Tome of Battle strikes are underpowered

[noce]

Now, now, I know that every melee build gets stronger with a sprinkle of Initiator classes.

Having a stance always active is often much better than a feat (in fact it needs two for non-initiators), and opens up Discipline weapon enhancement.
Boosts and counters are invaluable: extra damage, extra movement, extra action economy, "my will save is a NO-button", etc.
On top of all that, each base class has a good chassis, meaningful class features, is quite frontloaded and multiclass friendly.
Not to mention that some feats (Shadow Blade, Stormguard Warrior) are so strong you can base your entire build around them.

Still, strikes always striked me as underpowered.
Before bab 6, and if not TWF, they're obviously good: any single maneuver is better than a standard attack action. But by level 6? Not so much.
I want to clarify that I'm talking about the many "you hit once as a standard action" strikes, since they're easier to compare to full attack actions.
Obviously there are exceptions where using a strike is worth it, for example Devoted Spirit is handy if you need healing (but again, as a melee I'd rather do more damage instead of a couple d6 healing).

Let's make a couple examples of strikes that you could have by level 6 or 7. I assume 18 on Str or Dex, and +1 greatsword/shortswords:

Insightful Strike: single attack deals Concentration check damage, so 1d20+12 or ~22 damage. Well, a Warblade with Punishing Stance and no Power Attack can easily hit for 3d6+7, so ~17 damage, and has two attacks. You're giving up ~12 damage, more if counting Power Attack.
Soaring Raptor Strike: Jump check, if you succeed you deal +6d6 damage with a bonus to hit, if you fail you do absolutely nothing. Let's take a TWF Shadow Blade Swordsage with Assassin Stance, with a full attack he attacks two times for 1d6+5+2d6 each. This time you can deal ~5 more damage if you succeed, but risk doing ~31 less if you fail.
Ruby Nightmare Blade: Concentration check, if you succeed you deal double damage. So for a two hander you deal the same damage of a full attack when you succeed, half that if you fail.
Obscuring Shadow Veil: +5d6 damage and WIS based Fort save or target has miss chance for 1 round. Ok, 5d6 damage is just a little bit less than 1d6+5+2d6 of the mentioned Swordsage, so it could be a good trade for the debuff. The fact is, it's WIS based, and you would use it against melee enemies, targeting their Fort save: I'm not seeing this landing often.


I could continue, and things just get worse when Warblade gets his third attack at 11, or when Swordsage gets two more at level 8.
Strikes I listed can't compete with things like White Raven Tactics, (unabused)Iron Heart Surge, Defensive Rebuke, Cloak of Deception, Shadow Jaunt or even the lowly Moment of Perfect Mind and Sudden Leap.
The fact is, boosts and counters have a much bigger impact on what your character can or cannot deal with.
Quite often, the benefits strikes grant are not so good or too situational to waste a readied maneuver on them: this is very true for the Warblade, with so few readied maneuvers that you still can't have all the boosts/counters you'd want.

What do you think about it?

[ciopo]

Well, in my mind, strikes are openers.

Sure, *we* know of pounce, pounce is the holy grail of martials, doing full attack on charges.

But, that is not actually that common at tables, or at least at tables I've played with.

So, having one strike readied, to use for the one charge you do in an encounter, is good enough, and more likely than not an improvement over the singular standard attack we would be doing there.

Maybe twice, but if I'm to make an initiator or splash an initiator, I would probably keep only one strike with the manouvers readied, and all others would be utility stuff.


Pounce "issue" aside, of course a standard action has less impact than a full round action, I don't think the comparison is fair.

Aside discussion of hittability of the lower iteratives.


I guess I respectfully disagree, I feel the strike strikes are at about the right place, as things you do once/twice per encounter when you can't or don't want to full attack.

[Fizban]

You had to assume a full damage two-handed weapon or TWF sneak, and standing full attacks with their iterative -5 and -10 penalties, where all attacks hit, in order to get slightly less damage. The skill checks are easier to boost and are generally considered less likely to fail than even your first no-penalty attack, and the single strike maneuvers also allow you to move and use a shield.

I do not think you have proven your point.

[noce]

You had to assume a full damage two-handed weapon or TWF sneak

I assumed the two most common circumstances.
Also, I assumed no magic items except +1 weapons, and no feats except TWF and Shadow Blade for the Swordsage.

My point is, I wouldn't waste a precious readied maneuver on a strike when everything else is so much better.
Your shtick is getting a caster-like progression of mundane abilities, and it is disappointing noting that those fancy abilities just consist in "skill check to do the same damage of a full attack, but on a standard action" or "standard attack damage, plus enemy must save or suffer from feet tickle".

[Maat Mons]

I also find strikes underwhelming. But my reasons are slightly different.

Martial classes are generally lacking in uses for their swift/immediate actions. So boosts and counters are a major power-up. You go from doing nothing with your swift/immediate action to doing something. With strikes, on the other hand, you're using a standard or full-round action to initiate it. But since you already had good things to do with those actions, it's just not the same relative jump.

But the thing that really makes most of them uninteresting to me is that they tend to focus on dealing damage. The game already has oodles and oodles of ways to deal damage. So adding yet more to the pile is just... meh.

[Lans]

1 You appear to have given your full attackers the benifit of stances, but the strikers , and your math is off 2d6 is more than 5 on average.

2 You should take AC and DR into account, you mention that you might fail with the soaring raptor strike, but not the odds that you may miss with your full attack.

[Elkad]

Raptor Strike also gets a +4 to-hit bonus, (instead of a TWF penalty, so net +6) and doesn't need a flanking buddy, plus jump is laughably easy to optimize.

Buy a cheap ring or less-cheap boots and be a Raptoran, and that 6th level guy has 9 ranks, 6 strength, 5 ring, and 10 race. +30, he'll never fail that check. Plus potential bonuses for speed (haste, barbarian dip, or those boots again). Oh, and he can fly too.
Goliath is a popular bruiser race for the mostly-Large factor, and gets the running start bonus non-penalty at all times. (it's not clear that applies to this maneuver, but I've never ruled or had ruled by my DM that it doesn't)

Insightful Strike is also pretty nice when you can't use your greatsword. Purple Worm ate you, squeezed into a tiny tunnel, only have your jeweled dagger because you are at the court ball.
Or after the Shadow reduced you to Str:4, or you just built a character that didn't put Str as their primary attribute.
Concentration is also easy to optimize, and you want to do that anyway for Moment of Perfect Mind.

And then of course there are the ones you skipped that are also popular. Mountain Hammer for a damage bonus and ignoring DR. Emerald Razor to make touch attacks for laughably easy Power Attack bonuses.

Boosts and Counters are great, but I only dedicate about half my selections to them.

[Gnaeus]

You had to assume a full damage two-handed weapon or TWF sneak, and standing full attacks with their iterative -5 and -10 penalties, where all attacks hit, in order to get slightly less damage. The skill checks are easier to boost and are generally considered less likely to fail than even your first no-penalty attack, and the single strike maneuvers also allow you to move and use a shield.

I do not think you have proven your point.

This.

Remember that figuring out how to move and do respectable damage is one of the central problems of melee. A strike doesn’t need to, probably even shouldn’t be better than a full attack to solve the “what do I do when the bad guy is 20 feet away” problem. It has long been recognized that a full attacking fighter can often outdamage a Warblade. But the fighter is a full tier lower because he only outdamages the Warblade if he starts base to base (and even then he has issues like DR which strikes also help to solve).

You can ready a strike for an enemy getting in range. Can’t ready a full attack. You can flyby attack a strike, not a full attack. You can draw your (silver/cold iron/adamantine) weapon in the same round you strike. The strike generates a higher damage total in one attack, which aside from often mentioned DR/hardness also makes it better for disrupting spells or triggering massive damage checks. You can strike while slowed. Strikes combine well with next attack bonuses, like true strike or smites.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I'll also toss my hat into the ring for you underrepresenting Soaring Raptor Strike. All you have to do is roll their AC with an easily optimized Jump check, then you get a +4 bonus to deal full weapon damage +6d6. If you can't overcome their DR, they only get to apply it once (because one attack), and you're far more likely to connect this one attack than the one attack you would as a THF greatsword user. Considering that you can learn this maneuver at 5th level, before either of their iterative attacks come into play. Even at 6th level, when you do get that second attack, you're probably going to deal more damage overall with the maneuver, because the Fighter's second attack is at -5 (compared to the one hit of SRS) and less likely to hit. Against a low AC target like a giant, you might be better off straight attacking. Which the Warblade/Swordsage could also do.

@Fizban covered the TWF angle, so I don't need to go there.

Side note, if you play as a non-psionic Thri-Kreen, Tiger Claw as a whole is absolutely busted.

[Lans]

The break point is likely access to an extra attack from haste or boots of speer

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Do remember as well that it's possible to get a lot of rider attacks in a round where you make a standard action strike, meaning full attacks are way less valuable if you put some resources in. For instance, high Dex + Combat Reflexes + Improved Trip + Snap Kick is an easy way to get lots of extra attacks. Additional attacks are much more valuable if you're making strong single-strikes than if you're tossing out full attacks, if only because you're more likely to use those additional attacks, so they're not wasted. You also don't have to worry about half your attacks missing due to massive attack roll penalties.

Also, unarmed strikes easily have what is quite likely the highest optimization ceiling of any weapon in the whole game. It's not at all impossible, or even improbable, to give your unarmed strikes +40 or more in enhancement bonuses + special weapon abilities pre-epic, using a combination of one or two feats and some WBL. Only longbows come anywhere close to that, and they cap out at +30 or so. Alternatively, an aptitude weapon can make additional attacks with Snap Kick, since aptitude allows you to sub the aptitude weapon for "unarmed strike" in Snap Kick.

Either way, you're going to be putting optimization into moving, attacking for lots of hits, and dealing lots of damage; strikes just give you a few more options on how you go about doing so.

[Emperor Tippy]

To Full Attack you, as a general rule, need to 1) start your turn immediately adjacent to your foe, and 2) be able to hit that foe reliably with -5 or more to your AB.

If a foe is letting you start adjacent to them then they are generally built to deal with (and deal) Full Attacks already. Everyone else will, at least, take a Move Action to create distance with you.

Can you optimize a build to consistently and reliably deliver full attacks to foes without them able to easily get away? Absolutely, but that is generally a substantial investment in build resources (levels, feats, items, etc.).

Strikes, on the other hand, are a way to basically double your expected damage on a single, standard action, attack or have some rider of similar power. No great resource investment is needed to use them, and the end result still usually ends up being about what a Full Attack would deal in practice anyways.

[Maat Mons]

If the goal is to deal with situations where you don't start your turn adjacent to an enemy, there are options besides traditional strikes. Specifically, Sudden Leap and Quicksilver Motion. Though, I suppose a strike would leave your swift action free for something else.

Still, if I'm going to learn and ready a strike, I'd like it to be one of the ones with a better selling point than "might have a higher expected value for damage, in some situations." It doesn't have to be strictly better than a full attack. But there should be a reason I might want to use it, even if I could full attack. If the damage is less than a full attack, I'd like some other benefit that might, sometimes, deem preferable to that extra damage. The fact that it would also be useful when I can't full attack is, of course, a plus. But there needs to be an interesting non-damaging effect for me to be, well, interested.

I don't think it's necessarily true that enemies who aren't built for melee will try to move out of melee range. If they haven't invested in Tumble, moving more than 5 feet away requires either provoking an attack of opportunity or using the Withdraw action. Provoking an attack of opportunity means giving you an extra attack at your full bonus. If the goal is just to deny you an extra attack at -5, that's trading one problem for a worse one. If they use the Withdraw action, they're not doing anything proactive that turn. You should be so lucky.

[Emperor Tippy]

If the goal is to deal with situations where you don't start your turn adjacent to an enemy, there are options besides traditional strikes. Specifically, Sudden Leap and Quicksilver Motion. Though, I suppose a strike would leave your swift action free for something else.
Using Boosts is still an expenditure of resources. They are lighter on action economy costs but its still build and encounter resources expended.


Still, if I'm going to learn and ready a strike, I'd like it to be one of the ones with a better selling point than "might have a higher expected value for damage, in some situations." It doesn't have to be strictly better than a full attack. But there should be a reason I might want to use it, even if I could full attack. If the damage is less than a full attack, I'd like some other benefit that might, sometimes, deem preferable to that extra damage. The fact that it would also be useful when I can't full attack is, of course, a plus. But there needs to be an interesting non-damaging effect for me to be, well, interested.
The damage isn't materially less than a full attack in most circumstances. Full attacks require that your AB is high enough to still reliably hit on the iterative attacks. The first attack is a wash as basically everything you can do to pump AB and Damage on the first attack in a Full Attack can also be applied to a Strike. If the Strike is dealing additional damage equal to the expected impact of the first iterative then it would already be a net win until at least level 11 and the third attack; and if you are hitting with any kind of reliability on a CR 11 foe when you have -10 to the Attack, the fight is already basically over.

The proper comparison is
Strike: Standard Attack + Strike Benefits, made at full AB (before Strike specific modifiers), does not consume Move Action.
Full Attack: Standard Attack made at full AB, Iterative Attack made at -5 AB, Iterative Attack made at -10 AB, Iterative Attack made at -15 AB. Consumes move action.

So the first question is how many Iteratives are going to hit, and what amount of AB can you sacrifice to Power Attack while retaining an acceptable to hit on those iterative attacks. All else being equal, you will be able to sacrifice more AB to Power Attack on a Strike than on a Full Attack because you don't have to worry about the odds of hitting with the Iterative.

Against most appropriate CR foes, you will reliably hit on the first attack, probably hit on the second, and probably miss on the third and fourth. If you are built to have a high enough AB to reliably hit level appropriate foes at -10/-15 AB then you are very much not in the general case and build specific considerations apply.



I don't think it's necessarily true that enemies who aren't built for melee will try to move out of melee range. If they haven't invested in Tumble, moving more than 5 feet away requires either provoking an attack of opportunity or using the Withdraw action. Provoking an attack of opportunity means giving you an extra attack at your full bonus. If the goal is just to deny you an extra attack at -5, that's trading one problem for a worse one. If they use the Withdraw action, they're not doing anything proactive that turn. You should be so lucky.
Without Combat Reflexes an individual is limited to one AoO per round. Get someone else to provoke first and then you are fine. Manipulating Initiative Order with readied actions and delaying your turn is really easy and has zero downsides so long as you and your allies are all acting as a bloc (i.e. one after the other).

There are also all of the myriad ways to get out of reach range while not provoking.

---
Decent melee damage on a single attack is generally, what, three to four times ECL? So a strike doing +20 damage at ECL 5, +40 at ECL 10, +60 at ECL 15, +80 at ECL 20?

3rd Level Damage Dealing Stikes:
Fan the Flames: +6d6 damage, average 21.
Insightful Strike: Concentration Check for damage, call it 1d20+10 at ECL 6, for 20 average.
Bonecrusher: +4d6 damage, average 14. +10 to Confirm Critical Hits.
Soaring Raptor Strike: +6d6 damage, average 21.

Seems about in line with what you would be expecting that Iterative attack to do at that level.

[Maat Mons]

So... that middle quote. That was me talking about how I want strikes that have rider effects, and aren't just pure damage. ... And you responded to it with a detailed dissection of the damage dealt by strikes?

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

The disconnect is coming from the fact that strikes have a set effect like +xd6 damage, whereas the effect of a full attack varies with optimization. Strikes are initially better than full attacks at low op, but once you get a reliable way of moving+full attacking (e.g., pounce) and you get at least one meaningful extra attack on a full attack (e.g., Whirling Frenzy), the strikes fall behind. Add various ways of increasing attack bonus and base damage (which are per-attack benefits) and more additional attacks (e.g., natural weapons) and it starts to snowball.

I would also say that reliably hitting on iteratives doesn't guarantee the encounter is a faceroll. Defense is often harder to increase than offense in a medium-op environment, so killing enemies quickly can be a necessity.

[Crake]

Strikes also allow you to diversify your weapon set up. You don't need to run a 2h greatsword with power attack to deal respectable damage, you can be a sword and board crusader and slap down a fat divine surge for 9d8+4 damage with literally 0 optimization at level 7. Sure a full attack, charging, leap attack pouncing shock trooper fighter can spend literally all his resources to do like, 4d6+68 at the expense of -9 AC, assuming his second attack lands at all (if it doesn't then it's just 2d6+34, which is literally worse than the divine surge), but that came at the cost of nearly all the fighter's resources, and the ability to wield a shield, and a huge portion of his defenses for that round.

If you compare not only the damage of the maneuvers, but also the opportunity cost associated with them compared to with heavy feat investments, then I don't think strikes are at all as bad as you say. Not to mention the plethora of very useful utility strikes, like the heals, or the touch attacks (touch attacks bypass DR by the way), or the mountain hammer strikes which let you bash through walls and ignore DR, or the strikes that let you deal ability damage.

Of course, the definition of "underpowered" is inherently a subjective one, so to be honest, the entire premise of this thread is flawed in that regard.

[Mordaedil]

If you compare not only the damage of the maneuvers, but also the opportunity cost associated with them compared to with heavy feat investments, then I don't think strikes are at all as bad as you say. Not to mention the plethora of very useful utility strikes, like the heals, or the touch attacks (touch attacks bypass DR by the way), or the mountain hammer strikes which let you bash through walls and ignore DR, or the strikes that let you deal ability damage.

I don't remember this being the case. Where do you find this rule? Is it a passage intended for applying to spells, because that seemingly makes emerald razor a lot better than it already is.

[Darg]

I don't remember this being the case. Where do you find this rule? Is it a passage intended for applying to spells, because that seemingly makes emerald razor a lot better than it already is.

It's probably this in the DMG:


Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury type poison, a monk’s stunning, and injury type disease. Damage reduction does not negate touch attacks, energy damage dealt along with an attack (such as fire damage from a fire elemental), or energy drains. Nor does it affect poisons or diseases delivered by inhalation, ingestion, or contact. Attacks that deal no damage because of the target’s damage reduction do not disrupt spells.

The way I read it is that it doesn't negate the rider effect of touch attacks as touch attacks don't normally do damage. A PC who uses wraithstrike would still have the damage reduced (this fits in with the fluff of having/being an instant regeneration effect).

[Anthrowhale]

Touch attacks bypass DR is correct for core/SRD, but Rules Compendium nerfs this (for damage).

Separately, there are several full-attack compatible strikes. Looking through, they seem to be:
Flashing Sun (Desert Wind 2)
Pouncing Charge (Tigerclaw 5)
Avalanche of Blades (Diamond Mind 7)
Time Stands Still (Diamond Mind 9)

[Darg]

Touch attacks bypass DR is correct for core/SRD, but Rules Compendium nerfs this (for damage).

Where is this rule located? The RC does not have any mention of touch attacks and damage reduction together. The DMG mention only says it doesn't negate the attack, not the damage.

Interesting to note, the RC specifically reverses the rule about poisons and diseases delivered through an attack being negated if the delivering attacks damage is fully negated. DMG says no poison/disease if no damage. RC says yes poison/disease if no damage.

[ShurikVch]

Zombie - even Fast Zombie - is incapable to attack more than 1/round; thus - no full attack, and no TWF. Sure, it's a niche case, but niche case is still a case...

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Zombie - even Fast Zombie - is incapable to attack more than 1/round; thus - no full attack, and no TWF. Sure, it's a niche case, but niche case is still a case...They'd have to be awakened, since things with Int: -- can't take class levels or feats, although I suppose wearing a maneuver item would allow them to do it. They wouldn't unless instructed to by their controller, though. Maybe. I don't think that's actually covered in the rules anywhere.

[Vault756]

Well, in my mind, strikes are openers.

Sure, *we* know of pounce, pounce is the holy grail of martials, doing full attack on charges.

But, that is not actually that common at tables, or at least at tables I've played with.

So, having one strike readied, to use for the one charge you do in an encounter, is good enough, and more likely than not an improvement over the singular standard attack we would be doing there.

Maybe twice, but if I'm to make an initiator or splash an initiator, I would probably keep only one strike with the manouvers readied, and all others would be utility stuff.


Pounce "issue" aside, of course a standard action has less impact than a full round action, I don't think the comparison is fair.

Aside discussion of hittability of the lower iteratives.


I guess I respectfully disagree, I feel the strike strikes are at about the right place, as things you do once/twice per encounter when you can't or don't want to full attack.


Wait you can charge and use a Strike at the end? Since when?

[ciopo]

iirc, most strikes are started as part of making an attack, rather than "standard action : do a strike".

[Vault756]

iirc, most strikes are started as part of making an attack, rather than "standard action : do a strike".

All maneuvers have a cost listed as an "Initiation Action" that is almost always a standard action if not a full round action.

[ciopo]

All maneuvers have a cost listed as an "Initiation Action" that is almost always a standard action if not a full round action.
Okay, fair. No charge then indeed

[Anthrowhale]

Where is this rule located? The RC does not have any mention of touch attacks and damage reduction together. The DMG mention only says it doesn't negate the attack, not the damage.


It's a stealth nerf---they just fail to make an exception for touch attacks.


Damage reduction doesn't reduce the damage from energy attacks, spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities.

The wording drops the DR bypass for a "touch attack" which appears in the SRD.

RC page 109 says that injury poisons must get through damage reduction to take effect.

[Gnaeus]

Another side benefit to strikes is that it opens up Polymorph options. As Crake correctly pointed out, a standard fighter operates with a chain of invested feats. So when you Polymorph him, you need to retain weapon use for his full attacks and weapon feats. There are quite a few combat forms that rely on one big natural attack that therefore mesh better with a strike user than a standard melee with feat chains.

[Darg]

It's a stealth nerf---they just fail to make an exception for touch attacks.

The wording drops the DR bypass for a "touch attack" which appears in the SRD.

RC page 109 says that injury poisons must get through damage reduction to take effect.

I think we are just going to have to disagree about damage reduction not negating the damage of a weapon that targets touch AC.

[Anthrowhale]

I think we are just going to have to disagree about damage reduction not negating the damage of a weapon that targets touch AC.

What is the basis of the disagreement? Is there anything in the RC which suggests touch attacks bypass DR?

[Darg]

What is the basis of the disagreement? Is there anything in the RC which suggests touch attacks bypass DR?

I guess I misunderstood what you were trying to say.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Anthrowhale brings up the solid point that people usually think of single-attack, standard-action strikes when they say "strikes," but that's not entirely the case. I think the disagreement is really around the standard action attacking strikes, or "single strikes." Maneuvers that complement a full attack (especially a charging full attack) are gravy. Did the rules folks determine whether Battle Leader's Charge works with a pounce? Seems like it would, but the extra damage would only apply to hit #1.

Regarding "spending all your build resources" on charging, I don't think it has to be so extreme that you spend all your build resources and defenses to have a minor edge in damage. Anyone who dips Whirlpounce Barbarian 1 and does either strength+THF or dex+TWF will prefer to charge rather than move+strike. Even at a relative high water mark of single strikes (Divine Surge at Crusader 7), full attacking will be more effective well before devoting one's entire build to charging*.

*I'll compare two similar builds: Alice the Crusader 7 versus Bob the Whirlpounce Barb 1/Crusader 6. They both take 1 combat feat each (a lack of other combat feats helps Alice, since her damage isn't as dependent on per-attack bonuses), Extra Granted Maneuver for Alice and Extra Rage for Bob. Both Alice and Bob have two level 1 Crusader stances; pick your favorite for Alice, and Bob mostly sticks with Leading the Charge. They have a base 18 strength with a +2 item, a +1 weapon, and nothing else (except class features, such as Divine Surge or Whirling Frenzy) adding to attack/damage, not even power attack (again favoring Alice); for simplicity I give them both greatswords and comment on other options at the end. I'll also ignore crits, favoring Alice because most of her damage is bonus damage dice.

On round 1 of combat, Alice moves and initiates Divine Surge at +13 (7 base + 5 str + 1 weapon), hitting for 2d6+8d8+8 (7 str + 1 enh) damage, average 51. Bob whirling frenzies and charges at +15/+15/+10 (7 base + 7 str + 2 charge - 2 frenzy + 1 enh), hitting for 2d6+17 (10 str + 6 stance + 1 enh) damage, average 24 per hit. The iterative is less likely to hit, but the two primary attacks are more likely to hit, so accuracy is slightly in favor of Bob.

On round 2, both face some issues. Bob may not have more enemies to charge (or may not have a line to charge them, if he didn't take twisted charge for two skill points), and Alice certainly cannot access Divine Surge this round. Perhaps she uses Bone Crusher at +13, hitting for 6d6+8, average 29, plus a minor rider. If Bob can't charge in round 2, he just full attacks at +13/+13/+8, hitting for 2d6+11, average 18 per hit. By the time Alice recovers Divine Surge again (and I've been assuming some good luck here) Bob will very likely have another line to charge, or the fight will be over.

Other notes:
- Bob also enjoys less likelihood of overkill, a bit more crit potential like I said, and less variance since his damage is spread out over three attacks (usually a good thing).
- The AC is actually the same all else equal, since frenzy's +2 dodge bonus negates the -2 from charging and we're ignoring shock trooper. You might say Alice wears heavy armor, but so far I've been ignoring actually getting to the enemy. The charge goes 60', which normally trades off with 30' of more flexible movement. 20' is a steeper trade-off; is the enemy <20' away on round 1?
- Re: S&B, Alice could have probably 3 more AC (+1 shield) going S&B, losing 4.5 expected damage per hit from weapon damage and extra strength. Probably a good trade-off for her, even though she doesn't always get to Divine Surge. I agree that a big benefit of single strikes is that they help the poor beleaguered S&Bers, but THF and TWF are still generally better off full attacking.
- Re: Reach weapons, suppose they both took Combat Reflexes and grabbed a reach weapon. This helps Bob since his attacks are more accurate and hit harder. Next level Alice could take Thicket of Blades, but if he wanted, Bob could do the same the following level and shift stances after charging.

[Efrate]

Bob and Lisa However at those levels face one thing. Assuming you are facing a few bruiser types, they are likely at least large. They stand 10 feet away and attack, possibly behind a smaller minion or cover or with difficult terrain. Anything that blocks a charge and/or has reach you will often not get to charge. Strike gives you consistency and are much harder to just shut down. If all encounters are in a perfectly flat white room yes a pouncing charger who can get a full attack every turn with often be better than a strike user. However anything that requires non charge movement in a turn will favor a striker.

The reason pouncing barbarian dip is good is because it let's you get all your attacks a lot more frequently than not. You half sidestep the moving and attacking problem that all melees tend to face. Strikes just give your melee a consistent way to do good damage while still moving. As opposed to move 20 feet, one attack, turn. They also are much easier for a player to use than figuring out charge lanes, feat and acfs across multiple sources, etc. Using the core +1 model, which I personally see more often than anything else, just because books are expensive and not everyone has everything, it is just simpler to use tob out the box and be perfectly good. A few points of damage here and there is not going to make a meaningful difference. Saves you a round maybe in a combat.

[ShurikVch]

They'd have to be awakened, since things with Int: -- can't take class levels or feats, although I suppose wearing a maneuver item would allow them to do it. They wouldn't unless instructed to by their controller, though. Maybe. I don't think that's actually covered in the rules anywhere.
Yes, Awaken Undead would work
Also, one of those planar templates with Int≥3 - say, Fiendish from the Vile Death spell
Finally, somebody can use Zombies as throwaway bodies - via Magic Jar spell (Ebon Phoenix Mage?)

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Bob and Lisa However at those levels face one thing. Assuming you are facing a few bruiser types, they are likely at least large. They stand 10 feet away and attack, possibly behind a smaller minion or cover or with difficult terrain. Anything that blocks a charge and/or has reach you will often not get to charge. Strike gives you consistency and are much harder to just shut down. If all encounters are in a perfectly flat white room yes a pouncing charger who can get a full attack every turn with often be better than a strike user. However anything that requires non charge movement in a turn will favor a striker.

The reason pouncing barbarian dip is good is because it let's you get all your attacks a lot more frequently than not. You half sidestep the moving and attacking problem that all melees tend to face. Strikes just give your melee a consistent way to do good damage while still moving. As opposed to move 20 feet, one attack, turn. They also are much easier for a player to use than figuring out charge lanes, feat and acfs across multiple sources, etc. Using the core +1 model, which I personally see more often than anything else, just because books are expensive and not everyone has everything, it is just simpler to use tob out the box and be perfectly good. A few points of damage here and there is not going to make a meaningful difference. Saves you a round maybe in a combat.Having minions or difficult terrain in the way is likely to stymie someone moving and striking as well. Alice only gets to move 30', after all. If she is in an area of difficult terrain, that's 15'. If neither of them can reach the target, the build choices are a wash. Yes, there are instances where 30' of movement gets you to an enemy without a line to charge, but there are also cases where the enemy starts over 30' away but within charging distance. Perhaps both Alice and Bob should spend build resources on movement. It's not so hard to get more free movement (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?103358-3-X-Ways-to-get-Pounce-or-Free-Movement) (and twisted charge), after all. Perhaps Bob should have went Warblade 6 to get Sudden Leap natively. Perhaps they should both use reach weapons to reach their opponents more easily, knocking their average damage per hit down by a point or two (not a huge deal). To your point, a charging initiator might as well have one single strike ready in case he can't charge but can move+strike, but that's still just a backup option.

Regarding Core + 1, YMMV. I've played a lot of different 3.5 campaigns. I've seen some Core only, Core + Completes, and first party minus setting books. I've seen plenty of [whatever books are on hand, always more than 1 splat] and some flavor of "all published content." I've never seen Core + 1. In any event, if considering Core + 1, ToB is more interesting, and Complete Champion still gets more damage.

[noce]

Many answers linger on the fact that standard action strikes are better than a full attack when a full attack is not possible.
While I concur, there are many ways to work around the problem, to the point that an entire hanbook exists to circumvent full attack inability.
Heck, if standard action strikes serve this sole purpose then they're made obsolete by the initiator system itself, since there are THREE maneuvers that specifically help you to move + full attack: Sudden Leap, Pouncing Charge, Shadow Blink.

My point is that the entire strike subpart of the initiator system is bland.
As said their damage is at least lowish when compared to a full attack, conditions inflicted are often minor (expecially from certain schools), and it's difficult to have consistent DCs (expecially when WIS based). Strikes do not stand out in any meaningful way.

Also, the entire mechanic is so similar to spellcasting that one should be rewarded not to lose initiator levels, but you're not.
For example, I would be very pissed off as a level 15 Swordsage looking at 8th level standard strikes:

Adamantine Bones: worse than Heart of Earth DR wise unless you get hit 8 times in a single round; also, Heart of Earth is swift action activation and has other goodies when initially cast, and comes online 8 levels earlier.
Diamond Nightmare Blade: it does honestly good damage, since it deals 4x damage and you would probably miss a couple of hits from your 6 attacks full attack (TWF), but probably you're still better full attacking if you invested into precision damage (and you probably DID invest into precision damage).
Enervating Shadow Strike: like Enervation, but with a (WIS based) save, and 8 levels later.
Earthstrike Quake: worse than Grease, since it affects allies and the effect is centered on you, and 14 levels later.
Wyrm's Flame: worse than Blast of Flame, since its range is half that, and obviously WIS based, and 8 levels later.


These things are not an adequate reward for a full-initiator build, not even near adequacy.

[Kuulvheysoon]

IMO, that's partially balanced around how often you can use said abilities. Are they as potent as equivalently leveled spells? For the most part, not really. But you can consistently use your higher level abilities, because you don't have to limit yourself by readying maneuvers of a specific level. You could prep entirely high level maneuvers with a few utility ones. The refresh mechanics are very generous (except for swordsage, and that's just a massive middle finger), and you can literally chain all of your best abilities and not only have them for use in the next fight as if the previous had never happened, but you could possibly use them again in the very same fight.

Whereas casters tend to have more power in each of their high level slots, but when they're gone they're gone until you rest again, hence the 5 minute workday.

[Gnaeus]

Also, the entire mechanic is so similar to spellcasting that one should be rewarded not to lose initiator levels, but you're not

The flip side of that is that it is incredibly multiclass friendly. A single level dip into crusader, at 9 for example, is great for almost any martial, ToB or non ToB. Get yourself some nice, auto refreshing third level boosts and counters, maybe some White Raven Tactics, then go on with your life. Repeat at 13 with the other ToB class that you aren’t focused on, for another pool of 4th level maneuvers. All at the cost of one initiator level (so swordsage 12/ crusader 1/Warblade 1, or Warblade 12/swordsage 1/crusader 1, or for a more standard muggle build Fighter 2/Barbarian 1/ranger2/Warblade 1/Swordsage1/Crusader 1/PRC5 taking the initiator levels at 5, 9, and 13). In my mind, and I realize this is a different debate, that is better game design than “we made this system to allow multiclassing but if you take a strong class you should never use it because it’s a trap”.

Also, tricks that allow you to charge or move then full attack don’t entirely negate the benefits of single action strikes. There are lots of other things that can steal your move action. Standing from prone. Drawing a weapon or item. Opening/closing a door. Various spells and conditions. You might want to strike, then move away (to prevent an enemy full attack, or set up for next round), which many of the things in the handbook don’t help with. Most builds won’t want a lot of strikes (although some may, with flyby attack for example) but one or two offer tactical flexibility. And if you have sudden leap or shadow blink (readied, unexpended, with a spare Swift action you didn’t need), now you can move/strike/move.

[Godofallu]

The point of strikes is to make sure your average damage is going up by giving you increased damage on the turns where you have to take move actions. They generally don't outshine full attacks but sometimes they still do if they have a nice effect like beating all DR and Hardness or giving you HP or DR ect.

[Gusmo]

The leap attack feat seems to make it clear you can jump during a charge. More generally, jumping doesn't require an action, it's done as part of movement. I've never been convinced that difficult terrain is as much of an impediment to charging as it's made out to be, as by the time you have your second iterative, you should be able to make good jump checks. And of course ToB just makes jumping even better due to Leaping Dragon Stance (always treated as having a running start, plus "you gain a +10-foot enhancement bonus on Jump checks") and Sudden Leap (swift action jump movement).

[Darg]

The leap attack feat seems to make it clear you can jump during a charge. More generally, jumping doesn't require an action, it's done as part of movement. I've never been convinced that difficult terrain is as much of an impediment to charging as it's made out to be, as by the time you have your second iterative, you should be able to make good jump checks. And of course ToB just makes jumping even better due to Leaping Dragon Stance (always treated as having a running start, plus "you gain a +10-foot enhancement bonus on Jump checks") and Sudden Leap (swift action jump movement).

It's the strict rules charging has in 3.5. In 3.0 it was literally just double movement in a straight line. Now there is all these extra rules which make charging that much harder like having nothing in your way, not having anything impede your speed, and the charge always has to be to the nearest point in a straight line in which you can attack.

If you want to jump while making a charge attack, you need feats to make that possible as making a jump is not a straight line. Leap attack specifically enables the character to make a single jump at the end of a charge.

[RandomPeasant]

Whereas casters tend to have more power in each of their high level slots, but when they're gone they're gone until you rest again, hence the 5 minute workday.

But that five minute workday is something characters can generally take advantage of. Most adventures don't have any kind of ticking clock, and when they do a lot of it is usually given over to travel time, which minimizes the impact of encounter-to-encounter sustainability. You can even see this reflected in people's assessments of various spells. If the Wizard's big concern was their daily spell slots, rather than their number of combat actions, celerity would be a dead letter.

And, honestly, the whole idea of balancing characters with daily-limited powers against ones with unlimited-use powers by making the unlimited use powers crappy is much more effort than it's worth. It's very easy to fall into the trap of either having the daily-limited characters having enough sustain that you're a sucker if you take along anyone with unlimited use powers, or the opposite trap of having the unlimited-use characters be powerful enough that you're a sucker if you take along anyone who invested in the daily-use artillery. Arguably, you see both paradigms prevailing within 3e at different levels (both character and optimization). And even if you do thread that needle, you've stuck people in a paradigm where they have to hit the appropriate ratio of daily-limit to no-limit classes, which is unnecessarily restrictive. Just balance people at the level of the encounter and let them rest when they want to (it's not like "actually, you can't rest now" is fun for anyone anyway).

[Lorddenorstrus]

But that five minute workday is something characters can generally take advantage of. Most adventures don't have any kind of ticking clock, and when they do a lot of it is usually given over to travel time, which minimizes the impact of encounter-to-encounter sustainability. You can even see this reflected in people's assessments of various spells. If the Wizard's big concern was their daily spell slots, rather than their number of combat actions, celerity would be a dead letter.

And, honestly, the whole idea of balancing characters with daily-limited powers against ones with unlimited-use powers by making the unlimited use powers crappy is much more effort than it's worth. It's very easy to fall into the trap of either having the daily-limited characters having enough sustain that you're a sucker if you take along anyone with unlimited use powers, or the opposite trap of having the unlimited-use characters be powerful enough that you're a sucker if you take along anyone who invested in the daily-use artillery. Arguably, you see both paradigms prevailing within 3e at different levels (both character and optimization). And even if you do thread that needle, you've stuck people in a paradigm where they have to hit the appropriate ratio of daily-limit to no-limit classes, which is unnecessarily restrictive. Just balance people at the level of the encounter and let them rest when they want to (it's not like "actually, you can't rest now" is fun for anyone anyway).

Honestly I think the whole concept of Daily use powers has been a long time constraint to D&D design just holding back the potential of many classes. I've long debated if instead of Vancian Craptastic 5 minute days. A mana like bar for casting spells with a regen period could be made. Similar to Psionics perhaps? Unsure, but I want Vancian as a concept gone 100%. It encourages only putting minutes of effort into anything. And I despise it. I don't allow players in my games to constantly stop like that. If they ever tried I'd tell them to switch classes because it's not happening and I'm not gonna have them Nova 1-2 combats and stop bothering.

8 hour rests are a REALLY long time. The "short rest" feature of 5e is one of the few new ideas they've had I think has potential. If they can delete Vancian and get classes to try and do what 1-5 ish combats per "bar" of crap and try to short rest for their uses back.. that would prevent scenarios of say. "Players went to excavate an underground area. They went a few feet and after every 2 combats rested for 8 hours. Almost a week later they finish and the Town wonders why ONLY their group took a week and all the other groups did it in 1 day." Stuff goes on I'm not as a DM going to pause a world so they can use their Nukes repeatedly.

[Godskook]

Fan the Flames: +6d6 damage, average 21.

Nitpick: Fan the Flames isn't a "strike", it's a maneuver-spell that's labeled a strike. It's really good at level 6 due to it's ability to "hit that guy over there", or enable SA dice, but it's not relevant to this discussion as you would never use it in a place when you could just walk up and hit your target. Too easy to have competitive damage without expending the opportunity cost.

[Crake]

Nitpick: Fan the Flames isn't a "strike", it's a maneuver-spell that's labeled a strike. It's really good at level 6 due to it's ability to "hit that guy over there", or enable SA dice, but it's not relevant to this discussion as you would never use it in a place when you could just walk up and hit your target. Too easy to have competitive damage without expending the opportunity cost.

I mean, it's also a touch attack, so when your opponent has an absurdly high AC, it allows you to still contribute

[RandomPeasant]

Honestly I think the whole concept of Daily use powers has been a long time constraint to D&D design just holding back the potential of many classes.

Pretty much. Daily use limits complicate overall balance substantially, and are not really necessary for things like fireball or stinking cloud. In fact, tactical limits tend to produce a more interesting paradigm than daily ones, especially since ticking clocks are fairly rare in practice (even published adventures are usually "there's a dungeon, you need to clear it out at some point" rather than "in a week, the dread ritual will be complete and darkness will spread over the land"). A Warblade has decisions to make about what powers they'll have available in a given round that matter, and that impact their ability selection.

The one place daily limits are important is strategic utility spells. It doesn't matter worth a damn if your black tentacles refreshes every day, or between encounters in some fashion (whether at-will like a Warlock, an explicit refresh system like the ToB classes, or something else), because the thing that limits your use of it is how long encounters last. But that does matter a whole lot for fabricate. The difference between getting three or four castings of a big utility spell each day and getting ten every minute is intense. Which does create a bit of a slippery slope for things like wall of iron and wall of stone, which have long-term implications as tactical spells (and while it's tempting to solve this by limiting them so that doesn't happen, that's not going to cover every case by a long shot). I think there's also a case for having daily-limited supermoves for high level characters, but building an entire class out of that is a bad idea.


I've long debated if instead of Vancian Craptastic 5 minute days. A mana like bar for casting spells with a regen period could be made. Similar to Psionics perhaps?

I've never understood the impulse that says "the default system we use for all magic doesn't work well", but concludes that if we just found a different, better default system for all magic to use, things would be fine. The answer is to do what the game already does and have a bunch of different systems for a bunch of different classes. Let the Wizard prepare spells, just have them do it in 15 minutes without needing the 8 hour rest (this would require reducing the number of spells they prepare). Give the Druid something that feels cool and Druid-specific. And so on for the Cleric and the Sorcerer and so on.

[Lorddenorstrus]

Pretty much. Daily use limits complicate overall balance substantially, and are not really necessary for things like fireball or stinking cloud. In fact, tactical limits tend to produce a more interesting paradigm than daily ones, especially since ticking clocks are fairly rare in practice (even published adventures are usually "there's a dungeon, you need to clear it out at some point" rather than "in a week, the dread ritual will be complete and darkness will spread over the land"). A Warblade has decisions to make about what powers they'll have available in a given round that matter, and that impact their ability selection.

The one place daily limits are important is strategic utility spells. It doesn't matter worth a damn if your black tentacles refreshes every day, or between encounters in some fashion (whether at-will like a Warlock, an explicit refresh system like the ToB classes, or something else), because the thing that limits your use of it is how long encounters last. But that does matter a whole lot for fabricate. The difference between getting three or four castings of a big utility spell each day and getting ten every minute is intense. Which does create a bit of a slippery slope for things like wall of iron and wall of stone, which have long-term implications as tactical spells (and while it's tempting to solve this by limiting them so that doesn't happen, that's not going to cover every case by a long shot). I think there's also a case for having daily-limited supermoves for high level characters, but building an entire class out of that is a bad idea.



I've never understood the impulse that says "the default system we use for all magic doesn't work well", but concludes that if we just found a different, better default system for all magic to use, things would be fine. The answer is to do what the game already does and have a bunch of different systems for a bunch of different classes. Let the Wizard prepare spells, just have them do it in 15 minutes without needing the 8 hour rest (this would require reducing the number of spells they prepare). Give the Druid something that feels cool and Druid-specific. And so on for the Cleric and the Sorcerer and so on.

I mean they thought "hey Fighter go whack x infinity. Wizard can only go whack 5 times must make it 10,000 times stronger than the whack. Which is the inherent issue of why the tier spread is so far. 3.5 is beyond saving it would require a system rewrite to fix the balance issues. Don't get me wrong I enjoy the optimization minigame but it can get tedious sometimes trying to keep an entire party of players all within the same relevant realm of power. 5e is 3.5 with 3rd grade math. They kept a lot of rule similarities and again Vancians mere EXISTANCE is the cause of power disparity. I don't see issues with Capstone tier abiltities being amazing 1/day crap. But everything other than that can't be on the /day system. Whether the party fights once or 10 times shouldn't have any relevant effect on output or ability of PC classes. As much as it sucks to say Video games do casters better justice balance wise. If you recolor every classes bar from Red Warrior, Yellow Rogue Blue Caster or w/e tf you want and simply balance them all around a resource that regens similarly enough we won't have issues like 3.5s Tier 1. Or people thinking ToB arguably one of the only decently balanced martial books of 3.5 is underpowered.. When in reality it's just the stuff above is atrociously OP. Tier 3 is that power sweet spot where things function.. normally.
So I'm sorry but i heavily disagree. Vancian Magic needs to either be axed, or in future editions have an actually functional optional replacement. Because once casters are on the same par of Martials but still doing unique non martial things every combat. We won't have power issues as much. Unique.. doesn't mean better or worse. Just different.

[ciopo]

I mean they thought "hey Fighter go whack x infinity. Wizard can only go whack 5 times must make it 10,000 times stronger than the whack. Which is the inherent issue of why the tier spread is so far. 3.5 is beyond saving it would require a system rewrite to fix the balance issues. Don't get me wrong I enjoy the optimization minigame but it can get tedious sometimes trying to keep an entire party of players all within the same relevant realm of power. 5e is 3.5 with 3rd grade math. They kept a lot of rule similarities and again Vancians mere EXISTANCE is the cause of power disparity. I don't see issues with Capstone tier abiltities being amazing 1/day crap. But everything other than that can't be on the /day system. Whether the party fights once or 10 times shouldn't have any relevant effect on output or ability of PC classes. As much as it sucks to say Video games do casters better justice balance wise. If you recolor every classes bar from Red Warrior, Yellow Rogue Blue Caster or w/e tf you want and simply balance them all around a resource that regens similarly enough we won't have issues like 3.5s Tier 1. Or people thinking ToB arguably one of the only decently balanced martial books of 3.5 is underpowered.. When in reality it's just the stuff above is atrociously OP. Tier 3 is that power sweet spot where things function.. normally.
So I'm sorry but i heavily disagree. Vancian Magic needs to either be axed, or in future editions have an actually functional optional replacement. Because once casters are on the same par of Martials but still doing unique non martial things every combat. We won't have power issues as much. Unique.. doesn't mean better or worse. Just different.

Eh, but 4e went that direction and we saw that's not what people actually wants? Or... it's there for those people that do want that palette swap, I guess?

[Lorddenorstrus]

Eh, but 4e went that direction and we saw that's not what people actually wants? Or... it's there for those people that do want that palette swap, I guess?

4e flopped because the mechanics were convoluted and took to long to do anything. It wasn't the design idea just the way they went with it. Pathfinder has Spheres of Power does it not? That functions as a non vancian system and I don't see any issues with that. So clearly designing a non vancian system doesn't automatically implode the idea. It's about execution.

Also are we really going to just go "Well it has to stay because some of us like it." Despite comparing X vancian caster to ANY martial from 3.5/5e is going to look bad. Literally the power they slap onto spells due to "limits to cast them" is why they're so broken vs their editions martials. This isn't rocket science. Tob = proper design for martials. martials shouldn't be "auto attacking" as their thing they need to do cool things. We have media where martial characters compete vs wizards and the martials in media aren't as weak as D&D makes them out to be. Why the hell can't casters get neerfed into the same power tier as martials doing tob things. It really would resolve a lot of the need for people to patch the **** out of every edition of D&D like it's some Bethesda game. Nobody I know in the D&D scene is running so strict RAW that they keep the power balance quo as is. Because so many players like picking up a sword and they don't want to be told the class they chose is actually Wizard slave.

Me personally I'm swapping to Pathfinder right now because i realized after 10 something years the Rules List I made to try and repair 3.5s balance was almost an entire book. Between banned spells, or things that I had to stop so that guy with a sword could be allowed to exist. It could be worse I suppose another local DM tried to rewrite every Martial class. So his list is much longer than mine..

[pabelfly]

4e flopped because the mechanics were convoluted and took to long to do anything. It wasn't the design idea just the way they went with it. Pathfinder has Spheres of Power does it not? That functions as a non vancian system and I don't see any issues with that. So clearly designing a non vancian system doesn't automatically implode the idea. It's about execution.

Also are we really going to just go "Well it has to stay because some of us like it." Despite comparing X vancian caster to ANY martial from 3.5/5e is going to look bad. Literally the power they slap onto spells due to "limits to cast them" is why they're so broken vs their editions martials. This isn't rocket science. Tob = proper design for martials. martials shouldn't be "auto attacking" as their thing they need to do cool things. We have media where martial characters compete vs wizards and the martials in media aren't as weak as D&D makes them out to be. Why the hell can't casters get neerfed into the same power tier as martials doing tob things. It really would resolve a lot of the need for people to patch the **** out of every edition of D&D like it's some Bethesda game. Nobody I know in the D&D scene is running so strict RAW that they keep the power balance quo as is. Because so many players like picking up a sword and they don't want to be told the class they chose is actually Wizard slave.

Me personally I'm swapping to Pathfinder right now because i realized after 10 something years the Rules List I made to try and repair 3.5s balance was almost an entire book. Between banned spells, or things that I had to stop so that guy with a sword could be allowed to exist. It could be worse I suppose another local DM tried to rewrite every Martial class. So his list is much longer than mine..

I think we can all agree that 3.5 is extremely unbalanced, but my personal experience is that there's generally an unspoken gentleman's agreement where players tend to have characters of a fairly similar power level, so that no character feels too overpowered or underpowered, and if someone turns out to have miscalculated, they'll come up with solutions to help bring that illusion of balance back.

[RandomPeasant]

3.5 is beyond saving it would require a system rewrite to fix the balance issues.

That's not really true. There are extensible, balanced subsets of 3e. You may not like the balance point that the T1 and T2 casters are at, but you can certainly write a bunch of classes at that balance point. You could have a fixed-list caster for Abjuration or Transmutation or Divination or Conjuration. You could write characters who prepared suites of abilities like a Binder or had a pool of points like an Incarnate or had at-will powers like a Warlock and were balanced at that level. Similarly, if you happen to like T3, you could write T3 classes until the cows come home. I suppose it's true that whatever stuff is at the other balance points will still be rattling around in the system, but I'm not sure how much that matters in practice.


But everything other than that can't be on the /day system. Whether the party fights once or 10 times shouldn't have any relevant effect on output or ability of PC classes.

I don't think I really said anything to disagree. Combat abilities should be balanced per-combat.


If you recolor every classes bar from Red Warrior, Yellow Rogue Blue Caster or w/e tf you want and simply balance them all around a resource that regens similarly enough we won't have issues like 3.5s Tier 1.

That's fundamentally not true. The reason T1s are broken is what the powers they have do, not how they use those powers. It's instructive to look at 4e here. They didn't actually balance things like animate dead and planar binding. They just took them out of the game. Changing the resource management system won't fix the issues with 3e, even if it is a good idea for other reasons.


Eh, but 4e went that direction and we saw that's not what people actually wants? Or... it's there for those people that do want that palette swap, I guess?

Yes. 4e demonstrated quite clearly that people don't want all classes to function in the same way. But it was still sorta vancian, with the daily powers and all. The appropriate approach is multiple resource management systems, none of which are daily. Some daily abilities should exist, but never as the focus of a class. teleport is an effect that makes sense to put daily limits on. Some Mortal Kombat fatality-esque super move, same thing. But regular combat abilities? Not really.

[Darg]

I don't think "balance" is something people actually want, especially for a team based game. If things are truly balanced, you can't ever have a role based game unless characters have mandates to perform their role.

The easiest ways to keep the game flowing is to spread out the amount of time an adventuring day takes. This makes the limited casting pool that casters have that much smaller as the stronger effects have shorter durations. Another, is to include any additional NPCs that work with the party in the party level calculations of an encounter. This includes summons and companions. If they summon in combat, it won't have an effect, but if they summon out of combat it will. This makes summoning a tactical decision instead of an EL destabilizer. This applies to planar ally/binding as well. If a character transforms into another creature, make it so that they have to have the ability/spell active (per use) an X amount of time to gain the uses per X abilities of the creature with the timer started when they cast the spell. Finally, have any contracted casting of an ability have an equivalent cost of the similar spell.

This works for us to keep playing fields pretty level and discourages shenanigans. It doesn’t stop everything, but these were the most egregious reasons for the strength of casters my groups came across. Increasing the length of day does a lot of work on it's own and the rest simply complement that.

One thing we also do is modify how skill points are distributed. Noncasting classes recieve 8xlevel skill points on level up. Partial casters recieve 6x (paladin, Ranger, bard, warlock). Full prepared casters recieve 2x. Full casters that normally cast spontaneously get 4x (favored soul, sorcerer, spirit shaman). We don't change the class skill list, but having a good amount of points encourages cross-class investment for classes that could use the extra capabilities.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I feel like another point in ToB's favour is that it's got a high optimization floor.

If you just pick maneuvers with cool names, you'll still be okay. Whereas it's really, really easy to mess up a Fighter if you don't know precisely what you're going for (usually Dungeoncrasher, let's be honest).

[RandomPeasant]

I don't think "balance" is something people actually want, especially for a team based game. If things are truly balanced, you can't ever have a role based game unless characters have mandates to perform their role.

That's only true for a strawman definition of balance. If there are a dozen (or a hundred) different monsters at any given CR, and each class is good against a third, okay against a third, and bad against a third, the game is balanced and it's quite easy to have roles and meaningful differentiation.


The easiest ways to keep the game flowing is to spread out the amount of time an adventuring day takes. This makes the limited casting pool that casters have that much smaller as the stronger effects have shorter durations.

Much like putting everything on a ticking clock, this is simply impractical in many cases. If the adventure is "go clear out the dungeon", you can't really extend the adventuring day without measures that are extremely artificial. Not to mention that this doesn't really help, as many effects either last all day (either natively or through things like Persistent Spell) or can't be carried from encounter to encounter anyway (cloudkill may last a minute per level, but good luck getting two encounters out of it any meaningful percentage of the time).


Finally, have any contracted casting of an ability have an equivalent cost of the similar spell.

This is a bad idea. Abilities should matter, and "you can buy things for the costs they have" is not an ability that matters.

[Xervous]

Tob = proper design for martials. martials shouldn't be "auto attacking" as their thing they need to do cool things. We have media where martial characters compete vs wizards and the martials in media aren't as weak as D&D makes them out to be. Why the hell can't casters get neerfed into the same power tier as martials doing tob things.

ToB is about 40% of the way there on functionality for Martials. The main discrepancy has always been that Martials are defined by their method of combat with the assumption that this function alone makes them relevant at all levels. Other classes are defined by thematics of what makes them awesome, and the scope of that awesomeness shifts to address things an X of level Y is expected to deal with. Martials need stuff like <10 HipS, at will etherealness near 15, extraordinary or supernatural senses. 3p pathfinder gets it right here and there, but too many classes drop the ball after “lol damage” and make mistakes like “casting a 2nd level spell at will is an appropriate L15 feature”.

[Gnaeus]

I don't think "balance" is something people actually want, especially for a team based game. If things are truly balanced, you can't ever have a role based game unless characters have mandates to perform their role..

I generally agree. I think most balance discussion is really about 2 slightly related topics. Predictability and options.

3.5 is really bad about predictability. Most of the balance problems are really problems with character abilities poorly relating to what they are supposed to do. For example, fighter and monk are comparatively bad at fighting, while at the same time being billed as being good at it. Rogue, a utility class, is not particularly good at utility. No one complains that warrior or adept aren’t balanced with Druid. Because no one expects them to be. You could easily have 3 sets of classes corresponding to different power levels and if they performed as indicated it wouldn’t be a problem that hedge mage and archmage aren’t the same power. Hedge mage can adequately do his job in a party with peasant hero and village priest, while archmage is palling around with demigod and divine king. We really have that already, except that there aren’t good fighter types in the high fantasy tier, and you have to read a forum to know that the power differences exist. And if someone wants to play peasant hero in a game with archmage, everyone knows what will happen and the DM can say no or adjust the campaign to match.

The other issue is that options are inherently unbalancing. The more moving parts you give a character, the better the chance that the outcomes will be wildly disparate. 5e improved balance in large part by restricting character options. 15 classes instead of 50. 2 dozen feats instead of 200. Even if every class and feat and item in 3.5 were approximately equal in value per unit spent, you could still min max by picking synergistic options. If you truly want balance, you have to check how every feat/spell/item/class interacts with every other. That increases in difficulty exponentially as options increase. And there isn’t a magic equilibrium point between balance and options, it is solely a matter of personal or group preference.

[Particle_Man]

{Scrubbed}

[Tiktakkat]

I think one of the big issues in regards to "balance" that is commonly overlooked are the changes from AD&D to D20/3X. Casters received a lot of significant power upgrades, while martials were generally downgraded, particularly from their already weak status at higher levels. Then, since vanishingly few people will tolerate any decrease in the power level of casters, there is an obsession with upgrading martials until they are indistinguishable from casters.

As part of this, I would note that Vancian casting was a major throttle on casters, particularly with the older requirements, where it could take a week or more to memorize a full slate of spells that were then expected to last an entire level or more of a published module, and not the mere 4 encounters per day and 13 encounters per level.

[ShurikVch]

For example, fighter and monk are comparatively bad at fighting, while at the same time being billed as being good at it.
Jack B. Quick (by Caelic) (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=6944.0) is mono-class Fighter
Tippy's Terrifically Terrible Trial (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?285801-Tippy-s-Terrifically-Terrible-Trial) use Monks
"Build-sensitive" ≠ "Bad"


Rogue, a utility class, is not particularly good at utility.
What's you mean? How, exactly, Rogue "is not particularly good at utility"?

[AceDragonKing]

Now, now, I know that every melee build gets stronger with a sprinkle of Initiator classes.

Having a stance always active is often much better than a feat (in fact it needs two for non-initiators), and opens up Discipline weapon enhancement.
Boosts and counters are invaluable: extra damage, extra movement, extra action economy, "my will save is a NO-button", etc.
On top of all that, each base class has a good chassis, meaningful class features, is quite frontloaded and multiclass friendly.
Not to mention that some feats (Shadow Blade, Stormguard Warrior) are so strong you can base your entire build around them.

Still, strikes always striked me as underpowered.
Before bab 6, and if not TWF, they're obviously good: any single maneuver is better than a standard attack action. But by level 6? Not so much.
I want to clarify that I'm talking about the many "you hit once as a standard action" strikes, since they're easier to compare to full attack actions.
Obviously there are exceptions where using a strike is worth it, for example Devoted Spirit is handy if you need healing (but again, as a melee I'd rather do more damage instead of a couple d6 healing).

Let's make a couple examples of strikes that you could have by level 6 or 7. I assume 18 on Str or Dex, and +1 greatsword/shortswords:

Insightful Strike: single attack deals Concentration check damage, so 1d20+12 or ~22 damage. Well, a Warblade with Punishing Stance and no Power Attack can easily hit for 3d6+7, so ~17 damage, and has two attacks. You're giving up ~12 damage, more if counting Power Attack.
Soaring Raptor Strike: Jump check, if you succeed you deal +6d6 damage with a bonus to hit, if you fail you do absolutely nothing. Let's take a TWF Shadow Blade Swordsage with Assassin Stance, with a full attack he attacks two times for 1d6+5+2d6 each. This time you can deal ~5 more damage if you succeed, but risk doing ~31 less if you fail.
Ruby Nightmare Blade: Concentration check, if you succeed you deal double damage. So for a two hander you deal the same damage of a full attack when you succeed, half that if you fail.
Obscuring Shadow Veil: +5d6 damage and WIS based Fort save or target has miss chance for 1 round. Ok, 5d6 damage is just a little bit less than 1d6+5+2d6 of the mentioned Swordsage, so it could be a good trade for the debuff. The fact is, it's WIS based, and you would use it against melee enemies, targeting their Fort save: I'm not seeing this landing often.


I could continue, and things just get worse when Warblade gets his third attack at 11, or when Swordsage gets two more at level 8.
Strikes I listed can't compete with things like White Raven Tactics, (unabused)Iron Heart Surge, Defensive Rebuke, Cloak of Deception, Shadow Jaunt or even the lowly Moment of Perfect Mind and Sudden Leap.
The fact is, boosts and counters have a much bigger impact on what your character can or cannot deal with.
Quite often, the benefits strikes grant are not so good or too situational to waste a readied maneuver on them: this is very true for the Warblade, with so few readied maneuvers that you still can't have all the boosts/counters you'd want.

What do you think about it?

Your forgetting about elder mountain hammer that does an extra 12d6 to the damage and bypasses damage reduction. But in my opinion the strikes generally arnt used every single round anyway. strikes are for when you A) having to move there for you can’t make a full round attack so using a strike as a standard action is infinity more valuable. B) when your strike is the thing you need such as when your trying to throw someone with the ballistic throw or whatever.

But either way when your still a melee class full attacks is what they are good at that only they can take full advantage of why would you give up 4 attacks per turn at higher lvls

[Gnaeus]

Jack B. Quick (by Caelic) (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=6944.0) is mono-class Fighter
Tippy's Terrifically Terrible Trial (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?285801-Tippy-s-Terrifically-Terrible-Trial) use Monks
"Build-sensitive" ≠ "Bad"


What's you mean? How, exactly, Rogue "is not particularly good at utility"?

All that demonstrates is that you can use high optimization to advance any class. Oh, is that a level 20 fighter build? The wizard used 1/10 the optimization chops and just chain gated a dozen solars. There is no point beyond low op & low level where a fighter is really likely to be better in battle than an equal optimization tier 1. If you made Jack B Quick from the guide, almost any tier one class after about 4th level can say “oh, we’re playing that game?” Then read a guide and outfight you within 24 hours. The wizard might need to take a few days to scribe some new spells. Honestly, poor Jack is a pretty suboptimum TWF build until about level 9, which means he has kinda lost before he ever got started.

Rogue isn’t particularly good at utility. They are good at skills, which quickly become obsolete for the most part. Beguiler can do pretty much any skill thing then gets 9 levels of spells, and there are Tier 1s who out utility beguiler. Like
Rogue “ok guys. I’m going to scout.” You stay here. I’ll be gone a while, because I’m checking for traps.
Rogue gets back: “Ok, I found”
Wizard “Don’t bother. I turned into an elemental and slid invisibly through the walls. I found the thing we needed, summoned 8 monsters, teleported in. It had a pretty nasty trap, killed my minion who grabbed it, but then I made the next one immune to that damage type and here’s the McGuffin.”

To make the rogue remotely competitive in utility requires a DM deliberately and systematically nerfing the T1. It can be done, but on a level playing field, fighters can’t fight particularly well, and rogues aren’t that good at infiltration/utility.

[RandomPeasant]

The other issue is that options are inherently unbalancing. The more moving parts you give a character, the better the chance that the outcomes will be wildly disparate.

Then why is a Fighter with access to every feat in the game still worse than a Core Wizard? The fact that the best classes have the most options leads people to conclude that the number of options is responsible for their power, but that's not really true. There's an intense power law distribution there, with a small number of incredibly powerful options representing the bulk of the cheese. And it's not like those are the ones that happened to be powerful, it's pretty predictably "stuff that lets you take more actions" and "stuff that lets you dumpster dive the MMs".


If you truly want balance, you have to check how every feat/spell/item/class interacts with every other.

{Scrubbed}. The broken builds in 3e are for the most part not the things that go out and pick up all the synergy on Bardic Music or something. They're the ones that cast broken spells to do broken things. planar binding isn't broken because there's some obscure creature that breaks an otherwise-reasonable power curve, it's broken because the thing it does is broken. You can greater planar binding for a Pit Fiend at 15th level without ever stepping outside core.


Then, since vanishingly few people will tolerate any decrease in the power level of casters, there is an obsession with upgrading martials until they are indistinguishable from casters.

Define your terms. What does "indistinguishable from casters" mean? Because I don't think anyone is asking for them to be mechanically the same (4e tried that, it was a bad idea), and to me that's the important thing. No one says nerfing casters is "making them indistinguishable from martials", why would the reverse hold?

[Tiktakkat]

Define your terms. What does "indistinguishable from casters" mean? Because I don't think anyone is asking for them to be mechanically the same (4e tried that, it was a bad idea), and to me that's the important thing. No one says nerfing casters is "making them indistinguishable from martials", why would the reverse hold?

The same access to the same abilities for movement, buffs, defenses, imposition of conditions, save or dies, save or sucks, and the like. Yes, what 4E tried. People just want it with "better" mechanics and flavor fluff.

And no, nerfing - or at least rolling back a bit of the excess, does not make a caster indistinguishable from a martial because the defining characteristic of a caster is the ability to access all those funky specials, albeit in a limited manner. Reducing how often they can access them does not make them a martial, it just makes them less super at everything to the point that a martial is a mere distraction and partial meat shield while the caster does everything.

The current "problem" is that casters can be better fighters that fighters and better rogues than rogues.
The "solution" most (not all, most) look for is finding a way to make fighters better healers than clerics and rogues better glass cannons than wizards.

[Anthrowhale]

All that demonstrates is that you can use high optimization to advance any class. Oh, is that a level 20 fighter build? The wizard used 1/10 the optimization chops and just chain gated a dozen solars.

There is a real sense in which the T1 spellcasters are 'easy mode' characters.

[Lorddenorstrus]

There is a real sense in which the T1 spellcasters are 'easy mode' characters.

I mean I would say the Wizard/Cleric require some finesse to push their power. More so Wizard 'cause i guess a cleric could just buff themself into martial supremacy and still have 9ths floating around as utility as needed.

Druids I've always felt played themselves. Get what Natural spell? God I never see Druids, and Morph into a Bear or something at mid level. You're a better fighter and cast spells. Summon more better fighters to and you can single handedly be 5 or more 'better fighters'.

Wizards have always felt.. squishy enough and brittle enough to at least require knowledge on play to bring up to potential. I feel a new player could flaunt a Druid or Cleric rather easily due to inherent built martial capability.

@Peasant - Yeah Planar binding is completely banned at my tables among some others. It breaks any guise of fairness.

[ShurikVch]

All that demonstrates is that you can use high optimization to advance any class. Oh, is that a level 20 fighter build? The wizard used 1/10 the optimization chops and just chain gated a dozen solars. There is no point beyond low op & low level where a fighter is really likely to be better in battle than an equal optimization tier 1. If you made Jack B Quick from the guide, almost any tier one class after about 4th level can say “oh, we’re playing that game?” Then read a guide and outfight you within 24 hours.The wizard might need to take a few days to scribe some new spells.
... or not...
Not everybody care about optimization ("Healbots" are still a thing... And Druids-archers - too...)
Not everybody are any good in optimization (Still remember a post where writer complained how one player "dominated" their game. "Dominator" played Fighter; poster - Wizard...)

Honestly, poor Jack is a pretty suboptimum TWF build until about level 9, which means he has kinda lost before he ever got started.
At least, it don't rely on charging - it gets repetitive (even when it works).
About any class can be decent in charge (even Commoner) - Fighter is better because of full BAB and decent feat access


Rogue isn’t particularly good at utility. They are good at skills, which quickly become obsolete for the most part. Beguiler can do pretty much any skill thing then gets 9 levels of spells
Good for Beguiler.
But not every party has Beguiler.
(And not everybody want to play casters in general - m. b. especially full casters)


and there are Tier 1s who out utility beguiler. Like
Rogue “ok guys. I’m going to scout.” You stay here. I’ll be gone a while, because I’m checking for traps.
Rogue gets back: “Ok, I found”
Wizard “Don’t bother. I turned into an elemental and slid invisibly through the walls. I found the thing we needed, summoned 8 monsters, teleported in. It had a pretty nasty trap, killed my minion who grabbed it, but then I made the next one immune to that damage type and here’s the McGuffin.”
Do you aware there are whole campaign settings where described situation is completely impossible at best, and actively undesirable - at worst?
Magical powers could vary from setting to setting, while skill effects are (AFAIR) fairly consistent

Also, described situation looks like a failure of DM, not Rogue: at - what? - 15th level, in the dungeon was no guarding monsters, no Walls of Force (or, heck, even just plain metallic walls!), no nothing!..
It reminds me about the old joke:
Wizard player: "I cast Win the Campaign spell!"
DM: "Done. You win. Would you like to start the next campaign?"

[Gnaeus]

Then why is a Fighter with access to every feat in the game still worse than a Core Wizard? The fact that the best classes have the most options leads people to conclude that the number of options is responsible for their power, but that's not really true. There's an intense power law distribution there, with a small number of incredibly powerful options representing the bulk of the cheese. And it's not like those are the ones that happened to be powerful, it's pretty predictably "stuff that lets you take more actions" and "stuff that lets you dumpster dive the MMs".

First, he’s not. Every combat feat maybe. Every feat period? What level do you think the wizard wins that?

Second. {Scrubbed} I never said all spells/feats and powers were equal. Some are clearly better than others. But you could remove all the Polymorphing and summoning stuff completely, and wizard would still outperform fighter. Scry and die, to give just one example, is a bunch of chemically inoffensive component parts. Most metamagic is pretty meh until you find the metamagic reducers, which are themselves only decent without certain specific metamagic feats. Sure, 3.5 has low hanging easy to find broken stuff. But if you take 2 samurai the one with the fear lockdown feats is going to be way op compared with the one trying to TWF with his bastard sword.

[Kitsuneymg]

4e flopped because the mechanics were convoluted and took to long to do anything. It wasn't the design idea just the way they went with it. Pathfinder has Spheres of Power does it not? That functions as a non vancian system and I don't see any issues with that. So clearly designing a non vancian system doesn't automatically implode the idea. It's about execution.


I love spheres. Spheres still has uses per day type system in the form of Spell Points. There are ways around it, but in general, your effectiveness drops noticeably once you hit 0 spell points.

[jdizzlean]

I've always thought ToB is great for low level campaigns, but it just scales horribly. on top of that it really pigeonholes you into one discipline, for the most part, as you level, making it even worse. When I do use it, it's more for the stances which are all the time things, or for boosts/counters to augment. I might have only 1-2 strikes even chosen due to how ridiculously underpowered they are. that is unless you're in a super low magic world. If i knew going in that I'd be playing late game, I would likely not play a martial at all, as after say lvl 8ish, you're useless imo.

that said, the biggest argument comes to IL and if you take martial stance/strike as a feat, whether you have to choose a lvl 1 stance/strike or not, assuming you meet any other pre-reqs, which like i stated before, is one of the bigger drawbacks of the entire system. but that feels like derailing the intent of the thread, so ignore my personal griping about it :p

[Efrate]

You can take any you qualify for. So if you take a maneuver via martial study as a 10th level fighter you can choose any up to 3rd level you qualify for. You can also qualify via items for x maneuvers known and all that, examples in ToB.

[icefractal]

I do feel like they low-ball the standard-action strikes a bit, increasingly so as the level rises.
But the other maneuvers are often a straight-upgrade for any martial and some casters.

The problem is that they're trying to make a fixed point (the effect of a strike) match a highly variable point (how much damage/effects characters of that level would be doing with attacks), and so wherever they land, it's going to seem OP to some people and underwhelming to others.

[Lorddenorstrus]

I've always thought ToB is great for low level campaigns, but it just scales horribly. on top of that it really pigeonholes you into one discipline, (snip for size apologies)

I think you're right on the pigeon holed part. It feels like you have to completely devote to even reach the late tier Maneuvers and most of them aren't very good. I've built a twf Tigerclaw Crit Fisher before and the only good things were Blood in the Water, and Counters to use up Swift actions and aid defense. And a few other builds but it feels the same everytime. Get 2 bad Save concentration checks, get Attack = AC. Get IHS if warblade.. Although I admit my test of Swordsage was very limited. It's kind of awkward because it feels out of the gate very powerful and low level play it's more enjoyable than a fighter. But, was this another set they only played tested the low levels on? Because I don't see how they thought mid/late game maneuvers... are par to basically any 'ok+' spell. The 'late game' strikes need some serious buffs.

[Darg]

But if you take 2 samurai the one with the fear lockdown feats is going to be way op compared with the one trying to TWF with his bastard sword.

Part of this has to do with the unbalanced nature of power attack. It makes absolutely no sense that a light weapon wouldn't get the benefit of the feat and wielding a weapon 2handed doesn't necessarily mean you can apply more force than what was expressed with the str modifier. If anything, the increased distance when wielded 1handed from the center of gravity can increase the cutting power of the tip of blade when swung recklessly. This also applies with blunt weapons.

3.0 applied a +1 to damage for a -1 to hit on all damage rolls. 3.5 went the exact opposite direction giving +2 to 2h weapons and +0 to off-hand weapons. My groups currently use the 3.0 version to balance out the weapon fighting styles.

As for your samurai situation, the samurai already gets the TWF feats from class features so there isn't any reason why that samurai can't get the same "fear lockdown feats."

[RandomPeasant]

The same access to the same abilities for movement, buffs, defenses, imposition of conditions, save or dies, save or sucks, and the like. Yes, what 4E tried. People just want it with "better" mechanics and flavor fluff.

4e only tried to give people "the same" abilities in those areas insofar as taking them away from everyone is "the same". The overwhelming majority of 4e "balance improvement" comes from simply removing things that are imbalanced in 3e.


The current "problem" is that casters can be better fighters that fighters and better rogues than rogues.

The thing is, that's not really true. A Wizard has an absolute advantage in Fighter-ing over a Fighter (that is: you can build a Gish Wizard that is better at melee than a comparably-optimized Fighter), but they don't have a comparative advantage (that is: that Gish Wizard will be overall less powerful than a comparably-optimized Batman Wizard). The Fighter is bad at combat because they don't have the tools they need to appropriately contribute on their own. Fixing that won't turn them into a Wizard, it'll just make them a viable character.


The "solution" most (not all, most) look for is finding a way to make fighters better healers than clerics and rogues better glass cannons than wizards.

I don't think that's accurate at all. The solution most people look for, in my experience, is to nerf casters somehow. Even the people who do want to buff martials are generally not interested in doing it by turning them into casters.


There is a real sense in which the T1 spellcasters are 'easy mode' characters.

Not really. T1s have a lot of moving parts, and it's very easy to end up doing something underpowered with them. An Artificer is not an "easy mode character" by any stretch of the imagination. The closest T1 comes to having an easy mode in it is the Druid. The real easy mode classes are the Beguiler and Dread Necromancer, because they are basically Sorcerers that are locked in to a mid-op spell selection. The only way to screw up a Beguiler is by actively anti-optimizing.


First, he’s not. Every combat feat maybe. Every feat period? What level do you think the wizard wins that?

What selection of feats do you think is better than "infinite Pit Fiends", exactly? You can't win arguments just by being loudly disbelieving of the other side, you need to present an actual argument.


Scry and die, to give just one example, is a bunch of chemically inoffensive component parts.

You must have a very different impression of people's complaints about the system than I do, because 99% of the time when I see someone complaining about how Wizards break the game, teleport is the first or second example out of their mouth, with scry coming not long after.


Most metamagic is pretty meh until you find the metamagic reducers, which are themselves only decent without certain specific metamagic feats.

This is like saying that "use whiteboard markers on a whiteboard" is a lifehack. Really, the thing that tells you to combine it with another thing is good with that thing? Did you know that those metamagic feats are also much better if you are able to cast spells?

[Tiktakkat]

4e only tried to give people "the same" abilities in those areas insofar as taking them away from everyone is "the same". The overwhelming majority of 4e "balance improvement" comes from simply removing things that are imbalanced in 3e.

It took away what made the classes unique and replaced it with flavor text that they acknowledged was easily adaptable, making everything a specialized version of a single class.


The thing is, that's not really true. A Wizard has an absolute advantage in Fighter-ing over a Fighter (that is: you can build a Gish Wizard that is better at melee than a comparably-optimized Fighter), but they don't have a comparative advantage (that is: that Gish Wizard will be overall less powerful than a comparably-optimized Batman Wizard). The Fighter is bad at combat because they don't have the tools they need to appropriately contribute on their own. Fixing that won't turn them into a Wizard, it'll just make them a viable character.

Well, yes, then it really is true.
And it shows that what a fighter "needs" is the spell ability of a wizard to be "better".


I don't think that's accurate at all. The solution most people look for, in my experience, is to nerf casters somehow. Even the people who do want to buff martials are generally not interested in doing it by turning them into casters.

Which is why there are handbooks on "mundanity" and avoiding it.
And "required" abilities and immunities that are magical, not martial.
And why Tome of Battle adds caster-like abilities to martials.
And why you refer to it as "nerfing" casters, which carries an implication that any alterations would make them as weak as martials.

Of course, all that glosses past the point I was trying to make that a comparison should be made to how casters were boosted from AD&D to 3X/D20, and use that as a basis for considering changes/fixes.

[Darg]

It took away what made the classes unique and replaced it with flavor text that they acknowledged was easily adaptable, making everything a specialized version of a single class.



Well, yes, then it really is true.
And it shows that what a fighter "needs" is the spell ability of a wizard to be "better".



Which is why there are handbooks on "mundanity" and avoiding it.
And "required" abilities and immunities that are magical, not martial.
And why Tome of Battle adds caster-like abilities to martials.
And why you refer to it as "nerfing" casters, which carries an implication that any alterations would make them as weak as martials.

Of course, all that glosses past the point I was trying to make that a comparison should be made to how casters were boosted from AD&D to 3X/D20, and use that as a basis for considering changes/fixes.

From what I understand of AD&D, classes had roles, and once they got to certain levels they would start doing things to fill those roles on the world stage. Like a fighter would get a keep/castle, a thief would get a thieves guild, the wizard would take on apprentices and guide them, etc. It honestly sounds cool.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

From what I understand of AD&D, classes had roles, and once they got to certain levels they would start doing things to fill those roles on the world stage. Like a fighter would get a keep/castle, a thief would get a thieves guild, the wizard would take on apprentices and guide them, etc. It honestly sounds cool."Where in the hells did you get that giant stone building?"

"I got it from leveling up."

"We're on the Plane of Air! There's nothing to build on, let alone with!"

"No idea. Think we can take it with us?"

"No!"

[Gnaeus]

As for your samurai situation, the samurai already gets the TWF feats from class features so there isn't any reason why that samurai can't get the same "fear lockdown feats."

The point is that all those fear feats, and samurai itself, are individually not outstanding. They become capable of instantly locking down most/all (depending on how one interprets fear effects) only in conjunction. Samurai can’t AOE stun lock people. Class X with imperious command is spending resources to trade actions one for 1 with a single enemy. It’s one of the games worst classes coupled with a meh feat that together can trivialize most encounters. And the samurai that takes those particular, otherwise unremarkable feats, is way way better than one who doesn’t.



What selection of feats do you think is better than "infinite Pit Fiends", exactly? You can't win arguments just by being loudly disbelieving of the other side, you need to present an actual argument.


Again, at what level does that become feasible? Because I’m thinking at level 9, the fighter + his familiar + his psy crystal + an item familiar+ his cohort + his undead cohort + his animal companion and casting spell-likes like summon monster 5, Summon nature’s ally 5 and teleport and a personal planar touchstone and some ToB stuff and like 15 incarna feats is going to feel pretty darn good standing next to a wizard 9.



This is like saying that "use whiteboard markers on a whiteboard" is a lifehack. Really, the thing that tells you to combine it with another thing is good with that thing? Did you know that those metamagic feats are also much better if you are able to cast spells?

Quicken spell isn’t broken as written. Persistent spell isn’t broken as written.

Metamagic reducers aren’t broken in combination with some metamagic feats. Empower or maximize, for example.

Nightstick isn’t broken when used as intended to add turn attempts.

DMM isn’t broken without nightsticks.

A DMM cleric with quicken or persist and a pile of nightsticks is a classic for broken.


... or not...
Not everybody care about optimization ("Healbots" are still a thing... And Druids-archers - too...)
Not everybody are any good in optimization (Still remember a post where writer complained how one player "dominated" their game. "Dominator" played Fighter; poster - Wizard...)


That’s a weird response from someone who just posted a super-optimized fighter and monk, to demonstrate that fighters and monks can fight things. And a suboptimal cleric is a lot more able to do his basic job than a suboptimal fighter.

Your argument that not everyone likes optimization is why the poor labeling of a fighter or monk is so bad. As you point out, you can make a commoner or warrior with charge feats. Bad results come from “I want to make a mighty warrior like Conan” and you find that fighters require fighting up an optimization slope to outperform things like the cleric’s zombie giants, which require a core spell and no particular imagination.



Good for Beguiler.
But not every party has Beguiler.
(And not everybody want to play casters in general - m. b. especially full casters

What do you think “good at” means? When discussing a class? If I say Samurai is good at skills, I could make a samurai with 20 int. But compared with most classes, samurai isn’t good at skills. You could make a samurai who was good at utility, but he would still be behind a rogue who would still be behind a Beguiler, who would still be behind an archivist. As a utility class, rogue approaches the bottom, slightly above ninja or scout. In the range of classes, rogue isn’t much good at utility.



Do you aware there are whole campaign settings where described situation is completely impossible at best, and actively undesirable - at worst?
Magical powers could vary from setting to setting, while skill effects are (AFAIR) fairly consistent

Also, described situation looks like a failure of DM, not Rogue: at - what? - 15th level, in the dungeon was no guarding monsters, no Walls of Force (or, heck, even just plain metallic walls!), no nothing!..
It reminds me about the old joke:
Wizard player: "I cast Win the Campaign spell!"
DM: "Done. You win. Would you like to start the next campaign?"

I could just as easily posit a situation in which trapfinding and open locks are useless because all the traps and barriers are puzzles. Where hide and move silently are useless because there is no cover, or the monster has an “I auto detect you” power.

The difference is that the rogue is likely to be made useless by accident. The wizard is so much better he has to be specifically countered. This is heavy Oberoni fallacy territory. If I specifically nerf the wizard, it isn’t a problem that he vastly out rogues a rogue at high levels. If the wizard were actually on a level playing field, rather than vastly superior in his utility, the DM wouldn’t need to specifically wizard proof a dungeon any more than he needs to specifically rogue proof a dungeon.

[RandomPeasant]

And why Tome of Battle adds caster-like abilities to martials.

What do you mean by "caster-like"? Are maneuvers like spells because they have a discrete pool of charges? Because they're individual abilities with defined mechanical effects? Because they come in nine levels? Because they come in distinct schools?


And why you refer to it as "nerfing" casters, which carries an implication that any alterations would make them as weak as martials.

If your goal is to fix the power imbalance, and you refuse to power up the thing that is weaker because that will cause it to gain the property of "not being weak", I don't really see an option that isn't nerfs.


From what I understand of AD&D, classes had roles, and once they got to certain levels they would start doing things to fill those roles on the world stage. Like a fighter would get a keep/castle, a thief would get a thieves guild, the wizard would take on apprentices and guide them, etc. It honestly sounds cool.

It certainly is cool, and it certainly should happen. D&D (since BECMI) has had the idea that you will eventually advance to being a ruler with a title and territories and have abilities and resources that matter on that scale. But while the absence of that is a problem for 3e (and 4e and 5e, and probably 6e when it happens), just adding it isn't a substitute for balancing the classes. As Max notes, some campaigns are going to operate in a paradigm where it doesn't make sense or matter for you to become the head of the thieves guild or get a castle. If your high level adventure is to go off and explore ruined Githyanki fortresses on the Astral Plane, the Fighter has to be able to deal with that, and having an army won't help. Specific associations are also the wrong way to go, as they lock out concepts like "Wizard with an army" or "Rogue who's in charge of a magical research lab". People should get a suite of kingdom management abilities at whatever time the kingdom management minigame becomes relevant, but they also need to get abilities that effect their normal adventures.


Again, at what level does that become feasible?

You know, the fact that you don't know what level people get to cast planar binding at really makes me skeptical of the quality of your analysis here. At 11th level, the Wizard gets something that the pile of feats can only match by delegating to a Wizard (by the way: if the best use of the feats is to get a character who can cast spells instead, that's a pretty compelling argument that the feats themselves aren't doing much you care about). And since a Fighter with a regular number of feats is a playable character up to somewhere between 5th and 8th level, the fact that all the feats in the world gets you between two and five extra levels of viability doesn't seem all that impressive.


Quicken spell isn’t broken as written. Persistent spell isn’t broken as written.

Misses the point. Yes, you're combining non-broken pieces. But you're combining them in a way the game tells you to combine them. If that breaks, that's not some "you can't possibly balance a system with lots of options" thing, that's "the designers didn't test their product properly". Where's the combo that sticks together a vestige, a psionic power, and an Incarnate class feature (or whatever combination of things that are unrelated) into something broken?


And a suboptimal cleric is a lot more able to do his basic job than a suboptimal fighter.

Picking a single pairwise comparison isn't really a good argument. There are plenty of powerful classes that have an optimization floor far, far below that of weaker classes. The Artificer, for example, is pretty bad until you do some serious optimization. Whereas a Warblade or Dread Necromancer comes in at a very reasonable level of optimization outside of active self-sabotage.

[Darg]

It certainly is cool, and it certainly should happen. D&D (since BECMI) has had the idea that you will eventually advance to being a ruler with a title and territories and have abilities and resources that matter on that scale. But while the absence of that is a problem for 3e (and 4e and 5e, and probably 6e when it happens), just adding it isn't a substitute for balancing the classes. As Max notes, some campaigns are going to operate in a paradigm where it doesn't make sense or matter for you to become the head of the thieves guild or get a castle. If your high level adventure is to go off and explore ruined Githyanki fortresses on the Astral Plane, the Fighter has to be able to deal with that, and having an army won't help. Specific associations are also the wrong way to go, as they lock out concepts like "Wizard with an army" or "Rogue who's in charge of a magical research lab". People should get a suite of kingdom management abilities at whatever time the kingdom management minigame becomes relevant, but they also need to get abilities that effect their normal adventures.

That's the thing. If the fighter becomes a king or whatever, that means their resources to accomplish things go up as they get subjects. Finding a 9th level cleric to cast planeshift is going to be much easier when you lead a kingdom. I'm not going to bother fleshing it out, but the ability to move people and organizations can be just as world altering as many spells are.

I get why WotC would get rid of that part as it was probably the dungeon crawler aspect that was the most popular aspect of the game. This doesn't mean that you can't do stuff like this, but it isn't built into the system so the lack of power mundanes have aren't as easily overcome especially when money is balanced around the player having a finite amount of it.

[RandomPeasant]

That's the thing. If the fighter becomes a king or whatever, that means their resources to accomplish things go up as they get subjects. Finding a 9th level cleric to cast planeshift is going to be much easier when you lead a kingdom. I'm not going to bother fleshing it out, but the ability to move people and organizations can be just as world altering as many spells are.

Sure. But what happens when the Wizard decides they want to rule a kingdom? What happens to the martial-types who don't want to end up as emperors? I don't think you can just say "no" to either of those things, because there are plenty of examples of both from throughout the genre. And, frankly, "I can bring along a buddy who solves the problems for me" is a much worse solution than "I can solve problems my own damn self", for all the reasons that minions are already obnoxious to resolve at the table.

[Tiktakkat]

From what I understand of AD&D, classes had roles, and once they got to certain levels they would start doing things to fill those roles on the world stage. Like a fighter would get a keep/castle, a thief would get a thieves guild, the wizard would take on apprentices and guide them, etc. It honestly sounds cool.

It does, and it was supposed to mirror how the "inspirational reading" progressed, but it was never executed particularly well in adventures. Much the way it never seemed to work out in the "inspirational reading", but that is another thread.




What do you mean by "caster-like"? Are maneuvers like spells because they have a discrete pool of charges? Because they're individual abilities with defined mechanical effects? Because they come in nine levels? Because they come in distinct schools?

Because of the mechanics.


If your goal is to fix the power imbalance, and you refuse to power up the thing that is weaker because that will cause it to gain the property of "not being weak", I don't really see an option that isn't nerfs.

If the goal is to fix the power imbalance, why not do it by rolling back power buffs rather than trying to buff everything to the same level? "Return to base" is not the same as "nerf". You are making a false equivalency.

[ShurikVch]

What do you think “good at” means? When discussing a class?
I dunno
You tell me?

If I say Samurai is good at skills, I could make a samurai with 20 int. But compared with most classes, samurai isn’t good at skills.
The Samurai's problem isn't just the lack of skill points, but also - lack of necessary class skills
CW Samurai have the lowest skill points and rather short skill list; OA Samurai is average in the skill department - but still nowhere as good as Rogue (lack of certain skills and 4 s.p. vs Rogue's 8)

You could make a samurai who was good at utility, but he would still be behind a rogue who would still be behind a Beguiler, who would still be behind an archivist.
Nah, Beguiler is no better than Rogue - nothing in their skill set is above Rogue
But if you mean "magic" - Rogue can have it too, because: 1) UMD, 2) Hirelings, 3) Cohorts.

Also, the big problem of Archivist, Beguiler, (and - to the lesser degree - Cleric): campaign may not allow any (or even all) of aforementioned classes, but Rogue would be very likely allowed

As a utility class, rogue approaches the bottom, slightly above ninja or scout. In the range of classes, rogue isn’t much good at utility.
To avoid further pointless arguments: what is the "utility" you're speaking about?


I could just as easily posit a situation in which trapfinding and open locks are useless because all the traps and barriers are puzzles.
Yes, and?..
Rogue would still have their social skills, UMD, and SA
Your point?

Where hide and move silently are useless because there is no cover
There are some ways to deal with this problem - HiPS is just one of them

or the monster has an “I auto detect you” power.
If it's one of "standard" extra senses - Rogue able to avoid most of them (except Touchsight and X-Ray Vision)
But if it's plain and simple DM fiat - than DM is at fault by not warning the Rogue's player about this little fact


The difference is that the rogue is likely to be made useless by accident. The wizard is so much better he has to be specifically countered. This is heavy Oberoni fallacy territory. If I specifically nerf the wizard, it isn’t a problem that he vastly out rogues a rogue at high levels.

In Westeros (Game of Thrones) is either Restricted Magic with no spells above certain level (4th-level in most cases), or just No Magic At All
Midnight Campaign Setting: your daily power points is enough to cast one "big" spell (7th-8th level), couple of "medium" ones (4th-5th), or handful of "low" ones (1th-2nd) - and handful of cantrips. Also, Astiraxes would detect your spell from the range of 0.5 miles/CL, which would result in incoming death squad of unknown size and composition...
Masque of The Red Death: every single spell required a power check
Jakandor was devastated by magical plague; most of magical knowledge is lost
In Ravenloft, magic is altered in certain aspects: like your summoning spells bring creatures not from other planes, but from the very same domain (if no such creatures - spell fails); and "Wish" spell line is corrupted by the Dark Powers; many spells required power checks for caster to not be corrupted by the Dark Powers
Certain areas in Planescape are impeding magic (namely, area around the Spire of Outlands)
Call of Cthulhu: casting most spells damages your Sanity. Also, learning a spell cause you to get Sanity penalty


If the wizard were actually on a level playing field, rather than vastly superior in his utility, the DM wouldn’t need to specifically wizard proof a dungeon any more than he needs to specifically rogue proof a dungeon.
It's not even about a Wizards: that one sub. level gives Earth Glide; the Elementals themselves could be played as PC, or just hired...

[RandomPeasant]

Because of the mechanics.

That's still not really helpful. What mechanics? What, specifically, is the thing about Tome of Battle that makes the classes in it too much like spellcasters?


If the goal is to fix the power imbalance, why not do it by rolling back power buffs rather than trying to buff everything to the same level? "Return to base" is not the same as "nerf". You are making a false equivalency.

Don't make me tell you why you're wrong, tell me why you're right. Why is rolling back to AD&D mechanics a better idea than writing a functional Fighter that benefits from the past two decades of advances in game design? Why are the ways casters worked at that point better than the ways they work now? We certainly could roll back to the world of racial level limits and THAC0, but I'd need to hear a pretty damn compelling argument for why doing that was worthwhile.

[Lans]

[QUOTE=RandomPeasant;25178296]That's still not really helpful. What mechanics? What, specifically, is the thing about Tome of Battle that makes the classes in it too much like spellcasters?

]

There is a preparation thing,

[Dr_Dinosaur]

You might want to have a look at Path of War, the 3rd party Pathfinder adaptation of ToB's ideas. It's a bit more flexible about what a Strike can do between different disciplines, like Veiled Moon packaging short teleports into a few (leaving your move action/boosts free) or Radiant Dawn focusing more on healing/buffing allies while tossing out incidental damage on top

[Darg]

Don't make me tell you why you're wrong, tell me why you're right. Why is rolling back to AD&D mechanics a better idea than writing a functional Fighter that benefits from the past two decades of advances in game design? Why are the ways casters worked at that point better than the ways they work now? We certainly could roll back to the world of racial level limits and THAC0, but I'd need to hear a pretty damn compelling argument for why doing that was worthwhile.

He's not saying to go back to AD&D. You also are under a false impression that fighter is nonfunctional. The only reason casters outperform a fighter being a fighter is three-fold: casters use RAW cheese, take advantage of poor encounter design, and they take advantage of PRCs which are designed to really only have one PRC per character. Divine power makes a cleric a better fighter than the fighter? I wouldn't say that. The fighter has 4 combat feats over the cleric. The cleric most likely invested in wisdom and charisma over strength, dexterity, and constitution. Wild shape/polymorph make a druid/wizard a better fighter? Nope. They still suffer from having less BAB and polymorph can be applied to the fighter negating any strength advantage. The fighter still retains the feat advantage which can be pretty large for simply swinging away at things.

What makes t1 classes lord over mundane classes is their ability to alter how a campaign is played. I would say that even a monk given support of a caster would easily outperform a caster buffing only themselves.

[RandomPeasant]

There is a preparation thing,

Sure, that's something you could point to. But that gets you immediately into another question: what do we mean when we say "caster"? Plenty of spellcasters don't prepare their spells (most famously the Sorcerer). And there are a number of non-ToB non-caster (at least, not traditional caster) classes that prepare their abilities from a large list each day, like the Binder or the Incarnate. Beyond that, there's no reason that better martials have to look like ToB characters. You could have the Fighter learn a set of at-will abilities that he just knew. You could even just give him class features that added up to a level-appropriate contribution instead of one on par with an animal companion.


The only reason casters outperform a fighter being a fighter is three-fold: casters use RAW cheese, take advantage of poor encounter design, and they take advantage of PRCs which are designed to really only have one PRC per character.

Define your terms better. "RAW cheese" and "poor encounter design" are entirely undefined, and will allow you to move the goalposts such that any counterargument is impossible. Conversely, combining multiple PrCs is a pretty tiny fraction of the power of spellcasters. Incantatrix/IotSV is better than straight Incantatrix, but either is perfectly capable of obsoleting a Fighter.


What makes t1 classes lord over mundane classes is their ability to alter how a campaign is played. I would say that even a monk given support of a caster would easily outperform a caster buffing only themselves.

Why is "two characters are better than one character even if one of the two is pretty bad" a compelling argument for anything at all? Of course if you get a Monk for free, that's better than not doing that. The issue is that the Monk isn't free, it comes at the cost of another Cleric or Druid. If the only argument you can make for the viability of the martials is "they're okay if they get another character's worth of resources", you have in fact conceded to my argument that we should give martials more resources.

[Particle_Man]

So to lower caster power, I guess one could limit when they get spells back to “only after the boss (or at least sub-boss) monster is defeated”, only allow one prestige class per character, and take out the metamagic reducers?

[Kuulvheysoon]

So to lower caster power, I guess one could limit when they get spells back to “only after the boss (or at least sub-boss) monster is defeated”, only allow one prestige class per character, and take out the metamagic reducers?

Pull a 5E and eliminate bonus spell slots due to a high ability score.

But really, it's the sheer mass of spells, feats and prestige classes that are available in 3.5E that's the issue. That and powerful "blanket" spells that lack true restrictions, like polymorph.

[RandomPeasant]

So to lower caster power, I guess one could limit when they get spells back to “only after the boss (or at least sub-boss) monster is defeated”, only allow one prestige class per character, and take out the metamagic reducers?

I think the only one of those I would really consider to be a good idea is the last one (and even that's provisional, as there's a case to be made balance is better if you simply let the Clerics of the world replace Fighters, within the confines of 3e-as-it-exists). Limiting spells like that means that casters spend most of their time sitting around, which isn't fun for anyone, especially because people tend to be wildly irrational in their use of limited resources. Reducing the number of spells available also pushes people directly towards more powerful spells. If you only get one 6th level spell per adventure, it's hard to justify spending it on acid fog instead of planar binding, let alone chain lightning. Limiting PrCs is just kind of whatever. Taking the best PrCs straight through is better than dipping a bunch of mediocre PrCs, and unless you're explicitly doing it only for casters, the splash damage probably hits martials more.

The issue is that "caster power" is not homogenous. A Wizard whose favorite spells are magic missile and fireball (and who doesn't know what Arcane Thesis is) is already fine. Even a BFC or Buffbot Wizard is going to feel okay in practice, as the ways they're powerful don't directly overshadow the Fighters of the world, even if their contribution is objectively larger. Conversely, an Incantatrix whose list of persistent buffs makes them effectively invulnerable or someone who only ever casts planar binding variants is capable of overshadowing a Fighter without ever particularly trying.

So sweeping nerfs like "everyone has less spells" are not the answer. They're absolutely crippling for someone whose plan is to cast a shout or black tentacles every combat, but largely meaningless for someone who wants to cast one polymorph and make it Persistent. That's the opposite of what you want. If you really want a quick fix, the only one I can really endorse is "nothing that lets people act more than once per round, nothing that allows players to pull from the Monster Manual", but even that has collateral damage (summon monster is fine, white raven tactics is a bit over powered but probably healthy because it promotes teamwork). Ultimately, what you have to is establish an expected power level, and work with players to help move concepts to that level as appropriate.


But really, it's the sheer mass of spells, feats and prestige classes that are available in 3.5E that's the issue.

I just don't think that's true. Consider a thought experiment. Take all the Wizard spells of each level, and order them by power. Now imagine you partition that list into two chunks. A high power one, and a low power one. Where can you put that partition that player who was purely interested in power would pick the lower half? If it's really the sheer number of spells that's the problem, you would expect that 60% or even 51% would be enough. But that's not the case. You probably wouldn't even take that deal at 80%. There's a strong power law distribution in spell power. The powerful spells are much better than the alternatives.

[Darg]

Define your terms better. "RAW cheese" and "poor encounter design" are entirely undefined, and will allow you to move the goalposts such that any counterargument is impossible. Conversely, combining multiple PrCs is a pretty tiny fraction of the power of spellcasters. Incantatrix/IotSV is better than straight Incantatrix, but either is perfectly capable of obsoleting a Fighter.

And yet you are free to keep them wide for yourself. RAW cheese has to do with how certain spells are adjudicated. An example is how I see planar binding used used on these forums even though it has a reasonability clause. Is it reasonable that a creature serve you for long periods of time for pennies? Or cast a wish spell for free to get free items and stat boosts? Poor encounter design has to do with pacing an adventuring day and a multitude of other factors that allow a single character to assault a single days worth of CR appropriate encounters by themselves. PRC splash abuse attempts to undermine as many of the penalties of combining two types of roles together as possible, possibly even eliminating them.


Why is "two characters are better than one character even if one of the two is pretty bad" a compelling argument for anything at all? Of course if you get a Monk for free, that's better than not doing that. The issue is that the Monk isn't free, it comes at the cost of another Cleric or Druid. If the only argument you can make for the viability of the martials is "they're okay if they get another character's worth of resources", you have in fact conceded to my argument that we should give martials more resources.

Because D&D is a party role based game. The average party will have 4-6 players. If we compared them with solo campaigns then sure, the monk wouldn't be able to accomplish what the t1 caster can do. Then again, at low levels, the monk would probably have a higher survival rate than a solo wizard. In any case, it's unreasonable to assume that the monk is going solo in a party with a caster. Would a polymorph spell be more effective on the wizard themself or on the monk? The monk has been investing combat feats and has class features to take advantage of. The wizard has d4 HD, less feats invested in martial combat, and poor BAB while by level 7 the monk has flurry, bonus feats, higher AC, better saves, and d8 HD as a base chassis. Even against a cleric with divine power, a monk receiving the same treatment (without divine power) would out perform the cleric.

As for whether a second cleric would be redundant or not depends on how skilled your group is and whether they are facing encounters that properly tax the party. Comparing classes 1:1 in such a situation would be near impossible as a party with one or the other should be facing differently constructed scenarios. Of course, pre-made adventures are a different story altogether as they are tailored for the middle ground and of course casters are going to see a lot more benefit in such a game once you start getting into the mid levels as spells are guaranteed when a class feature.


So to lower caster power, I guess one could limit when they get spells back to “only after the boss (or at least sub-boss) monster is defeated”, only allow one prestige class per character, and take out the metamagic reducers?

It's not about when they get spells back, but rather the "fear" that they might not have the right spell for the right job. If each encounter taxes 25% of a caster's daily resources, they shouldn't have anything usable left after 4 encounters. However, many of the options presented as high power tend to leave that part ambiguous as it allows casters to then have ambiguous power that can only be questioned when broken down into encounter design. Oh, the wizard uses 100% of their daily resource to summon a horde of monsters to blow through 10 encounters in the span of a few minutes? Well, actually that would be one encounter as the 3 other members of the party still have 100% of their resources.

[Tiktakkat]

That's still not really helpful. What mechanics? What, specifically, is the thing about Tome of Battle that makes the classes in it too much like spellcasters?

"Mechanics" is a specific.
And I did not say "too much like spellcasters", I said "adds caster-like abilities to". There is a difference between those statements, and the mechanics behind them.


Don't make me tell you why you're wrong, tell me why you're right. Why is rolling back to AD&D mechanics a better idea than writing a functional Fighter that benefits from the past two decades of advances in game design? Why are the ways casters worked at that point better than the ways they work now? We certainly could roll back to the world of racial level limits and THAC0, but I'd need to hear a pretty damn compelling argument for why doing that was worthwhile.

You name multiple things and do not even get near the answer. Which is part of the problem.
As for why I am right, it is because I have a better understanding of the mechanics and the synergy between the various "advances" (alleged and so-called) in game design.

Given that you already reject anything other than boosting martials, listing some of the hefty boosts to casters is unlikely to be of much use in convincing you of anything. However, just in case someone else might be interested, I will list a few:

First, spells slots.
The switch from an assumption of 10 or so encounters per adventuring "day" to 4, 3 if a non-combat encounter is included, effectively doubles or triples the number of spells a caster has available.
Moving of utility spells like read magic and detect magic to being 0 level spells effectively gives them another bonus spell per day.
The addition of bonus spells for ability scores for arcane casters, along with an overall increase in the number of spell slots again doubles the number of spells a caster has per day.
Altogether, those three triple or quadruple (depending on level) the number of spells a caster gets, with a resulting increase in firepower.

Second, spells available.
Wizards had 30 1st level spells in the AD&D PHB. That soared to 40 with Unearthed Arcana. There were 12 then 16 9th level spells.
Clerics had a humongous 12 1st level spells, going to a massive 20, with 10 and 12 7th level spells. (The top level at the time.)
The power difference between that and current options is explained sufficiently by the distinction between Tier 1 and Tier 2 in analyses, but compounded by distinctions between Core only and splat book.

Third, saves.
In AD&D, saves always got easier with the rare exception of spells without saves and less than a handful with a specific penalty.
This compared to saves constantly getting more difficult.
A 9th level fighter needed an 11 to save versus a spell in AD&D. A typical 3X/D20 fighter has a +3 Base Reflex and Will save versus a low-end DC 17 for a 5th level spell, requiring a 14 or better. That is for a wizard with an Int of 15, something essentially unheard of.

That is just scratching the surface. Other things like the absurd boost to druid wild shape (AD&D it was effectively the revision to polymorph with a size limit of a black bear, and not even a hint of natural spell), the nerf to the one big boost fighters did get (attacks per round along with "cleave" against less than 1 HD mooks), the major boost to hit points (between Con bonus and more than 10 HD for both PCs and most monsters), and an assortment of other changes all contribute to the massive power boost.

[RandomPeasant]

And yet you are free to keep them wide for yourself.

If you feel that "casters are more powerful than martials" is sufficiently controversial to require firmer definition, I'm happy to provide it.


RAW cheese has to do with how certain spells are adjudicated. An example is how I see planar binding used used on these forums even though it has a reasonability clause. Is it reasonable that a creature serve you for long periods of time for pennies? Or cast a wish spell for free to get free items and stat boosts?

planar binding has almost nothing to do with why the Wizard is better than the Fighter. You can cast combat spells in combat and not mess around with any of the game-breakers and still be better than the Fighter.


Poor encounter design has to do with pacing an adventuring day and a multitude of other factors that allow a single character to assault a single days worth of CR appropriate encounters by themselves.

If you have to schedule encounters in a very specific way for the Fighter to be appropriately effective, but the Wizard can be effective over a range of encounter schedules, that seems like an argument that the Fighter is worse than the Wizard.


Would a polymorph spell be more effective on the wizard themself or on the monk?

If we can ask this question, why can't we ask "would a Cleric be more effective than a Monk"?


Even against a cleric with divine power, a monk receiving the same treatment (without divine power) would out perform the cleric.

That's quite the extraordinary claim to present without evidence.


Well, actually that would be one encounter as the 3 other members of the party still have 100% of their resources.

This is not what the rules actually say. A EL 10 encounter is an EL 10 encounter. If you happen to be able to overcome it easily, that means you are good at your job, not that it is somehow not an EL 10 encounter.


"Mechanics" is a specific.

It's really not. Is "fluff" a specific? Is "things characters do" a specific? "Having poor BAB" is a mechanic. No one is suggesting (or at least I am not suggesting) that balancing the Fighter must involve giving them poor BAB. Therefore, I can rebut the notion that it is the mechanics that make Fighter fixes feel like Wizards.


Altogether, those three triple or quadruple (depending on level) the number of spells a caster gets, with a resulting increase in firepower.

It's not an increase in firepower. In a given combat, the Wizard is constrained by combat actions in either system. What 3e does is shift the paradigm so that the Wizard (a character who, I will remind you, has an explicit shtick of "does magic") can afford to do magic in every combat. This is a better way for Wizards to work than the way they worked in AD&D. Characters should be encouraged to use their abilities. A game where the Wizard has cool abilities and uses them and the Fighter has cool abilities and uses them is better than one where the Wizard has cool abilities and the Fighter doesn't, but it's okay because the Wizard is mostly supposed to stand around looking pretty.


The power difference between that and current options is explained sufficiently by the distinction between Tier 1 and Tier 2 in analyses, but compounded by distinctions between Core only and splat book.

Again, the number of spells on the Wizard list has almost nothing to do with the Wizard's power level. You could cull their list by 90% with maybe a 5% drop in power level. The Wizard is good because they have good spells, not because they have a whole bunch of spells that are just okay.


A 9th level fighter needed an 11 to save versus a spell in AD&D. A typical 3X/D20 fighter has a +3 Base Reflex and Will save versus a low-end DC 17 for a 5th level spell, requiring a 14 or better. That is for a wizard with an Int of 15, something essentially unheard of.

Who cares? The matchup between Wizard and Fighter directly is of tremendous interest to a certain subset of the player base, but it's actually nearly irrelevant to the balance of the classes. Classes don't need to be balanced in cage matches with other classes, they need to be balanced against the challenges they are expected to face. Wizards could have "Kill Target Fighter Instantly (No Save)", and it would avail them not at all against the dragons, ettins, zombie ogres, living cloudkills, hullathoins, or even NPC Rangers they are expected to defeat.


the major boost to hit points (between Con bonus and more than 10 HD for both PCs and most monsters),

Hold on though, that one hits Wizards too. fireball was a lot better in AD&D than later editions, for the same reason that the Fighter was better off.

[Tiktakkat]

It's really not. Is "fluff" a specific? Is "things characters do" a specific? "Having poor BAB" is a mechanic. No one is suggesting (or at least I am not suggesting) that balancing the Fighter must involve giving them poor BAB. Therefore, I can rebut the notion that it is the mechanics that make Fighter fixes feel like Wizards.

It really is. Just as "fluff" is a specific term.
And while you might be able to rebut that, you have not managed to do so.


It's not an increase in firepower. In a given combat, the Wizard is constrained by combat actions in either system.

It absolutely is an increase in firepower, and a rather significant one.
What is the alternative to a wizard casting a spell?
Let's see . . .
Whacking someone with his quarterstaff
Throwing a dart
Both with his lousy attack bonus and all.
Are you seriously suggesting those have the same firepower as a spell?


What 3e does is shift the paradigm so that the Wizard (a character who, I will remind you, has an explicit shtick of "does magic") can afford to do magic in every combat. This is a better way for Wizards to work than the way they worked in AD&D.

Except it is not.
The limit on the amount of magic a wizard could sling was a limiting - a balancing - factor in AD&D.
By removing that limit, the inherent superiority of magic became overwhelming.
That is pretty much proven by the fact that people see a need to improve non-casters to catch up.
And that rather establishes that instead of being "better", it is functionally "worse".


Characters should be encouraged to use their abilities. A game where the Wizard has cool abilities and uses them and the Fighter has cool abilities and uses them is better than one where the Wizard has cool abilities and the Fighter doesn't, but it's okay because the Wizard is mostly supposed to stand around looking pretty.

Unless of course the wizard them every round makes the fighter irrelevant.
Meanwhile, I noted that the "cool ability" of the fighter was explicitly taken away from him - that of moving and full attacking at higher levels, as well as reduced in effectiveness - with the iterative attack penalty.
Does the fighter have to stand around and look pretty while waiting to finish off monsters after the wizard has made them helpless in order for the wizard to work "right"?


Again, the number of spells on the Wizard list has almost nothing to do with the Wizard's power level. You could cull their list by 90% with maybe a 5% drop in power level. The Wizard is good because they have good spells, not because they have a whole bunch of spells that are just okay.

Not according to the optimization handbooks. Access to spells that do "everything" is a core power element of wizards.
As for culling the list by 90% and only getting a 5% drop in power, that demonstrates that the problem is having too much of a good thing. Rather than eliminating 99% of the utility spells, focus on reducing the 10% of spells that do "everything" better than any fighter or rogue could hope to do.


Who cares?

Anyone who things that fighters need to be stronger to compete with casters.


The matchup between Wizard and Fighter directly is of tremendous interest to a certain subset of the player base, but it's actually nearly irrelevant to the balance of the classes. Classes don't need to be balanced in cage matches with other classes, they need to be balanced against the challenges they are expected to face. Wizards could have "Kill Target Fighter Instantly (No Save)", and it would avail them not at all against the dragons, ettins, zombie ogres, living cloudkills, hullathoins, or even NPC Rangers they are expected to defeat.

In AD&D, monsters save as character, typically fighters, of their HD. Thus, the same functional effect is achieved when high HD monsters find their save bonuses rapidly outstripped by the save DCs of spells. I merely used fighters as the standard example.
Even while missing my point you inadvertently demonstrate it, as the same issues exist with any monster that has any poor saves.


Hold on though, that one hits Wizards too. fireball was a lot better in AD&D than later editions, for the same reason that the Fighter was better off.

Yes and no.
It made being a glass cannon blaster less functional.
The result is that battlefield control has risen in effective power, leaving casters even more dominant as a result.
Of course, being a glass cannon blaster was part of the limit on wizards, as I said. Opening up those other roles has increased their power level.

Meanwhile, that limit on hp also works in the wizard's favor, as they now get 1d4+2 or more hp after 10th level, rather than just 1.
And of course the different level at which ability scores provide a bonus. Rather than needing a 15+ in AD&D, a wizard now gets extra hp with a mere 12-14 Con.

[RandomPeasant]

And that rather establishes that instead of being "better", it is functionally "worse".

You are literally letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. "The Wizard is encouraged to use their abilities" is an improvement. If the Fighter's lack of abilities a problem in that paradigm, the solution is to give the Fighter some damn abilities, not go back to a world where Wizards were expected to treat doing the thing they signed up to do as a scarce and precious resource to be doled out only in extremes.


Unless of course the wizard them every round makes the fighter irrelevant.

Sounds like a great reason to give the Fighter some abilities that stop him from being irrelevant. A class that needs other characters to stand idly by doing noting to be relevant is a badly designed class.


As for culling the list by 90% and only getting a 5% drop in power, that demonstrates that the problem is having too much of a good thing. Rather than eliminating 99% of the utility spells, focus on reducing the 10% of spells that do "everything" better than any fighter or rogue could hope to do.

You do understand that this directly contradicts the claim you were making in the previous sentence, right? What's the problem here, that the Wizard has too many spells, or the 10% of spells that do everything?


Even while missing my point you inadvertently demonstrate it, as the same issues exist with any monster that has any poor saves.

By "the same issue", you mean the total non-issue where the Wizard is able to win encounters against monsters? Yes, a Wizard can beat up on a monster with a bad save (if he has a spell prepared that targets that save and isn't stopped by the monster's other defenses). But on its own that doesn't mean anything. I can point to individual encounters that some particular Wizard won't win. To prove your point, you need a reasonably-representative sample of encounters that can show a Wizard performing above some expected level.

[Lorddenorstrus]

Sounds like a great reason to give the Fighter some abilities that stop him from being irrelevant. A class that needs other characters to stand idly by doing noting to be relevant is a badly designed class.

This. When people in 2021 think of playing a "martial" character they want to play crap like they see from Anime, Movies, Books ANY medium we can name. They want to be cool like those characters. Abilities in these aren't all magical and I think that's one of D&Ds weaknesses. It's crutch is magic. Not everything has to be magic and martials deserve love to. It isn't ever meant to be a realism simulator EVER.

[Darg]

If you feel that "casters are more powerful than martials" is sufficiently controversial to require firmer definition, I'm happy to provide it.

Please do. It would entertain me. I can name a few scenarios where "casters are more powerful than martials" is inherently false. This by definition would make it a false statement.


planar binding has almost nothing to do with why the Wizard is better than the Fighter. You can cast combat spells in combat and not mess around with any of the game-breakers and still be better than the Fighter.

I was explaining it as you requested and if having a common "RAW cheese" scenario where a caster effectively "replaces the fighter" with a called creature has nothing to do with it, shame on me.


If you have to schedule encounters in a very specific way for the Fighter to be appropriately effective, but the Wizard can be effective over a range of encounter schedules, that seems like an argument that the Fighter is worse than the Wizard.

It has nothing to do with scheduling encounters but rather the difficulty of them. If the players steamroll encounters on the regular, you aren't really giving them a challenge. Even the DMG mentions that you should be giving them a varied amount of difficulties in the encounters they face. And you seem particularly hung up on the pacing when I also said that there are a multitude of other factors. If every adventure is solved within just a few minutes of fighting, I wouldn't find it a vary fun adventure as the crunchiness is overwhelming the roleplay and mechanical design of the game.


If we can ask this question, why can't we ask "would a Cleric be more effective than a Monk"?

I did... which you responded with the next quote...


That's quite the extraordinary claim to present without evidence.

It's not a claim. It's a rebuttal. You want evidence, you'll have to first explain why 3 bonus feats, flurry, 3 good saves, still mind, evasion, bonus AC, a naturally scaling weapon, and buffed with non-personal spells is worse than a cleric with divine power + non-personal spells just swinging a weapon so I can present you with evidence without a data dump. Don't worry, it sounds like this should be easy for you considering my claim is the extraordinary one.


This is not what the rules actually say. A EL 10 encounter is an EL 10 encounter. If you happen to be able to overcome it easily, that means you are good at your job, not that it is somehow not an EL 10 encounter.

You quoted me a bit out of order, but the DMG says this on the matter "If an encounter doesn’t cost the PCs some significant portion of their resources, it’s not challenging." It even talks about how there are factors which modify the difficulty of an encounter. The DMG also says that if encounters are too easy, you should modify the award the encounter gives to account for that.

So sure, it doesn't say that I should make up 3 more encounters on the spot, but it does say that players should be rewarded based on the difficulty of an encounter which happens to be based on how much of their total resources they had to spend. Generally, a challenging encounter is one where EL=PL but the DMG does not state that it is the only factor that matters nor is it the only determinant of the EL.

[RandomPeasant]

This. When people in 2021 think of playing a "martial" character they want to play crap like they see from Anime, Movies, Books ANY medium we can name. They want to be cool like those characters. Abilities in these aren't all magical and I think that's one of D&Ds weaknesses. It's crutch is magic. Not everything has to be magic and martials deserve love to. It isn't ever meant to be a realism simulator EVER.

It comes down to "what do you mean by magic". There's a broad definition (magic is anything supernatural) and a narrow definition (magic is specifically the thing the Wizard does). Creating effective martials under the latter constraint is easy, but under the former it's nearly impossible.


Please do. It would entertain me. I can name a few scenarios where "casters are more powerful than martials" is inherently false. This by definition would make it a false statement.

I think the simplest definition would be in terms of value over replacement. If you have a party with a Wizard (or Cleric or Druid), and replace them with a Fighter (or Ranger or Barbarian), that party will be able to defeat (on average) less challenging encounters. If you have a party with a Fighter (or Ranger or Barbarian), and replace them with a Wizard (or Cleric or Druid), that party will be able to defeat (on average) more challenging encounters. If you would like to demonstrate a party composition for which making such a substitution degrades performance on a reasonable set of benchmarks, feel free.


I was explaining it as you requested and if having a common "RAW cheese" scenario where a caster effectively "replaces the fighter" with a called creature has nothing to do with it, shame on me.

And I was explaining that such a scenario was largely unimportant to why the Wizard is better than the Fighter. planar binding is the best minionmancy spell, but it's not the only one, and there's not really an argument to be made that "I use animate dead to animate the corpses of things the party kills" is any kind of "RAW cheese". Even if you discount minionmancy entirely, gishes, Clerics, and Druids can still fight effectively in melee while bringing more to the table elsewhere than the Fighter does (to clarify: they can contribute as much on the frontlines as the Fighter does, while having spells left over for other stuff).


It has nothing to do with scheduling encounters but rather the difficulty of them. If the players steamroll encounters on the regular, you aren't really giving them a challenge.

Do you not see how that's a concession that the Fighter is less powerful than the Wizard? If the difficulty of encounters needs to go up when there's a Wizard in the party, that means Wizards are more powerful than Fighters. I don't disagree that encounters should challenge players to be interesting. But that's largely irrelevant to the question of whether some class is more powerful than some other class.


It's not a claim.

Alright then, if you're not claiming the Monk provides more value than the Cleric in this circumstance, then we can move on in agreement that it does not.

[Xervous]

This. When people in 2021 think of playing a "martial" character they want to play crap like they see from Anime, Movies, Books ANY medium we can name. They want to be cool like those characters. Abilities in these aren't all magical and I think that's one of D&Ds weaknesses. It's crutch is magic. Not everything has to be magic and martials deserve love to. It isn't ever meant to be a realism simulator EVER.

I don’t know about ‘anime {Scrubbed} fightin magiks’ as ToB was commonly derided back in the 200Xs. As I can’t speak for everyone, the issue as I see it is a matter of what the game promises and fails to deliver on. If classes are presented as supposedly equal and the scope of adventures changes as you go up in level, each class should grow to a degree that enables it to engage with most of the expected adventure facets. People don’t want to be playing Pizzarun*. The default should be writing Fighter on your sheet gets you enough to meaningfully participate in the adventure without GM accommodations. Or the classes that require accommodations get called out so players and GMs understand how those exceptions are designed to be handled.

*Pizzarun, so named for segments of Shadowrun campaigns where some players go into the matrix and the rest of the players order pizza because they’ve got the uninterrupted time for that with their characters inability to contribute.

[Lorddenorstrus]

I don’t know about ‘anime {Scrub the post, scrub the quote} fightin magiks’ as ToB was commonly derided back in the 200Xs. As I can’t speak for everyone, the issue as I see it is a matter of what the game promises and fails to deliver on. If classes are presented as supposedly equal and the scope of adventures changes as you go up in level, each class should grow to a degree that enables it to engage with most of the expected adventure facets. People don’t want to be playing Pizzarun*. The default should be writing Fighter on your sheet gets you enough to meaningfully participate in the adventure without GM accommodations. Or the classes that require accommodations get called out so players and GMs understand how those exceptions are designed to be handled.

*Pizzarun, so named for segments of Shadowrun campaigns where some players go into the matrix and the rest of the players order pizza because they’ve got the uninterrupted time for that with their characters inability to contribute.

{Scrubbed}

[Darg]

I think the simplest definition would be in terms of value over replacement. If you have a party with a Wizard (or Cleric or Druid), and replace them with a Fighter (or Ranger or Barbarian), that party will be able to defeat (on average) less challenging encounters. If you have a party with a Fighter (or Ranger or Barbarian), and replace them with a Wizard (or Cleric or Druid), that party will be able to defeat (on average) more challenging encounters. If you would like to demonstrate a party composition for which making such a substitution degrades performance on a reasonable set of benchmarks, feel free.

What benchmarks? Encounter difficulty is supposed to be set to the party and the rewards of said encounter are set to how many resources are expended. If a simpler encounter is a challenge for the party with the fighter they get full rewards. If the party without the fighter breezed through a fight that was intended to be challenging without expending a significant portion of their resources then it is said to be easy and they get less of a reward.


And I was explaining that such a scenario was largely unimportant to why the Wizard is better than the Fighter. planar binding is the best minionmancy spell, but it's not the only one, and there's not really an argument to be made that "I use animate dead to animate the corpses of things the party kills" is any kind of "RAW cheese". Even if you discount minionmancy entirely, gishes, Clerics, and Druids can still fight effectively in melee while bringing more to the table elsewhere than the Fighter does (to clarify: they can contribute as much on the frontlines as the Fighter does, while having spells left over for other stuff).

The topic is about being a better fighter, but if you just want to say that a caster is simply more versatile then you aren't addressing the argument.


Do you not see how that's a concession that the Fighter is less powerful than the Wizard? If the difficulty of encounters needs to go up when there's a Wizard in the party, that means Wizards are more powerful than Fighters. I don't disagree that encounters should challenge players to be interesting. But that's largely irrelevant to the question of whether some class is more powerful than some other class.

You are talking in circles. You can claim that a wizard is more powerful than a fighter, but you can never say that the wizard is better at being a fighter when given the same support. The wizard can shapechange all they want, they'll still only have 10 BAB at level 20 and a dearth of combat feats.


Alright then, if you're not claiming the Monk provides more value than the Cleric in this circumstance, then we can move on in agreement that it does not.

{Scrubbed} Yeah we won't agree on this if you can't explain why your claim is less extraordinary than that which is visibly apparent.

[Lans]

Alright then, if you're not claiming the Monk provides more value than the Cleric in this circumstance, then we can move on in agreement that it does not.

I will say the monk provides more in this specific circumstance of cleric+divine power+ at least 1 buff from wizard vs monk+ at least 1 buff from wizard. But it's going to be marginal at the cost of significant loss in other areas

[RandomPeasant]

What benchmarks?

Whatever benchmarks you think are appropriate. You're still missing the point when you talk about relative difficulty. Yes, a party without a Fighter should face more difficult challenges than one with a Fighter. But all that means is that the Fighter makes the party worse, which in turn means you agree with me.


The topic is about being a better fighter, but if you just want to say that a caster is simply more versatile then you aren't addressing the argument.

No, it's not. This isn't 4e where you have to have a Striker and a Defender and so on. It doesn't matter who is better at being a Fighter, it just matters who is better, because you can jolly well not have a Fighter.


{Scrub the post, scrub the quote} Yeah we won't agree on this if you can't explain why your claim is less extraordinary than that which is visibly apparent.

You said you weren't making a claim. If you're not claiming that the Monk is better in this circumstance, there's nothing for me to rebut. I'm sure you won't come to agree with me, but it's not because you're presenting arguments that are particularly compelling.


I will say the monk provides more in this specific circumstance of cleric+divine power+ at least 1 buff from wizard vs monk+ at least 1 buff from wizard. But it's going to be marginal at the cost of significant loss in other areas

Does it? A Cleric won't just have divine power. They'll also have righteous might, magic vestment, and various other self-buffs. But Darg isn't claiming the Monk is better, so I see little need to engage with the topic at any great length.

[Efrate]

How does full ab, heavy armor, +6 strength, + more hp even before a likely higher con +1 buff from wizard, not surpass 3/4 bab, likely less strength, less hp, less ac, plus random wizard buff? In what circumstance is the monk in any way better? Even in combat. The cleric will hit more, hit harder, and be able to take a hit. The monk gets maybe an extra attack, but has less chance of hitting, is quite a bit squishier, and likely does less damage. He can tumble to avoid an AoO that the cleric can tank and probably come out ahead on hp/defenses?

[Rhyltran]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

People who complain that TOB is too anime confuse me when we can have an optimized character literally punch with their fist so hard they can essentially splatter a colossal sized creature into giblets. Because that is totally not over the top and in the capability of a normal human being. Lol

[Tiktakkat]

You are literally letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. "The Wizard is encouraged to use their abilities" is an improvement. If the Fighter's lack of abilities a problem in that paradigm, the solution is to give the Fighter some damn abilities, not go back to a world where Wizards were expected to treat doing the thing they signed up to do as a scarce and precious resource to be doled out only in extremes.

You are literally declaring there is a problem with the "good" and insisting on compounding the errors that created the problem in order to try and solve it.
The wizard has always been encouraged to use spells. They do not need more uses of them to be encouraged to do that.
The fighter had abilities. That were taken away. While more were given to the wizard.
Management of scarce and precious resources are a "thing" in the game. If you want to get rid of them, why not get rid of hit points and simply declare that PCs can only be killed when they feel like having their characters die?


Sounds like a great reason to give the Fighter some abilities that stop him from being irrelevant. A class that needs other characters to stand idly by doing noting to be relevant is a badly designed class.

Sounds like a better reason not to give the wizard so many abilities he makes the fighter irrelevant.
And yes, a class like the wizard that needs other characters to stand by doing nothing to be relevant IS a very badly designed class.


You do understand that this directly contradicts the claim you were making in the previous sentence, right? What's the problem here, that the Wizard has too many spells, or the 10% of spells that do everything?

It does not contradict it at all.
Having too many spells, that allow bypassing every possible defense, is a problem.
Having too many spells, that are hyper-specialized or ineffective due to power creep, cluttering up the books, is also a problem.
Much like the problem with the overabundance of feats.


By "the same issue", you mean the total non-issue where the Wizard is able to win encounters against monsters? Yes, a Wizard can beat up on a monster with a bad save (if he has a spell prepared that targets that save and isn't stopped by the monster's other defenses). But on its own that doesn't mean anything. I can point to individual encounters that some particular Wizard won't win. To prove your point, you need a reasonably-representative sample of encounters that can show a Wizard performing above some expected level.

The same issue where the power of level of wizards rises faster than the power level of everything else.
And no, I do not need such a sample to prove my point, though such examples abound in optimization and tier discussions. That such discussions exist proves my point.

[JNAProductions]

What abilities were taken away from Fighters? I’ve no experience with D&D before 3rd.

[Xervous]

Sounds like a better reason not to give the wizard so many abilities he makes the fighter irrelevant.

As it seems we’re going down this familiar path yet again, what does a fighter have that makes them relevant? What game assumptions make the fighter relevant?

[AnimeTheCat]

What abilities were taken away from Fighters? I’ve no experience with D&D before 3rd.

IIRC (which I probably don't) they were one of the only classes that could have higher than 18 strength (I think maybe paladin could... but probably not), they got the biggest benefit to HP from having a high constitution score, as bonus were determined by your class and your Con score, they (as all classes) had their ability to resist all spells reduced, they had their class granted land and title removed, they had their innate ability to move+full attack removed, Full attacks got transitioned to iterative attacks (though this is not fighter specific), and... I think there's more but I can't recall at the moment.

The point is that there were distinct "Only Fighters do X" in earlier editions, whereas in 3.x and beyond everything does "Fighter" better or more competently than fighters, so the argument goes.

[Kuulvheysoon]

IIRC (which I probably don't) they were one of the only classes that could have higher than 18 strength (I think maybe paladin could... but probably not), they got the biggest benefit to HP from having a high constitution score, as bonus were determined by your class and your Con score, they (as all classes) had their ability to resist all spells reduced, they had their class granted land and title removed, they had their innate ability to move+full attack removed, Full attacks got transitioned to iterative attacks (though this is not fighter specific), and... I think there's more but I can't recall at the moment.

The point is that there were distinct "Only Fighters do X" in earlier editions, whereas in 3.x and beyond everything does "Fighter" better or more competently than fighters, so the argument goes.

I think that they had a pretty high level cap in 2E (second to Rogue, iirc), along with being one of the few classes that everyone could take.

[Particle_Man]

Fighter types in 1st ed also had the ability to make one attack per level . . . but only against very weak opponents (less than one HD).

Back in OD&D, fighters of Hero and Superhero level had multiple attacks (4 and 8) IIRC.

[Darg]

Does it? A Cleric won't just have divine power. They'll also have righteous might, magic vestment, and various other self-buffs. But Darg isn't claiming the Monk is better, so I see little need to engage with the topic at any great length.

{Scrubbed}

Given the benefit of party support in the form of non-personal buffs, a monk will out perform a cleric with the same support of non-personal buffs + divine power as a martial. I even threw in divine power as a freeby so that the cleric didn't have to waste actions casting it in combat. Using righteous might and divine favor costs actions in combat considering they are short term buffs. You also seem to forget all the spells that give you armor bonuses + the monk’s AC bonus + all the sources of bonus wisdom. Magic vestment isn't even a self buff, it's a touch range spell that can be used on any armor, not just the one you are wearing. A monk with support is a much better martial than a cleric with support. That's not even counting the fact that a monk could get a magic item to activate a divine power effect.

[Gnaeus]

A monk isn’t even likely better than the cleric’s Skeletal minions. The analysis stops at 5th level when it is a 5th level monk versus 20-40 HD of undead led by a cleric.

Oh there’s party buffs? Then it’s a buffed monk versus 20-40 HD of hasted undead. That’s probably worse for the monk.

Every single thing the cleric does on the day of the adventure other than order troops around is just a freebie. He beat the monk’s entire contribution the day before.


I dunno
You tell me?

The Samurai's problem isn't just the lack of skill points, but also - lack of necessary class skills
CW Samurai have the lowest skill points and rather short skill list; OA Samurai is average in the skill department - but still nowhere as good as Rogue (lack of certain skills and 4 s.p. vs Rogue's 8)

So, the fact that the samurai is bad at skills is demonstrated by the fact that other classes are better. Thank you.



Nah, Beguiler is no better than Rogue - nothing in their skill set is above Rogue
But if you mean "magic" - Rogue can have it too, because: 1) UMD, 2) Hirelings, 3) Cohorts.

What exactly are you UMDing. In a no magic mart world, the beguiler has access to spells the rogue can’t get, and the ability to make magic items.

In magic mart world the beguiler can use every item the rogue can. But he also gets spells for free. And can use a lot of items that the rogue can’t effectively use because he lacks spells. And aside from the fact that the rogue has to buy every single casting, the beguiler can craft items at 1/2 price. And lots of utility spells are caster level or save DC dependent.

Hirelings and cohorts are hardly a rogue class feature. If available, they will likely be available to both. And a good hireling or cohort, like a cleric or wizard, will actually be better for the beguiler or other caster than the rogue, since they can cooperate in crafting. If anything, the NPC advantage is firmly on the beguiler’s side thanks to spells like charm and dominate and the comparative ease in accessing non native minionmancy like summons and familiars.



Also, the big problem of Archivist, Beguiler, (and - to the lesser degree - Cleric): campaign may not allow any (or even all) of aforementioned classes, but Rogue would be very likely allowed .

Ok. I will qualify my statement to something like “in campaigns that allow 9th level casters, rogues aren’t good at utility”



Yes, and?..
Rogue would still have their social skills, UMD, and SA
Your point

That rogues are comparatively bad at their job compared with classes who can spend a tiny fraction of their abilities to outdo everything the rogue can do.



There are some ways to deal with this problem - HiPS is just one of them

What level do rogues get HiPS? Oh yeah, they don’t.



If it's one of "standard" extra senses - Rogue able to avoid most of them (except Touchsight and X-Ray Vision)
But if it's plain and simple DM fiat - than DM is at fault by not warning the Rogue's player about this little fact

Or lifesight or mindsight. Or divinations, rogues don’t get mind blank.




In Westeros (Game of Thrones) is either Restricted Magic with no spells above certain level (4th-level in most cases), or just No Magic At All
Midnight Campaign Setting: your daily power points is enough to cast one "big" spell (7th-8th level), couple of "medium" ones (4th-5th), or handful of "low" ones (1th-2nd) - and handful of cantrips. Also, Astiraxes would detect your spell from the range of 0.5 miles/CL, which would result in incoming death squad of unknown size and composition...
Masque of The Red Death: every single spell required a power check
Jakandor was devastated by magical plague; most of magical knowledge is lost
In Ravenloft, magic is altered in certain aspects: like your summoning spells bring creatures not from other planes, but from the very same domain (if no such creatures - spell fails); and "Wish" spell line is corrupted by the Dark Powers; many spells required power checks for caster to not be corrupted by the Dark Powers
Certain areas in Planescape are impeding magic (namely, area around the Spire of Outlands)
Call of Cthulhu: casting most spells damages your Sanity. Also, learning a spell cause you to get Sanity penalty
..

So in 3rd party campaigns in which wizards don’t exist, they aren’t better than rogues? Yes, and if you remove everything that fights better than a fighter, fighters become the best fighting class. The only one of those that is actually a 3.5 setting is Ravenloft, which is comparatively worse for rogues than for casters.

Hey, I wrote a third party setting in which rogues stab out their own eyes at level 1. I guess that makes rogues bad….. No, it means when we discuss classes we are assuming the 3.5 rules, not a third party nerf, which itself probably wouldn’t exist but for the fact of class imbalance. Some of those settings (like masque) use their own classes.

[RandomPeasant]

People who complain that TOB is too anime confuse me when we can have an optimized character literally punch with their fist so hard they can essentially splatter a colossal sized creature into giblets. Because that is totally not over the top and in the capability of a normal human being. Lol

You don't even have to go there, and I don't think it really helps. Those people will happily declare that sort of optimization "cheese", and say they don't want it in the game (not entirely unreasonable). Better to point at the fact that no one had a problem with Twin Mountain Style (or whatever the various style feats in Complete Warrior are), or the Monk, and those are just as anime as ToB.


The wizard has always been encouraged to use spells. They do not need more uses of them to be encouraged to do that.

They are literally not. The balance paradigm you are proposing is one that works because the Wizard uses less spells.


Management of scarce and precious resources are a "thing" in the game. If you want to get rid of them, why not get rid of hit points and simply declare that PCs can only be killed when they feel like having their characters die?

Probably because that's a strawman.


Sounds like a better reason not to give the wizard so many abilities he makes the fighter irrelevant.

What was the Fighter ever doing that was relevant?


Having too many spells, that allow bypassing every possible defense, is a problem.

Wizards don't cast spontaneously.


And no, I do not need such a sample to prove my point, though such examples abound in optimization and tier discussions. That such discussions exist proves my point.

Oh, sweet, then the discussion about how the Fighter is underpowered prove my point.


I think that they had a pretty high level cap in 2E (second to Rogue, iirc), along with being one of the few classes that everyone could take.

Those are advantages, but they are exactly the sort of advantages that are bad game design that it improves the game to remove. Saying "no more levels for you" is a huge feel-bad, as is telling people they can't play the class they want.


Given the benefit of party support in the form of non-personal buffs, a monk will out perform a cleric with the same support of non-personal buffs + divine power as a martial.

There is no "as a martial". The goal is not to solve problems in a way that is somehow aligned with the nature of your class, it is simply to solve problems. If the Cleric solves more problems byC Cleric-ing than the Monk does by Monk-ing, the Cleric is better. Full stop. Not better "as a Cleric" or "as a support", just better.


I even threw in divine power as a freeby so that the cleric didn't have to waste actions casting it in combat. Using righteous might and divine favor costs actions in combat considering they are short term buffs.

divine power isn't you "throwing in a freeby", every halfway martial Cleric has divine power up all day because getting one or two DMM: Persistent buffs is easy even without cheese. And don't think I missed you swapping the hour/level magic vestment for the one minute divine favor. As far as it goes, I don't see how the Monk beats a Persistent divine power Zen Archery Cleric who simply sits behind a wall of undead. And they don't even have to be good undead or well-selected, just random pre-statted MM zombies and skeletons provide as much zone control as the Monk.

[noce]

{Scrubbed}

[ShurikVch]

So, the fact that the samurai is bad at skills is demonstrated by the fact that other classes are better. Thank you.
Once again: Oriental Adventures isn't, exactly, "bad at skills", bat rather "average": 11 class skills, and 4+ skill points aren't bad by itself - but still lacking some useful options
Otherwise - yes, it's pretty solid definition: If another class can do the same thing, but better...



And lots of utility spells are caster level or save DC dependent.
Excuse me, but which spells you call "utility"?
I'm genuinely curious there: I was under the impression "utility spells" are those where save either absent, or irrelevant

Also, even despite my usual disposition "Dedicated sneaker need no magic!", I still can admit Beguiler get some useful stuff (and it's the sole reason why I don't say Rogue is strictly better)


If anything, the NPC advantage is firmly on the beguiler’s side thanks to spells like charm and dominate
Neither charms, nor dominations are lasting indefinitely: they can be dispelled, suppressed, or just run out of duration - and then your recent ally becomes your newest enemy. It's a crutch - and rather perilous one.


and the comparative ease in accessing non native minionmancy like summons and familiars.
Since when Beguiler have access to Summoning sub-school? :smallconfused:



Ok. I will qualify my statement to something like “in campaigns that allow 9th level casters, rogues aren’t good at utility”
Let me remind you: you still don't specified what's you meant by saying "utility"
At least, Person_Man's Niche Ranking System (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?314701-Person_Man-s-Niche-Ranking-System) don't have such category...


That rogues are comparatively bad at their job compared with classes who can spend a tiny fraction of their abilities to outdo everything the rogue can do.
Hey, you proposed scenario where Rogue would be "useless" - I demonstrated they wouldn't
Wizard without their magic is a Commoner with a Cat and good Will save


What level do rogues get HiPS?
Sans templates?
10-13 lvl (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rogueVariantWilderness Rogue)



Or lifesight or mindsight. Or divinations, rogues don’t get mind blank.
Actually, it's called "Lifesense", not "lifesight":

To your eyes, a Medium or smaller creature gives off life force suffi cient to provide bright illumination in a 60-foot radius, revealing itself and all features and objects in range to your life-adapted sight. This life-light behaves like regular light - you can't see into solid objects, or past solid walls.
Note: "This life-light behaves like regular light - you can't see into solid objects"
Can't see into solid objects?
Is fully enclosed "ninja suit" solid enough?

For other effects, Ghostly Visage symbiont provides Mind Blank



So in 3rd party campaigns in which wizards don’t exist, they aren’t better than rogues? Yes, and if you remove everything that fights better than a fighter, fighters become the best fighting class. The only one of those that is actually a 3.5 setting is Ravenloft, which is comparatively worse for rogues than for casters.

Hey, I wrote a third party setting in which rogues stab out their own eyes at level 1. I guess that makes rogues bad….. No, it means when we discuss classes we are assuming the 3.5 rules, not a third party nerf, which itself probably wouldn’t exist but for the fact of class imbalance. Some of those settings (like masque) use their own classes.
Oriental Adventures
3rd-party? No
Wizards don't exist? Yes
Not a 3.5? No (was updated in Dragon)
Their own classes? Not exactly.

Westeros
3rd-party? Yes (Dragon magazine - under Paizo)
Wizards don't exist? Ma-a-a-ybe? (Can't found list of classes, but - AFAIK - no NPC has Wizard class)
Not a 3.5? Yes (couple of months before the shift)
Their own classes? No.

Midnight
3rd-party? Yes
Wizards don't exist? No - they're exist (as a PrC)
Not a 3.5? No (2nd edition released in 2005; have Level Adjustments)
Their own classes? Only some.

Masque of The Red Death
3rd-party? Yes
Wizards don't exist? Yes
Not a 3.5? No
Their own classes? Yes

Jakandor
3rd-party? No
Wizards don't exist? No - they're very much exist, and a major part of one of factions (but even opposite faction have them too)
Not a 3.5? Yes (Not a 3.X, for that matter)
Their own classes? No.

Ravenloft
3rd-party? Yes
Wizards don't exist? No - they're very much exist
Not a 3.5? No
Their own classes? Only if PrC...
Why is it comparatively worse for rogues than for casters? :smallconfused:

Planescape
3rd-party? No
Wizards don't exist? No! :smallamused:
Not a 3.5? Manual of the Planes update booklet...
Their own classes? No

Call of Cthulhu
3rd-party? No
Wizards don't exist? Yes (but anybody can cast spells)
Not a 3.5? Yes
Their own classes? Yes

Looks like a hit-and-miss for me: you guessed - mostly - right some points (Westeros, Masque of The Red Death, Call of Cthulhu), but hilariously incorrect in others (Planescape, OA, Jakandor)

[Tiktakkat]

What abilities were taken away from Fighters? I’ve no experience with D&D before 3rd.

The biggest thing taken from them was being able to make multiple attacks at higher level. While moving. And without a penalty for follow up attacks. That change took away a significant part of their combat power.

As mentioned, fighters also used to have "great cleave" as a standard ability, though as noted only against very weak opponents. While not as significant as the general multiple attacks, and even outright obsolete with giving class levels to all kobolds and goblins and such, it was still a bit of a neat thing that they lost.


As it seems we’re going down this familiar path yet again, what does a fighter have that makes them relevant? What game assumptions make the fighter relevant?

That casters will run out of spells before the fighters run out of sword swings.
Or rather, they used to have that in AD&D. Now, not so much.


{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

I was trying to get to this.

By removing the ability of a fighter to do a full attack without penalty and with movement, the designers eventually realized they had left the fighter underpowered.
To try and fix that, they came up with the idea of the Tome of Battle strikes, allowing fighters to make a single attack with "extras".
However, as noce suggests, that does not provide enough compensation, and they are better off using the boosts and counters while making a full attack.
Except . . . their full attack is still situational (no movement), has a penalty, and requires either giving up the first hit, or making a limited attack and taking the first full attack in retaliation, and so the core problems with the fighter remains.

Let fighters make full attacks after a move with no iterative penalty. THEN add in being able to do a maneuver as one of those attacks and you will get the level of boost they really need to go along with the boosts that casters have received.







They are literally not. The balance paradigm you are proposing is one that works because the Wizard uses less spells.

They literally are. Because their spells are more powerful.


Probably because that's a strawman.

No, it is reductio ad absurdum.
You have been using both with abandon so I figured I could use them as well.


What was the Fighter ever doing that was relevant?

So why keep the class at all?


Wizards don't cast spontaneously.

They do not have to.


Oh, sweet, then the discussion about how the Fighter is underpowered prove my point.

No, it proves mine that the fighter has been made underpowered.

[Mechalich]

The biggest thing taken from them was being able to make multiple attacks at higher level. While moving. And without a penalty for follow up attacks. That change took away a significant part of their combat power.

Edition changes also drastically increased the overall HP of basically everything in the game, but because the ability scores of monsters increase in a nonlinear fashion, this applied non-linearly over increasing CR values, to the point that many high-level monsters have 4-5 times the HP they possessed in 2e AD&D. At the same time the damage values of weapons and blasting spells remained more or less unchanged. The result was a drastic reduction in the efficacy of damage-based strategies overall. The Tome of Battle strikes offer a damage based strategy, and even though they were introduced very late in 3.5 and therefore were pumped up by release-schedule based power creep, they still aren't powerful enough to overcome the HP bloat inherent to the system.

Basically any damage based strategy in 3.5 relies on stacking on as much bonus damage as one possibly can and rendering the base weapon or spell damage as a minimal contribution to the overall DPR output. There are various ways to do this, like uberchargers or orb-shenanigans, but they rely on bizarre rube-goldberian mergers of a whole bunch of different options in order to function, often spread across numerous sourcebooks. ToB strikes, because they are relatively disconnected from the rest of the edition, lack this kind of synergy potential.

[Efrate]

On topic, strikes give you something that is fluff wise and often crunch wise is more interesting/useful than hit with sword. Overcoming Dr, healing, providing some debuffs, or targeting touch ac or using an easily boosted skill as to hit or the like.

Barring full attack power attack with multipliers, or stacking a lot of attacks and extra dice (more rogue/totemist than tob class but whatever), you will probably out damage a full attacker. The option of sword and board for more safety and still having relevant damage also favors strikes.

You also remove the need for pounce or close to it. You can ubercharge on anyone and be okay, that's not a full attack vs. Strike, that's abusing pouncing shock trooper which anyone can do,and for pure dps nothing is going to be close other than mailman maybe.

Good Strikes with the same PA investment vs. Full attacks are at most levels roughly equal to 2 attacks of a full PA full attacker. The 2 most likely to hit. All else being equal.

They still maintain your mobility and give you options to vary your actions. You can also still do relevant damage while not being locked into 2 handed full attacker. You will not put out ubercharge numbers but you will contribute and at least have more to do in combat than just hit it again for damage.

To whomever talking about combat feats making monk better than divine power cleric, what feats? Monks cannot get pounce reliably so no shock trooper, have junk reach weapons so no combat relexes and the like, and most monk weapons are light disqualifying them from power attack. What are these combat feats that are so good they outclass a full bab plus enhanced strength plus extra hp plus better defenses? That's before any other buffs.

[Tiktakkat]

Edition changes also drastically increased the overall HP of basically everything in the game . . .

Absolutely!
That is one of the "other" changes I mentioned in passing but did not break down. You have covered it perfectly.

[Darg]

There is no "as a martial". The goal is not to solve problems in a way that is somehow aligned with the nature of your class, it is simply to solve problems. If the Cleric solves more problems byC Cleric-ing than the Monk does by Monk-ing, the Cleric is better. Full stop. Not better "as a Cleric" or "as a support", just better.

{Scrubbed}


divine power isn't you "throwing in a freeby", every halfway martial Cleric has divine power up all day because getting one or two DMM: Persistent buffs is easy even without cheese.

"'Every' halfway martial Cleric" has divine power up all day? {Scrubbed}


And don't think I missed you swapping the hour/level magic vestment for the one minute divine favor.

{Scrubbed}


As far as it goes, I don't see how the Monk beats a Persistent divine power Zen Archery Cleric who simply sits behind a wall of undead. And they don't even have to be good undead or well-selected, just random pre-statted MM zombies and skeletons provide as much zone control as the Monk.

Why can't the monk have zen archery sitting behind the party undead with precise shot compared to the DMM persistent spell cleric who can't get all 6 feats until level 15. The monk could have zen archery, precise shot, and improved rapid shot by that level making up to 7 attacks per round. Although, personally I would rather be taking advantage of that large UAS damage die. By 15, I could easily be doing 8d6 weapon damage per attack, have a divine power item, and be making up to 9 attacks per full attack. If we want to get out of core, I could even quadruple that damage.

[RandomPeasant]

That casters will run out of spells before the fighters run out of sword swings.

The problem is that this only works as a balancing mechanism in a very specific subset of campaigns. Your typical dungeon isn't going anywhere tomorrow, and the party can just rest up if they happen to run out of resources. Not to mention that the Fighter is typically out of HP long before the casters are out of spell slots.


They literally are. Because their spells are more powerful.

Again, that's inconsistent with the rest of your argument, where you complain that 3e broke the spells.


So why keep the class at all?

That seems like a question you probably should have answered before demanding that we nerf the Wizard to do so.


{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Saying "it doesn't matter if the claim you are making is true or not" is a reply to a claim. I'm not obligated to engage with your arguments in the way you want if the arguments you are making are ones that I wouldn't be persuaded by even if they were true.


"'Every' halfway martial Cleric" has divine power up all day?{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

I thought we were talking about an environment in which the Monk could be assumed to be getting polymorph consistently. In that framework, a single DMM'd spell is well below the expected level of optimization.


Why can't the monk have zen archery sitting behind the party undead with precise shot compared to the DMM persistent spell cleric who can't get all 6 feats until level 15.

Because if you have a Monk instead of a Cleric, you don't get the "party undead", since the Monk doesn't make any undead. And, no, you don't need to wait until 15 to get the feats you want. A Human Cleric with the Planning Domain gets DMM: Persistent at 1st and then Zen Archery at 3rd.


By 15, I could easily be doing 8d6 weapon damage per attack, have a divine power item, and be making up to 9 attacks per full attack.

So to be clear, we're talking about how a character who gets a custom item and a free buff can do as much damage as an equal-level Rogue gets as a bonus?

[Xervous]

That casters will run out of spells before the fighters run out of sword swings.

So in other words the GM needs to force scenarios that give the fighter relevance, including something to address the ‘goes all day’ fighter’s inability to self sustain. In order to meet the fighter’s target of fun you have to force the other players into a non-fun state for an extended period of time. How is this in any way a good design for a game where each person only has their one character? It certainly doesn’t work well for shadowrun with deckers.

On topic:

Path of War presents us a nice suite of strikes that are generally stronger than ToB but don’t draw a blink from most typical PO combat contributors. Sampling a few things at a glance... +6d6 and save or lose (nauseate) L4. +6d6 and all allies get +3d6 vs target for one round L5. +8d6 vs 3 targets and push 20 (no save permitted) L8. +3d6 and save or daze 1rd L3. Levels are given for the maneuvers, so a L3 is available at character level 5.

One nice thing about PoW is that most strikes aren’t just damage, they come with rider effects. But even ignoring the riders in most cases the extra damage we see here on standard action attacks can make them competitive with full attacks. At level 6 you could greatsword full attack 11/6, 2d6+8 (assuming 20 STR and +1 weapon). Or you could take the single swing at +11 for 5d6+8. It’s about break even average vs 15 AC.

Sure, high level full attacks and haste will shift the single target winner. Save or lose riders remain relevant if you have singular targets of concern. And the AoE strikes are massive value performers, often replicating whirlwind attack or better with damage and/or riders. In this vein the higher end strikes don’t compete as much with full attacks, they complement them by filling in other gaps.

[Tiktakkat]

So in other words the GM needs to force scenarios that give the fighter relevance, including something to address the ‘goes all day’ fighter’s inability to self sustain. In order to meet the fighter’s target of fun you have to force the other players into a non-fun state for an extended period of time. How is this in any way a good design for a game where each person only has their one character? It certainly doesn’t work well for shadowrun with deckers.

As opposed to forcing scenarios that favor the casters, including something to address the "runs out of spells" caster's inability to keep fighting. In order to meet the caster's target of fun you have to force the other players into a non-fun state for an extended period of time. How is this in any way a good design for a game where each person only has their one character?

That argument runs both ways.

The answer is to have a set-up where all of the characters are relevant at some point in time.
There are challenges that ONLY the fighter can handle, or handles better than anyone else.
There are challenges that ONLY the wizard can handle, or handles better than anyone else.
And so on.
Rather than go for everyone being Tier 1, at which point the question becomes why is the game not for solo play, aim for Tier 3 where a full party is still required.

[JNAProductions]

As opposed to forcing scenarios that favor the casters, including something to address the "runs out of spells" caster's inability to keep fighting. In order to meet the caster's target of fun you have to force the other players into a non-fun state for an extended period of time. How is this in any way a good design for a game where each person only has their one character?

That argument runs both ways.

The answer is to have a set-up where all of the characters are relevant at some point in time.
There are challenges that ONLY the fighter can handle, or handles better than anyone else.
There are challenges that ONLY the wizard can handle, or handles better than anyone else.
And so on.
Rather than go for everyone being Tier 1, at which point the question becomes why is the game not for solo play, aim for Tier 3 where a full party is still required.

Can you name non-contrived challenges that only Fighters can handle?

Because I can think of scenarios that anything but a custom-built cheesy Wizard or other caster could fail at where a Fighter could succeed, but they pretty much all involve anti-magic or dead magic, which is kinda contrived to have in large areas or large portions of an adventure.

Can you name a challenge that only Fighters can handle, without resorting to a place or ability where magic (all magic) just doesn't work?

[Xervous]

As opposed to forcing scenarios that favor the casters, including something to address the "runs out of spells" caster's inability to keep fighting. In order to meet the caster's target of fun you have to force the other players into a non-fun state for an extended period of time. How is this in any way a good design for a game where each person only has their one character?

That argument runs both ways.

The answer is to have a set-up where all of the characters are relevant at some point in time.
There are challenges that ONLY the fighter can handle, or handles better than anyone else.
There are challenges that ONLY the wizard can handle, or handles better than anyone else.
And so on.
Rather than go for everyone being Tier 1, at which point the question becomes why is the game not for solo play, aim for Tier 3 where a full party is still required.

The fighter, much like the rogue is defined as a constant, narrow set of abilities that is allowed to interact with the scenario once you get past the elective magical overrides (spells) and the GM blindly or selectively blocking specific overrides. When the caster has a broader scope of applicability than the fighter a blindly sampled scenario is statistically more likely to favor the caster.

Furthermore, your attempted inversion is invalid. There is no forcing a state where the caster is full on spells and the fighter gets to wait to be told he’s allowed to be the star. That’s the default starting point that you’ll always see. If the GM does nothing to address matters of the 5MWD the fighter rarely/never sees a chance at being the star short of scripted drama handouts. The entirety of the class’ concept as you’ve put it relies on the GM forcing the game to a specific, optional play state that many other classes are keen on avoiding.

[Lans]

Does it? A Cleric won't just have divine power. They'll also have righteous might, magic vestment, and various other self-buffs. ngth.

I'm pushing back on how easily a cleric can over shadow a monk. Not that a cleric doesn't, just that it will take more than a cleric casting Divine Power to be a melee guy. It will take other spells, feat choices, and domain choices

[AnimeTheCat]

Can you name non-contrived challenges that only Fighters can handle?

Because I can think of scenarios that anything but a custom-built cheesy Wizard or other caster could fail at where a Fighter could succeed, but they pretty much all involve anti-magic or dead magic, which is kinda contrived to have in large areas or large portions of an adventure.

Can you name a challenge that only Fighters can handle, without resorting to a place or ability where magic (all magic) just doesn't work?

thief stole the spellbook.

Spellbooks are valuable, even a petty thief at low levels would be able to discern that and seek to make a quick buck. Also wizards are far less threatening without their spellbook, any BBEG with an int greater than 10 will know that, and thus if the BBEG knows there is a wizard they will likely want to neutralize that threat as early or quickly as possible, one such way is via theft. As levels increase, the abilities of the minions that the BBEG controls get better and better, just as the methods of protecting the spellbook get better and better. Does this become cumbersome if it's constant, yes. Does it even out the playing field and demand more conservative play from the wizard, absolutely.

Ambush from all angles

An ambush from all angles will severely hamper many of the AOE Combat ending tricks that the wizard has, or require them to use up much of their resources in order to end the encounter. Such an encounter for a mid-level (let's go with level 11) party would include, let's say, 1 CR 3 creature, 3 CR 2 creatures, and 7 CR 1 creatures. Let's go with Goblins, Kobolds, or some other small size race that typically resides underground, just to set the stage that this is happening in some kind of relatively close-quarters cavern or cave system. The leader is some Shaman type with spellcasting (that CR 3 creature, so probably a level 4 cleric, sorcerer, or something), the 3 CR 2's are rogues, leading their smaller groups of experts or warriors. The party can certainly divide and conquer, but as soon as the Shaman type sees the spellcaster (or before if the party has even acted) they'll call out the target. This could be for any reason. Perhaps the BBEG that the party is going after displaced this group's tribe and these are the remnants, mistakenly thinking the party is working with BBEG. Perhaps this BBEG defiled their sacred space with Arcane magic, and they now hold a vendetta against arcane magic for this reason (would require spirit shaman, druid, cleric, shugenja, etc in order to work. Perhaps favored soul, you get it). That's going to be 3 sneak attacks and 7 non-sneak attacks. Even with abrupt jaunt, you stand a decent chance of getting hit, and there's no way you can 1-spell end the encounter. This is just one encounter, and it's hardly a big challenge for a full party, but it would give the Fighter a chance to use things like Cleave or wade in to a big group of enemies and cut them down quickly while it gives the spellcaster a slight moment of pause to consider their options as, like I said, they can't simply one-spell end this encounter.

Magical pollution

An alchemist has been doing experiments in a town that caused some... undesirable effects to occur in Magicville, the city of magical magic. As such, it's not that magic doesn't work at all, but rather drawing upon magical energies causes the caster great pain. Doesn't make it impossible to cast, but does make the spellcaster experience pain when casting a spell, requiring them to make a concentration check as if they had taken damage (damage is equal to spell level, 2x spell level, 3x spell level, or 4x spell level, depending on how close the caster is to the epicenter of the event). I'll note, this does not actually make them take damage, just that it makes them make a Concentration check as if they had. This is based off of the magical city hazards in Cityscape.

Those aren't the only situations I can think of, but none of them are contrived They all happened for specific or distinct reasons and the party could totally figure out all of them with some investigation, which is actually where other classes like rogues, bards, or wizards could be given a chance to use their abilities to greater effect.

[Efrate]

@lans Not really. Full AB, +6 str plus temp hp is going to be better than a monk in nearly all situations, before domains, heavy armor and shield proficiency and any other reasonable buffs. Feat just are not THAT good, else a fighter would be competitive with most classes since they get the most feats. A divine power cleric can just take power attack and 2 hand a morningstar and will outdamage a monk.

Neither gets pounce so they need to get close to hit, take a full attack likely, then monk gets one more attack, but with all its attacks at a lower base plus being squishier. Assuming nothing else.

Cleric likely has higher con as well since monks are so MAD, will almost definitely have better strength especially after divine power. To reach the same ac as a cleric in +1 plate, a monk needs 18 dex and 18 wis plus their ac bonus, which assuming a generous point buy is still at least 4k more, likely 8k in items, compared to 2500 for cleric, or less if magic vestment is involved. Which also means significantly less strength. You also need con to take a hit. It is likely you are doing 1d8 or 1d10, maybe +1. Cleric at 10 base strength is at 1d8+4 with just divine power and 2 handing their weapon, and its hitting at 10/5 vs. Your 4/4 or 5/5 flurry. Before any other spells or feats or anything.

[Tiktakkat]

Can you name non-contrived challenges that only Fighters can handle?

In AD&D? Quite a few. Without being contrived. There were simply that many monsters where a caster was pretty much excluded because of Magic Resistance.
That such are dismissed as "contrived" in 3X/D20 demonstrates a weakness in the system along with an overt bias in favor of casters.


The fighter, much like the rogue is defined as a constant, narrow set of abilities that is allowed to interact with the scenario once you get past the elective magical overrides (spells) and the GM blindly or selectively blocking specific overrides. When the caster has a broader scope of applicability than the fighter a blindly sampled scenario is statistically more likely to favor the caster.

Which, as above, demonstrates a systemic problem with the casters having too much power.


Furthermore, your attempted inversion is invalid. There is no forcing a state where the caster is full on spells and the fighter gets to wait to be told he’s allowed to be the star. That’s the default starting point that you’ll always see. If the GM does nothing to address matters of the 5MWD the fighter rarely/never sees a chance at being the star short of scripted drama handouts. The entirety of the class’ concept as you’ve put it relies on the GM forcing the game to a specific, optional play state that many other classes are keen on avoiding.

The inversion is completely valid. The alternative you propose requires a DM to tailor adventures exclusively to what the casters can handle. No monsters with resistances they cannot overcome, senses they cannot hide from, stealth they cannot see through, and definitely not damage output that can overwhelm their hit points.
The core job of the DM is crafting challenges for the party, not exclusively the casters, and not for a particular type of caster.
The entirety of the game structure concept you are relying is removing the DM as an active participant, and forcing him to a specific, focused play state that caters to select classes.

[RandomPeasant]

@Cleric and Monk: It's also worth remembering that it's not just a question of being straight better at martial combat. The DMM Cleric is good enough at martial combat that even if the Monk is better, they're good enough that they can cover some scenarios with shooting or stabbing while having the resources to outshine overall. The fact that you can straight up out-Monk a Monk (or out-Fighter a Fighter) is the most obvious reason those classes are underpowered, but it's not the only one or even the most significant one. There's no "Fighter" or "Monk" role that the game protects.


thief stole the spellbook.

That's a pretty contrived scenario. You're fiat-ing past the actual theft, and while Wizards may leave their spellbooks undefended in some campaigns, that's generally because there's an unspoken assumption they won't be stolen. If you break that, Wizards will invest enough that stealing the spellbook is distinctly non-trivial. And this only works if the caster is a Wizard (or an Archivist). Against a Sorcerer or a Druid or a Warmage, there's no spellbook to steal. Beyond even that, the scenario only works out for the non-caster because of the asymmetry. Outside of the hard item dependency of spellbooks, even Wizards are much less reliant on gear than Fighters. If the party's stuff gets stolen and its not just the DM smacking the Wizard around, the casters will be fine with cheap replacement component pouches and holy symbols, while the Fighter will be totally hosed with a sword that is literally incapable of hurting certain enemies.


Ambush from all angles

Against low level opposition, any argument for a Fighter over a Cleric dries up. Maybe there's some combo somewhere that makes an 11th level Fighter better at fighting than an 11th level Cleric. But they're both more than capable of mopping up against CR 3 opponents. Hell, the Cleric is probably capable of that without any buffs at all. Not to mention that there are plenty of techniques even a purely BFC-focused Wizard could employ here, most notably Sculpt Spell.


Magical pollution

"What if there was a special environment that specifically hurt one character according to rules I made up for the adventure" is almost the definition of a contrived scenario.

[Gnaeus]

{Scrubbed}


thief stole the spellbook.

Spellbooks are valuable, even a petty thief at low levels would be able to discern that and seek to make a quick buck. Also wizards are far less threatening without their spellbook, any BBEG with an int greater than 10 will know that, and thus if the BBEG knows there is a wizard they will likely want to neutralize that threat as early or quickly as possible, one such way is via theft. As levels increase, the abilities of the minions that the BBEG controls get better and better, just as the methods of protecting the spellbook get better and better. Does this become cumbersome if it's constant, yes. Does it even out the playing field and demand more conservative play from the wizard, absolutely.

1. This is pretty exclusively wizard only. No other caster cares.
2. The reasonable challenge here isn’t “a thief steals the wizards spellbook.” It’s “a thief robs the party” does the fighter have any defenses on his +3 weapon? It’s a ton of gold too. So actually the wizard is better off here than the fighter. Either one could be robbed by thieves. But the wizard has class features to defend his stuff. The fighter doesn’t.



Ambush from all angles

An ambush from all angles will severely hamper many of the AOE Combat ending tricks that the wizard has, or require them to use up much of their resources in order to end the encounter. Such an encounter for a mid-level (let's go with level 11) party would include, let's say, 1 CR 3 creature, 3 CR 2 creatures, and 7 CR 1 creatures. Let's go with Goblins, Kobolds, or some other small size race that typically resides underground, just to set the stage that this is happening in some kind of relatively close-quarters cavern or cave system. The leader is some Shaman type with spellcasting (that CR 3 creature, so probably a level 4 cleric, sorcerer, or something), the 3 CR 2's are rogues, leading their smaller groups of experts or warriors. The party can certainly divide and conquer, but as soon as the Shaman type sees the spellcaster (or before if the party has even acted) they'll call out the target. This could be for any reason. Perhaps the BBEG that the party is going after displaced this group's tribe and these are the remnants, mistakenly thinking the party is working with BBEG. Perhaps this BBEG defiled their sacred space with Arcane magic, and they now hold a vendetta against arcane magic for this reason (would require spirit shaman, druid, cleric, shugenja, etc in order to work. Perhaps favored soul, you get it). That's going to be 3 sneak attacks and 7 non-sneak attacks. Even with abrupt jaunt, you stand a decent chance of getting hit, and there's no way you can 1-spell end the encounter. This is just one encounter, and it's hardly a big challenge for a full party, but it would give the Fighter a chance to use things like Cleave or wade in to a big group of enemies and cut them down quickly while it gives the spellcaster a slight moment of pause to consider their options as, like I said, they can't simply one-spell end this encounter.

{Scrubbed}
A caster 11 can trivially have minions blocking every entrance. This is actually one of those scenarios where the fighter can’t even do his basic job of meat shield. He can almost certainly only be in one place.

If you raised the difficulty to the point at which the ambushers were an actual threat, a wizard can simply dimension door away, allowing the party to re-engage the enemy in a “not surrounded in ambush” situation. Or surround the party with a wall on 3 sides. Or make the entire party invisible. Or his planar bound Yeth Hound could bay, forcing fear saves from everyone who didn’t immunize themselves that morning. Or it could be a blizzard/snowsight combo. There are literally dozens of tier 1 counters to “I’m surrounded by mooks”. Any one of which is better than the fighter can manage.



Magical pollution

An alchemist has been doing experiments in a town that caused some... undesirable effects to occur in Magicville, the city of magical magic. As such, it's not that magic doesn't work at all, but rather drawing upon magical energies causes the caster great pain. Doesn't make it impossible to cast, but does make the spellcaster experience pain when casting a spell, requiring them to make a concentration check as if they had taken damage (damage is equal to spell level, 2x spell level, 3x spell level, or 4x spell level, depending on how close the caster is to the epicenter of the event). I'll note, this does not actually make them take damage, just that it makes them make a Concentration check as if they had. This is based off of the magical city hazards in Cityscape..

So, first, this is one of those challenges that only messes with casters who are deliberately not breaking the game. A buff wizard or blaster gets annoyed here.

Otherwise, the caster prepares planar binding half a dozen times. Leaves the city. Summons his crew, and does whatever he is there to do. And the wizard is likely to have a pile of scrolls and wands he can use if things go south, because he can make them.

But more, this is a challenge the fighter cannot possibly interact with. He has no likely way to be able to find the pollution. Or to fix the pollution if he finds it. When the magicville council says “please help us” he can sit his butt down in city hall and lower his visor until the wizard finds a solution because it’s pretty certain that this isn’t a “hit things” job.

So 3 for 3 challenges that casters will beat martials in. {Scrubbed}

[AnimeTheCat]

@Cleric and Monk: It's also worth remembering that it's not just a question of being straight better at martial combat. The DMM Cleric is good enough at martial combat that even if the Monk is better, they're good enough that they can cover some scenarios with shooting or stabbing while having the resources to outshine overall. The fact that you can straight up out-Monk a Monk (or out-Fighter a Fighter) is the most obvious reason those classes are underpowered, but it's not the only one or even the most significant one. There's no "Fighter" or "Monk" role that the game protects.

That's a pretty contrived scenario. You're fiat-ing past the actual theft, and while Wizards may leave their spellbooks undefended in some campaigns, that's generally because there's an unspoken assumption they won't be stolen. If you break that, Wizards will invest enough that stealing the spellbook is distinctly non-trivial. And this only works if the caster is a Wizard (or an Archivist). Against a Sorcerer or a Druid or a Warmage, there's no spellbook to steal. Beyond even that, the scenario only works out for the non-caster because of the asymmetry. Outside of the hard item dependency of spellbooks, even Wizards are much less reliant on gear than Fighters. If the party's stuff gets stolen and its not just the DM smacking the Wizard around, the casters will be fine with cheap replacement component pouches and holy symbols, while the Fighter will be totally hosed with a sword that is literally incapable of hurting certain enemies.

Against low level opposition, any argument for a Fighter over a Cleric dries up. Maybe there's some combo somewhere that makes an 11th level Fighter better at fighting than an 11th level Cleric. But they're both more than capable of mopping up against CR 3 opponents. Hell, the Cleric is probably capable of that without any buffs at all. Not to mention that there are plenty of techniques even a purely BFC-focused Wizard could employ here, most notably Sculpt Spell.

"What if there was a special environment that specifically hurt one character according to rules I made up for the adventure" is almost the definition of a contrived scenario.

You know what... If clerics are so much innately better than fighters at fighting, why don't you answer the thread I started to discuss what a strong fighter/cleric looks like, rather than the thread designed to discuss strikes? here's a link (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?635888-Clericzilla-Domains-Feats-Buffs) for you. You already responded once, but apparently telling you to go ham didn't appeal to you.

As far as your definition of contrived, I don't know what definition you're using but I provided scenarios that would arise naturally rather than artificially and included such in my descriptions of the scenarios. That you feel they are contrived is irrelevant because I specifically made them NOT contrived, i.e. I gave them an in-game reason for existing and allowed for the party to discover the situation before going there, be it by rumor, divination, or general expectation of being targeted. If you don't make sure that there's a threat to the potential weaknesses of your players, that's on you as a DM to choose to do. But don't tout wizards as being without weakness if you're just going to ignore their weaknesses. Don't proclaim clerics to be literal gods without acknowledging that they need a holy symbol to cast a large variety of their spells. Don't pretend that Sorcerers can cast spells without material components (at least not without feat investment). If you're choosing to ignore these weaknesses, that's on you, but they are there. Ignoring them any harder will not make them not there, no matter how loudly you do it.

To be fair, I would just as soon disarm or sunder the Fighter/Barbarian/Cleric/Etc as well, so I'm equal opportunity.

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: everyone please get back on topic and and dial the hostility way back.

[smetzger]

Which party is stronger and more versatile...
Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, Cleric, Druid
or
Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric, Monk

First party will by default be much more difficult for the DM to challenge. Most likely changes will need to be made to published adventures.
Second party will be much easier to offer a challenge to published adventures can most likely be run without making changes to increase the challenge.

[RandomPeasant]

Which party is stronger and more versatile...
Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, Cleric, Druid
or
Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric, Monk

First party will by default be much more difficult for the DM to challenge. Most likely changes will need to be made to published adventures.
Second party will be much easier to offer a challenge to published adventures can most likely be run without making changes to increase the challenge.

Exactly. It's absolutely true that if you tune encounters, you can challenge any party. But that's jumping the gun when we talk about character balance. If different classes require different levels of tuning, they aren't balanced.


You know what... If clerics are so much innately better than fighters at fighting, why don't you answer the thread I started to discuss what a strong fighter/cleric looks like, rather than the thread designed to discuss strikes?

Why would I take a discussion about the appropriate balance point for martial characters out of a thread about the appropriate balance point for martial characters? The discussion of how good CoDzilla is is perfectly relevant to this topic, as you can't judge whether something is over, under, or correctly powered without understanding what it's being benchmarked against.


If you don't make sure that there's a threat to the potential weaknesses of your players, that's on you as a DM to choose to do.

You don't need to punch players directly in their "weaknesses". You need to give them appropriate challenges. That doesn't mean creating scenarios where they get key resources taken away, or where they can't use their abilities, or anything like that. Of the three scenarios you suggested, only the "people attack from all sides" one is one that I would consider a good way of challenging characters, and that is by far the one casters will have the easiest time with.

But more than that, you're making the same mistake as Darg is making. If we're talking about the power level of classes, we have to do that in the assumption the DM doesn't fine-tune encounters to them, even if DMs might do that in practice. If there are 1,000 encounters Wizards beat and Monks don't and a 10 encounters Monks beat that Wizards don't, it's true that you can balance a game by having five encounters be from the first list and five from the second list. But to suggest that makes Wizards and Monks balanced seems entirely unreasonable to me.

[pabelfly]

Here's why I really like Tome of Battle's strikes, etc.
- They're nice and flavourful
- They can be applied to any weapon
- They occupy a nice space between the simplicity of combat for a straight charge build and the complexity of a spellcaster
- Don't require significant build resources, so I can spend feats, etc on other things I want for a character
- Since there are a lot of strikes that are a standard action, I probably don't need pounce or free movement. This means I don't delay my progression in an initiator class, or need to assume that I'll have the specific conditions in combat that make charging work.
- They can inflict effects on opposing characters that are otherwise hard to find for martial characters

[Lans]

The ToB strikes may not be great compared to an orc 2H a great axe, but it's pretty good if your a gnome that is sword and boarding
@lans Not really. Full AB, +6 str plus temp hp is going to be better than a monk in nearly all situations, before domains, heavy armor and shield proficiency and any other reasonable buffs. Feat just are not THAT good, else a fighter would be competitive with most classes since they get the most feats. A divine power cleric can just take power attack and 2 hand a morningstar and will outdamage a monk.

Neither gets pounce so they need to get close to hit, take a full attack likely, then monk gets one more attack, but with all its attacks at a lower base plus being squishier. Assuming nothing else.

Cleric likely has higher con as well since monks are so MAD, will almost definitely have better strength especially after divine power. To reach the same ac as a cleric in +1 plate, a monk needs 18 dex and 18 wis plus their ac bonus, which assuming a generous point buy is still at least 4k more, likely 8k in items, compared to 2500 for cleric, or less if magic vestment is involved. Which also means significantly less strength. You also need con to take a hit. It is likely you are doing 1d8 or 1d10, maybe +1. Cleric at 10 base strength is at 1d8+4 with just divine power and 2 handing their weapon, and its hitting at 10/5 vs. Your 4/4 or 5/5 flurry. Before any other spells or feats or anything.

First with bonus feats the monk can take weapon focus, specialization and weapon finesse making it's attack at around 8/8 or 9/9 for a d8 +2 damage.

With class features the monk takes holy strike, invisible fist and the 7th level Darkmoon Disciple level. Giving him an extra d6 vs evil creatures, invisibility and total concealment in most situations. This gives the monk defensive abilities that miigate the need for armor class and will boost the damage a bit. Next level the monk will get a damage boost and another attack. I think this is better than a cleric what just casts divine power. I make no claims against a cleric that is focusing on melee with other spells and feats or tossing his highest stat in strength.

[Kuulvheysoon]

The ToB strikes may not be great compared to an orc 2H a great axe, but it's pretty good if your a gnome that is sword and boarding

First with bonus feats the monk can take weapon focus, specialization and weapon finesse making it's attack at around 8/8 or 9/9 for a d8 +2 damage.

With class features the monk takes holy strike, invisible fist and the 7th level Darkmoon Disciple level. Giving him an extra d6 vs evil creatures, invisibility and total concealment in most situations. This gives the monk defensive abilities that miigate the need for armor class and will boost the damage a bit. Next level the monk will get a damage boost and another attack. I think this is better than a cleric what just casts divine power. I make no claims against a cleric that is focusing on melee with other spells and feats or tossing his highest stat in strength.

Mixing the Holy Strike ACF (as opposed to the Unholy Strike variant) and Dark Moon Disciple seems suspect at best, though it appears RAW legal. The requirements of the Dark Moon sub level pit you heavily at odds with the implied fluff of the Holy Strike ACF, notably the utter devotion to Shar required.

How are you ignoring the Fighter level requirement for Weapon Specialization? Is there a Dragon list of monk bonus feats that I'm unaware of?

[ciopo]

How are you ignoring the Fighter level requirement for Weapon Specialization? Is there a Dragon list of monk bonus feats that I'm unaware of?

iirc, the monk "bonus feats" class feature specifically says you ignore prerequisites.

this makes the ( dragon magazine issue I don't remember) martial monk ACF that substitute the usual feat list of "monk feats" with "feats with the figther tag" somewhat attractive in that, if the feature keeps the "ignore prerequisites" of monkyness, you can take those high level figther feats that usually no one would take (or rather, qualify)

Why they name wepaon specialization rather than weapon supremacy, I do not know.

Aside from that "trick", it feels reasonable to me that if I take an ACF that says "pick feats form the figther list", I'd treat the class with such ACF as a figther of equal level, but that's more along the lines of adaptation rather than RAW, I don't have the books at hand to check the wording of things.

Personally, I find the "ignore prerequisites" the one big appeal of dipping 2 level of monks to pick up two feats that are otherwise usually annoying/"wasteful" to qualify for, not the magazine ACF that give me the Whole figther list, but those ACF that have a fixed feat and/or limited list

[Kuulvheysoon]

iirc, the monk "bonus feats" class feature specifically says you ignore prerequisites.

this makes the ( dragon magazine issue I don't remember) martial monk ACF that substitute the usual feat list of "monk feats" with "feats with the figther tag" somewhat attractive in that, if the feature keeps the "ignore prerequisites" of monkyness, you can take those high level figther feats that usually no one would take (or rather, qualify)

Why they name wepaon specialization rather than weapon supremacy, I do not know.

Aside from that "trick", it feels reasonable to me that if I take an ACF that says "pick feats form the figther list", I'd treat the class with such ACF as a figther of equal level, but that's more along the lines of adaptation rather than RAW, I don't have the books at hand to check the wording of things.

Personally, I find the "ignore prerequisites" the one big appeal of dipping 2 level of monks to pick up two feats that are otherwise usually annoying/"wasteful" to qualify for, not the magazine ACF that give me the Whole figther list, but those ACF that have a fixed feat and/or limited list

Ah, the Martial Monk. Yeah, I'd forgotten about that. Good old Dragon Magazine. Touché.

And it was probably published before Weapon Supremacy (which is from the PHB2, rather than PHB1).

[RandomPeasant]

Why they name wepaon specialization rather than weapon supremacy, I do not know.

I would assume in an effort to avoid starting a cheese arms race with the Cleric, because the Monk isn't going to win that. Right now we were basically talking about divine power + maybe one other Persistent buff, but that's way, way below the ceiling.

[Lans]

I would assume in an effort to avoid starting a cheese arms race with the Cleric, because the Monk isn't going to win that. Right now we were basically talking about divine power + maybe one other Persistent buff, but that's way, way below the ceiling.

There is a monk fighting style that gave weapon focus specialization in

[ciopo]

"cheese arm race" is my new favourite turn of phrase

[Remuko]

There is a monk fighting style that gave weapon focus specialization in

in what? :O I need to know!

[MaxiDuRaritry]

in what? :O I need to know!Well, we know it's not in unarmed strikes. Monks aren't proficient with those.

[RandomPeasant]

Well, we know it's not in unarmed strikes. Monks aren't proficient with those.

Since Monks don't need to meet the prerequisites for their bonus feats, it could be unarmed strike. It could be anything!

[pabelfly]

in what? :O I need to know!

Knight Hospitaller (any), Sacred Path of Heironeous (Longsword) and Sacred Path of Hextor (Flail).

Dragon Magazine 346 and 358.

[Remuko]

Knight Hospitaller (any), Sacred Path of Heironeous (Longsword) and Sacred Path of Hextor (Flail).

Dragon Magazine 346 and 358.

those are monk fighting styles? neat.

[Lans]

One thing to consider is that not every body wants to 2 hand there weapon. Sometimes people want to do a swash buckler or a sword and boarder. Strikes will have more value compared to a full attack