Best Reasons NOT to Gish

[vasilidor]

I have been thinking that you don't have to Gish as much with Spheres of Might, but that is 3rd party Pathfinder stuff. In a low difficulty campaign it might be fun to not Gish. The problem there is you need a mage who knows what they are doing or for certain monsters to not show up.

[Darg]

I have been thinking that you don't have to Gish as much with Spheres of Might, but that is 3rd party Pathfinder stuff. In a low difficulty campaign it might be fun to not Gish. The problem there is you need a mage who knows what they are doing or for certain monsters to not show up.

Or a setup that allows characters to prepare. Honestly, nearly everything casters can do mundane characters can eventually accomplish with some preparation, investigative foreknowledge, and time. That last one is the largest advantage spellcasters have over mundane characters. Spells allow you to compress what might require a lot of time and effort into a spell cast or two. The biggest poster child of this is teleport, literally compressing what could normally take weeks or months into literal seconds. Who needs a caravan to carry all of your supplies, equipment, and loot when you can just teleport home whenever you want?

[Gnaeus]

Let's take ToB here as an example. Iron Heart Surge... how strong is it? Can you tell me? Well if you were being honest you'd say "It depends on how the DM rules it" because it requires rulings. Same with Planar Binding. Its not that it's "likely to banned" something I've never suggested it's that "the power level of the spell depends heavily on things that the DM is expected to rule on in the context of the spell." The DM deciding if it works is literally RAW.

Edit: This is the problem with Schrodinger's Wizard in general, and that's what you're doing here. You're assuming extremely favorable rulings.

I like your analogy. It is unclear exactly how IHS works, but the most conservative interpretation is still a bag of awesome. Planar binding is similar. I am not assuming even moderately favorable rulings. I am assuming that the spell works and that the DM is not soft banning it by calling all tasks unreasonable or automatically sending instadeath kill teams. I am not assuming using it as a wish factory or for binding a nightmare so you can astrally project at level 9. I am assuming that most anyone can use it to call up a couple of low int bruisers when they need, like elementals. That a typical good aligned party can get angels to help them fight demons, and a typical evil aligned party can call fiends in exchange for evil acts. Can you bind 30 outsiders? Yes. Am I assuming that? No. One or 2 is commonly more than enough. The most I ever summoned was 4, when the DM told us the next part of the adventure was tough and I called a hound archon to protect each good party member for a period not exceeding 3 days while we stormed a bastion of corruption. Was it better than a fighter? Yes. Can I see any reason that was an unreasonable demand or one justifying an angelic death squad? No. And as that character was a celestial bloodline sorcerer, I was backing them up with angelic summons in every fight via Summon Monster. So, would I rather have that character in any good aligned party I have ever seen than any martial I have ever seen? Absolutely.

Edit: This is the problem with Schrodinger's Wizard in general, and that's what you're doing here.

This is nothing like Schrodinger's wizard. Schrodinger's wizard is assuming that you have the entire tier 1 spell list at your fingertips ready to go at a moments notice. I am assuming that a wizard has a small handful of spells in his book and is employing one or more of them at any given time. This is as close to Schrodinger's wizard as assuming that a melee fighter took power attack. I'm not saying that an individual caster has to have all the spells you can use to replace a fighter. He won't. (although a couple of methods are better than a fighter by themselves). But a party of casters, like the Cleric, Druid, Wizard, Beguiler I mentioned upthread, pretty much will. Cleric has undead and planar ally and summons. Druid has pet, commanded animals and summons. Beguiler has mind control and illusions. Wizard has summons and binding and maybe undead or enchantment or illusion or familiar depending on build. Cleric or Wizard could also have constructs if desired. Cleric or druid can also step into a fighter role if they want. And they all have non-fighter contributions to the party as well, which the typical muggle does not have.

[Darg]

I like your analogy. It is unclear exactly how IHS works, but the most conservative interpretation is still a bag of awesome. Planar binding is similar. I am not assuming even moderately favorable rulings. I am assuming that the spell works and that the DM is not soft banning it by calling all tasks unreasonable or automatically sending instadeath kill teams. I am not assuming using it as a wish factory or for binding a nightmare so you can astrally project at level 9. I am assuming that most anyone can use it to call up a couple of low int bruisers when they need, like elementals. That a typical good aligned party can get angels to help them fight demons, and a typical evil aligned party can call fiends in exchange for evil acts. Can you bind 30 outsiders? Yes. Am I assuming that? No. One or 2 is commonly more than enough. The most I ever summoned was 4, when the DM told us the next part of the adventure was tough and I called a hound archon to protect each good party member for a period not exceeding 3 days while we stormed a bastion of corruption. Was it better than a fighter? Yes. Can I see any reason that was an unreasonable demand or one justifying an angelic death squad? No. And as that character was a celestial bloodline sorcerer, I was backing them up with angelic summons in every fight via Summon Monster. So, would I rather have that character in any good aligned party I have ever seen than any martial I have ever seen? Absolutely.

Let's put it this way: you've got yourself another character in the party and are capable of punching above your weight class in terms of fighting strength. In DM terms, you've boosted the EPL of your party while the EL remains the same. You've added what was determined by WotC to be equivalent to an 11th level character to the party to a 9th or 10th level party. I'd argue an 11th level fighter could be just as good if not better than the hound archon with their magic items and available wealth. It's the same thing with calling a trumpet archon at 11th. A 20th ECL character carrying the party. Yes, you can call these creatures. Yes, they can make difficult or outright impossible fights doable, but at the same time if you had the fighter in the party you wouldn't be engaging in those kinds of encounters in the first place. And the rewards for such taking such a power boost must be commensurate with the actual contribution. In the trumpets case, you've increased your EPL by 2. Thus dropping the encounter difficulty by at least one step and possibly 2.