Really, how replacable are non-casters?

[Frosty]

It seems like every week there's some thread or another either bemoaning the crappiness of <random non-caster class> and how casters roll over them and can take their place in the party without so much as blinking aneye. But is that really true?

While I do appreciate the extent to which a Fighter or Samurai is crappy, can an all of the non-caster roles be filled in by a caster and the caster can perform consistently in said role without serious gimping of their own magical powers?

For example, I can see a Warmage replacing an archer, without any extreme specialization or going out of niche (because Warmages are supposed to shoot things anyways), while getting a Cleric to replace the skill-monkey just doesn't feel quite as effective. I mean, you have to make sure you're a Kobold cleric with the right domains, and you need to have high enough intelligence for your skills, and you need to devote some of your spells to Knock, for example, and in the end you're not really doing the job of skillmonkey becuase there are tons of others skills like sneaking and being the Face that you're not fulfilling.

In an actual campaign where casters don't get to rest every hour in a MMM or Rope trick, do you think sometimes some roles are not easily replaced by casters? Let's not talk about the Druid for now because they get a class feature more powerful than entire classes.

[Lizardfolk Lich]

They could do it, but they usually end up half-baked unless done with extreme care. Like a wizard could be a fighter, but only so many times per day.

[Draz74]

Sure.

A Wizard / Cleric / Druid / Beguiler party will do great, as long as they can use a Rope Trick at night (i.e. every 24 hours, not every hour) and thus recharge their spells. Unless they're fighting a ridiculous number of encounters per day. (At very low levels, e.g. 1-2, they might not be able to handle as many as 4 encounters. And at high levels, e.g. 14+, they could handle significantly more than 4.)

Since you disallowed Druid, though ... let's get rid of him. Replace him with another caster. A second Cleric is the easiest and most boring option, but it will work fine.

You can do pretty well with many combinations of the following, really, even if some of them are slightly less powerful than the above basic combo:

Wizard (batman)
Cleric (healer, tank)
Psion (batman, healer)
Ardent (healer, tank)
Artificer (batman, skill monkey)
Beguiler (skill monkey)
Archivist (batman, healer)
Sorcerer (batman)
Druid (healer, tank)

[AKA_Bait]

Pretty well with the right classes and cheese. Some spell casting classes seem pretty much designed to fill others no casters party roles, like the Beguiler.

[Frosty]

Pretty well with the right classes and cheese. Some spell casting classes seem pretty much designed to fill others no casters party roles, like the Beguiler.

I protest the linking of Beguiler to Cheese :smalltongue:

[Aquillion]

Skill monkies are actually harder to replace than melee types (although, of course, beguiler etc... you can combine skills and magic more easily and logically than skills and melee, since you're likely to use magic in combat and skills mainly outside of it. No competition for your actions.)

Sure, there are spells that can mimick many specific skills, but social skills are much harder to do... charm and dominate can only get you so far. If you want to win someone important onto your side long-term, magicking them isn't generally an option (people can tell with sense motive checks that they're dominated, and charms wear off.) Plus, charm spells are often all-or-nothing things... if you try to talk the duke into helping you and fail, you shrug and try something else. If you try to charm or dominate him and fail, he shouts for the guards.

It's also harder to find hidden things (especially hidden treasures and some of the stranger traps) without using skills. Divinations tend to be limited in various ways, and you usually have to know to ask the question in the first place... skills can easily be used to examine every single surface you encounter, and listen / spot checks are automatically active.

Some magic works better with skills backing it up, too... while some people mistakenly think invisibility renders move silently obsolete, in fact, the opposite is true; invisibility makes move silently stronger, and works better when cast on someone who has it.

It depends heavily on the campaign and setting, though. If your party is exploring the deadly clockwork tower of Zarg, Disable Device is probably going to be very useful... if your campaign is set mostly at a noble court, you're going to want someone with social skills. And the more creative a trap is, the harder and harder it becomes to use spell tricks summon monster etc to find or bypass it. (A creative trap will work in ways you won't expect, so you can't plan ahead to get rid of it / around it without search + disable device... predictable strategies only work on predictable traps.) But if you have a DM who just throws the occasional generic pressure-plate-boom traps at the party and calls it a day as far as skills are concerned, they aren't so necessary.

[Frosty]

Well, if you're willing to spend the spell slots, Invisibility + Zone of Silence really works well together.

[Thrawn183]

I have to disagree on the trap one. In my experience (yes I know, subjective and all that) I've found that the only way to escape the really complex traps is with a caster, mainly because worst comes to worst; they can just teleport out of the room rapidly filling with water or whatever might be the situation.

[tarbrush]

And of course, Summon Monster I can replace trapfinding.

Plus of course the SMI route is far far funnier.

[Yami]

I stand firmly in the, rouges are replacable camp.

Often enough the face of a party will be the sorcerer. Granted, they don't get many skill points, so they do sometimes bypass the social skills, but still, besides the favored soul, few others pump thier chr as much.

And I don't know about the rest of you, but even in the dungoen crawling campaign I'm in right now, picklock and disable device aren't horribly prevalent. I'll admit that having a decent search and spot is nice, but amongst the four casters you bring someone will no doubt be able to grab them.

As for sneaking and hiding, well there's little use in having only one person in the party able to do so anyways. Sure, advanced scouting can be nice, but it's a risky venture that may leave your rouge alone against your foes should they fail.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Best scout? Familiar.
Best face? Rouge. 2nd is either Beguiler or Sorcerer.
Best lockpick? Beguiler. (Knock and skills)
Best trapfinder? Invisible Servant.
Best assassin? Druid. (Cat enters camp, becomes bear, CdG, cat leaves camp)
Best Melee? Warblade. 2nd best druid, 3rd cleric. Druid is actually better as a tank through SNA, but he can't deal the damage.

Anything I left out was because I considered it so glaringly obvious I thought everyone else was an idiot for missing it.:smallcool: Sarcasm.

[horseboy]

As far as "face" work goes, I would like to point out that Clerics get Diplomacy as a class skill. They also need a decent Cha stat for turning. Someone's got to convert the masses. :smallwink:

For party my friends at conventions will usually take:
Cleric of Fharlanghn with Travel Domain
Cleric of St. Cuthbert with Strength and Protection Domains
Cleric of WeJas/Mystic Theurge
Gnome Illusionist.

They crush a mod in about 1/2 an hour, go get drunk, come back an hour or so later and save all the conventional parties at other tables who are struggling and almost out of time.

[Svethnika]

Best scout? Familiar.
Best face? Rouge. 2nd is either Beguiler or Sorcerer.
Best lockpick? Beguiler. (Knock and skills)
Best trapfinder? Invisible Servant.
Best assassin? Druid. (Cat enters camp, becomes bear, CdG, cat leaves camp)
Best Melee? Warblade. 2nd best druid, 3rd cleric. Druid is actually better as a tank through SNA, but he can't deal the damage.

Anything I left out was because I considered it so glaringly obvious I thought everyone else was an idiot for missing it.:smallcool: Sarcasm.

I've thought about the druid being a kick ass assassin too! It'd be cool to take the standard druid and condense it to a form that lets you get the cool stuff sooner and maybe cutting out some of the less assassiny stuff. Perhaps summons.
Edit: Actually summons start showing up later so I imagine there isn't much you could actually take out that wouldn't help a natury assassin in some ways.

[Frosty]

I guess you can continue to stay wildshaped while you wait for the target to be alone or asleep, but it's not really that easy...

[AKA_Bait]

I protest the linking of Beguiler to Cheese :smalltongue:

I was actually referring more to some druid and cleric builds in the cheese department than the beguiler. Although the beguiler can utterly, imho, replace the rogue, it was designed for that purpose and is actually pretty well balanced.

[Saph]

It depends what level you're playing. If you're playing at level 15+, then casters not only can replace noncasters, they're about the only ones who have any chance at all in the first place. High-level magic is just too powerful.

However, if we're talking the average D&D campaign, which starts somewhere around levels 1-5 and finishes somewhere around levels 6-10, then replacing the skillmonkey or melee classes with spellcasters isn't really worth it. Sure, you can do it, but you'll usually find that you're spending a huge amount of effort to create a duplicate that isn't really much of an improvement.

- Saph

[Frosty]

Right, so the question is, at lower levels, which roles require the most effort to duplicate and isn't that much of an improvement, and which ones are more like "the non-caster should just give up adventuring and become a cow-herder."

[Person_Man]

Non-caster roles:

1) Tank: Summon something or cast battlefield control magic.

2) Archer: There are dozens of spells that duplicate this.

3) Scout: Divination magic. Or just cast Invisibility and Silence

4) Trap Finder: Spelltheives and Beguilers. Or cast Find Traps and avoid them. Or just cast Mount or use the Elemental Reserve feat and use them to scout. Or use Handle Animal and buy dogs. They're cheap, and can be trained to guard your mount when you're not using them as fodder.

5) Party Face: Plenty of casters get Diplomacy et al as class Skills. Or you can use Enchantment magic.

Running out of spells is rarely an issue once you reach mid levels. And even if you do run out of spells, you can use Wands. As casters, you don't need to invest a lot of money in expensive weapons.

[Thinker]

Stealth is unnecessary unless enough of the party can do it so that encountering an enemy that detects the stealthers is not death. As far as other skill-replacing spells go, they can be cast from scrolls and most (all that I can think of off hand) are not caster level dependant. Should the party need to sneak there are plenty of ways to do it without ranks in hide/move silently.

Tanking is easily done with any number of buff spells. At low levels (BAB < 6) the BAB is less important and can easily be made up for by having high stats in the appropriate stats. A full BAB class with +5 versus a 3/4 one with +3 is hardly going to matter. Damage can be dealt by everyone without too many problems.

[its_all_ogre]

Well, if you're willing to spend the spell slots, Invisibility + Zone of Silence really works well together.

no. just no.
you cannot hear anything yourself in this case remember and unless you cast the zone of silence(rather than another pc) then you are screwed if something should detect you.
besides invisibility does not enable you to avoid a whole plethora of enemies that a simple hide check might enable you to avoid. lots of creatures can see invisible after all.

[Frosty]

And there are times when Hide will do absolutely nothing. It all depends on what you're fighting. In the game I'm playing in, my Beguiler had dispelled a Dominate Monster cast on a Bebilith, so the Bebilith was rampaging thru the camp of the cultists who were controlling it. The leader of the cultists summons a Retriever (It's a Construct version of a Bebilith) to combat the Bebilith. My Beguiler then cast Zone of Silence (My DM ruled that you can hear outside things just fine. Yes, I know it's a houserule) and Invisibility Sphere, and our entire party stood right next to the bebilith during what we later dubbed as the "demonic pokemon battle." getting a great front row view. We even helped the Bebilith win by casting Shield Other, Haste, Mage armor, and even Cure spells on it (while invisible)

In the end, the Bebilith won, and the cultist leader Banished the Bebilith in a fit of anger. We hightailed it out of the camp (escape was our main objective anyways), and got exp for defeating a Bebilith and a Retriever. They are CR 10 and 11, and we were ECL 8s. We got way more EXP than the DM expected to give that session :smallbiggrin:

[Draz74]

However, if we're talking the average D&D campaign, which starts somewhere around levels 1-5 and finishes somewhere around levels 6-10, then replacing the skillmonkey or melee classes with spellcasters isn't really worth it. Sure, you can do it, but you'll usually find that you're spending a huge amount of effort to create a duplicate that isn't really much of an improvement.

Meh, even at low levels, it doesn't take much optimization to replace the Fighter with a Druid (plus Animal Companion) and the Rogue with a Beguiler.

Low levels do keep Artificers from being good skill monkeys or Clerics/Ardents from being tanks without some real effort.

[Frosty]

Further, *how* would a level 1 Druid or Beguiler really optimize? I mean, sure, choosing a good animal companion for the Druid (usually Riding Dog), but the Beguiler has a set spell list. You'd choose...Spellcasting Prodigy (3.0 version) for your feat? Make sure you're a Gnome? I mean what would be optimizing? :smalltongue:

[its_all_ogre]

so your dm houseruled away the inherent disadvantages a spell gives you and this makes it a good idea to use a spell that way?
thats like me arguing that blasting wizards are brilliant. by the way saves against blasting spells aren't allowed in my game.
are blasting spells actually great or are they made better by my houserules?
i think we know the answer:smallbiggrin:

[mostlyharmful]

A party with a Wizard, a Cleric, a Druid and either a Beguiler or an Artifacer has pretty much all the bases covered and can handle most any problem that an iconic four party can at all levels.

the other roles can be covered by casters but some casters have an easier time covering some roles.

[Frosty]

so your dm houseruled away the inherent disadvantages a spell gives you and this makes it a good idea to use a spell that way?
thats like me arguing that blasting wizards are brilliant. by the way saves against blasting spells aren't allowed in my game.
are blasting spells actually great or are they made better by my houserules?
i think we know the answer:smallbiggrin:

my character never notices, to be honest, because he has 1) telepathy and 2) can read thoughts.

Makes not being able to hear a non-factor.

[Chronos]

Best face? Rouge. 2nd is either Beguiler or Sorcerer.I'd actually put Bard as the best face, since they have both all of the face skills, and magic which complements those skills well (Glibness, anyone? Charms? Fascinate?). While rogues can be decent faces, I would actually put them somewhere below Paladins, and maybe Clerics: Paladins have Cha as their priority stat, and also generally get roleplaying advantages when dealing with lawful and/or good folks (or folks presenting themselves as lawful and/or good). If it's generally known that you're a paladin, the good nobles/city guards/merchants are going to be inclined to help you, and the not-so-good ones don't want to make it public that they don't want to help you. The same goes for a cleric of a socially well-accepted deity.

On the original topic, I would argue strongly that the skillmonkey role in general can only be filled by a skillmonkey. Yes, there are spells to mimic skills, but the spells honestly don't actually work as well, especially at higher levels. However, there are a fair number of caster classes who also happen to be skillmonkeys. A bard, spellthief, or (I'm taking on others' word, since I haven't seen the class myself) beguiler, or ideally some combination of them in the party, could replace the rogue, with a fair degree of success.

[wootdavid]

Really I think it just boils down to what you want to roleplay and what your motivations are.

If you're simply trying to beat the campaign then the spellcasting teams are going to be your safest option.

The other pole of this is characters that are driven completely by their backstory and what happens throughout the campaign. They progress in a manner which might not always be optimised but it makes sense for the purpose of the story

Classic Example: A godless level 1 fighter focussed on strength/constitution and kept the other stats passable but nothing too great. They then have an intervention and become a paladin at level 2 and keep with this class until the end of the campaign. Their charisma based abilities are going to be generally sub-par compared to someone who made a paladin build from the beginning but the character struggling with this lack of power might be more fun to roleplay.

Same goes with a rogue/assassin over the druid scenario posted above. A neutral or chaotic evil assassin has more roleplaying options focussing on this - she might be in your party against the will of the lawful good characters because you need her to kill a bunch of high profile targets.

The druid who can do it more effectively and still have dozens of other uses isn't my first choice from the roleplaying perspective (unless they're neutral evil and are used to this sort of thing).

It all depends on how you like to play the game though. I enjoy mixing it up between casters and rogues, fighters, rangers .etc. Depending on what I envision the character to be.

Given this if I'm playing a once off mid level dungeon crawl with a new character I probably won't play again I choose an optimised caster for cheese.

[DeathQuaker]

Depends on the type of campaign and how smart your GM is (and player intelligence as well). Party/encounter level as Saph, I believe, points out, is also a major issue.

There's also a question of what rules you are using. I can tell some players here just assume one is using every splatbook known to humanity in any given campaign, and that may just not be the case. Talking core only, you can probably do a caster-only party, but you're probably going to have more fun if you can split the party roles amongst casters and non-casters alike.

I've played in caster-heavy campaigns where we found ourselves lacking in some particular skill or ability that we either didn't have a spell for or didn't have it prepared. I've played in caster-lite campaigns where everyone got on just fine.

And there is the matter of yes, spells can emulate a lot, but in my experience, it's still preferable to leave stuff like scouting, sneaking, survival, etc. to actual skill use, and leave the casters to prep their buffing and damage spells, as was probably intended. You can do it, sure, but would you as a player really want to? It largely depends on what a given person wants to get out of the experience, probably.

And I know as a GM, if I ran an all-caster party, or a non-caster party, I'd adjust the challenges accordingly (and for a caster-lite game I ran--by the players' own choice--the only thing I chose not to do was run them down with hordes of monsters.... and that also suited the environment of the campaign anyway). Some stuff would be cake for one and not for the other. My own experience as a GM and as a player has taught me not to underestimate good melee and skill builds at all--and it's taught me that it's easier to catch a caster off guard than some discussions of caster power would indicate. Having played some potent casters, I've been in situations where time is running out, I've got three great spells to use if I could ONLY cast them all, but only have time to cast one. Which do I choose?

In the end, in my experience, a balance of class abilities, caster and non-caster alike is always at least more fun, if not preferred. Your mileage may vary, of course.

[Saph]

Meh, even at low levels, it doesn't take much optimization to replace the Fighter with a Druid (plus Animal Companion) and the Rogue with a Beguiler.

That's because Druids are outrageously powerful and because Fighters are notoriously weak. You're comparing probably the most powerful all-round class in the game to one of the mediocre ones.

If you're picking a frontline class for power, you'd go for a Barbarian, Warblade, or Crusader, or some sort of multiclass mix, not a Fighter.

- Saph

[Talic]

Melee competence - Cleric or Druid, some shaky wizard grappling builds.

Ranged combat - Warmage, Warlock, Sorceror.

Skillmonkey - Beguiler (high int and competitive skill list, along with trapfinding).

Examples of how Rogue, Archers, and melee fighters can be replaced effectively by casters.

[KoDT69]

my character never notices, to be honest, because he has 1) telepathy and 2) can read thoughts.

Makes not being able to hear a non-factor.

I'm guessing that you have to be aware of the target(s) to read their minds. That's only a minor bonus in a Zone of Silence. You still miss out on listen checks for stuff sneaking on you, no sound effects of any kind, and the fact that the rest of the party has no advantage. Not really that great, unless facing an enemy caster that does not have Silent spells prepared/accessible and also is unable to get out of the ZoS for some reason. Reminds me of good old 2nd edition games. Mage casts Silence 15' Radius on the Rogue, and the Rogue thinks he's immune to detection. In all practicality, if I were out in the adventuring world, and all of the sudden all ambient noise was completely silenced, it would trigger extreme caution and awareness. I'd be looking all over for a source of the silence. They always got so mad when I gave the victims a chance to look around because they stopped hearing everything. :smallbiggrin:

[Frosty]

Saph, fighters aren't weak at level 1. At that level, they have at-will save or dies. It's called a Greatsword.

KoDT. Sure, I expect enemies to be freaked out when they can't hear anything. But that's why I don't go near them. My zone of silence only has a 10-ft radius. I just have to be farther away than that and then read their minds :smallbiggrin:

[its_all_ogre]

my character never notices, to be honest, because he has 1) telepathy and 2) can read thoughts.

Makes not being able to hear a non-factor.

so let me get this straight. you cast telepathy, then read thoughts, then invisibility and then zone of silence?
must have been in this order or you couldn't cast, or you have silent spell. further depleting your abilities cause that makes all the spells cast while silenced one level higher.

this story gets more and more convuluted as it goes on.
so whats in the next instalment? riding a handy dragon too were we?:smallamused: :smallconfused:

[its_all_ogre]

actually KODT69 the poster has already stated that the dm kindly stated they could hear stuff outside the zone affected area.

amazing how some dms just make casters more powerful like this eh?:smallbiggrin:

then people complain the casters are overpowered!!

[shaggz076]

If you are talking replacement with Arcane casters then see below.

CLASS: Replacement Magic Using Class
Rogue: Beguiler
Fighter/Paladin/Ranger/Monk(Melee or Ranged): Duskblade
Cleric/Druid: Bard(Oh Noes!)


Well that covers the base classes in the PHB. Any Questions?

[Frosty]

Zone of SIlence does not silence you. You and 5-ft around you are completely normal, allowing you to cast. My character has telepathy as a class feature, and uses a spell to cast detect thoughts.

[its_all_ogre]

ah. yes you are indeed correct, my apologies :smallbiggrin:
i was thinking of silence 15' radius, cause zone of silence is bard only and have never encountered that spell before!
(maybe next time i'll check before posting. but to be honest i doubt it :smalltongue: )

[Frosty]

Correction, it's Bard and Beguiler only, just like the spell Glibness. :smalltongue:

[Chronos]

Reminds me of good old 2nd edition games. Mage casts Silence 15' Radius on the Rogue, and the Rogue thinks he's immune to detection. In all practicality, if I were out in the adventuring world, and all of the sudden all ambient noise was completely silenced, it would trigger extreme caution and awareness. I'd be looking all over for a source of the silence. They always got so mad when I gave the victims a chance to look around because they stopped hearing everything.This is why you don't cast Silence 15' Radius on the thief. You cast it on the end of a 14' rope that the thief is dragging behind him. By the time your target notices the lack of ambient noise, he's a bit more preocupied with the sharpened bit of steel in his lungs.

Oh, and the mage doesn't cast Silence on the thief; the cleric does. Then and now, Silence is not a wizard spell.

[its_all_ogre]

i've never had a beguiler in my games, nor stufied the class much so i did not know that. explains why its in this thread though!!
a really good spell though as it can make you silent to enemies...
could be the cure my group needs to a certain clanky dwarf in the group!

[Frosty]

They are worth taking a look at. Important features at a glance:

Beguiler

d6 HD
6+int skills (and humongous skill list)
Good Will saves. Bad other saves.
Trapfinding
Proficiency with Light armor and Casting in Armor
Silent Spell and Still Spell as bonus feats
Miscellaneous bonuses related to spellcasting
Spontaneous INT-based casting and Level 9 spells

Compare this to Rogue

d6 HD
8+int skills
Good Reflex saves. Bad other saves.
Trapfinding
Proficiency with Light armor
Improved Evasion
Improved Uncanny Dodge
Special abilities like "Roll With it"
Sneak Attack

[Indon]

Best face? Rouge. 2nd is either Beguiler or Sorcerer.

I would think a rogue face would have quite a bit of MAD - dex and con as a meleer, int as a skillmonkey, and now charisma as well? It would definitely seem Bard is the better choice for face, and since the Bard doesn't really have to melee unless they want to, the only thing they lack on the skillmonkey front is trapfinding.

[sikyon]

I would think a rogue face would have quite a bit of MAD - dex and con as a meleer, int as a skillmonkey, and now charisma as well? It would definitely seem Bard is the better choice for face, and since the Bard doesn't really have to melee unless they want to, the only thing they lack on the skillmonkey front is trapfinding.

Yes, Rouge Skill monkey is something of a classic but it's crazy MAD.

Sorceror, however, I think would be the best. Not only do you get a powerful character that has SAD on charisma, but you can also use various spells do do your dirty work like Alter Self, for example.

[Chronos]

They are worth taking a look at. Important features at a glance:
...Have I ever mentioned how annoying it is, when Wizards takes one of the game's classic classes, which is actually balanced, and makes it redundant?