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  1. - Top - End - #121
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    Default Re: Can we build the math from the ground up? (And does Vancian help or hurt that?)

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    So suppose - say, for 6th edition - people wanted to build the game from the ground up, build the math from the ground up to make all D&D classes "balanced", by which I mean "able to contribute, and occasionally shine", and no more "linear Fighter, quadratic Wizard".

    So, let's take… "6th level". The wizard has Fireball, SoL spells like Hold Person, buffs, BFC.

    Fighting an army of orcs, Fireball is probably optimal. How many orcs should take how long to dispatch the Wizard? How many orcs should the Wizard have killed before that happens? How can the Fighter contribute "equally"? By killing orcs roughly as quickly? By surviving to finish off the orc army one at a time? By leading their own army?

    Fighting a few Ogres, BFC is likely the best option, perhaps followed up with some summons. How can the Fighter contribute "equally"? By greatly outpacing the summons' DPS (perhaps with their own "scales by round" mechanic, like "automatic study: add a d6 of damage to every attack for every consecutive round the Fighter has made an attack on this creature type" or something)? By being their own BFC (3e chain tripper says hi)? By leading their own army?

    Fighting a Troll, SoL may be the best bet for the Wizard. If it works, the Wizard gets to shine; if not, they didn't contribute. How do we make the Fighter "balanced" here?

    Talking to people, the Wizard has effects like Charm and ESP. Which… have negative reproductions, and, in earlier editions, can drive the Wizard bonkers. How do we make the Fighter "balanced" here?

    Dealing with traps, the Wizard could use summons (and scrying for maximum safety). How do we make the Fighter "balanced" here?

    And, of course, all this was only considering Schrödinger's Wizard with unlimited spells. Should we keep the Wizard that way? How do we balance those encounters of the Wizard only packed Detect Magic, Alarm, Invisibility, and Sending? How do we make the Fighter "balanced" here?

    Also, what if, rather than the microscope of "a single challenge", we look at a larger scenario, like "rescue the Dragon from the evil princess", or "close an underwater extradimensional portal protected by invisible, incorporeal guardians", or "save the NPC writer with massive gambling debts from loan sharks"? What should each class bring to the table in each of these scenarios, and how do we make that "balanced"?
    Few issues:

    • Balancing things based off different levels of dependency on resources doesn't generally work, as each table is going to have different numbers of enemies per encounter per day (unless you can find a way to make those numbers rigid).
    • You don't need to start with the ground up. Compare your vision for both at the top. See where one needs more juice. Give it that juice, or scale the other side down.
    • Combat isn't the only metric, unless it's the only way to solve your problems. Treat Combat and Non-Combat as two separate modes of play, and make it so you only ever have to compare Apples-to-Apples and Oranges-to-Oranges.
      • Don't put yourself in a situation where you're comparing the Fighter's weapon-enhancing feature to the Bard's social manipulation feature, because they don't even vaguely compete or solve the same problems. Never be in a position where someone has to spend a feature on either a combat power OR a Roleplaying power, by either granting everyone equal numbers of both (utility feats and combat feats), or making each feature have an aspect of both (the Manipulator feat gives both a utility and a combat power). In other words, a Fighter should have just as many Roleplaying Powers as the Bard, and the Bard should have just as many Combat Powers as the Fighter, or what you're looking for isn't 'balance'. This is because there is no real way of enforcing the base value of either Combat or Roleplaying on any table, or even in an encounter. It'd be like trying to get everyone to use the Metric system while everyone wants to use different weights.


    You don't need a whole bunch of math and work. You just gotta check yourself before you wreck yourself. It's the design plan, the foundation that matters, not the math. As long as you're aware of the goals in mind, you'll hit them.

    4th Edition actually had the foundation for a perfectly balanced game. It screwed up in a lot of ways (even in regards to balance, mostly due to dumb number problems), but it had the foundation that could have been perfect (by giving everyone roughly the same amount of utility, encounter vs. daily resources, etc).
    Was it bland? Sure! But just because 4e was 1-dimensional doesn't mean that a better solution has to be too.
    Last edited by Man_Over_Game; 2020-08-12 at 10:53 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by KOLE View Post
    MOG, design a darn RPG system. Seriously, the amount of ideas I’ve gleaned from your posts has been valuable. You’re a gem of the community here.

    5th Edition Homebrewery
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    Pain, using Exhaustion to make tactical martial combatants.
    Fate Sorcery, lucky winner of the 5e D&D Subclass Contest VII!

  2. - Top - End - #122

    Default Re: Can we build the math from the ground up? (And does Vancian help or hurt that?)

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    What is something wizards can't do that can still be done in D&D?
    It seems to me that the onus should be on you to prove that Wizards can do everything that can be done. The Wizard's spell list does not have every spell on it, and there are plenty of things that aren't spells out there. In terms of an answer to your question, I would say that what the Wizard can't do, generally, is compete with a specialist in their specialty without spending build resources, provided that specialist is of a class comparable to Wizard in power in the first place. So a Wizard might be able to out-melee a Fighter or out-skill-monkey a Rogue just by picking the right spells, but they can't out-melee a Druid or out-skill-monkey a Beguiler unless they sacrifice real power for it.

    Quote Originally Posted by johnbragg View Post
    If you're starting from the ground up, and then testing legacy spells against a designed system, that wouldn't be true. Decide what damage a cantrip, 1st level, 2nd level, 3rd level attack spell should do, for single-targets, for AoEs.
    I don't really get how this is responsive. Sure, you could normalize everything to one damage progression (you should not actually do that, but you can). But that doesn't change the fact that Burning Hands is a melee-range AoE, Scorching Ray is a close-range single target attack, Fireball is a long-range AoE, and Wall of Fire is a medium-range BFC effect that's not even instantaneous. How are you going to set things up so those are all modes of the same underlying "Fire" spell in a way that isn't more trouble than just having four different spells?

    (I'm not going higher than that for daily spells in my system. It's either just bigger numbers on a treadmill, or effects that obsolete martials.)
    I'm curious how you think Dimension Door is either numbers on a treadmill, or able to obsolete Thor.

    Quote Originally Posted by johnbragg View Post
    I think the thing to do is set up a paradigm where "buff-spell alone << expert ability << buffed ability". Which would nerf (or nuke) a lot of low-level skill-obsoleting spells--looking at you, jump and spider climb.
    I think maybe you intended this to reply to something else? I don't see how it's really responsive to what you quoted.

    Quote Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game View Post
    Balancing things based off different levels of dependency on resources doesn't generally work, as each table is going to have different numbers of enemies per encounter per day (unless you can find a way to make those numbers rigid).
    I think it works well within the context of a specific encounter. If you set things up so that the standard encounter has 5 enemies and lasts 3 rounds (or whatever numbers), variable resources within that encounter give DMs a powerful tool to fine-tune balance during their game. If the Warlock (who gets at-will Invocations) is underperforming, have a longer fight. If the Wizard (who gets a bunch of AoE effects) is underperforming, have fights with larger numbers of enemies. And so on and so forth. Even if your game is mechanically perfectly balanced, it won't be balanced in practice, so you need to give people tools to adjust in practice. In this case, it also simply makes for more interesting gameplay.

    Combat isn't the only metric, unless it's the only way to solve your problems. Treat Combat and Non-Combat as two separate modes of play, and make it so you only ever have to compare Apples-to-Apples and Oranges-to-Oranges.
    There's a limit to which this is possible. Many abilities aren't clearly divisible into "combat" and "non-combat". A classic example would be Silent Image. You can use it in combat to trick enemies, but you can also use it to avoid combat entirely, or in social situations. I agree with your general point that you cannot and should not be balancing characters as having a total number of points to stick into a combination of "combat stuff" and "non-combat stuff", but neither can you treat them as entirely separate.

  3. - Top - End - #123
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    Default Re: Can we build the math from the ground up? (And does Vancian help or hurt that?)

    Quote Originally Posted by johnbragg View Post
    Healing magic (at least without major 3X shenanigans).
    Right of course, still usually a spell thing in D&D but not a wizard thing. I non-spell casting thing would be even better but at the same time I know what system we are talking about.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    It seems to me that the onus should be on you to prove that Wizards can do everything that can be done.
    Actually I was curious how easily someone else could disprove the statement more than disproving anything. That is why it was phrased as a question and as a statement.

  4. - Top - End - #124
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    Default Re: Can we build the math from the ground up? (And does Vancian help or hurt that?)

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    I think it works well within the context of a specific encounter. If you set things up so that the standard encounter has 5 enemies and lasts 3 rounds (or whatever numbers), variable resources within that encounter give DMs a powerful tool to fine-tune balance during their game. If the Warlock (who gets at-will Invocations) is underperforming, have a longer fight. If the Wizard (who gets a bunch of AoE effects) is underperforming, have fights with larger numbers of enemies. And so on and so forth. Even if your game is mechanically perfectly balanced, it won't be balanced in practice, so you need to give people tools to adjust in practice. In this case, it also simply makes for more interesting gameplay.



    There's a limit to which this is possible. Many abilities aren't clearly divisible into "combat" and "non-combat". A classic example would be Silent Image. You can use it in combat to trick enemies, but you can also use it to avoid combat entirely, or in social situations. I agree with your general point that you cannot and should not be balancing characters as having a total number of points to stick into a combination of "combat stuff" and "non-combat stuff", but neither can you treat them as entirely separate.
    On the first point, I do agree that you can have those mismatches, it's just important to call them out and identify them and when they can be an issue.

    I think a better way of implementing it than, say 5e's version of "You get At-Will powers, while you get Long Rest powers", is allow people the option of choice. Maybe have a feature for Wizards to recharge some of their Long Rest powers on a Short Rest, to bridge that gap. 5e does have some of that (with Wizards in particular), but it's not very consistent (Rogues generally get no resources whatsoever).


    On the second point, I disagree. Combat can easily be broken down into a fairly simple list of rules, conditions and criteria. It's all of the noncombat stuff that gets really complicated. All you'd really have to do is steamline a lot of the effects someone could expect to occur in combat.

    For example, what happens when someone encounters an illusion in combat? This is something that 5e has no suggestions for, despite having about 10 different powers that do so.

    You wouldn't need to do everything, you'd just need to implement broad conditions/triggers that occur during very basic circumstances. For example "When a creature that is 'unstable' spends an Action to Attack or Cast A Spell, they must make a Concentration Check if they are Concentrating on a spell, and they provoke an Opportunity Attack from all adjacent creatures that aren't suffering from the same effect". That's not specific to Sleet Storm or Grease, or any other instance of an effect that'd make a creature unstable.

    You can "combatify" non-combat effects into making them combat effects. The problem is the disparity. If a Wizard gets Silent Image, and the Barbarian gets Grapple, how does the Barbarian use Grapple in a non-combat situation? Maybe you can make one example, but can you make enough for everyone?

    Can you make enough nonviolent Fighter features for them to compete with a Bard or a Wizard in the same element?
    Last edited by Man_Over_Game; 2020-08-12 at 07:12 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by KOLE View Post
    MOG, design a darn RPG system. Seriously, the amount of ideas I’ve gleaned from your posts has been valuable. You’re a gem of the community here.

    5th Edition Homebrewery
    Prestige Options, changing primary attributes to open a world of new multiclassing.
    Adrenaline Surge, fitting Short Rests into combat to fix bosses/Short Rest Classes.
    Pain, using Exhaustion to make tactical martial combatants.
    Fate Sorcery, lucky winner of the 5e D&D Subclass Contest VII!

  5. - Top - End - #125
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    Default Re: Can we build the math from the ground up? (And does Vancian help or hurt that?)

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post


    I don't really get how this is responsive. Sure, you could normalize everything to one damage progression (you should not actually do that, but you can). But that doesn't change the fact that Burning Hands is a melee-range AoE, Scorching Ray is a close-range single target attack, Fireball is a long-range AoE, and Wall of Fire is a medium-range BFC effect that's not even instantaneous. How are you going to set things up so those are all modes of the same underlying "Fire" spell in a way that isn't more trouble than just having four different spells?

    It's a means to limit magic knowledge without sacrificing diversity. The various effects are physically printed under the heading of Fire Attack. The spell caster gets the Fire Attack ability and with it comes all these different things he can do with it based on the spell slot used or mana spent depending on the system. There will be Electricity Attack, Acid Attack, Healing, Mind Control, Alteration, Travel, etc., various types of magical forms. A spellcaster gets a limited number of them so he can't do them all, but within the ones he does get he has variety of things he can do. How many magic forms he gets and when to be determined in the hypothetical.
    Last edited by Pex; 2020-08-12 at 09:03 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by OvisCaedo View Post
    Rules existing are a dire threat to the divine power of the DM.

  6. - Top - End - #126
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    Default Re: Can we build the math from the ground up? (And does Vancian help or hurt that?)

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Again, Wizards can't "do anything". They can do a lot of things, but it is a finite number. Moreover, other people having similar abilities doesn't reduce class identity. It is very easy to tell the difference between a Dread Necromancer's zombie minions, a Druid's animal companion, and a Beguiler's charmed minions. You could also fairly easily imagine how a Summoner's summoned minions, a Warlord's troops, and a Shaman's spirit guides are different from each of them as well.
    Other people having similar abilities does reduce class identity. In my experience, people pick varied things not only to have different SFX and maybe 20% variation in effectiveness, but to bring something unique and necessary to the group. Niches promote team play, but your suggestions would probably work out with niches becoming less like square and round holes, and more like "round holes large enough to fit a square into, if you're fine to push it a bit".

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    And this is different from the relationship between the Wizard and the Beguiler now how? The Wizard isn't simply a strictly better Beguiler, nor the Beguiler a strictly worse Wizard. You could make a reasonable case the Beguiler is worse, but it's by a fairly small margin, and often unnoticeable in actual play.
    Correction - the Wizard is better than a Beguiler when they try to do non-Beguiler things. Beguiler already has a bit too much going on, but it's balanced by a simple fact - unless they charm/dominate someone, they have no innate way of dealing level-appropriate damage after levels 1-3. It's refreshing and unusual in D&D for this to be the case, and that's why it's listed as one of my favourite classes in my sig. Wizard might not be able to perform beguiler feats with the same effectiveness, but it's rare that they would need to and also can't resort to some other trick.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Sure, customization within a class is a noble goal. And you'll note that the Wizard has that. With the various specialist ACFs and bonuses out there, probably a great deal more of it than most other classes. A Necromancer who picks all the Necromancer ACFs has a bunch of abilities an Evoker who picks all the Evoker ACFs does not.
    And I have nothing against that.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    My opinion is that that's not a very meaningful opinion. "Tier 1 and Tier 2" just mean "the best 1/3 of the classes that exist". Anything else you read into that is a discussion of the properties of those classes, and I think it's very difficult to make the case that all those properties are bad. Some of them certainly are. The Sorcerer doesn't have class features. The Cleric and Druid have far too much flexibility in their spell access. But some of them are good. They're the only classes with access to the vast majority of utility effects. Maybe you can argue that the Wizard has too many of them, but if you think Teleport or Fabricate should be in the game at all, that is implicitly an endorsement of the T1 and T2 classes as a valuable part of the game.
    Teleport should be in the game. That doesn't mean everyone should have access to it or something like it. Fabricate - frankly, I don't think it should even be in the game. Maybe as a class feature for some specialized crafter-mage archetype. Not as a spell, certainly. My issue with T1 and T2 classes isn't that they get to do those things at all, though - it's that most of them get to do that one day, then they can switch out the next day and do something completely different. Abilities need to be more locked in place.

    Clerics and Druids are certainly not exempt from that - my vision of Clerics has them with very narrow spell lists that are almost entirely dependent on their gods' domains, and Druids are just Nature Clerics that trade in some casting for shapeshifting with PF1e-like archetypes.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    If you think the Sorcerer is also a problem, how can there possibly be a solution in nerfing the Wizard's versatility? The Sorcerer has almost the minimum possible level of versatility you could have with the Wizard spell list.

    And if you're going to nerf their power, isn't that exactly isomorphic to increasing everyone else's?
    Sorcerer has a vastly lower problem potential, precisely because their ability access is very limited and their abilities are pretty locked in place. You can, certainly, attempt to build a Sorcerer to solve as many problems as possible. 3.5's certain items and stuff also let you expand your sorcerer's spell list (never liked that being a thing, sorcerers were very well defined by their limits, and buffing them should happen along different routes).

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Except they aren't. It's not worth putting Water Breathing in your spellbook as a Wizard, because the Cleric gets it for free. Similarly with Plane Shift, except the Cleric gets it at a lower level. All you need to do to curb the impact of the Wizard's utility options is open up the utility playbooks of the other classes. If Rogues could Teleport with the same ease that they can open locks, no Wizard (who had a Rogue in their party) would ever bother learning the spell.
    Ah, but Clerics would also lose most of their incredible spell access. I don't propose to only nerf Wizards, goodness, no. Almost all full casters need changes, and most of those are downward. And that's why not everyone should learn to Teleport - we'd get to 4e tier balance at that point, except even worse. Classes need to feel different, and to feel different, they need to have their own strengths and their own weaknesses, as well as different (not necessarily skewed, more like "not everyone gains new abilities at the exact same rate") paces of progression and different resources. I'm not sure you can do that while everyone does almost everything if they want to.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    I mean, if we're talking about two spellcasters, what else could it possibly be?

    You absolutely want to do that, because Fly doesn't have the duration to reliably last through an adventuring day.

    Actually it doesn't. Monster HP grows super-linearly. So a CR 5 bruiser (Troll) has 63 HP where a CR 10 one (Fire Giant, which we will pretend for simplicity is not immune to fire) has 142 HP. So your Fireball has fallen proportionately behind. If we look at the kind of monsters you might encounter in groups, the CR 2 Bugbear has 16 HP to the CR 7 Hill Giant's 102 HP.
    The issue with Fireball is that it only scales by +1d6 per caster level, while enemies gain both hit dice (which are also larger than d6, and not one per CR, usually) and CON. It still keeps pace again single targets - in your first example, Fireball does 1/4th of an enemy's HP on a failed save in both cases. It's an underlying problem with blasting, but there are still valid targets for Fireballs - Hill Giant isn't really a demonstration of CR7. There's also, say, Chaos Beast (about 44 HP) or Chimera (about 76 HP), against a few of which Fireballs are somewhat more valid.

    Basically, as 3.5 is right now, you could very well be a Wizard with 2/3 (or even 1/2 if you're good with Wizards) casting and still contribute significantly (at least for the first 10-12 levels) to a party where a Beguiler or a Warmage or a Dread Necromancer exist, simply by covering for their weaknesses, even if it's not technically level-appropriate.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Should locks never stop being relevant obstacles? That seems like the more pressing question, because once you accept that, the rest is haggling.
    Yes, it is haggling. And "not that soon" is about as good an answer as I got. You could bump Knock up a spell level. You could also make it not as good in general, as they did in 5e. Lots of ways to make it less relevant, but that would be a nerf to Wizards' (and other Wizard/Sorcerer spell list users') power.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    I don't really get how this is responsive. Sure, you could normalize everything to one damage progression (you should not actually do that, but you can). But that doesn't change the fact that Burning Hands is a melee-range AoE, Scorching Ray is a close-range single target attack, Fireball is a long-range AoE, and Wall of Fire is a medium-range BFC effect that's not even instantaneous. How are you going to set things up so those are all modes of the same underlying "Fire" spell in a way that isn't more trouble than just having four different spells?
    I mean, I can imagine a spellcraft-on-the-fly system like choosing the effect/spell seed, shape of the effect (cone/cloud/burst/single target), and spell level to determine the resultant spell. Not sure if it'd be less trouble than just having four different spells, and certainly not as robust since you wouldn't have a lot of distinct effects in such a system. Doesn't mean that it'd be bad, though.
    Last edited by Ignimortis; 2020-08-13 at 07:09 AM.
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  7. - Top - End - #127
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    Default Re: Can we build the math from the ground up? (And does Vancian help or hurt that?)

    One thing I may need to consider is the difference between contributing in combat and contributing out of combat.

    I suppose I had intended "the 'math' for 'out of combat' challenges" to be, "what portion of these level-appropriate scenarios can you contribute to?", as well as "how much did you contribute?".

    Of course, this runs into the same problem of, "how much does BFC contribute?"; that is, measuring the relative value of different vectors beyond "the direct approach" and "numbers".

    Quote Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game View Post

    Don't put yourself in a situation where you're comparing the Fighter's weapon-enhancing feature to the Bard's social manipulation feature, because they don't even vaguely compete or solve the same problems. Never be in a position where someone has to spend a feature on either a combat power OR a Roleplaying power, by either granting everyone equal numbers of both (utility feats and combat feats), or making each feature have an aspect of both (the Manipulator feat gives both a utility and a combat power). In other words, a Fighter should have just as many Roleplaying Powers as the Bard, and the Bard should have just as many Combat Powers as the Fighter, or what you're looking for isn't 'balance'. This is because there is no real way of enforcing the base value of either Combat or Roleplaying on any table, or even in an encounter. It'd be like trying to get everyone to use the Metric system while everyone wants to use different weights.

    Suppose a noble wants to embarrass the PCs in court. The Bard could use their silver tongue to do damage control. The Fighter could get insulted, and challenge the noble to a duel. The Barbarian could use his grapple bonus and "strange customs" class feature to give the noble a big hug whenever he opens his mouth. The precog could see this coming, and tell the Assassin, who, you know, solves the problem. The Cleric of Tzeentch could make the noble throw up in his mouth, making his words carry less weight. The Wizard could… probably do something.

    So, several things.

    There's not necessarily a hard line between combat and noncombat abilities. There certainly isn't a hard line between combat and noncombat challenges.

    I had little difficulty coming up with an answer for almost any conceptual "class". However, as rather bad news for the purposes of this thread, those answers were almost exclusively ways to solo the challenge. Giving characters these tools doesn't let them *participate* in all challenges.

    Getting from point A to point B

    Spoiler: Seven Deadly Sins
    Show
    In the anime "Seven Deadly Sins", the Wizard Merlin could just teleport the party from place to place. But she usually doesn't.

    Usually, Meliodus provides transportation via his mobile tavern. It's slower, but it has its advantages: they can bring stuff, they can sleep indoors in comfy beds, Merlin doesn't waste mana, they can travel to warded areas, rumors come to them, they earn money while making Gather Information checks. But, most relevant of all, everyone can contribute to the tavern. Ban can cook. Elizabeth (and Gowler and once even Merlin) can wait tables. Diane can act as a billboard / advertise to try to get customers to come. Merlin can shrink Diane so that she fits inside & doesn't have to walk. I'm not sure how King or Escanor contribute.


    Point of that rambling SPOILER is, there are ways to solve noncombat problems that provide the opportunity for other PCs to contribute. Seven Deadly Sins manages to highlight this fairly well, IMO, providing both "everyone contributes" and "one character can solo" the challenge of "getting from point A to point B".

    So, I suppose my question is, to what extent does that matter in an RPG? If it does matter, in what ways should the system facilitate that? Or is noncombat "contribute vs solo" something that should/does exist solely at the "role-playing" layer, not the mechanics layer?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    There is a combat thing that's fair for every class to do - have a decent melee and range attack. It's unfun not to be able to do anything in a combat no matter how balanced it is in the overall game construction concept. However, it doesn't have to be exactly both melee and range attacks for everyone. It's fine if a class can't do melee well but is great at getting out of melee so he can focus on range attacks, say being able to avoid opportunity attacks others must suffer. Likewise a class that can't do range attacks should be able to get into melee quickly, such as at least he can jump high enough to attack a flying creature which allows him to jump onto high things when not in combat too.
    Hmmm… I hear this as "removing weaknesses", akin to "my Pyromancer can burn things immune to fire" and "my Telepath can control undead". Which… when you don't have to worry about a character's schtick being inapplicable, I suppose that does make balancing things easier.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ignimortis View Post
    My friends are playing PF2e and they're saying casters are almost useless if they aren't buff/heal bots. I presume that's because they mostly fight hard fights with few high-power monsters, to which debuffs have a very hard time sticking due to PF2 math. Fighters and Champions have been the stars of combat so far (they're level 10 by now), because they slightly break the math everyone else has to follow.
    Does PF2 advertise itself as "make muggles great again", lie that "the math just works - all hail balance", or is this a silent feature of the game?

    Quote Originally Posted by Satinavian View Post
    And that is how a good balanced RPG should handle things. No character should be able to contribute everywhere. Otherwise you have to make every character being able to do everything which makes character differences fluff at best. Everytime your party gets a new PC, it should be better at doing some things but worse at doing other things than when another character was added.

    So yes, the universalist wizard has to go. It doesn't necessarily mean that wizards only can do one thing. You can device a system, where a caster specialized in blasting of lv 10 could do blasting like lv 10, summoning like lv 8, knowledge skills like lv 6 most regular schools like and many regular nonmagic skills lv 4, magic he is bad at and some regular skills he is bad at like lv2. Of course you would have to make sure, that blasting is not super inferior to summoning. Or divination. Or anything he could take instead.
    Well, I really like the idea of a level X character being several "steps" behind in things outside their specialty. So, maybe not every level 6 character should have an answer to "the noble is trying to embarrass the party", but most every class should get an answer at some point in accordance with its aptitude (retardation?) with that particular type of challenge.

    The particular windmill I was tilting at with this thread was the idea of "all contribution, all the time". Which is likely an unreasonable goal. Because it just feels Power Rangers level dumb to have every PC contribute to the annoying noble, starting a fire, or the epic challenge of the locked door. 4e already showed us how bad that can be. And while most people focus on how bad the math of skill challenges is, or how, in trying to let everyone contribute, they actually incentive only allowing your best to participate, there's also the Simulationist issue of, "just how does this mechanic make any sense whatsoever?". And while skill challenges might sell nice from a Gamist PoV, really, it shows that 4e designers mistook "rolling dice" for "playing the game". Making decisions is playing the game.

    Looking at one of the worst example of a solo: Teleportation. That's not something anyone else can contribute meaningfully to, right?

    Except… when the players were handed a battle map, they can discuss the pros and cons of various destinations. I've seen everyone contribute, tactically, to a Teleport.

    So why couldn't the PCs do the same thing?

    I'll have to think about this. And now I'm building a rules-light, "mother may I" version of D&D based on WoD Mage Dark Ages…
    Last edited by Quertus; 2020-08-13 at 03:42 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    One thing I may need to consider is the difference between contributing in combat and contributing out of combat.

    I suppose I had intended "the 'math' for 'out of combat' challenges" to be, "what portion of these level-appropriate scenarios can you contribute to?", as well as "how much did you contribute?".

    Of course, this runs into the same problem of, "how much does BFC contribute?"; that is, measuring the relative value of different vectors beyond "the direct approach" and "numbers".


    Suppose a noble wants to embarrass the PCs in court. The Bard could use their silver tongue to do damage control. The Fighter could get insulted, and challenge the noble to a duel. The Barbarian could use his grapple bonus and "strange customs" class feature to give the noble a big hug whenever he opens his mouth. The precog could see this coming, and tell the Assassin, who, you know, solves the problem. The Cleric of Tzeentch could make the noble throw up in his mouth, making his words carry less weight. The Wizard could… probably do something.

    So, several things.

    There's not necessarily a hard line between combat and noncombat abilities. There certainly isn't a hard line between combat and noncombat challenges.

    I had little trickle coming up with an answer for almost any conceptual "class". However, as rather bad news for the purposes of this thread, those answers were almost exclusively ways to solo the challenge. Giving characters these tools doesn't let them *participate* in all challenges.

    Getting from point A to point B

    Spoiler: Seven Deadly Sins
    Show
    In the anime "Seven Deadly Sins", the Wizard Merlin could just teleport the party from place to place. But she usually doesn't.

    Usually, Meliodus provides transportation via his mobile tavern. It's slower, but it has its advantages: they can bring stuff, they can sleep indoors in comfy beds, Merlin doesn't waste mana, they can travel to warded areas, rumors come to them, they earn money while making Gather Information checks. But, most relevant of all, everyone can contribute to the tavern. Ban can cook. Elizabeth (and Gowler and once even Merlin) can wait tables. Diane can act as a billboard / advertise to try to get customers to come. Merlin can shrink Diane so that she fits inside & doesn't have to walk. I'm not sure how King or Escanor contribute.


    Point of that rambling SPOILER is, there are ways to solve noncombat problems that provide the opportunity for other PCs to contribute. Seven Deadly Sins manages to highlight this fairly well, IMO, providing both "everyone contributes" and "one character can solo" the challenge of "getting from point A to point B".

    So, I suppose my question is, to what extent does that matter in an RPG? If it does matter, in what ways should the system facilitate that? Or is noncombat "contribute vs solo" something that should/does exist solely at the "role-playing" layer, not the mechanics layer?
    It's usually very one-sided in most RPGs, as the ratio of Violence-to-Nonviolence features aren't usually equal, and Nonviolence features can often have their own value in regards to combat, whether it means pacifying a threat, preventing a fight from ever being necessary, or even providing its own means of contribution.

    Consider how often an Illusion is usable out of combat. Then consider how it might assist or prevent combat. Then consider the same for Grappling. How can those be used in an even number of scenarios?

    Then do the same for something like Detect Thoughts vs. Super Strength.

    Part of it is because of the fact that most "physical" features requires a reason to be used, while things like "move this with your mind" or "force this person to say what you want" are a lot less circumstantial in when they can be used, even if they are effectively equal in the "how".

    If there's only going to be one fight every 3 sessions, you're going to feel really stupid picking the class that's 90% violence and 10% nonviolence. Unless you can ensure the character that is the inverse of the Violence character has only a 10% violence capacity, there's not going to be a level playing field.

    Consider that the Wizards of DnD have always had some capacity for killing things, and also have equal capacity for manipulating the world (using strictly Wizard features), and that the same has not been true for something like the Fighter. Generally, if the Fighter is successful in this area, it's for reasons despite the class, not because of them. Effectively, Violent characters are often handicapped in noncombat situations, and the opposite hasn't had much history of being true.

    Even if both halves had an equal amount of "uselessness", that still doesn't mean that it'd be fun for when those players were useless.
    Last edited by Man_Over_Game; 2020-08-13 at 03:19 PM.
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    Default Re: Can we build the math from the ground up? (And does Vancian help or hurt that?)

    Quote Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game View Post
    It's usually very one-sided in most RPGs, as the ratio of Violence-to-Nonviolence features aren't usually equal, and Nonviolence features can often have their own value in regards to combat, whether it means pacifying a threat, preventing a fight from ever being necessary, or even providing its own means of contribution.
    Instead of that being the RPG's fault I find it usually is the result of the perceptions of the participants. Combat and the rule mechanics are well defined and the crunch is frequently discussed. But noncombat fluff remains subjective to each table and doesn't get outlined as well as the violent stuff. That's not to say that nonviolence isn't equal, I've had games where it was more important than the violence, but that people take the rules light approach to infer that. It's very much not the case as past editions tried a heavy-handed approach to controlling the roleplay and narrative. This backfired and was poorly received while limiting content creators. If players want to sit around and roleplay as the Vampire court, very little combat will be happening. But if players want to throw themselves head first into the Den of Vipers then expect to make a lot of attack rolls. It all comes down to the theme the table is comfortable with and in a crunch-heavy game in a world of video games there will be quite a few combatants drawn by the prospects of rolling to murder.

    Quote Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game View Post
    Consider how often an Illusion is usable out of combat. Then consider how it might assist or prevent combat. Then consider the same for Grappling. How can those be even?
    I don't think everything can or should be equal. But while illusions cannot stop someone from climbing the tower, a grappler very much can. Different roles don't mean one if less useful as that depends on how often the grapple opportunities come up versus the illusion ones -- which is very DM dependent.

    Quote Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game View Post
    Then do the same for something like Detect Thoughts vs. Super Strength.
    Good Cop, Bad Cop. Sure, you can plant a bug in their car and try to listen in hoping to hear what you need for a conviction. Or you can just put me in a room alone with them for five minutes.

    Quote Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game View Post
    If there's only going to be one fight every 3 sessions, you're going to feel really stupid picking the class that's 90% violence and 10% nonviolence. Unless you can ensure the character that is the inverse of the Violence character has only a 10% violence capacity, there's not going to be a level playing field.
    Yep, which is why DMs have to work with their players to determine what will be fun for everyone. It's like giving players a dungeon full of traps when no one in the party is a rogue. They're not going to have fun.

    Quote Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game View Post
    Consider that the Wizards of DnD have always had some capacity for killing things, and also have capacity for manipulating the world (using strictly Wizard features), and that the same has not been true for something like the Fighter. Generally, if the Fighter is successful in this area, it's for reasons despite the class, not because of them. Effectively, Violent characters are often handicapped in noncombat situations, and the opposite hasn't had much history of being true.
    The Fighter's way of "manipulating the world" was generally through Leadership and minions. For some reason all the caster disadvantages like casting times, interruption, low health, a weakness to gags and manacles, and a single spell cast per round have been eliminated while martials have lost some of the only features that made them worth a damn in 2nd edition.
    Trolls will be blocked. Petrification works far better than fire and acid.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post


    Hmmm… I hear this as "removing weaknesses", akin to "my Pyromancer can burn things immune to fire" and "my Telepath can control undead". Which… when you don't have to worry about a character's schtick being inapplicable, I suppose that does make balancing things easier.

    "From a certain point of view" - Obi Wan Kenobi


    Having a weakness isn't a bad thing, but it should be fun to deal with. When you can't participate in combat at all because your shtick doesn't work it's not fun sitting there doing nothing while others get to play. I've been there. Therefore the class needs a second shtick that's decent enough in contribution or the character can do something that lets his shtick work. There is a third option, but that's encounter design. The character does something else that's important while the combat he can't participate in is happening. It has to be something the player engages with each round on his initiative taking actions, not a passive it takes X rounds to do it so the party fights for X rounds taking a real world hour while the player is still just sitting there doing nothing and not physically playing the game even though his character is technically doing something.
    Last edited by Pex; 2020-08-13 at 03:33 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kyutaru View Post
    I don't think everything can or should be equal. But while illusions cannot stop someone from climbing the tower, a grappler very much can. Different roles don't mean one if less useful as that depends on how often the grapple opportunities come up versus the illusion ones -- which is very DM dependent.
    [...]
    Good Cop, Bad Cop. Sure, you can plant a bug in their car and try to listen in hoping to hear what you need for a conviction. Or you can just put me in a room alone with them for five minutes.
    [...]
    The Fighter's way of "manipulating the world" was generally through Leadership and minions. For some reason all the caster disadvantages like casting times, interruption, low health, a weakness to gags and manacles, and a single spell cast per round have been eliminated while martials have lost some of the only features that made them worth a damn in 2nd edition.
    On the first two points, I think that showcases the big difference between "Nonviolence features for Violent Characters" vs. "Nonviolent features for Nonviolent Characters", which is that the Nonviolent characters generally don't need an excuse to use their powers. The powers themselves are often tools that can incorporate OTHER tools. I do not need an excuse to use Detect Thoughts, I can make one up. I do not need my DM's permission or scenario to attempt some illusionist tomfoolery.

    Consider your example of Detect Thoughts. I could intimidate using my large size, or I could intimidate using Detect Thoughts. I can also make him a friend with Detect Thoughts, but the reverse is not quite true. It's a lot less limited to use things like "magic" and "words" than it is your physical body, especially since magic and words are generally allowed to do the same things your body can (like hurt people).

    There can be physical aspects that can incorporate additional tools on top of them, for example Carrying Capacity is something the player proactively uses and allows more player options, but...they generally aren't fun.

    On your third note, you're right. I am a bit too young for ADND, and never got a chance to experience it, but the idea that Fighters were knights that inspired folks are exactly the kind of thing that I feel are necessary. We lost that, and I think it (or things like it) are worth getting back. We could do the same now, as long as folks were aware of how important they were to include (E.G. Barbarians are empaths, Rangers talk to animals, etc).
    Last edited by Man_Over_Game; 2020-08-13 at 03:40 PM.
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    Default Re: Can we build the math from the ground up? (And does Vancian help or hurt that?)

    Quote Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game View Post
    On the first two points, I think that showcases the big difference between "Nonviolence features for Violent Characters" vs. "Nonviolent features for Nonviolent Characters", which is that the Nonviolent characters generally don't need an excuse to use their powers. The powers themselves are often tools that can incorporate OTHER tools. I do not need an excuse to use Detect Thoughts, I can make one up. I do not need my DM's permission or scenario to attempt some illusionist tomfoolery.
    Yeah, this is the unfortunate result of character archetypes being way too one-dimensional in order to promote character variety. In order to avoid people being upset that you're restricting their roleplay or forcing them to be a certain type of fighter, they just give you the generic fighter that is everyone from Spartacus to Musashi. It's tough to identify nonviolent methods for a character class whose very identity centers around weapons and armor. Illusionists naturally have it easier since there are many nonviolent examples and possibilities that stem from that cookie cutter mold.

    One solution to this is separating the skill system from character classes entirely. Allowing character progression in noncombat venues independent of one's combat profession would permit the level of depth and complexity that having generic archetypes seeks to encourage. But that means gutting classes that are primarily skill related and have identities in favor of making the Murder Hobo class slightly less straightforward in his approach. I mean when your primary attribute is Strength every problem is solved with muscles.
    Trolls will be blocked. Petrification works far better than fire and acid.

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    Default Re: Can we build the math from the ground up? (And does Vancian help or hurt that?)

    Quote Originally Posted by Kyutaru View Post
    Yeah, this is the unfortunate result of character archetypes being way too one-dimensional in order to promote character variety. In order to avoid people being upset that you're restricting their roleplay or forcing them to be a certain type of fighter, they just give you the generic fighter that is everyone from Spartacus to Musashi. It's tough to identify nonviolent methods for a character class whose very identity centers around weapons and armor. Illusionists naturally have it easier since there are many nonviolent examples and possibilities that stem from that cookie cutter mold.

    One solution to this is separating the skill system from character classes entirely. Allowing character progression in noncombat venues independent of one's combat profession would permit the level of depth and complexity that having generic archetypes seeks to encourage. But that means gutting classes that are primarily skill related and have identities in favor of making the Murder Hobo class slightly less straightforward in his approach. I mean when your primary attribute is Strength every problem is solved with muscles.
    I think making broader nonviolent powers for physical niches can be done, I think it just requires a more open mind.

    For example, broadening the term "Strength" to include things like Telekinesis, or allowing you to dominate someone's will. Something like a Perception stat would allow you to see an attack coming, see through invisibility, or even see into the future.

    I guess it comes down to the classic "Guy At The Gym" problem. If we try to define someone based on our real-life physics, it's going to have problems when there is another option that doesn't have those limitations. Having a "Guy At The Gym" isn't inherently the problem, though, as you can make a game with a bunch of realistic folk in a realistic game.

    The problem is, "Real-Life" has inherent limitations, while "Everything that's not Real Life" does not, so it's really silly to try to keep those two options on the same standard. As soon as you start breaking the rules on physics, that has to be the standard.

    In a way, MAGIC has to be the standard, or it has to come with so many penalties and problems that players should have a natural aversion to choosing it as an option.
    Last edited by Man_Over_Game; 2020-08-13 at 04:24 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game View Post
    The problem is, "Real-Life" has inherent limitations, while "Everything that's not Real Life" does not, so it's really silly to try to keep those two options on the same standard. As soon as you start breaking the rules on physics, that has to be the standard.
    Totally but no one's really found a way to present it that makes sense to the players. Like the strength = telekinesis example would have people scratching their heads wondering how muscles lead to force powers. It may make sense within the game rules and thematically too, as even Avatar has physical-based magic. But the trick is always convincing the readers that what's written makes a lick of sense.

    You could redefine the terms to be something like what Obsidian Studios did with Pillars of Eternity where the "Might" stat controls all damage improvement, both physical and magical. But doing so wouldn't be an option for D&D due to the iconic nature of its attributes and classes that players have come to expect remains fairly consistent. I mean the feedback from 3rd edition suggested they wanted a tactics game and 4th edition gave them that to the dismay of many. Now we're back to 2nd edition with 5th edition and the vague rules-lite approach of just letting the DM handle everything. Even if you want to make improvements to existing systems it meets resistance (like with pathfinder 2e).
    Trolls will be blocked. Petrification works far better than fire and acid.

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    Default Re: Can we build the math from the ground up? (And does Vancian help or hurt that?)

    Quote Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game View Post
    For example, what happens when someone encounters an illusion in combat? This is something that 5e has no suggestions for, despite having about 10 different powers that do so.
    Having separate effects for in combat and out of combat causes a lot of problems. If Silent Image does something different to a guy you are fighting than a guy who is simply in the environment, you inevitably create incentives for stupid metagaming. Maybe the combat rules are more favorable, and the players start having the Fighter declare his action as drawing a sword (putting the party "in combat") every time the Wizard casts Silent Image. Maybe the non-combat rules are better, and the players invent increasingly contrived excuses for why the Wizard is totally not in combat right now.

    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    It's a means to limit magic knowledge without sacrificing diversity. The various effects are physically printed under the heading of Fire Attack.
    Sure, but such as system seems more akin to the Binder's Vestiges or the Cleric's Domains than it does Upcasting. At the point where you're talking about abilities whose only overlap is "does Fire damage", it seems bizarre to insist that these are one ability you power up, rather than merely a suite of abilities.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ignimortis View Post
    In my experience, people pick varied things not only to have different SFX and maybe 20% variation in effectiveness, but to bring something unique and necessary to the group.
    In my experience, 90% of class choice comes down to "I like this class". That's why there's so much damn hue and cry over the Fighter sucking. People like the Fighter and want it to be good. If people just wanted to bring necessary abilities to the table, they would simply ignore the classes that sucked. People's class choices need to give them the opportunity to contribute in most situations, and to tailor their capabilities to the group. These are things the Wizard does.

    Correction - the Wizard is better than a Beguiler when they try to do non-Beguiler things.
    Sure, but that's exactly the paradigm you want the game to have, isn't it? You've got Beguiler stuff that the Beguiler is better off doing, and Wizard stuff the Wizard is better off doing. What does it matter that the Wizard's solution to the Beguiler stuff is a 6/10 instead of a 1/10? The Beguiler still does a better job of it. The only time that comes into play is if there isn't a Beguiler around, and at that point it's the difference between the adventure continuing and not. Where's the problem?

    Beguiler already has a bit too much going on, but it's balanced by a simple fact - unless they charm/dominate someone, they have no innate way of dealing level-appropriate damage after levels 1-3.
    So what? The Beguiler still has the toolkit to overcome pretty much any challenge, because challenges aren't just "do X damage". Having or not having a particular tool doesn't matter. What matters is being able to overcome challenges.

    Fabricate - frankly, I don't think it should even be in the game. Maybe as a class feature for some specialized crafter-mage archetype. Not as a spell, certainly.
    It depends what you mean by "spell". Fabricate certainly needs different mechanical constraints than Fireball does, but "magic up some non-magic goods" is absolutely the kind of effect that can and should exist in your system.

    Ah, but Clerics would also lose most of their incredible spell access.
    That's not the point. The point is that you don't need to take away the Wizard's toys to give other classes a niche. You can instead give them toys that are more efficient in their particular niche. If you want to rely on the Rogue for stealth, you don't need to nerf the Wizard, you need to make the Rogue as effective at stealth as the Beguiler.

    And that's why not everyone should learn to Teleport
    Of course not everyone should learn Teleport. Some people should learn Shadow Walk or Tree Stride or any of the other fast travel abilities that exist in D&D and the rest of the genre. What shouldn't happen is telling the rest of the players that this is the Wizard's turn (or the Fighter's turn or the Rogue's turn) to get to solve the problem, so they all get to sit down and shut up. That experience is the worst part of the game, and I categorically reject the notion that there is any problem that is solved by making it more common. Any problem that is interesting enough to spend table time on needs to be interesting enough for there to be tradeoffs between viable solutions.

    There's also, say, Chaos Beast (about 44 HP) or Chimera (about 76 HP), against a few of which Fireballs are somewhat more valid.
    Those creatures both have more than double the HP of our Bugbear, which means Fireball is falling behind against them too, just to a smaller degree.

    Basically, as 3.5 is right now, you could very well be a Wizard with 2/3 (or even 1/2 if you're good with Wizards) casting and still contribute significantly (at least for the first 10-12 levels) to a party where a Beguiler or a Warmage or a Dread Necromancer exist, simply by covering for their weaknesses, even if it's not technically level-appropriate.
    "Contribute significantly" seems like a phrase that is doing a lot of work there. What exactly does that mean? I could imagine a standard by which a 9th level Warblade "contributed significantly" in an 11th level party. That doesn't mean I'd pick a 9th level Warblade over an 11th level character given the choice.

    I mean, I can imagine a spellcraft-on-the-fly system like choosing the effect/spell seed, shape of the effect (cone/cloud/burst/single target), and spell level to determine the resultant spell. Not sure if it'd be less trouble than just having four different spells, and certainly not as robust since you wouldn't have a lot of distinct effects in such a system. Doesn't mean that it'd be bad, though.
    Such a system also makes it impossible to have Lightning Bolt, Fireball, and Cone of Cold without also having Line of Cold, Lightning Ball, and Cone of Fire. Like many things, there is a place for it within the rules, but it doesn't seem especially appealing as a core part of the system.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kyutaru View Post
    But the trick is always convincing the readers that what's written makes a lick of sense.
    Again, I feel like the fact that virtually every major fantasy series pulled off this "trick" indicates that it's not really that hard. I think people are actually quite willing to accept that sufficiently hardcore badasses do magic. No one is out there demanding that Thor explain how he gets to have lightning powers despite being hammer guy. I think if you just wrote martial classes that got magic at high levels, people would simply accept that. Indeed, with respect to at least the Paladin and the Ranger, they already do.

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    Default Re: Can we build the math from the ground up? (And does Vancian help or hurt that?)

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Having separate effects for in combat and out of combat causes a lot of problems. If Silent Image does something different to a guy you are fighting than a guy who is simply in the environment, you inevitably create incentives for stupid metagaming. Maybe the combat rules are more favorable, and the players start having the Fighter declare his action as drawing a sword (putting the party "in combat") every time the Wizard casts Silent Image. Maybe the non-combat rules are better, and the players invent increasingly contrived excuses for why the Wizard is totally not in combat right now.
    That's definitely a slippery slope issue, though.

    We have the exact opposite problem in 5th edition DnD right now, where there's half a dozen ways of using illusions in combat, and no guidance on what that actually means, whether enemies take a swing at illusions and believe they miss, take a swing at illusions and see it as an illusion once their sword goes through, or they just see illusions for what they are immediately in combat.

    So if what we have is 0, and you're stating there's a plausible 100, I'd like to dispute that means there's a plausible 50.
    Quote Originally Posted by KOLE View Post
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    Quote Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game View Post
    I think making broader nonviolent powers for physical niches can be done, I think it just requires a more open mind.

    For example, broadening the term "Strength" to include things like Telekinesis, or allowing you to dominate someone's will. Something like a Perception stat would allow you to see an attack coming, see through invisibility, or even see into the future.

    I guess it comes down to the classic "Guy At The Gym" problem. If we try to define someone based on our real-life physics, it's going to have problems when there is another option that doesn't have those limitations. Having a "Guy At The Gym" isn't inherently the problem, though, as you can make a game with a bunch of realistic folk in a realistic game.

    The problem is, "Real-Life" has inherent limitations, while "Everything that's not Real Life" does not, so it's really silly to try to keep those two options on the same standard. As soon as you start breaking the rules on physics, that has to be the standard.

    In a way, MAGIC has to be the standard, or it has to come with so many penalties and problems that players should have a natural aversion to choosing it as an option.
    No. That's the wrong way to go. Do not punish players for using the magic you said they could. If you don't want magic in your game, fine, just say so and be done with it. If you are having it, don't have it then discourage players from using it. Let them use it.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    No. That's the wrong way to go. Do not punish players for using the magic you said they could. If you don't want magic in your game, fine, just say so and be done with it. If you are having it, don't have it then discourage players from using it. Let them use it.
    Wizards in DnD have always had less HP than a Fighter, no? Wouldn't that be the same as a cost for a gain?

    Would you play a cripple if it meant you had telekinesis?

    It's about having the right balance. Get that right, and your players would actually have more fun than being a "true neutral" snorefest.
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    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post

    Sure, but such as system seems more akin to the Binder's Vestiges or the Cleric's Domains than it does Upcasting. At the point where you're talking about abilities whose only overlap is "does Fire damage", it seems bizarre to insist that these are one ability you power up, rather than merely a suite of abilities.

    At this point then it's flavor text semantics. It would then be easier to manage magic access to think in terms of suites of abilities with the game mechanics involved. It's easier to say, write, and think about the Pyromancer gets Fire Attack as his main focus which allows all these things instead of Spellcaster choosing individual spells trying to fit a theme. It then becomes easier to limit access to Magic Forms because there are less overall than number of individual effects.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Does PF2 advertise itself as "make muggles great again", lie that "the math just works - all hail balance", or is this a silent feature of the game?
    Just a thing, I think. I'm still not sure myself whether their complaints are overblown and they're too used to casters utterly dominating the 3e/PF1e (and to a lesser extent, 5e) metagame with save-or-dies and such, or if it's really something like this. From some descriptions, I can glean that caster party members feel like the encounters would be cleared just fine without them, and if they just rolled a Fighter or a Champion, they'd be of more help than they are now. That's a major and persistent complaint for 3e/PF1e/5e, except it usually worked the other way around with Fighters being better off replaced by mages.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    In my experience, 90% of class choice comes down to "I like this class". That's why there's so much damn hue and cry over the Fighter sucking. People like the Fighter and want it to be good. If people just wanted to bring necessary abilities to the table, they would simply ignore the classes that sucked. People's class choices need to give them the opportunity to contribute in most situations, and to tailor their capabilities to the group. These are things the Wizard does.

    Sure, but that's exactly the paradigm you want the game to have, isn't it? You've got Beguiler stuff that the Beguiler is better off doing, and Wizard stuff the Wizard is better off doing. What does it matter that the Wizard's solution to the Beguiler stuff is a 6/10 instead of a 1/10? The Beguiler still does a better job of it. The only time that comes into play is if there isn't a Beguiler around, and at that point it's the difference between the adventure continuing and not. Where's the problem?

    So what? The Beguiler still has the toolkit to overcome pretty much any challenge, because challenges aren't just "do X damage". Having or not having a particular tool doesn't matter. What matters is being able to overcome challenges.
    Because it doesn't matter 90% of the time if your solution is 10/10 or 6/10 - what matters is whether you can do it at all. Like I said earlier, it's binary, and there are not enough situations where distinctions between abilities serving the same general function are important - unless you levy the ones that exist currently with more restrictions.

    Your position is that a party of Wizard, Cleric, Fighter and Rogue would have a choice between certain abilities that are all on the same general level as each other, for any situation. I instead presume that a party might actually just be two Wizards and two Clerics, or two Rogues and two Fighters, or anything else - it all depends on which ability is generally the best (Teleport is still superior to Shadow Walk, or vice versa for general means of travel that don't involve lots of additional stipulations). People would just pick classes that allow them to solve as many of generic problems as they can. I've seen enough all-fullcaster parties to know this happens, perhaps not very often, but still.

    In other words, having one 10/10 and five 6/10s is generally better than having three 6/10s and five 2/10s. Having seven 6/10s might even beat both of those, too. It all depends on whether that 6/10 is enough to contribute enough in most situations.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    It depends what you mean by "spell". Fabricate certainly needs different mechanical constraints than Fireball does, but "magic up some non-magic goods" is absolutely the kind of effect that can and should exist in your system.
    Well, make it a ritual, at least. Fabricate is certainly not a thing that should be on spell lists and cast with a single level 5 slot in a few minutes.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    That's not the point. The point is that you don't need to take away the Wizard's toys to give other classes a niche. You can instead give them toys that are more efficient in their particular niche. If you want to rely on the Rogue for stealth, you don't need to nerf the Wizard, you need to make the Rogue as effective at stealth as the Beguiler.
    If you want to rely on the Rogue for stealth, they have to be better at stealth than Invisibility starting at level 3. That means either getting even more absurd bonuses to stealth than Invisibility grants you, or having some good bonuses and, for example, sharing them with the whole party. Wait, that's Pass without Trace in 5e. Unless you want the Rogue to auto-solve the stealth minigame, I don't see how much of an improvement you can make here without nerfing spells, because level 2 slots are already providing effects that do, for the level, almost automatically solvie stealth. Of course, you could go the 3.5 route and say "but Invisibility doesn't make you move silently, so that check is still bad" - but that bumps into design bloat by the way of "having so many skills that spells can't cover them all at once, and giving players lots of skill points so that they can". Complexity can solve the problem, but it's like firing a nuke at bandits - the solution might be worse than the initial problem.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Of course not everyone should learn Teleport. Some people should learn Shadow Walk or Tree Stride or any of the other fast travel abilities that exist in D&D and the rest of the genre. What shouldn't happen is telling the rest of the players that this is the Wizard's turn (or the Fighter's turn or the Rogue's turn) to get to solve the problem, so they all get to sit down and shut up. That experience is the worst part of the game, and I categorically reject the notion that there is any problem that is solved by making it more common. Any problem that is interesting enough to spend table time on needs to be interesting enough for there to be tradeoffs between viable solutions.
    See above. Those problems are usually too binary to involve tradeoffs. Making a plan and having tradeoffs comes from the world most of the time. The way you make everyone able to contribute isn't by having binary switches, it's by making team play work.

    So instead of just positing a problem (we need to be there quickly), you need to present additional challenges that another member of a team is equipped to handle. Something like "we need to be there yesterday, Wizard can handle this with Teleport, then we need to persuade the king that the devils are coming in full force, Fighter can do that, while the Rogue finds info on cultists in the town and Cleric sets up defensive wards around the city to minimize civilian casualties". This way, everyone still got to contribute to the plan, and they didn't need to have Teleport/Shadow Teleport/Divine Teleport/Smash Teleport on their sheets. Having everyone contribute to the same one task that is solved with one action isn't fun, it feels like everyone can do something without you even needing to be there. Kind of like current Fighter.

    Of course, we also need to make sure that it's not something that's best solved with "the Wizard can teleport us there, and then charm the king into believing us, and scry on the cultists, and then set up wards". Because that would be the current situation, perhaps with Cleric finding the cultists through divine aid, and them setting up wards together, while Rogue and Fighter are basically there to hit stuff.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Those creatures both have more than double the HP of our Bugbear, which means Fireball is falling behind against them too, just to a smaller degree.
    Bugbears are by default not equipped to deal with Fireballs, since Fireball is a level 5 thing. Compare a Bugbear to Magic Missile or Scorching Ray - they also won't die from one of those. Monster HP doesn't scale linearly with CR - HD gain is way faster that CR gain.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    "Contribute significantly" seems like a phrase that is doing a lot of work there. What exactly does that mean? I could imagine a standard by which a 9th level Warblade "contributed significantly" in an 11th level party. That doesn't mean I'd pick a 9th level Warblade over an 11th level character given the choice.
    Having solutions to problems that couldn't really be handled without them. Or making it way easier to handle problems the party did encounter.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Such a system also makes it impossible to have Lightning Bolt, Fireball, and Cone of Cold without also having Line of Cold, Lightning Ball, and Cone of Fire. Like many things, there is a place for it within the rules, but it doesn't seem especially appealing as a core part of the system.
    Frankly, I see no problem with Line of Cold (Ridge of icy spikes), Lightning Ball (shock explosion) or Cone of Fire (hey, that's Burning Hands, but bigger!). It might not lend itself well to certain spellcasting ideas (especially those involving unique effects like Fabricate or Magic Circle), but most generic spells fit into this well enough.
    Last edited by Ignimortis; 2020-08-13 at 10:41 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ignimortis View Post
    Just a thing, I think. I'm still not sure myself whether their complaints are overblown and they're too used to casters utterly dominating the 3e/PF1e (and to a lesser extent, 5e) metagame with save-or-dies and such, or if it's really something like this. From some descriptions, I can glean that caster party members feel like the encounters would be cleared just fine without them, and if they just rolled a Fighter or a Champion, they'd be of more help than they are now. That's a major and persistent complaint for 3e/PF1e/5e, except it usually worked the other way around with Fighters being better off replaced by mages.
    It's the spells themselves. Depending on the spell even if the target fails the save you don't get what you wanted the spell to do. You only get a minor inconvenience. The target has to critically fail to get the effect you wanted. Roll a 1 or (10 or more) below the target number. Therefore the spell is highly unreliable. Buff spells don't have this problem, which is why they're more valued.

    It is a limitation that nerfs spellcasters. It's not even a "punishment" that I soap box against. I'm not a fan of it either. Complain all you want spellcasters are too powerful. They're still entitled to have the spells they do get to work.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ignimortis View Post
    Bugbears are by default not equipped to deal with Fireballs, since Fireball is a level 5 thing. Compare a Bugbear to Magic Missile or Scorching Ray - they also won't die from one of those. Monster HP doesn't scale linearly with CR - HD gain is way faster that CR gain.
    This is part of balancing too. Bugbears could easily be CR 17 if you wanted them to be and have the HP and adjustments to match. D&D was based on what Gary did and his monsters scaled according to his world with spells that were geared towards taking out certain threats before becoming obsolete against higher ones.

    It's like how JRPGs will throw you into a poison swamp with no access to poison curing magic and just a handful of antidotes if you're lucky. Then after the swamp or during it partway you get access to curing magic that makes future poisonous creatures easier to deal with. When it's obtained Fireball is great against the masses of weak goblins and kobolds and bugbears you might find in low level campaigns while falling off once you reach stronger monsters. Whatever CR it is you're facing you can expect the options for dealing with them will be either appropriate or slightly underwhelming until acquiring a later skill that trivializes your past encounters.
    Trolls will be blocked. Petrification works far better than fire and acid.

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    Default Re: Can we build the math from the ground up? (And does Vancian help or hurt that?)

    Quote Originally Posted by Ignimortis View Post
    Because it doesn't matter 90% of the time if your solution is 10/10 or 6/10 - what matters is whether you can do it at all.
    Then how is Teleport better than Shadow Walk? If it is in fact true that these things are binary yes/no checks, then the Beguiler isn't actually substantively less versatile than the Wizard for having the latter rather than the former.

    Moreover, even if it is true that challenges are all binary yes/no switches, that still doesn't mean you can't make meaningful choices between abilities. If all you need is a hammer, it still matters if you can use that hammer at-will (Warlock) or learn that hammer for free (Warmage).

    Well, make it a ritual, at least. Fabricate is certainly not a thing that should be on spell lists and cast with a single level 5 slot in a few minutes.
    Why not? The balance of Fabricate really isn't particularly effected by how long it takes to cast as by how many times per day you can do it. I can certainly imagine that you might want to make spell slots in general an encounter-level resource, at which point Fabricate would need to have some other balancing mechanism, but that could very easily be a pool of daily charges, or costing some kind of mana gems.

    If you want to rely on the Rogue for stealth, they have to be better at stealth than Invisibility starting at level 3.
    No, they don't. They have to be good enough at stealth that the resources they save from not requiring you to use a 2nd level spell slot on Invisibility are worth more than the resources you'd save from more efficient stealth. You have an oversimplified model of costs, and it is causing you to blithely assert that problems that are actually quite easy to deal with must be insoluble.

    Of course, we also need to make sure that it's not something that's best solved with "the Wizard can teleport us there, and then charm the king into believing us, and scry on the cultists, and then set up wards". Because that would be the current situation
    Except no it wouldn't, because the Beguiler is better at charming the king, and the Cleric is (depending what you mean) better at setting up wards. So all we actually need to do is write a Fighter class with meaningful scrying or teleporting and we're done.

    Bugbears are by default not equipped to deal with Fireballs, since Fireball is a level 5 thing. Compare a Bugbear to Magic Missile or Scorching Ray - they also won't die from one of those. Monster HP doesn't scale linearly with CR - HD gain is way faster that CR gain.
    If you go back to the original point I made, I was using the Bugbear as an example of a monster you'd encounter in a group at 5th level, and comparing it to a monster you'd encounter in a group at 10th level to see how Fireball scales over that period. The CR 2 Bugbear is the same relative CR as the CR 7 Hill Giant, but has way less HP relative to an equal-level Fireball. Which means that Fireball is not keeping up at 10th level.

    Having solutions to problems that couldn't really be handled without them. Or making it way easier to handle problems the party did encounter.
    You're still not really defining things in a way that's usable for relative measurement. The question isn't if a 8th level Wizard can do some stuff we think is cool. The question is if the stuff that Wizard can do is more useful than what a 10th or 11th level Dread Necromancer can do. You've got to think in terms of opportunity cost, and to acknowledge not just the points where the character might be better ("we need exactly Dimension Door for some reason") but also the points where they are worse ("it turns out having 5th level spells is pretty cool").

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    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Then how is Teleport better than Shadow Walk? If it is in fact true that these things are binary yes/no checks, then the Beguiler isn't actually substantively less versatile than the Wizard for having the latter rather than the former.
    It's a binary check of "does this solve the current situation". Thus, there are situations where you need Teleport, and some where Shadow Walk would be preferable - but no situation where both are used at the same time. There's no cooperation in that, you just push the button that solves the problem.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Moreover, even if it is true that challenges are all binary yes/no switches, that still doesn't mean you can't make meaningful choices between abilities. If all you need is a hammer, it still matters if you can use that hammer at-will (Warlock) or learn that hammer for free (Warmage).
    It does. However, seeing as the game is frequently upset by people not running it with a proper adventuring day (and I understand why they wouldn't adhere to that), you need to evaluate abilities on the assumption they function often enough to be used almost every time when the situation calls for it. Frankly, the concept of the adventuring day and resource management being bound to that has been rather bad for the game in the end, because unless everyone functions on the same power schedule like 4e, you will have days where limited resources just break the game wide open compared to at-will ones, because there are enough resources to solve every single problem.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Why not? The balance of Fabricate really isn't particularly effected by how long it takes to cast as by how many times per day you can do it. I can certainly imagine that you might want to make spell slots in general an encounter-level resource, at which point Fabricate would need to have some other balancing mechanism, but that could very easily be a pool of daily charges, or costing some kind of mana gems.
    That's the point. If it's a long enough ritual, your capability of doing often enough is curtailed. You can invent other limitations, but the ones that currently exist aren't enough.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    No, they don't. They have to be good enough at stealth that the resources they save from not requiring you to use a 2nd level spell slot on Invisibility are worth more than the resources you'd save from more efficient stealth. You have an oversimplified model of costs, and it is causing you to blithely assert that problems that are actually quite easy to deal with must be insoluble.
    See above. The only way you can balance a wizard-like character right now is to drag them through several encounters without any possible rests. I've seen a lot of groups and GMs who were unable to adapt their narrative and doings to a normal "adventuring day". I can also understand why that happened - because very few narratives involve solving enough problems to drain a mid-level (so 5+, when the tutorial's over and the actual game begins) Vancian caster who has a similar amount of slots to 3.5 full casters.

    In a more flexible resource management system, things would need to be different. And the resource management system needs to change, IMO.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Except no it wouldn't, because the Beguiler is better at charming the king, and the Cleric is (depending what you mean) better at setting up wards. So all we actually need to do is write a Fighter class with meaningful scrying or teleporting and we're done.
    Well, you've replaced the Rogue by a Beguiler all of a sudden. I'm pretty sure normal Rogue should be able to handle that about as well, if not better, than someone who's 50% Wizard.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    If you go back to the original point I made, I was using the Bugbear as an example of a monster you'd encounter in a group at 5th level, and comparing it to a monster you'd encounter in a group at 10th level to see how Fireball scales over that period. The CR 2 Bugbear is the same relative CR as the CR 7 Hill Giant, but has way less HP relative to an equal-level Fireball. Which means that Fireball is not keeping up at 10th level.
    It's slowing down a lot, yes. It still does about the same damage percentage-wise against targets that were designed with Fireball in mind, though.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    You're still not really defining things in a way that's usable for relative measurement. The question isn't if a 8th level Wizard can do some stuff we think is cool. The question is if the stuff that Wizard can do is more useful than what a 10th or 11th level Dread Necromancer can do. You've got to think in terms of opportunity cost, and to acknowledge not just the points where the character might be better ("we need exactly Dimension Door for some reason") but also the points where they are worse ("it turns out having 5th level spells is pretty cool").
    Yes, there are high points and low points. But as a Wizard, even 8th level casting can bring a lot of stuff that a Dread Necromancer simply cannot do. Dimension Door, Blink, Mass Darkvision, Polymorph, plus a lot of esoteric stuff from other sourcebooks.
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    Default Re: Can we build the math from the ground up? (And does Vancian help or hurt that?)

    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    It's the spells themselves. Depending on the spell even if the target fails the save you don't get what you wanted the spell to do. You only get a minor inconvenience. The target has to critically fail to get the effect you wanted. Roll a 1 or (10 or more) below the target number. Therefore the spell is highly unreliable. Buff spells don't have this problem, which is why they're more valued.

    It is a limitation that nerfs spellcasters. It's not even a "punishment" that I soap box against. I'm not a fan of it either. Complain all you want spellcasters are too powerful. They're still entitled to have the spells they do get to work.
    I wonder if Paizo stress-tested the math enough on "failed save / critical fail" spells.

    Something I'm playing with is writing up spells with a "dual save" mechanic. Roll 2 saving throws at the same time, full effect on 2 failures, partial effect on a single failure. And designing the spell with the knowledge that the most likely outcome is "partial effect", with "full effect" and "no effect" as outliers.

    So replace sleep with deeper daze. Full save, no effect. Partial save, target is dazed for one round. Full effect, target is dazed for one minute. (Damage breaks the spell). Now you have a spell that is less of a "win button" than sleep at low levels (no free coup-de-grace), that still scales as you level up (as long as save DCs scale).

    Instead of petrification as a single-roll binary save-or-die-or-no-effect, you get petrification/slow/no-effect.

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    Default Re: Can we build the math from the ground up? (And does Vancian help or hurt that?)

    4e did a decent job of making everyone roughly equal, but it also made every character of a given role feel kind of boring and same-y. I wasn't a big fan of the edition as a whole, but as far as balancing classes against each other I might look there for inspiration as a starting point.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    It's the spells themselves. Depending on the spell even if the target fails the save you don't get what you wanted the spell to do. You only get a minor inconvenience. The target has to critically fail to get the effect you wanted. Roll a 1 or (10 or more) below the target number. Therefore the spell is highly unreliable. Buff spells don't have this problem, which is why they're more valued.

    It is a limitation that nerfs spellcasters. It's not even a "punishment" that I soap box against. I'm not a fan of it either. Complain all you want spellcasters are too powerful. They're still entitled to have the spells they do get to work.
    This only applies to powerful foes though. In PF2, spellcasters can still bring their full godhood to bare against foes that are only 3-4 levels lower than they are.

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    Quote Originally Posted by NorthernPhoenix View Post
    This only applies to powerful foes though. In PF2, spellcasters can still bring their full godhood to bare against foes that are only 3-4 levels lower than they are.
    Which, frankly, is already how most RPGs are balanced. The uber bosses are immune to the status effects that you can throw around on mooks and have specific weaknesses. Spellcasters are support characters who can rain destruction on the meek but struggle more against the powerful. Min-maxing in 3E and beyond made this very unclear because it appeared like casters were meant to land their spells with a high degree of certainty but these were flaws of the system rather than their intent. Having combat be 95% hit and 5% miss was never the goal and past editions had flat saves that scaled which produced enemies that progressively grew easier to land control effects on. The Wizard has always been a bully of the weak and buffs/debuffs are better options for the strong.
    Trolls will be blocked. Petrification works far better than fire and acid.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kyutaru View Post
    Which, frankly, is already how most RPGs are balanced. The uber bosses are immune to the status effects that you can throw around on mooks and have specific weaknesses. Spellcasters are support characters who can rain destruction on the meek but struggle more against the powerful. Min-maxing in 3E and beyond made this very unclear because it appeared like casters were meant to land their spells with a high degree of certainty but these were flaws of the system rather than their intent. Having combat be 95% hit and 5% miss was never the goal and past editions had flat saves that scaled which produced enemies that progressively grew easier to land control effects on. The Wizard has always been a bully of the weak and buffs/debuffs are better options for the strong.
    Yeah i agree, it's by far my favorite part of PF2. Casters keep their god-fantasy and Melee Heroes get to shine during the Hero Moment. It only becomes a problem if you think a fight with a Pit Fiend General should involve 1 turn of the Wizard pressing the same god button they use to make playthings of mortals.

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    Default Re: Can we build the math from the ground up? (And does Vancian help or hurt that?)

    Quote Originally Posted by Kyutaru View Post
    The Wizard has always been a bully of the weak and buffs/debuffs are better options for the strong.
    But can the Pathfinder 2 caster effectively debuff strong opponents? At all?

    Without a Critical Failure on a save, can they...make a Pit Fiend more vulnerable to attacks? (5e Advantage is what I'm thinking of). Can they use their action-and-spell-slots to negate a Pit Fiend action or two? Can they counterspell Pit Fiend spells/ SLAs?

    I'm 100% on board with the Big Strong Fighter guys doing the bulk of the HP damage. What I want to know is, in PF2 at high levels, do the casters get to manipulate the BSF vs BBEG dogfight in meaningful ways, or are they just clearing away minions to kill time?

    To use a pro wrestling, the caster is the "heel" manager and the Big Strong Fighter is the heel wrestler vs the Champion. The manager distracts the ref--so the wrestler can cheat. The manager tosses a Foreign Object to the wrestler (big bonus to a single attack). The manager takes a cheap shot at the Champion (debuff status effect on the BBEG).

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