I was merely pointing out that there is middle ground between the extremes of "do nothing and seethe in silence" / "put rules to paper and invent a new system from scratch" / "abandon 3.PF entirely" , especially if you're open to using PF as a base. Between first and third party sources there are a bunch of ways to make this balance far better than it is, and the vast majority of them are (legally) available for free.

[gijoemike]

I have several issues with this feat as written.

The splatter is selective? That makes little to no sense. Splash damage isn't selective. It needs to be everything except the fighter.

Nausea? No, sickening effect for -2 to everything, sure.

Many monsters have a good fort, and/or are immune to blind/nausea conditions.

Having monsters/fighters react to "eewwww blood in my eyes!" makes no sense. They all cause per encounter this especially if they have all taken the feat. And power attack is a very common feat for everything to take. Covered in blood guts and gore is very standard for all melee types.

Nausea lasting until the end of combat is also odd. Normally this has a duration. Make the status condition 1 minute long or 5 rounds. That is more than long enough to last all of a combat.

Many encounters don't fight monsters that have blood/guts and gore. Ghosts, golems, treants, assassin vines, etc. The way this is described it needs to have the sneak attack clause of if you cannot crit it it doesn't work. Which nerfs this to the basement.

And finally, you complain about multiple combat maneuvers and power attack. But this feat barely improves on PA. Only 1 bab for free? You know what does that? Weapon Focus, one of the most boring feats in the entire game. Instead do this

Combat option available to anyone
Power Attack: take a -4 to hit for +2 to damage using a one handed or 2 handed melee weapon of your size category or larger.
Combat Expertise: take a -4 to hit for +2 AC

Feats:
Practiced Power Attack: reduce the penalty for power attacking by 2. May take an additional penalty to-hit up to your base attack bonus. Increase the damage by 1 point per base attack pts or by 2 points if using the weapon with both hands per additional penalty. At Base attack bonus of +4 and every 4 points after that decrease the penalty and increase the damage by 2 more points.


So any character can take -4 hit/ +2 damage. But it doesn't have the 2-handed extra damage rider.
a lvl 1 character: -2/+2. The 2-hand damage rider doesn't apply.
a lvl 1 character with bab +1: -2/+2 any, -3/+3 1 hand or -3/+4 2 handed.
a lvl 4 character with bab +4: 0/+4 any, -4/+8 1 handed or -4/+ 12 2 handed.
a lvl 8 character with bab +8 : 0/+6 any*, -8/+14 1 handed or -8/+24 2 handed
a lvl 16 character with bab+16: 0/+10 any*, -10/+26 1 handed or -10/+42 2 handed.
a lvl 20 character with bab +20: 0/+12 any*, -12/+32 1 handed, or -12/+52 2 handed.

these final 3 entries are when not taking any advantage of the power attack feat even though they have penalty offset to completely negate the first 2,6,and 8 points of penalty at levels 8,16, and 20 respectively. I am attempting to showcase there is free +12 damage built into one feat.


a rogue with 10 dice of d6 sneak attack on average does 35 damage extra. This is below that level even maxed out. And spells will instantly kill you anyway or will do a condition/status that is a fight ender.


Practiced Combat Expertise: reduce the penalty for fighting defensively by 2. May take an additional penalty to-hit up to your base attack bonus. Increase the AC modifier by 1 point per additional penalty. At Base attack bonus of +4 and every 4 points after that decrease the penalty and increase the AC by 2 more points.

at lvl 12 with +12 bab: -0/+8, -8/+20

Let your heavy hitter actually hit hard. Let your defensive fighter expert actually have unnamed ac bonus not capped at level 5. I am taking the adjustment of 4 points of base attack from pathfinders version of power attack. Let these feats have level improvements similar to how skill focus doubles its bonus at a certain level. Don't make a PC take an additional feat to get better at the thing they do every combat and naturally get better at just by leveling as the effectiveness of these feats are tied to their base attack already.

These 2 example feats don't give you a ranged debuff that is highly questionable but it addresses power attack not doing enough damage, not being a normal combat option, and if you actually use combat expertise/power attack you miss and do nothing making them detrimental feats on occasion. Feats should give you a bonus for using them.



Now the real issue at hand....

Spell casters operate using a different set of rules. You know what did a good job of fixing that. 4ed. 4th ed gets much flack but here is the truth. In 4th end. The aggressor rolls an attack roll against a set defense of a defender. Spells, attacks, conditions. All operated under the same rules. But in 3.5 there are a dozen different ways to answer "I want to be offensive to that guy". Weapon -> you roll d20, spell with save -> they roll d20, some spells required 2 saves, some spells required an attack roll, some just worked. It is all just silly. Why is it for melee the attack must hit to affect, but for spell casters it is normally the defender must save to not affect. Some spells are roll to hit using special modifiers, but they get a save anyway.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Spheres of might/power is great, but still has some holes. Every martial character is still strongly encouraged to basically invest everything they have into one single trick that they can repeat indefinitely. And almost all melee characters are going to end up in berserker because you can just stack literally everything else into a brutal strike.

Still, they're different tricks and most will grab like 2 talents in Berserker, plus they get bonus skills from many spheres.

[AnimeTheCat]

I have several issues with this feat as written.

The splatter is selective? That makes little to no sense. Splash damage isn't selective. It needs to be everything except the fighter.

Nausea? No, sickening effect for -2 to everything, sure.

Many monsters have a good fort, and/or are immune to blind/nausea conditions.

Having monsters/fighters react to "eewwww blood in my eyes!" makes no sense. They all cause per encounter this especially if they have all taken the feat. And power attack is a very common feat for everything to take. Covered in blood guts and gore is very standard for all melee types.

Nausea lasting until the end of combat is also odd. Normally this has a duration. Make the status condition 1 minute long or 5 rounds. That is more than long enough to last all of a combat.

Many encounters don't fight monsters that have blood/guts and gore. Ghosts, golems, treants, assassin vines, etc. The way this is described it needs to have the sneak attack clause of if you cannot crit it it doesn't work. Which nerfs this to the basement.

And finally, you complain about multiple combat maneuvers and power attack. But this feat barely improves on PA. Only 1 bab for free? You know what does that? Weapon Focus, one of the most boring feats in the entire game. Instead do this

Combat option available to anyone
Power Attack: take a -4 to hit for +2 to damage using a one handed or 2 handed melee weapon of your size category or larger.
Combat Expertise: take a -4 to hit for +2 AC

Feats:
Practiced Power Attack: reduce the penalty for power attacking by 2. May take an additional penalty to-hit up to your base attack bonus. Increase the damage by 1 point per base attack pts or by 2 points if using the weapon with both hands per additional penalty. At Base attack bonus of +4 and every 4 points after that decrease the penalty and increase the damage by 2 more points.


So any character can take -4 hit/ +2 damage. But it doesn't have the 2-handed extra damage rider.
a lvl 1 character: -2/+2. The 2-hand damage rider doesn't apply.
a lvl 1 character with bab +1: -2/+2 any, -3/+3 1 hand or -3/+4 2 handed.
a lvl 4 character with bab +4: 0/+4 any, -4/+8 1 handed or -4/+ 12 2 handed.
a lvl 8 character with bab +8 : 0/+6 any*, -8/+14 1 handed or -8/+24 2 handed
a lvl 16 character with bab+16: 0/+10 any*, -10/+26 1 handed or -10/+42 2 handed.
a lvl 20 character with bab +20: 0/+12 any*, -12/+32 1 handed, or -12/+52 2 handed.

these final 3 entries are when not taking any advantage of the power attack feat even though they have penalty offset to completely negate the first 2,6,and 8 points of penalty at levels 8,16, and 20 respectively. I am attempting to showcase there is free +12 damage built into one feat.


a rogue with 10 dice of d6 sneak attack on average does 35 damage extra. This is below that level even maxed out. And spells will instantly kill you anyway or will do a condition/status that is a fight ender.


Practiced Combat Expertise: reduce the penalty for fighting defensively by 2. May take an additional penalty to-hit up to your base attack bonus. Increase the AC modifier by 1 point per additional penalty. At Base attack bonus of +4 and every 4 points after that decrease the penalty and increase the AC by 2 more points.

at lvl 12 with +12 bab: -0/+8, -8/+20

Let your heavy hitter actually hit hard. Let your defensive fighter expert actually have unnamed ac bonus not capped at level 5. I am taking the adjustment of 4 points of base attack from pathfinders version of power attack. Let these feats have level improvements similar to how skill focus doubles its bonus at a certain level. Don't make a PC take an additional feat to get better at the thing they do every combat and naturally get better at just by leveling as the effectiveness of these feats are tied to their base attack already.

These 2 example feats don't give you a ranged debuff that is highly questionable but it addresses power attack not doing enough damage, not being a normal combat option, and if you actually use combat expertise/power attack you miss and do nothing making them detrimental feats on occasion. Feats should give you a bonus for using them.
Why do spellcasters get to be the only ones who get to do fantastical things by default, but non-spellcasters have to "make sense"? Who cares if it's blood splatter of a big ole flap of rotten flesh that slaps another zombie in the face and blocks it's eyes? Who cares if it's guts or ectoplasmic goo? This is a fantasy game where fantastical heroes do fantastical things.

What's the difference between "until the end of combat", "lasts for 1 minute", and "Lasts for 5 rounds" when combat is over in 4 rounds? literally nothing.

Why would you make power attacking worse, give worse power attack to everyone, and the make "power attack but totally not called power attack" in to a feat. Completely missed the point of making power attacking, as it already exists, the norm and making feats that expand up on it, improve it, and give it rider effects. The whole point is to remove barriers for entry. Who cares if everyone is power attacking, the guy who has 3 feats that improve power attacking will be better than the guy that has no feats improving power attacking PLUS the guy with 3 feats improving it will be able to do more than just damage with their attacks. Also, I never said that my grievance with power attack was "not enough damage". In fact, I never claimed to have a grievance with power attack at all. My complaint was that spellcasters get the ability to do their thing by virtue of their class, and the core mechanics of the system support that. Conversely, non-spellcasters have to invest character resources in order to do basic combat activities such as punch with a fist (unarmed strike), push someone really hard (bull rush), swing at something really hard (power attack), run at someone in an attempt to displace them (overrun), smack something out of someone's hand (disarm), sweep someone's leg (trip), etc. with even a base level of competence. All of that grants an enemy an attack of opportunity and you take a -4 penalty to attempt it, which means that if you want to do those things with any level of regularity, you have to spend character resources in order to do so, you don't simply get the ability to do them by virtue of the system or your class.


Now the real issue at hand....

Spell casters operate using a different set of rules. You know what did a good job of fixing that. 4ed. 4th ed gets much flack but here is the truth. In 4th end. The aggressor rolls an attack roll against a set defense of a defender. Spells, attacks, conditions. All operated under the same rules. But in 3.5 there are a dozen different ways to answer "I want to be offensive to that guy". Weapon -> you roll d20, spell with save -> they roll d20, some spells required 2 saves, some spells required an attack roll, some just worked. It is all just silly.

You're missing the point, entirely. This isn't "spellcasters are better than non-spellcasters because of X". This is "Non-spellcasters have to invest resources to achieve a basic level of combat effectiveness while spellcasters gain their basic competence simply by virtue of being a spellcaster who gets spells." Get rid of the penalties to performing at trip. No attack of opportunity, no -4 on the attempt. Creatures in combat can attempt to trip you. period. Then, make feats that make those things better and useful in more ways than "you get bigger numbers to do the thing". specifically in response to this:

Why is it for melee the attack must hit to affect, but for spell casters it is normally the defender must save to not affect. Some spells are roll to hit using special modifiers, but they get a save anyway.
I'll point you to earlier in the thread where I already had this discussion about this specifically with someone else:

hmm... you're actually on to something there. In my personal thoughts, you would have Power Attack for your one handed and two handed attacks, and precise attacks for your light and ranged attacks (basically the same thing as power attack, but thrown weapons get the -1 for +2 bonus, light and other ranged weapons get the -1 for +1). I guess you're right that there's no reason to be stingy here, any time you make a power attack or precise attack, you proc Bloody Mess.

As for having it activate on a miss, there's just no way to really make that work at all. Plus, if a monster has SR, a spellcaster still needs to overcome that in order to have their spell work, so... I don't know. I think there's room for other abilities, class features, etc that could function without requiring a to-hit, such as like a thunderous strike attack that causes a target to make a save or be tripped (successful save treats the creature as if they were balancing a la grease spell) against a DC or attack roll that doesn't matter whether the attack hits or not, it's the sheer force behind the attack that is causing the save.

Because feats are basically always on, I think that there is right to be some limit to them, i.e. not cramming everything in to a single feat, but I do think that giving non-spellcasters a way to succeed even if an attack misses is a good call and would go a long way to balancing out capabilities in combat.

EDIT: As for investment in to ranged combat, I think that's another example of what could just exist without the feat. Make shooting multiple arrows as a standard action something any bow user can do, and then create feats to improve this, negate penalties completely, etc. Maybe manyshot just functions exactly as it does in the feat, but doesn't require the feat, and Precise Shot just... stops existing, and Precise shot is a bonus affect attached to any bow specialization feat. Rapid shot and Two Weapon Fighting are... tough. I would say that get rid of the improved and greater versions and leave it at that though. One feat is sufficient resource investment to specialize in something in my opinion.
So yeah, already talked about that specifically.