Pathfinder: the Lowdown

[MGuy]

Indeed and it does all that without sprouting wings, being able to breathe underwater, being able to cut into different planes of existence.

[ubernoob]

Indeed and it does all that without sprouting wings, being able to breathe underwater, being able to cut into different planes of existence.

Right, because it has so much RAW COMBAT POWAH that he can use his entire item budget on niche utility. The other classes get less combat power. A lot less. They get some of the "I'd need an item or spell to play that game" effects as features freeing up item budget for +X though.

So yeah. Fighter does those things because the class makes the other classes next to him look like pansies most of the time.

[MGuy]

So then we are in agreement? Our views on the fighter and what it should be are the same.

[ubernoob]

So then we are in agreement? Our views on the fighter and what it should be are the same.

No. I don't like the fact that Tome Fighter rapes any combat he's a part of. Fiendish Brute are much better because they get to "play" without "rape". Binary characters suck. Everybody should come equipped with the tools to participate. Period.

[Kaelik]

1) A random spell duration? Oh it says 24 hours! *audible gasp* Your math is indeed impressive... At least it would be if I actually saw any of it. However I'm going to venture a guess that this is a flight spell of some sort cast at high level. At the same high levels a wizard would've said fuck preparing this shit and made a minor magic item to let him so it so he wouldn't waste his time. That SAME magic item that any random hero can shove on and use. Wow your math really IS speaking to me.

Wow. You are retarded. No Wizards don't spend 72,000gp to get an effect they could have for free. In fact, at the level they can fly for 24 hours, they can't even afford to buy a 72,000gp item. So no, they don't make an item of constant fly, ever. Because they get fly all the time. For free. Unlimited.

2) Well darn I hoped that after seeing the text common sense would kick in. Well I suppose than I would understand your confusion. By a non magical ability I think you can safely assume it is an ability that involves no magic and doesn't imitate a magic spell. To explain a bit further you can have an Ex ability that gives you an inherent bonus to strength but not an enhancement bonus. Why? Because only spells give enhancement bonuses.

See, here you are being dumb again. Getting +2 Str is exactly like getting +2 str. Flying is exactly like flying. Haste is exactly like haste.

Once again. Name any ability ever in the history of anything, and I will give you an example of how that ability can be both (Ex) and (Su).

That's the point. Jumping 100ft in the air is magical. It can't happen in real life, the only way to do it is with magic. So whether you call that ability (Ex) or (Su) is entirely your choice. The game definitions only tell you where abilities come from, not what they can be.

How you can think "magical" is an absolute ability of absolute obviousness to everyone is beyond me, when you have been given, and even given yourself, several examples of abilities that could be both magical and non magical and there is no way to tell which.

3) Now you have probably never seen a dictionary before. And I can understand how you might think that there is only one definition for everything having never been able to read one. However one word CAN have multiple definitions. Now I know this may shock you but you can visit your local library look in a dictionary and find all those wonderful words that have multiple definitions.

Dumbfuck. Words don't mean multiple things at the same time. When you say "Wish is a godlike ability" You can't mean both "Wish is something only Gods can do and you can't." and "Wish is something every single being in the universe can do, even you." They are mutually contradictory.

4) You're too far off the track for me to keep up with you here. You say in your definition that God-Like Power is something that would be weird for non divine creatures to have. I certainly hope you don't think casters and supernatural creatures are considered "normal". I certainly am hoping you don't consider high level PCs/Creatures to be the "nrom" in any setting. Heroes and super villains along with powerful creatures are most certainly rare. If they were everywhere you'd get a setting where low level people could scarcely survive and every other place where people did exist was filled to the brim with bad asses. So to say it would be "weird" to find fantastical creatures and people with those abilities out of the divine realm is certainly a supportable statement. If you're in disagreement with me its most likely because we disagree on what "weird" means. If that is the case you should define what you mean by it.

To add to the list of things you don't understand, the word weird.

When I say, "God like abilities are abilities you would find weird to find on non Divine creatures" That means that if Wish is god like ability, and you found a genie, you would expect the genie to not be able to wish.

However, if you find a genie, you would expect it to be able to grant wishes, because if it can't it's not a genie. It doesn't matter how weird it is to find a genie, what matters is this:

If you find a genie, do you expect it to grant wishes? Yes. If you find a Doppleganger, do you expect it to read minds? Yes.

Are wish and mind reading abilities that only Gods have? NO! They are mystical creature level abilities. They are CR 6 abilities. And so if you are a level 10 character, you had better be able to read minds or grant wishes.

WTF. Learn English.

I shouldn't have to point this out... but ummm if the underlying plot with mentioned npcs is related tTO the blood War and later leads TO the pcs getting involved in the Blood War how is the plot not aBOUT the blood War? And who said the PCs have to kill everything for it to be part of the plot? Hell I could have a haunted mansion where the PCs do nothing but run away from mentioned ghost until they find away to appease it and let it "move on"

If you play chess, and every time you take a piece I tell you a little bit about the time my Grandfather was in WWII, does that mean the chess game is about WWII? No.

You have nothing to do with the Bloodwar, the people you are fighting have nothing to do with the Bloodwar, It's not about the Bloodwar just because you pretend it is.

And yes, running away from the ghost till they appease it is exactly the type of thing I am talking about. That's a terrible plot that sucks, and is no where near as good as a plot about the Ghost Assassin secretly killing off people at the behest of a Cleric of Vecna, and the four different ways I can branch that plot that all only exist for characters who can kill a ghost if they find it, or capture it if they choose.

"I don't like number 1 because that turns everything into mush at levels higher than 6. Everything becomes incoherent and inconsistent that any decent plot will suffer under the PC's ability to be able to do anything.+


A: Many good plots aren't functional in a game with God PCs unless you invent ways to impede them."

Now you cut off the rest of the first statement (though It would be hard for me to believe you had the capacity to do it intentionally) where I said that to keep a good plot you have to impede the PCs. Now tell me. Where in either of these statements do you see "There are no good plots at high levels?" Seems to me I am saying "plot will suffer" and "many good plots aren't functional"

Seems to me the statement that "All plots are worse (ie suffer)" is directly equivalent to "There are no plots that are only possible at higher levels" Which is pretty much exactly my point.

That you think the story of the Ghost assassin DM power trip is better than the PCs figuring out where the ghost will strike, intercepting him, capturing him, finding out about the Cleric, and beating him, just shows that you are a terrible person with terrible tastes.

[MGuy]

Its a specialist type class though. People go into the class wanting to do just as you described. Is it not reasonable that the epic level fighter dominate the field of fighting? If they are so good at it that's the participation that they give.

[Kaelik]

Is it not reasonable that the epic level fighter dominate the field of fighting? If they are so good at it that's the participation that they give.

No. It's not reasonable that a level 20 Fighter is better at fighting than a level 20 Fiendish Brute. Because Feindish Brutes fight, and Fighters Fight. And they both do the same thing.

If you have a Fighter who can outgrapple a Fiendish Brute, do more damage per round than a Fiendish Brute, has better defenses than a Fiendish Brute, and can force better save or loses than a Fiendish Brute, and can do most of this from range, then one of these two classes has failed.

In this case, you can either say that:

Samurai/Knights/Monks/Fiendish Brutes failed

Or

Fighter failed because he is too strong.

[MGuy]

Soooooo... If a caster can out do a fighter/monk/brute/etc in everything even at its own fighting game at 20th level then it= fail?

[virgil]

There was a failure at some point, be it class chassis or character creation, yes. Now, specifically at 20th level in 3.X, nothing makes sense. The more important point of imbalance to worry about is from 1st to 13th, because that's where campaigns actually happen to a large extent.

[Parthenon]

So, MGuy, your basic point is that:

Fighters are currently not good enough. They need more abilities and options.

However, Fighters should not get some abilities inherently because these abilities are mystical and not physical. They should instead use magic items to access abilities Wizards get inherently.

Thats what I seem to get from your posts.

You know, I keep getting confused as to whether we are talking about D&D, RPGs in general, a perfect system or what.

Concerning D&D:
[*]Some DMs will use "low magic" campaigns yet still use the same monsters. This will mean that the Fighters can't get the needed magic items.
[*]Some DMs are idiots and won't let the Fighters have access to needed magic items.
[*]Some effects are not available or the Fighter guy can't get enough of them.
[*]Some campaigns stop the party getting free choice over magic items. An infinite dungeon or being too far away from civilisation stops magic shops. A strict time limit stops crafting. This means that Fighters can't get the needed magic items.

And in general for RPGs: at one point or another in some games there will only be Fighty guys in the party and they will not have the necessary magic items to deal with challenges. The magic guys could have died, they could have been imprisoned and their items taken, they could be split up, the players may have decided to go with an all Fighty party or however many other reasons for this. But Fighty guys need to be able to deal with various challenges without magic items.

---

A sort of numerical example to show how Fighters needing magic items can be unbalancing:

Lets say that Fighters of level X have a power level of 5 and Wizards of level X have a power level of 7. To fight against the monsters you need a power level of 7. Fortunately Fighters have enough money to get items bringing them up to level 7. This is where you stop your train of thought.

However, Wizards can spend their money to bring their power level up to 8 or 9. At this point Wizards are still a lot more powerful than Fighters. Also monsters will probably be made that are balanced against these new Wizards of power 9 meaning that Fighters can no longer fight the level appropriate monsters.

Alternatively Wizards get to spend their money on cool stuff and roleplaying stuff. This gives them more screen time.

So, having Fighters need magic items will either:
[*]not stop Wizards being more powerful than Fighters and possibly lead to Fighters still not being level appropriate.
or
[*]lead to the Wizard having more screen time and roleplaying opportunities meaning that the Fighter is even worse outside combat in comparison.

[Kaelik]

Soooooo... If a caster can out do a fighter/monk/brute/etc in everything even at its own fighting game at 20th level then it= fail?

Yes.

And that's why good martial classes, Like Fiendish Brute/Monk/Knight/Samurai are better at the fighting than Clerics who don't DMM Persist and non Incantatrix Wizards.

The failing is in Persist magic being so fucking cheap.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Soooooo... If a caster can out do a fighter/monk/brute/etc in everything even at its own fighting game at 20th level then it= fail?

Depends on whether you let parties play a mix of fighter/monk/brutes/etc. and casters or not.

If you have parties play nothing but casters or nothing but fighters then it's balanced.

If you embrace this paradigm and allow anyone from one of the groups to participate in the same adventures as the others then you have failed and it's your duty to call out the game designers on it.

[MGuy]

Soooooo... If a caster can out do a fighter/monk/brute/etc in everything even at its own fighting game at 20th level then it= fail?

Yes.

And that's why good martial classes, Like Fiendish Brute/Monk/Knight/Samurai are better at the fighting than Clerics who don't DMM Persist and non Incantatrix Wizards.

The failing is in Persist magic being so fucking cheap.

Soooo under those "specific" conditions playing those bruisers is palatable but otherwise with things being as they are without those conditions playing a caster will ALWAYS be better right?

So then doesn't that mean that casters simply are overpowered and therefore = fail?

[Kaelik]

Soooo under those "specific" conditions playing those bruisers is palatable but otherwise with things being as they are without those conditions playing a caster will ALWAYS be better right?

So then doesn't that mean that casters simply are overpowered and therefore = fail?

No, it means that Persist magic is overpowered and fail.

If you take Persist Magic away from the game, Clerics and Wizards can't outfight Fiendish Brutes and Knights and Samurai's and you have a good game.

A Game with:

Monk/Fiendish Brute/Wizard/Cleric

Is a game in which everyone is about as good in combat, but in different ways, and everyone has some cool crap they can do out of combat that no one else can do, or that other people can only do by spending more resources.

That's a good group.

Yes if you add Persist Spell metamagic, the Cleric can make the Fiendish Brute and Monk somewhat obsolete. No that doesn't mean Clerics are a failed class, it means Persist spell is a failed metamagic.

When the "specific" conditions involve 99% of all existing material, and the "general" conditions involve a single feat, you have switched the specific and general.

Generally, Cleric and Wizard are not able to out fight Monks and Fiendish Brutes, they are able to contribute to combat equally well in a different way.

In specific, Persist Spell is a broken metamagic that is either utter ass if used as intended or completely destroys the game if used effectively for free, as DMM Persist and Incantatrix allow.

[MGuy]

Well I am not arguing that. Each class has something special that they can do better than anyone else. I have no qualms with that. I just want the fighter to do what it does best when in a group. Fight things better than anyone. Plus what about DDM cleric or the Wild Shaping caster Druid?

-edit for after thought: Whats more I DO think that the casters are overpowered. They can win solo 100% of the time against just about anything. If what I learned about SGTs since coming here is accurate that is too much win. There are WAYYYY more tricks beyond persist magic that casters can pull out of their ass to win each and every fight.

[MGuy]

- Double posting. Didn't see your response at first Parthenon. I understand your point. I actually don't disagree with a number of things you said. That's why I would like to change things. I actually typed a lot of stuff to address your other points but it got too lengthy so I'm gonna try my damndest to summarize.

I'm trying to stay focused on DnD seeing as though that's the system I want to make some changes in.

So first off in low magic settings or settings that limit a player's access to magic I think it the DM's responsibility to make concessions for the players who choose not to use magic. Honestly the players and the DM should know or discuss with each other what it means to have magic available to classes and bad guys and to have players not want to use magic IE the party who chooses to play all fighties. Players and their DM are not going to be playing two different games at the same table so there is plenty of room to discuss. Beyond that the DM should be providing fun not snickering while his player's go around not having what he knows they should be getting. Honestly if you're in games like this you should join a different group.

As for your numbers I don't think labeling it as power level is accurate. A Tome fighter definitely has the power to kill anything but most people will still say wizards are better. Going along with it though I'd have to point out that the power level of a given class varies on how the player's make it. There are people who take up sorcery and only choose evocation spells. Moreover, the items I posit that a given fighter should spend gold on are mostly mobility items (flight, teleportation, dimension hopping, etc) and don't actually effect the power out put of either classes just their mobility. A caster needs magic items so they don't have to waste spell slots and keep their power output going past fight 1 (in the case of a wizard they need to expand their spell selection).

As for screen time that is something developed between the players and DM. Any class can get huge amounts of screen time depending on where the story is going. This kind of thing has too many variables.

This still turned out longer than I wanted it to be...

[Parthenon]

Well, the power levels were just arbitrary numbers to show that if two classes are unbalanced before items they will still be unbalanced after which possibly leads to other effects. And you seem to have missed the point that there can be a known challenge requiring magic and then through no fault of the players they don't have access to magic classes or items. But whatever.

I think a major point your missing is that when designing publicly you should take into account the majority of people playing. So when DMing its fine to create an Elothar Warrior of Bladereach and have it balanced based on assuming the DM is sane, reasonable and knows what hes doing. But there are currently various games going on in a low magic campaign where the PCs have few to no magic items and are expected to fight the same monsters. Its stupid yes, but it happens. And so the balance should be at least eyeballed to make sure that balance doesn't break immediately in that often played type of campaign. Which it currently does.

So, currently there are a lot of situations and campaigns in which fighty types need to be able to use various abilities to be not useless and they don't have access to the specific magic items or NPC needed. So the fighty type needs to be able to do at least similar things so that the players are less likely to be in a no-win situation. And just saying that they can use magic items doesn't work because often they don't have the magic item.

I mean, look, think about this: should any party of four PC characters be able to take on level appropriate characters? Is it reasonable that a party of four Wizards or four Clerics can reasonably take on most challenges but that four Fighters, four Rogues or four Barbarians often can't even take on challenges way below their level?

[Roy]

You do realize that the only person on this forum that uses those two catchphrases is Roy, right? That nobody else uses them because we find them stupid and annoying. You do realize that by lumping the rest of us with Roy, you're showing just how little you read.

Seriously, we're not Roy. Roy is Roy.

More lying bullshit. I expected better from you. Wait, no I didn't.

Which part are you disputing, that you use those terms, or the rest of us find you annoying? The first is demonstrably true, and I can go find the threads where you do so if you like. The second is, from what I've seen, also true. I know I find you both annoying and useless, so much so that I pretty much stopped reading the forum for the better part of 2 years.

If you are disputing that it is only you who uses those terms, that's probably fair, but it's a tiny minority, and all of them are assholes.

01 Aug 2008.

Stop fucking lying. On all counts.

[Kaelik]

Well I am not arguing that. Each class has something special that they can do better than anyone else. I have no qualms with that. I just want the fighter to do what it does best when in a group. Fight things better than anyone. Plus what about DDM cleric or the Wild Shaping caster Druid?

Oh my God you are so confused.

1) I mentioned DMM Clerics. DDM doesn't mean anything at all. As for Wildshape Druids, they aren't better fighters than Tome fighting classes, just almost as good, and casters.

2) Everyone's thing is fighting? what don't you get. The fighters thing is not fighting, it's fighting in a specific way. Just like the Monks thing is fighting with status effects, and the Samurai's thing is Fighting with Massive Damage, And Wizards fight by casting battlefield control spells.

The Fighters way of fighting is supposed to be about intelligently adapting to the situation, but unfortunately, instead of making them able to adapt, Frank and K made them better than everyone at everything.

Fighters do more damage than Samurai, Have better status effects than Monks, and can shoot bows better than Knights. That's the problem. They are too good at everything.

Fighting is not the Fighters specialty. Fighting is everyone's specialty.

-edit for after thought: Whats more I DO think that the casters are overpowered. They can win solo 100% of the time against just about anything. If what I learned about SGTs since coming here is accurate that is too much win. There are WAYYYY more tricks beyond persist magic that casters can pull out of their ass to win each and every fight.

They can't win solo 100% of the time. That's the point. We actually played Wizards and Clerics through same game tests. They win about 60% of the time.

And the tricks they can pull out besides Persist are all totally fair and useful but not overpowering. They can win fights. Because they are supposed to win fights. Because their job is to fight, but they can't win all fights, and they can't fight better than Tome Monks the way Tome Monks want to fight, or do more damage than a Samurai.

[Ganbare Gincun]

Where is the "fighters have to have wings and breathe underwater" shit coming from?

We're referring to the fact that non-spellcasters do not have innate class abilities that are balanced against spellcasters and allow them to contribute meaningfully to the game at higher levels of play in the 3.5 system. As per the Tome: Once a Fighter gets around level 10, he's going to need his artifact sword, the Monk needs his magic fists, the Rogue needs a ring of invisibility to be able to Hide effectively, and the whole lot of them need some kind of magical item to be able to pursue and engage enemies that fly around in mid-air.

The Tome Classes are fairly conservative in their approach to these issues and handle them in different ways. The Assassin can Hide In Plain Sight and has access to Bard spells. The Fighter can create his own magical items at 7th level and is loaded for bear with interrupts and immediate actions. The Monk class gives you the innate ability to fly around and teleport and open gates and things like that. Finally, the Barbarian takes a different approach and gives them an antimagic shell that affects others but allows their items to function, has an insanely high movement, and gets a crapton of Fast Healing. These classes are heads and tails better then their "normal" counterparts and are much more fun to play at higher levels because you actually get to do something.

But our cultural conceptions regarding what non-spellcasters should and shouldn't be able to do within the context of a fantasy RPG are changing, predominately due to the influence of Wuxia and Anime. People want to play characters like the ones they see on Bleach or Naruto, not from the pages of Beowulf or Le Morte d'Arthur, and they are going to demand game systems that can deliver this kind of experience. And that's probably just as well, because D&D isn't really set up in a way where characters like Conan or Aragorn really contribute a great deal past level 6 - and that's exactly why E6 was invented.

[MGuy]

-Parthenon: I see your point. But low magic isn't the game I'm playing. Also you ARE right. I didn't know that people thought I was designing publicly. That is not what I'm doing. I don't particularly care if anyone uses what I'm going to end up making. Hell everything is still in the idea stage as is. I'm not even currently playing roleplaying. If someone wants to go with low magic or run a world with limited access to magic I'm fine with them not using my ideas as I'm not aiming at anything towards that. If I make concessions that make the assumption that magic items aren't available then what is the point of making magic items available at all? Everyone will already have what they need to do everything there wouldn't be a reason for the things to exist. I wrote a lot more but I think this covers the main points I'm trying to make....

-GG: I agree with GG's analysis of the Tomes. I like anime. I hate Naruto and Bleach. Not that I haven't seen people who want to emulate the characters but I don't think that the Fighter or the Barbarian should be the way to go to get Soul reaper/Ninja/Devil Fruit User/Blassreiter/etc/etc/etc. I believe that if people want to play those things they should take out a class that caters to those tastes. (Shudders naruto in a fantasy setting... So sickening "believe It")

-Kaelik:
My editing mistake I should have caught that DMM/DDM mistake.

When I said Fighters Fight I don't believe I said other fighting characters couldn't fight. I didn't know it was a requirement of my statement to specify the way every fighty type character fights (possibly because that wasn't the point of the statement)

No everyone's specialty isn't to fight especially not casters. Non martial characters can have builds that almost entirely has got nothing at all to do with fighting. While every martial character's abilities are ALL aimed at fighting. (Why do I think that I'm actually going to have to give examples to support this point?)

I could spend time going through every wizard trick to show you why they win 100% of the time. However I'm going to just say Scry and Die and hope that the other tricks catch up to you at some point.

[TOZ]

In other news, clerics in Pathfinder no longer have heavy armor proficiency. I don't see this as doing anything to nerf them, so just another change for changes sake.

[MGuy]

Maybe its a change for the low level game? They want to make low level clerics easier for fighter types to hit.

[Leress]

Maybe its a change for the low level game? They want to make low level clerics easier for fighter types to hit.

That still wouldn't really work since they would most likely have the same armour as a fighter of the same level.

[MGuy]

*shrugs* Someone got to say something for the other side otherwise its just a bashing party. hmmm... the... fighter... has access then to heavy armor and they don't? I can't really think of anything to say for it @.@ all things considered the best heavy armor you can get is Full plate but all you'd have to do is have a higher dex bonus to get the same number in med armor...