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So I might be getting into a Pathfinder group soon, not my favorite system but eh. I was looking at starting a Magus and then going into Eldritch Knight. Can anyone recommend a good feat selection? With a character builder these books are goona take forever to slog through. 
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Mar 23, 2012 13:50
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What levels are you playing at? One of the unfortunate things about PF is that they made a lot of prestige classes either lovely or a bit tricky to build for. Eldritch Knights aren't bad, but the game definitely rewards you for sticking with a single class, and straight Magus might just be better.
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Mar 23, 2012 14:52
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I think a lot of the alternate utility and power gradient of 3.5's prestige classes was moved to Pathfinder's class archetypes. The Bladebound Magus sounds pretty interesting, but not having played one I'd say the tradeoff between a bit of your arcane pool and equipment flexibility for never having to buy a weapon depends on the campaign. I'm really looking forward to springing a synthesist summoner on my friend when he resumes DMing in a couple months, though.
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Mar 23, 2012 20:02
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grah posted:What levels are you playing at? I think the group is around level 10 at the moment.
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Mar 24, 2012 03:04
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The Aberrant posted:I think the group is around level 10 at the moment. The sort of 'standard' magus build has come to rely on weapon finesse and dervish dance with a (keen) (spell-storing) scimitar, to relieve some of the Magus' MAD, help its AC early on when its in light armor, and get some use out of having an empty hand anyways. Though I do know some DMs disallow it, and I've personally grown bored of it having seen it too many times. One fun thing to do with a Magus is to grab toppling spell, and then take the trait Magical Lineage which lets you metamagic a single spell (chosen when you take the trait) at one lower than its total level. So you drop that on either Magic Missile or Force Hook Charge, and you're either able to make 5 trip attempts a turn for a level 1 spell (using your CL + Int as your CMB), or you get to attempt to trip one thing as part of your spell combat, have that spell pull you in towards them, and then get off your melee cycle. Of course, investing too heavily in this is kinda bad, since flying enemies and even large quadripeds start to make Trip kinda tough to get off. You might also get a ton of mileage out of Craft Magic Arms and Armor. Maguses have to trade out armor several times, and no one is nastier with a spell storing weapon than a Magus. Depending on your GM, if you have the Empower/Maximize/whatever arcana that let you metamagic one spell a day without raising its level, you can be dropping empowered maximized Frigid Touch or whatever into it. Extra Arcana is always a good feat, many of the Magus Arcana are excellent, and I find Spell Blending almost necessary to pick up stuff like ghoul touch. Casting Persistent Ghoul Touch, making your attack, and then making your remaining attacks against a now-paralyzed enemy is a nice way to go with a 4th level spell. If you're set on going with Eldritch Knight you'd be well served to wait until magus level 10, when you get to count as a Fighter 5. This way your first Eldritch Knight level, character level 11, you'll be Fighter 6, as opposed to being Magus 7 E.K. 4, and therefore only being Fighter 4 at the same level. Of course I think straight Magus, getting heavy armor proficiency and continuing to accrue Magus Arcana (or witch hexes, if you're willing to lose spell recall) is the more powerful option. Oh, and you asked for caster feats and I didn't say (Greater) Spell Focus, Spell Penetration, so uh, those.
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Mar 24, 2012 15:22
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I'm trying to build a Halfling Rogue who uses Oil of Silence on a Rifle Firearm to make Sneak Attacks at extreme ranges, but it looks like there's only a range of 30ft. on Sneak Attacks. Even the Sniper Archetype isn't quite the range I'm looking for. Is there any way to extend that range limit?
Magic Rabbit Hat fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Mar 24, 2012 |
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Mar 24, 2012 17:30
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Sniper Gogglesquote:The leather strap attached to these bulbous lenses allows their wearer to fit them to his head. The wearer of these goggles can make ranged sneak attacks from any distance instead of the normal 30 feet. When making ranged sneak attacks within 30 feet, the wearer gains a +2 circumstance bonus on each sneak attack damage die. Unfortunately, they're 20,000 gold, but on the bright side, they make it so you don't even need to pick the Sniper archetype to have awesome sneak attack range.
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Mar 24, 2012 17:57
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The Aberrant posted:So I might be getting into a Pathfinder group soon, not my favorite system but eh. I was looking at starting a Magus and then going into Eldritch Knight. Are you married to the idea of playing an EK? I've been running an elf Magus (kensai archetype) with the dervish dance feat (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/dervish-dance-combat), and a lot of emphasis on battlefield mobility through feat and skill selection. So far it's been mondo effective! If you wanna play a Magus it's best to stick with the class all the way through. If you wanna be a fighter that can also cast spells, you'd be WAY better off going the traditional fighter/wizard into EK route since you'd end up with much higher level spells at the end of the day. They're both thematically similar anyway, so no matter which way you go you can pretty much rock the same character concept!
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Mar 24, 2012 18:12
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G.M.K. posted:Are you married to the idea of playing an EK? I've been running an elf Magus (kensai archetype) with the dervish dance feat (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/dervish-dance-combat), and a lot of emphasis on battlefield mobility through feat and skill selection. So far it's been mondo effective! I was thinking of going Bladebound actually. I've never played with a sentient weapon/item before, and it looks like you don't lose out on very much and compared to what you gain. But yeah thanks for pointing out that Dervish Dance feat guys, that was just what I was looking for. I was dreading having the MAD I would have if I needed to keep strength up as well. edit: Also spell storing seems neat, if I'm reading this right I can basically sword-spell someone twice in a single round if I have a spell stored and do my spell strike thing correct? Hipster Occultist fucked around with this message at 09:08 on Mar 25, 2012 |
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Mar 25, 2012 09:06
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The Aberrant posted:I was thinking of going Bladebound actually. I've never played with a sentient weapon/item before, and it looks like you don't lose out on very much and compared to what you gain. But yeah thanks for pointing out that Dervish Dance feat guys, that was just what I was looking for. I was dreading having the MAD I would have if I needed to keep strength up as well. You sure can!
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Mar 25, 2012 14:03
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I'll be running the Way of the Wicked in a few months when our Kingmaker campaign wraps up. One of the players wants to do a Psychic Fist, but he's also our dedicated character breaker so I'm a bit skeptical. What are the general thoughts on PF Psionics?
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Mar 25, 2012 14:31
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The Aberrant posted:I was thinking of going Bladebound actually. I've never played with a sentient weapon/item before, and it looks like you don't lose out on very much and compared to what you gain. But yeah thanks for pointing out that Dervish Dance feat guys, that was just what I was looking for. I was dreading having the MAD I would have if I needed to keep strength up as well. Happy to.  Also feel obliged to point out that the Agile weapon property would give you the same benefit as the Dervish Dance feat, but it could be applied to any finessible weapon you like. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons#TOC-Agile
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Mar 25, 2012 14:33
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My character just reached Alchemist 7 last night, which means I get to learn my first 3rd-level extract. Is haste pretty much the obvious choice for a melée build?
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Mar 27, 2012 16:54
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Porkness posted:My character just reached Alchemist 7 last night, which means I get to learn my first 3rd-level extract. Is haste pretty much the obvious choice for a melée build? Depends on the composition of the rest of the party. Are you doing any pinch hitting as a healer? Never hurts to diversify!
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Mar 27, 2012 18:19
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So hey, lets have some serious talk about an old topic that usually causes a shitstorm. Only this time? Let us replace the shitstorm with rational and measured conversation. I have a problem with the stereotype about casters (mostly arcane) just being better than everybody at high levels. I think that this problem comes from the fact that the criteria of "better" has too many variables. Has nobody really ever played a high level game that caused a wizard to expend all of his best spells without solving all the party's problems? All the best monsters have big time SR to consider, after all. Is it about "who would win in a fight"? There are a lot of variables involved there as well. Basically I guess that I'm just asking what it means for arcane casters (or any class) to be "unbalanced" when the open nature of tabletop gaming can result in such a wide variety of situations. Help me understand! G.M.K. fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Mar 27, 2012 |
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Mar 27, 2012 18:26
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G.M.K. posted:Depends on the composition of the rest of the party. Are you doing any pinch hitting as a healer? Never hurts to diversify! I do a little of that already with a wand, but we have a player who's such a rabid healer that he swapped out his cleric PC for a slightly more optimized cleric, despite losing a level doing so. No point in me taking cure serious wounds when we have him. I'm considering Amplify Elixir. The ability to empower consumed (or "consumed" with quotsey-fingers if I combine it with Alchemical Allocation) potions is pretty powerful if I use it with a potion of stone skin (making it grant DR 15) or greater invisibility (doubling its duration).
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Mar 27, 2012 19:02
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Porkness posted:I do a little of that already with a wand, but we have a player who's such a rabid healer that he swapped out his cleric PC for a slightly more optimized cleric, despite losing a level doing so. You have the best sort of rabid player! Porkness posted:I'm considering Amplify Elixir. The ability to empower consumed (or "consumed" with quotsey-fingers if I combine it with Alchemical Allocation) potions is pretty powerful if I use it with a potion of stone skin (making it grant DR 15) or greater invisibility (doubling its duration). That sounds pretty boss. I need to remember that one for when I finally get to play a vivisectionist. Gets my vote!
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Mar 27, 2012 19:12
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How do we determine what a PC's hit points are during character creation?
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Mar 27, 2012 19:48
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Vander posted:How do we determine what a PC's hit points are during character creation? At level 1 everyone gets HP as though they'd rolled maximum on the die. Any other character generation questions are answered here > http://www.d20pfsrd.com/basics-ability-scores/character-creation
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Mar 27, 2012 19:56
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RE: Caster Superiority Never seen a caster actually run out, unless the challenges would have been utterly impassable to the party without the wizard. Encounters tend to be over in 2-3 rounds, and thats the maximum number of spells ever used in a fight. Enemies with SR isn't even a consideration, since the best spells work by altering the battlefield(which makes your party always fight in a favorable environment, even with something as minor as Obscuring Mist and then fighting from inside the mist against enemies outside at the edges), or buffing allies. Theres a few cheap shot spells like Color Spray and the like to cripple big swathes of enemies but then they have saves and SR, which generally means they work best against mobs of weaker creatures who get steamrolled. Porkness posted:My character just reached Alchemist 7 last night, which means I get to learn my first 3rd-level extract. Is haste pretty much the obvious choice for a melée build? I like Undead Anatomy/Monstrous Physique if you're a weapon user, since it stacks on top of Enlarge Person's bonus or Beast Shape if you prefer natural weapons. Haste isn't very good as an alchemist because you only get one target, and other characters can apply it more efficiently.
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Mar 27, 2012 20:39
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veekie posted:RE: Caster Superiority While I agree with almost everything you said (SR is totally something I always keep in mind when I run a caster ), it doesn't really explain how casters are better, it just explains why they are awesome. Which they are! They should be able to do all sorts of bitchin' stuff like alter the battlefield, or call down fire, or summon monsters, or teleport away in a pinch. But when we start to talk about high level play, we are also talking about things that can do the same stuff, and will require a cohesive team to overcome. I ask again - what makes them BETTER? 
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Mar 27, 2012 21:49
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LongDarkNight posted:I'll be running the Way of the Wicked in a few months when our Kingmaker campaign wraps up. One of the players wants to do a Psychic Fist, but he's also our dedicated character breaker so I'm a bit skeptical. What are the general thoughts on PF Psionics? I haven't gone over it with a fine toothed comb or anything, despite owning it, but assuming you're talking about Dreamscarred's supplement, Dreamscarred knows their poo poo. Probably better then most Paizo devs, quite frankly.
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Mar 27, 2012 21:52
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G.M.K. posted:They should be able to do all sorts of bitchin' stuff like alter the battlefield, or call down fire, or summon monsters, or teleport away in a pinch. You answered your own question.
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Mar 27, 2012 21:53
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My group just finished the Godsmouth Heresy this weekend, after playing a seven and half hour session. They found out where the BBEG was early in the session and essentially rushed to confront him. They had leveled to second between the meetings, and they made quick work of all the little minions on the way. Medium skeletons only have 4HP, and no way to stop magic missiles, disrupt undead, or the cleric's channeling. The Paladin figured out he can move and take a total defense, and most of the mooks have a hard time hitting a 24 AC, and as mindless undead they weren't the most strategic. Riding the high of utterly slaughtering several minor encounters, they ran in to fight the BBEG and quickly realized that he was significantly stronger than his skeletons and zombies. I'll spoiler the rest, in case anyone intends to play this module. The BBEG was an Alchemist. Earlier I made sure that they understood how splash damage worked by having them fight something with a vial of alchemist's fire, but they didn't seem to learn the lesson very quickly. The hallway into his lab was narrow, and they all filed in to a clump. With his +9 to hit on bombs/vials, he was able to consistently hit most of them, dealing 1d6+3 direct and 4 splash damage. He had fire bombs and frost bombs and tanglefoot bags. He managed to get off a tanglefoot on the Paladin, slowing him to 10' but failing to stick him, and another on the Gunslinger, locking him to the floor. The Gunslinger had an 8 STR, and wasn't hulking out of it, and his dagger dealing 1d4-2 damage wasn't doing the job either. The Cleric had given his Scimitar to the Paladin, and didn't have any slashing weapons to help. The Alchemist lobbed bombs and his zombies kept some distance between him and the party. It took them two full rounds of splash damage to notice "hey, we should spread out" and by that time the party was pretty banged up and had to retreat a bit. They got off some shots on him, including one where the wizard readied to target a vial/bomb if he went to throw it, which ended up splashing a frost bomb on the guy himself. They fell back and some of the mindless undead followed. One zombie got a lucky hit and knocked the Paladin into negatives, and the gunslinger protected him long enough to dump a potion down his throat. The party got split up as a result of this. The wizard was at 1 HP and ran like hell after the Cleric told him to fall back. The cleric channeled and killed one zombie, injured another, and then ran back. The Paladin was Lay on Handsing himself while the Gunslinger reloaded his gun. The Alchemist popped a potion of CLW and was essentially back to full. They ran through all their healing, all their potions, and essentially started the fight over. During the time it took them to heal up, the Alchemist opened a secret door where he had a small army of 4 skeletons. More fodder. However, he was running out of bombs and alchemical items. I was thinking this was not going well for them, but out of nowhere they started to get clever. The Cleric lured two Skeletons to him and then used a scroll of Hide from Undead, and then started throwing rocks to distract them. This bought enough time for the Paladin to rush there and help, and with them occupied the 1HP Wizard was comfortable casting again. The Gunslinger drew the other two away in a different direction, up some stairs, to a hatch. He went through and shut it, standing on it. The skeletons bashed against it but were unable to open the hatch. The gunslinger was effectively removed from the fight for several rounds, but those skeletons were as well. With the undead dealt with, the remaining party members moved on the Alchemist. Bombs were thrown, magic missiles fired, smites declared. The Paladin forgot smite gave him +CHA to AC and was pretty angry he didn't declare it earlier. The Alchemist, injured and out of bombs, popped his Mutagen and a potion of Enlarge Person, and started using his +1 Spear. The Paladin fell again, but stabilized on his turn. There was no more healing, though. The Cleric and and Wizard continued the fight, drawing the Alchemist into the narrow hallways, making him cramped and easier to hit. They managed to get him to 2 HP, and he attempted to retreat. The Cleric heroically ran forward, but could not catch him. In a last ditch effort, he threw his spear. It missed wide. The Alchemist jumped across a 10' chute (which was a 10' drop if you failed) and screamed for his Intelligent Undead lover, Esme, to help. The Cleric worshipped Sarenrae, Goddess of Redemption, and worked in the Ankar-Te district of Kaer Maga, where undead walk the streets as slave labor, and necromancers are not shunned. Earlier, he had tried to sweet talk the Undead woman, promising her sanctuary in Ankar-Te, but she wasn't having any of it. The combination of a good Diplomacy check, and the vision of her lover obviously defeated, she saw the Cleric as her only hope for survival. She raised her hand and cast Burning Hands, killing him. The party then spoke to her, got her story, and promised to make good on their word. She accompanied them throughout the rest of the dungeon, which they cleared fairly easily. The questgiver said there would be a bonus if the entire dungeon was cleared, so they were thorough. The only thing that challenged them after that was a Necrophidius, a snake-like construct. That thing hit like a truck, but they were able to beat it because it was dumb as hell, and essentially attacked whatever hit it hardest in the previous round. They finished, and they're all writing up little things for what their characters would do after the dungeon. I'm giving them until Friday, and then I'll write up an epilogue. There's still a chance for any of them to betray Esme, and turn her over to the Pharasmins that hired them (who would undoubtedly kill her without any regard for anything that was said.) They all hit third level. They were only 2nd for 7.5 hours. That kind of irks me, but they earned the XP and it's fine. I'm going to take the "Masks of the Living God" module and transplant it to Kaer Maga, and we're going to play that next. The Gunslinger has said he wants to make a new character, but everyone else wants to continue, so he'll just make a similiarly-geared 3rd level character before the next meeting. It was a bunch of fun.
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Mar 27, 2012 22:47
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G.M.K. posted:While I agree with almost everything you said (SR is totally something I always keep in mind when I run a caster No one else can do anything like that, and why they're doing cool stuff like altering the battlefield they're also taking spells like knock, invisibility, overland flight, extended defensive spells, maximized rays of enfeeblement (or idiocy, or the one that nerfs dexterity) and a huge host of other spells that will either hit 95% of the time or have the target fail it's save 80% of the time if the caster is optimized. To make matters worse, armor scaling means that the multiple attacks of martial characters are generally worthless (optimized against standard AC first attack will hit 70ish% of the time, minus 25% for each additional attack making attacks 3 and 4 at high level useless) so a full progression caster will generally have effects more often, and those effects are more likely to be fight enders; furthermore, when the party hits a problem that combat doesn't solve the the caster is at least as likely to be able to solve it as a non-caster class DESIGNED to solve that specific problem and in epic other classes not designed that way will generally have no chance due to scaling dc's.
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Mar 27, 2012 23:50
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TheAnomaly posted:No one else can do anything like that, and why they're doing cool stuff like altering the battlefield they're also taking spells like knock, invisibility, overland flight, extended defensive spells, maximized rays of enfeeblement (or idiocy, or the one that nerfs dexterity) and a huge host of other spells that will either hit 95% of the time or have the target fail it's save 80% of the time if the caster is optimized. To make matters worse, armor scaling means that the multiple attacks of martial characters are generally worthless (optimized against standard AC first attack will hit 70ish% of the time, minus 25% for each additional attack making attacks 3 and 4 at high level useless) so a full progression caster will generally have effects more often, and those effects are more likely to be fight enders; furthermore, when the party hits a problem that combat doesn't solve the the caster is at least as likely to be able to solve it as a non-caster class DESIGNED to solve that specific problem and in epic other classes not designed that way will generally have no chance due to scaling dc's. In a slightly more abstract, slightly less text-wall form: Make a list of things casters can do that non-casters absolutely cannot do without assistance. How large is this list? How useful are the items on it? Now make a list of things non-casters can do that casters cannot. Is there anything on it? Now expand your list to things a non-caster can just do better than a caster. A non-caster at best is likely to have a short list of options from which he can pick one or perhaps two to be the best at. A well-played caster can be almost as good at basically everything on that list with little effort in addition to all the poo poo he can do that the non-caster can't even imagine.
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Mar 28, 2012 00:17
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This is an awesome idea! I'll post the list here for poo poo and giggles. Just to simplify things a bit, I'll change this up to "wizard" and "fighter". Otherwise these lists will get a little bit unruly. This really doesn't work on the broader topic of "non-casters vs casters", or "everybody else vs arcane", but since it's probably the harder sell anyway I hope you won't mind. OpenlyEvilJello posted:Make a list of things (wizards) can do that non-casters absolutely cannot do without assistance. Extreme mobility (flight, invisibility, dimension door, telepor') [limited times per day] Magical buffs Compel an enemy to join his side Summon monsters Massive damage through spells Customize their spellbook day to day for whatever challenges they intend to face Modify the battlefield Substantial AoE [limited times per day] Good Will save OpenlyEvilJello posted:Now make a list of things (fighters) can do that casters cannot. Moderately high mobility [limitless times per day] Wear heavy armor Wield martial weapons Increase the efficacy of both through class abilities. Customize their build via a vast selection of feats, some of which only they can access Survive a substantial amount of hit point damage Limited AoE [limitless times a day] Good Fort save OpenlyEvilJello posted:Now expand your list to things a (fighter) can just do better than a wizard. The fighter can make use of his "bread and butter" abilities a limitless number of times per day. The fighter is better able equipped to survive a beating The fighter is more customizable buildwise (though of course wizards hold the trump card in being able to prepare their spells however they want each day). This exercise was fun! Just to clarify a little bit, I'm bringing this up because I recently had a discussion with someone who has a "casters are so broken in 3.5/PF! Everything else isn't worth playing!" mindset, which I have just never been able to quite get. Thanks a lot for mulling this over with me! 
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Mar 28, 2012 02:04
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G.M.K. posted:Moderately high mobility [limitless times per day] No, these are all things wizards can do better than fighters. quote:Wear heavy armor If you look closely, you realize that the entries in this list aren't of the same kind as the entries in the list preceding it. "Survive hitpoint damage" is an effect you can achieve by having many hitpoints to start with, having DR, having a lot of healing, etcetera. "Wear heavy armor" is not a challenge you overcome, it is a strategy you might adopt to overcome a challenge. Saying that fighters wear armor better than wizards do is like saying that clerics cast divine spells better than wizards do; so what? That's not what anyone was talking about. More broadly, why would anyone want to do any of the those things, when they're manifestly less effective than using magic spells? Certainly, a fighter can use his abilities a limitless number of times per day, but those abilities aren't any good, and no adventurers ever do anything a limitless number of times before resting. In fact, a great many wizard tricks are things you do a limitless number of times per day... because they come as the beneficial effect of a spell that you've cast on yourself that has an hours/level or daylong duration.
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Mar 28, 2012 02:13
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The point, though, is that the majority of those things the fighter listed are about avoiding damaging or dealing damage, which the wizard is equally capable of doing while also doing other cool stuff. In the end though, would you rather have a party without a fighter or a party without a wizard, assuming the monsters you are fighting have both fighter archetype monsters and wizard archetype monsters?
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Mar 28, 2012 02:20
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G.M.K. posted:Caster Supremacy Stuff Look at how as a high level spellcaster the DM is forced to design encounters around you! This a probably that comes up routinely and usually applies to Wizards (sometimes Clerics, Druids and Sorcerers). When you warp the group dynamic so much the DM needs to neutralize you so everyone else can participate it's an issue. By way of anecdotal evidence I'm playing the Wizard in our Kingmaker campaign. He is badly optimized and under-funded; at level 9 the combats shifted towards "what does the Wizard do?", Likewise as a measure of "who would win in a fight" I can probably take out the other five party members with my daily prepared spells and a few scrolls. Can a Fighter, Ranger or anyone else reliably take out 5 high level casters? I like Pathfinder and it has made advances in reducing Caster Supremacy but it's certainly still a problem.
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Mar 28, 2012 02:21
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Ferrinus posted:More broadly, why would anyone want to do any of the those things, when they're manifestly less effective than using magic spells? Certainly, a fighter can use his abilities a limitless number of times per day, but those abilities aren't any good, and no adventurers ever do anything a limitless number of times before resting. In fact, a great many wizard tricks are things you do a limitless number of times per day... because they come as the beneficial effect of a spell that you've cast on yourself that has an hours/level or daylong duration. Hell, with a lesser rod of empower and a single pearl of power one slot of Heroism can last for 8 hours
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Mar 28, 2012 02:28
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I feel the need to point out that "limitless times per day" is meaningless. What matters is how often you can achieve the needed amount of (whatever) for how often it comes up in the course of the adventuring day. If I have amazing ranks in Climb, then I can totally climb whenever I want, all day long! Now, how many times to you hit "limitless climb challenges a day?" And how many times do you hit one or two, where spider climb in a scroll (or flight in a scroll later on) does the job just as well? The rogue can pick locks limitless times per day! But unless you plan on throwing locks at the party fifty separate times, a wand of Knock serves the purpose just as well. As far as stuff like "Does damage!" and "Wears armor!" the issue there is that it broadly comes down to the same thing: "Not being hurt" and "Removing baddie." But high AC is chump change as far as "Not being hurt" goes, especially compared to defensive spells like Mirror Image or Blur. Doing a lot of HP damage can "remove baddie," but spells can remove multiple baddies. In general the Fighter is very binary. He can do a very small number of things. The things he cannot do, he is utter poo poo at. The things he can do, if built for it properly, he is very good at. So he can be super super good at "remove baddie" using the game rules - do lots of HP damage. He can be super super good at "not being hurt" using the game rules - wear high AC armor, have big buff hit points. And these require he hit the baddie and roll the high damage. These require the baddie misses him and doesn't have a super high hit chance. But the wizard doesn't play by the rules. The whole point of AC is that it is your armor. It's how good you are at being hit or not being hit. The wizard sidelines it immediately and gives himself a flat percentile to not be hit regardless of how good the enemy is at hitting things. The whole point of HP is that it's your measure of how "not dead" you are. The wizard sidelines it immediately and gives himself a lat percentile to remove you instantly, regardless of how good the enemy is at not dying. And that's also what makes the wizard better at doing the fighter's job - AC is useless when put against the laughably high stacking attack bonuses, so the fighter is really awful at not being hit. And HP scales much faster then attack damage does unless you land a full attack, so unless the fighter just stands there and plays rock'em sock'em robots, he's awful at killing things. The wizard does both of those better, faster, and more efficiently. Mind you, that's just for combat. The same goes beyond. The rogue can unlock locks, so long as he put one of his points into doing so, so long as his dexterity is high enough, so long as the lock isn't too difficult, so long as he has his thief tools. The wizard can ignore all of that. The fighter can climb a cliff, if his skills points are high enough, if his armor doesn't weigh him down too much, if the cliff face isn't too difficult to scale. The wizard can ignore all that. See, that's what makes spellcasters "supreme." It's not that they're the best within the rules. It's that they don't play by the rules at all.
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Mar 28, 2012 02:47
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Incidentally though we harp on wizards, I personally have a bigger problem with the divine side. Wizard supremacy to some degree has to be premeditated. You have to make the knock wand. Certainly there's elements of accidental power in stuff like SoDs, mind you, but most of the "replace other class" problems aren't accidental. But then you hit things like the Battle Oracle. The Battle Oracle is a fighter. Who also gets level 9 spellcasting. Period, that's it. All those big lists of feats fighters get? Yeah Battle Oracles can encompass like four feats into a single revelation. That awesome high attack bonus? Yeah Battle Oracles can encompass that in a single spell. As a capstone, the fighter becomes even better at confirming crits, which has never in the history of the universe been a problem in the first place. As a capstone, Battle Oracles can both cast level 9 spells and move and do a full attack.
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Mar 28, 2012 02:55
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Much of the problem seems to be easy access to cheap disposable one-shot spells. Sure the Wizard has a spell for every possibility, but what if he had to actually burn an actual slot for it and really plan accordingly? Would it still be so bad? The wizard is designed to make tough choices in his spell selection but with a backup scroll, potion, and wand for the niche spells, all tough choices are eliminated.
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Mar 28, 2012 03:21
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Cocks Cable posted:Much of the problem seems to be easy access to cheap disposable one-shot spells. Sure the Wizard has a spell for every possibility, but what if he had to actually burn an actual slot for it and really plan accordingly? Would it still be so bad? The wizard is designed to make tough choices in his spell selection but with a backup scroll, potion, and wand for the niche spells, all tough choices are eliminated. Help the problem but wouldn't really eliminate it. The higher level the wizard is, the more lower level spells slots he has that he no longer needs, which can easily be put into utility spells. Or more properly, which can easily be left blank so that utility spells could be placed in later as the adventure goes on. Remember, Paizo even gave Wizards a feat to make filling spell slots later through the day faster and easier. Overall, I feel that Paizo to some vague degree knows the flaws and fixes them by simply making new classes or options to render past ones mute - almost always by giving a spellcasting class access to the previous class' niche. Fighters are lovely? Battle Oracle fixes that. Rogues are lovely? Archeologist bard and ninja! Monks are lovely? It's cool, every single new monk ability is also a spell! Mind you I don't think they do this intentionally. But it happens.
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Mar 28, 2012 03:35
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Cirno's point about not playing by the rules is exactly it. The fighter is great at dealing hit point damage against an armour class and great at surviving hit point damage directed against an armour class but a wizard can cast sleep or invisibility and make HP/AC irrelevant.
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Mar 28, 2012 03:38
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ProfessorCirno posted:Overall, I feel that Paizo to some vague degree knows the flaws and fixes them by simply making new classes or options to render past ones mute - almost always by giving a spellcasting class access to the previous class' niche. Fighters are lovely? Battle Oracle fixes that. Rogues are lovely? Archeologist bard and ninja! Monks are lovely? It's cool, every single new monk ability is also a spell! Their other method is to give things spells that did not previously have spells, as though we needed any more evidence that the game is skewed towards casters. For example, the quinggong monk options help to fix a whole lot of the monk's weaknesses (especially at mid-level), but the way that's done is simply by saying something like "Well yeah, slow fall is almost useless, so here's a ki-cast Scorching Ray instead."
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Mar 28, 2012 04:23
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How much AC you have as early as 9th level is pretty meaningless. So you've got 24 AC with magic items? Most of the big monsters you deal with will still hit more than half the time, plus multiple attacks, plus magic abilities or attacks which totally disregard your AC, and god help you if they attack your lovely Will save. And this problem gets worse the higher you get in level. Yeah with that kind of AC you'll be invulnerable to attacks from piddly little attackers, but your mid-level wizard can drop them by the dozen with fireball, cloudkill, glitterdust, and so on.
Quackenbush fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Mar 28, 2012 |
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Mar 28, 2012 04:27
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Quackenbush posted:How much AC you have as early as 9th level is pretty meaningless. So you've got 24 AC with magic items? Most of the big monsters you deal with will still hit more than half the time, plus multiple attacks, plus magic abilities or attacks which totally disregard your AC, and god help you if they attack your lovely Will save. And this problem gets worse the higher you get in level. Yeah with that kind of AC you'll be invulnerable to attacks from piddly little attackers, but your mid-level wizard can drop them by the dozen with fireball, cloudkill, glitterdust, and so on. Because of the way item prices scale and the fact that even the heaviest armor can only get so good, plus the fact that a lot of AC bonuses won't stack, a fighter's AC is going to cap around a certain point depending on their level, while attack bonuses increase much more quickly in addition to enemies gaining more and more varied and powerful spell selections. For example, going with level 9, a fighter would be pretty well-off to have 25+ AC, but at that same level, player character martial classes should have an attack bonus of at least +12 or so, while the monsters you'd be fighting will generally have even more, with upwards of +20 for solo encounters. lesbian baphomet fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Mar 28, 2012 |
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Mar 28, 2012 04:45
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Haha, looks like I couldn't make the hard sell after all! Oh well. It was an obvious long shot. You guys made a ton of solid points, and though an obtuse little voice in my head is telling me to try and refute them, I know a lost cause when I see it. Okay, so new question: does caster supremacy ruin a game? Is it better if all classes are exactly, meticulously balanced? Why or why not? G.M.K. fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Mar 28, 2012 |
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Mar 28, 2012 04:49
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