>Why does /tg/ think magic in PF is overpowered?
Because 3.P is caster edition. Caster supremacy means whatever a martial can do, a caster can do better. At higher levels, a core wizard can break games effortlessly.
>I'm getting ready to DM a campaign and I'd like to know why so I can make adjustments if necessary.
Turn full casters into partial casters.

It's possible to play a caster and not break the game, with sensible spell selection and the understanding that you might need to rebalance as you go. The bigger problem is the traditional D&D problem, where classes that don't have magic powers are really boring to play and tend to get sidelined.

>>33971823
Remove the tier 1,2 and 5 classes. Problem solved.

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>>33971897
>Caster supremacy means whatever a martial can do, a caster can do better. At higher levels, a core wizard can break games effortlessly.

This. This is caster supremacy in a nutshell.

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>>33971954
/thread

>>33971897
How though? What makes casters better? Are the spells just too strong? Do they get too many casts?

>>33971974
Tier 1, 2, and 5?

>>33971823
Just...don't worry about it.
Trying to fix 3.pf is like trying to escape quicksand. The more you kick and struggle, the faster everything just kind of fucks itself.

>>33972116
Read through the spell list. Spells give you all the benefits of all skills and more. It isn't blasting power, it's utility that screws over martial characters.

What I do in my 3.P game is remove the level skill cap for martials, give them more skill points, and then tell them things based on how advanced a skill is. Also, don't let someone take 10 while taking advantage of a spell. I let martials super specialize in skills to give them more out of combat utility.

For combat have some enemies be aware that there is a caster and have them focus on that, and get rid of combat casting. If someone wants to cast in melee combat they can take the AOO.

>>33972116
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=11990.0

>>33972116

Example: Joe wants to be a fighter and kick ass. Tom decides it would be cool to be a druid and have a bear for a companion.
Guess what happens? Joe gets to find out that not only does Tom make a better fighter than Joe after casting a few buffs on himself. Worse, Tom's bear is ALSO a better fighter than Joe, especially if Tom casts a few buffs on the bear.

Spellcasters have way too much flexibility and raw power in 3.x editions,

Why do black mages look like hobos

>>33972404

Oh my god, anon, you can't just ask black mages why they look like hobos! It's racist!

>>33972404
They have so greatly devoted themselves to magic that they cast aside superfluous things such as monetary wealth.

>>33972116
>>33971974
Here's the usual:

>Tier 1:
Wizard, Druid, Cleric, Witch, Sorcerer (Razmiran Priest/False Priest), Sorcerer (Paragon Surge), Oracle (Paragon Surge), Arcanist, Shaman
>Tier 2:
Oracle, Sorcerer, Summoner, Magus (Hexcrafter), Bard (Magician + Paragon Surge), Skald (Paragon Surge + UMD Shenanigans)
>Tier 3:
Alchemist, Bard, Inquisitor, Magus, Investigator, Warpriest, Paladin (Sacred Servant), Hunter, Skald
>Tier 4:
Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger, Adept, Brawler, Slayer, Gunslinger, Fighter (Lore Warden), Bloodrager
>Tier 5:
Cavalier, Samurai, Fighter, Rogue, Ninja, Swashbuckler, Monk (Archetypes - namely Qinggong Monk)
>Tier 6:
Aristocrat, Warrior, Commoner, Expert, Monk (Core Only)

As it stands the major point of contention is whether or not Magus (Hexcrafter) belongs in Tier 2. Those arguing against it often cite how some hexes are shitty, and how the Magus spell list is limited in comparison to other Tier 2s and as such do not have the power available to classify. Those for it argue the Hexcrafter in Tier 2, choose to argue that Hexes are a strong mechanical ability with proper choice (potentially solving encounters with little thought and at no significant cost) and using some tricks to increase spell list options will mitigate the Magus spell list limitation giving you the freedom to do pretty much anything and potentially better than some classes that specialize which in turn effectively makes them the arguable Paladin (Sacred Servant) of the Tier 2s (ie. really don't belong there but have enough strong mechanical abilities that placing them in Tier 3 is inappropriate).

Basically, Hexcrafter might be removed from Tier 2. Increasingly so with the nerf to Paragon Surge, however the addition of all Curse descriptor spells, Greater Spell Access, Spell Blending to grab lower level Wizard/Sorceror spells, or using Summon Spirit hex to grab 18 HD casters, etc. still add tons of options. So its not a simple decision to knock them down to Tier 3.

>>33972491

I just did

>>33972524

What's the point of unlimited power if you don't look good while using it

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>>33972491
Be ye gone back to Castlr, magekin!

Just curious I've very briefly browsed the Song of Swords stuff and if I added some things from that would that make martial characters more on even ground?

Also I feel that a martial character could square off against a caster of equal power if they were clever enough a tactician and built their character fairly solidly.

The way I want it to be is that a martial or a caster can equally stand on their own (solo).

If they fought against each other, each would have equal standing.

I feel like this post is going to incur a lot of rustling so I apologize.

>>33972894
>The way I want it to be is that a martial or a caster can equally stand on their own (solo).
>
>If they fought against each other, each would have equal standing.

No rustling here, that's how it ought to be.

>>33972894
>>33973008
You're both correct, that's how it should be! What about an option for martial classes to interrupt spells or even remove them merely by using a single of their attacks? Like, a feat or even class feature? Also, spell failures for Divine spells, why isn't that a thing?

A well-optimized Dex-based martial would probably make a decent match for a caster 1v1: win init, never let out of threatened zone, shut down casting with AOOs. Same guy will struggle to excel at the battlefield control he is optimized for when pitted against your average caster.

>>33972346
Okay so it's not really that casters are more powerful than other characters necessarily, but they have more utility?

Well than if that's mostly the case than I guess it'll mostly have to be up to me to carefully balance dungeons and encounters to where the caster doesn't brake it.

I'll also have to give the martial classes more utility than?

>>33973082

In 2e, most encounter-ending spells took at least a full round to cast, sometimes two or three, and would be interrupted and lost if the wizard took a hit.

Also, they required something like 30 minutes per spell level to memorize, so memorizing that 9th level Meteor Swarm took 1+4.5 hours to memorize if you weren't learning any other spells. That meant you basically had to load it up in safety, and carry it through to the BBEG's castle to finally unleash it.

One of the problems of 3.x is that they removed most of the brakes on caster's powers.

>>33973175
That makes some sense. Why don't casters take a lot longer to cast the higher level spells? That makes no sense... 1 standard action/spell level maybe? 0 level spells being swift actions?

>>33973246
Sounds like you're getting somewhere. Casters should be built to rely more on martials protecting their squishy bits while they power up.

>>33973334
Yeah! That'd really help too! OK, I still say martials should be able to interrupt casting with some sort of built-in ability or something. As well as, spell recharge times, so the caters can't spam a spell. I personally liked the spell-point system in 3.5 over spells/day.

>>33973152
You aren't quite there yet. The level of utility casters have extends to spells that will trivially end most combats.

To add to this, it innately doesn't matter what you do with dungeons and encounters short of putting antimagic fields everywhere (Which is sort of bullshit because they are supposed to be rare, it is effectively picking directly on the caster PC even if they signed up for this). Because the nature of caster supremacy, as explained earlier, is that the casters have the ability to do *anything* better than martials can. It doesn't matter if you put in some dude you need to frontflip over to kill, because casters can do stuff like strike him from indirect angles with magic, Area of effects, or indeed even just use magic to make themselves super good at flipping.

Keep in mind that in PF there are a few low tier casters that are actually balanced with martials. The witch for instance.

>>33973246
That might be just a tad too nerfed; I'd say make it Standard -> Full -> Full+Rest of Turn (no reactions) for level 1,2, and three, and repeat up to level 9. Level 1 and 2 spells are therefore still pretty much the same power; while 3 and up start having some serious downsides without making the caster useless for the entire encounter (If a caster needs to cast a level 9 spell, the martials will have either won or be dead by the time the caster actually finishes casting if it takes 9 turns)

Of course, don't apply this to ALL casters, as it would makes some completely unsusable. Of course, only apply this top the tier 1/2 casters, Tier 3 and below casters would be completely useless if this was apllied (especially the magus, you would make the magus cry, you jerk)

>>33973599
Allow casters that generally fight while casting to charge spells during combat and get bonuses to concentration or lower concentration DC's. Also, yeah, maybe a bit nerfed.

>>33973082
Okay well atm I've thought of this:

In Dks II there are certain items you can acquire that can parry spells. Also there was an OOTS comic where Roy dreamed he could interrupt a spell with some sort of strike.

I was thinking of creating a class ability to where a fighter could block or parry a spell. His level, feat choice, and roll would determine if he could permanently block/parry the spell without taking damage or reduced damage. (Depending on how well he rolled.)

This would work well in my setting because the way I DM, magic is used like an amplification of the soul. Martials ,depending on their skill, are able to supernaturally channel their own soul through a weapon,

Another thing I'd do is get rid of how saving throws against projectile spells only reduces damage. I felt like that was a bunch of shit. If a character manages to roll away from the fire ball they shouldn't receive any damage.

>>33973175
>>33972346
See that's why when I started playing I didn't want to play casters. (Though I played 3.5) I didn't like playing casters originally because: (In 3.5) I didn't like how limited casts I got at early levels and even at higher levels. The way I saw it if I ran out of casts I'm completely useless. Which is why I very much liked the cantrips in PF.

Adding onto this I didn't feel like playing solo as a caster (again at early levels) was very plausible. Again mostly stemming from of the idea that no spells=nothing/If I get grappled I'm screwed.

As for injury while casting a spell I can't remember if 2e and 3.5 had it the same (I'm assuming they did not) but I'll look into modifying the DC for the check. I don't want to completely nullify a spell from injury as I feel that would make soloing a caster impossible.

I'm also going to keep combat casting so the caster has a fair chance alone in grapples but I am going to break the cap for certain skills of martials to give them more utility.

Sound good /tg/ ?

>>33973780
After reading this I caught myself again in a conundrum. Defensive Casting combined with how even if injured a caster can still make a save to his spell is a bit much.

I'm considering changing it back to 2e where if a caster is injured while casting, it nullifies the spell (but maybe not expends it's use?)

>>33971823
Making magic rare actually hurts non-casters much more than casters. With that in mind, as long as you're playing with friends you're probably fine.

/tg/ is snobbish about their games because you're dealing with a group of people who really care about their games. As long as noone is being actively disruptive you'll be fine.

The problem with most Caster classes is that they've got two settings - Dominate or Do Nothing. They have no middle ground where they can just participate in the fight a little, or take it easy and be very chill. All of their class features (that are worthwhile) tend to solve the problem entirely, or do nothing - Their other features and spells that *should* be party-friendly or facilitate a more "fun" game either don't work as intended or leave the Caster doing nothing but buffing and being sidelined.

A good "fix" might be to pick a "tier" of classes and stick to those - 3 or 4 tend to be a good mix, and include "gish" classes that mix their Fighter-bits with Caster-bits and Psionic classes (Which are actually very well designed, hilarious because they were contracted out by Paizo instead of made in-house).

>>33973852

Have a will save to prevent losing the spell, perhaps?

>>33973780
>Another thing I'd do is get rid of how saving throws against projectile spells only reduces damage. I felt like that was a bunch of shit. If a character manages to roll away from the fire ball they shouldn't receive any damage.
Ah, I've got a system for that from my modern games that may work. You do this: Give it around 4 zones that each do different damage, center does full, then 75% then 50% then 25% with the outside the zone being 0% and if you save correctly, you move to the next zone out.

>>33973949
I resent that sir. I am in no way a bit snobbish about the traditional games I choose to play. I am incredibly snobbish. My tastes are objectively perfect and to hear some cur on the internet downplay my ability to look down upon others is an insult of the highest order.

>>33973949
>The problem with most Caster classes is that they've got two settings - Dominate or Do Nothing

I get what you're saying, but there is a good midle ground; most casters in the group I play with fall firmly into "Control the enemy and buff the martials first, damage later", which is a good middle ground.

>>33973406
Okay I understand that casters can do *anything* but typically (for Wizards and Clerics) they would have to prepare their spells beforehand, thus going into an encounter they wouldn't know they'd have to cast the buff that makes them front flip.

Sorcerers and other casters that get permanent spells could perhaps know that frontflip spell but that would take up one of their knowns correct?, so in other situations they wouldn't have that OTHER spell that allowed them to barrel roll. Unless than a majority of spells they knew were all buffs, than that build would be more of a Taskmaster if anything but lack any of the other utilitarian or destructive spells. This applies vice versa.

Even if they cast spells with various angles and AoE's I could at least strategize against this in combat and while also crafting the dungeon.

However to be completely honest I am unfamiliar with the alternate classes in general. I mostly use the core classes with the exceptions of the Magus, Ninja, and Cavalier.

>>33973949
Just curious how does making magic rare hurt non-casters? To be specific magical items and etc vary from common to rare while casters themselves are rare.

>>33974228

Items are what he was talking about. 3.x is predicated on characters having magic items at various levels, and CR-appropriate things start to overpower the party if the fighter doesn't have that +3 sword.

>>33974228
Usually the rarity of magical items, if you're doing low magic you should implement some sort of inherent bonus system for maritials.

Also magic is rare settings are where most "mage conjures a fireball, make a save verses fear or cower for 1d4 turns" bullshit comes from.

>>33974023
Thank you for that.

>>33974327
>>33974335

Okie dokie. I guess I'm safe since magic items are more common than casters themselves.

The reason I wanted to make that so is just in case a war scenario comes up, I wouldn't have to think too hard optimizing it.

>>33974341
No problem at all! Anything like a line or anything though, that shouldn't get zones, it's either full or no.

>>33974112
>I understand that casters can do *anything* but typically (for Wizards and Clerics) they would have to prepare their spells beforehand, thus going into an encounter they wouldn't know they'd have to cast the buff that makes them front flip.

Divination spells, my friend. Know The Enemy, Create Treasure Map, Eagle Eye, Lay of the Land, Claivoyance, and of course motherfuckin' SCRYING.

Yes, of course the wizbang needs to actually know the spells, but he doesn't have to fill his slots first thing in the morning; he can stop for 10 minutes or so and memorize spells for whatever room next comes. The only way to keep the wizard from winning-by-taking-his-time is to put your party on a serious time budget, meaning he cannot stop to prepare juuuuust the right spell for the next room.

>>33974527

I knew you were going to mention divination. I'll look into those spells and see what I can do to "cloud their judgement."

>>33974527

>he can stop for 10 minutes or so and memorize spells for whatever room next comes. The only way to keep the wizard from winning-by-taking-his-time is to put your party on a serious time budget,

Or to bring back the pre-3rd edition memorization times. 1 hour of meditation to reach the right frame of mind, followed by spell memorization at half an hour per spell level. Maybe make it 15 minutes per so they don't cry about it too much.
Needing an hour before you can start memorizing cuts down on the just-in-time spell cheese.

>>33974527

While the time budget idea almost immediately strikes every DM as a good idea, in practice it's really hard to implement. One of the reasons I don't DM D&D much anymore is that the DM affects party ability whenever they alter pacing, often without a 1 to 1 correlation between the DMs specification of time and the PCs perception of it. If, as a DM, you feel free to kill characters until they learn to read the queues, I suppose that isn't a problem, but if you're trying to create sensible narratives for each character more cinematic or abstract limits are easier to implement.

>>33974745
>>33974719

I always found the memorization part of spells "weird" and didn't quite make logical sense to me. So instead of doing memorization they do "katas" for that particular spell.

And I don't think that 10 minute rule would work so well as a lot could happen in 10 minutes and I could DM it where something wandered there way before he could complete the memorization/kata.

>>33974881

It's a Dying Earth thing. Magic is powerful, difficult, and dangerous.

Quoting from the tale of Mazirian:

"...when black night lay across the forest, he would seek through his books for spells to guard him through the unpredictable glades. They would be poignant corrosive spells, of such a nature that one would daunt the brain of an ordinary man and two render him mad. Mazirian, by dint of stringent exercise, could encompass four of the most formidable, or six of the lesser spells....[He] made a selection from his books and with great effort forced five spells upon his brain: Phandaal's Gyrator, Felojun's Second Hypnotic Spell, The Excellent Prismatic Spray, The Charm of Untiring Nourishment, and the Spell of the Omnipotent Sphere. This accomplished, Mazirian drank wine and retired to his couch."

And here's Cugel the Clever, trying to cram some spells into his brain from the books he stole from Iocunu the Laughing Magician:

"One or two of the workbooks he found susceptible to his understanding. These he studied with great diligence, cramming syllable after wrenching syllable into his mind, where they rolled and pressed and distended his temples. Presently he was able to encompass a few of the most simple and primitive spells, certain of which he tested upon Iucounu: notably Lugwiler's Dismal Itch. But by and large Cugel was disappointed by what seemed a lack of innate competence....Attaining even a single spell was a task of extraordinary difficulty.
One day, while applying a spatial transposition upon a satin cushion, he inverted certain of the pervulsions and was himself hurled backward into the vestibule."

>>33974881
That's why I always let the book casters just pull out the damn tome, take a standard action to find the spell, and then cast it from the book specifically. It makes them a bit more useful than, "Memorize, cast, forget."

Also, anyone think that a lot of the difficulty with spellcasters is the vancian casting thing? Like, a spell does exactly one thing, it can't be messed with, under/overcharged to do something different.

>>33975596

That's part of the traditional limits on casters -- you have to pick spells based on what you think you'll need, and sometimes you have to get creative with the application of them because you brought a hammer when you need a file.
Loosening this up makes casters more powerful and flexible, though, which exacerbates the caster supremacy problem.

>>33975655
Ah, right, forgot about that. I'm not sure if I prefer Vancian or flexible spells more though.

>>33973175
>something like 30 minutes per spell level to memorize,

10 minutes per spell level to prepare. But your point remains valid.

>>33971823
It's not problem with magic, it's aproblem with classes that don't use magic.

Don't bring down magic, give martials shit like extra skill points and giving them "tax" feats for free.

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>>33974881
>I always found the memorization part of spells "weird" and didn't quite make logical sense to me.

>>33977666

>>33979122
In addition to this make melee combat sticky. For anything with a full BAB hitting a moving character with an AAO should stop their movement.

>>33979158
Or heck, import marks from 4e. You can concentrate on one dude, and if he ignores you not only is he less likely to hit his target but you'll have a shot to shank him in the kidneys.

>>33973111
Divination-school Wizards with INT to init, Sorcerer with Noble Scion of War, Kensai Magus. The best casters (that is, battlefield control ones) also place emphasis on going first, so they optimize themselves for high init like the first two mentioned options and +4 to init familiars and such.

So win init, fly, and win the encounter.

Or they were flying already because fucking wizards.

>>33979145
So why can't a wizard just memorize new spells after emptying the slot in the same day? Why can't they just cast directly off the spell book if they have, say, 15 minutes free?

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>>33974745

I found quite a good way to impliment the time budget, quite by accident.

Not sure this would work with every group but ive managed to get a good group of players.

What I do is spend the low levels really building a setting and story, full of characters that the players end up caring about. the local blacksmith who gives a discount to the fighter due to his repeat business, a local mage who lets the wizard use his laboratory to craft magic items, a small group a children who play tag with the PCs, an innkeeper who makes lovely apple cinnamon pancakes.

The i dont kill off the PCs when they fail to read the timing cues, I kill off the NPCs they have formed bonds with.

I discovered this when i had PCs show up in a town and stumble on a disease while meeting all the NPCs . they decide to go into the forest to gather ingridients to create a cure (as the people who are brave enough to go into the forest are all deathly ill) on the way through the forest, they get sidetracked and try and chase some bandits for the loot. when they finally got back to town with the ingridients a week later, 3 of the children one of the PCs played hide and seek with were dead from plague.

now they understand time pressure

dead kids is a damn good motivator

i usually push these kinds of things in dungeons too now. The wizard cant stop and prepare his prefect spells or rest up to regain slots, or the cleric get back his channels because if they stop for an 8 hour nap the guy they are out to rescue is going to have his heart cut out. plus, this guy they need to rescue know the location of macguffin X or whatever (good place to link in character's motivation story hooks they provide me like "im questing to find my sister" ect..)

I have succesfully managed to drain 3 lvl 4 wizards of all their spell slots, the cleric of all his channels and spells,and every limited use ability before the boss fight. now they know resource managment lol

>>33979290
the way i explain it is casting magic is exhausting. u can only possibly cast so many fireballs in a day at lvl X because if u cast any more than that the strain on ur body would cause ur heart to explode and ur brain to rupture

>>33979122
Yeah, just the feats "improved[combat maneuver] really should be merged into two separate. The crude ones and finesse ones.
And combat expertise is given to martials for free at like level 2 or something.

>>33979444
Enesmies patrolling is a good way to do that too. If they wait for more than 2 minutes one of the enemies will need to go to the bathroom and walk out of the room they were playing cards in.
Or someone is just out for a walk because they were having an argument.
Or the hunters are going out for a foraging. Short rests are a fucking hassle, an 8 hour rest is asking for a full alert and getitng smashed.

>>33979444
continuing

I play Pathfinder using the rules on the SRD and so far I have had no problem balanceing encounters, as i mostly strech things out quite a bit. a single day in game with take several sessions. now if they are in the woods and such, I dissuade them from making camp, usually with nasty fey encounters who cast magic on the party while they sleep (the watch still gets perception checks, but its hard to see the fey coming through obscuring mist

another way i deal with the 3 wizards i have in the group is to have a lot of spellcasters for encounters. not wizards, but monsters that can use magic such as fey (they are pretty much my go to atm in the forest).

As far as dungeons go, I almost never let them rest in a dungeon unless they have truely earned it and have been stretched to their limit. by the time the PCs reach the boss at the end of the dungeon they have waded through an entire cities worth of baddies and minions. and they never ever get to fight the bosses at full strength. to me that is what should make a boss hard. u want to use ur awesome kill spell on the boss, ur gonna have to save that slot the whole way through the dungeon.

>>33979484
sure its a good way, but if that is ur go to and every time they stop for 15 mins some guy just happens to find them and raise an alarm, it starts to seem unfair.

plus, in my group i have a rogue who is super super stealthy who tend to keep watch and throat rip any patrolling guards. and i always roll for percep so it never seems unfair

Ive found that giveing them a reason to not stop and rest is the best way that way i am not trying to prevent them from resting rather they are choosing not to rest.

that being said, patrols are always a necessity especially in dungeons,

>>33972548
Paragon Surge Sorcerer/Oracle probably isn't Tier 1 anymore, with the recent nerfbat they hit it with.

>>33974429
Also a heads-up:

CR is 3.PF is a clusterfuck.

>>33979290
"Mental strain."

You can hold so much per day. You can fill up at the start of the day or throughout, but you can't go over that.

>>33979537
It's not my go to, but they need to be prepared that sitting in someone's house for 5 minutes and talking about murdering people is a thing that get's noticed pretty damn quick.

>>33979122
>>33979158
>>33979265
>>33979466
Also get rid of stuff like "can only do this [cool thing] if you didn't move this turn.

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Alright /tg/ you caught me feeling talkitive, incoming novel.

I am so tired of hearing complaints about casters.I literally have no idea where this idea of "Casters op" comes from. It boggles my mind, are people bad at this game? The only thing I can imagine is casters are much easier to be "op" with than martial classes.

This is coming from a 10+ year 3.x player, who plays martial classes 90% of the time. I GM and play, and have had many group with either power gamers, or just very experienced players.

Magic is, in my opinion, in no way over powered. Many classes have answers to it. Let's go with some pathfinder examples since that's big right now.

Saves: It is SO much easier to raise your save, than it is to raise the DC of a spell, I rarely have competent PCs fail anything. Honestly, any spell that relies on a save is instantly out the door, it's no problem to get your required roll to pass an optimized DC to a 5, giving you a 75% chance to pass. For some classes it's really a fucking joke. Paladin Cha bonus, suspicious barbarian rage power, ect.

Ability to target: Caster can't see you, caster can't hit you. Rogues obviously come to mind, but any class can put ranks in stealth, and stealth is much easier to raise much higher than perception. As far as any magical detection, see saves above.

Spell Coponets: Most GMs don't pay attention to this shit but it's huge.
Somatic : can your caster wave his hands around? If not he's fucked.
Matrial : Can your caster reach, and does he have, the martial componet? If not he's fucked.
Verbal : Can your caster speak? If not he's fucked.
Divine : Can your caster reach his divine focus? If not, you guessed it, he's fucked.

This is all just shit off the top of my head, and some 3.x are more broken caster wise than PF is, but really, it's not as bad as /tg/ makes it out to be. As long as your magic player isn't some munchkin loving faggot you should be fine. If you let him munchkin you are a faggot GM.

>>33979718

Or you could, you know, take more time to properly balance your encounters instead of homebrewing new rules and not have a rest between each fight.

The magic rules are not perfect, in fact they are far from it, but they are quite easy to work with if you just take the time to properly plan out and balance encounters and challenges.

Its really easy to drain a Sorceror's spell slots if you present challenges that require him to cast fly on the entire party or something similar.

create way to force them to use up their slots out of combat instead of making it harder to use them in combat. And throw in some wizards into the encounters who buff up their own troops and run conuterspell duty on the party wizard forcing him to waste spells dueling with this guy while the fighters get to do what they do best

All that time spends making up an balancing new rules can easily be spent making DMPC Spellcasters they have to fight, which will balance the game better and give your players a greater sense of accomplishment

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>>33979817
You
I like you

>>33979817
>As long as your magic player isn't some munchkin loving faggot you should be fine. If you let him munchkin you are a faggot GM.

Words to live and GM by

>>33979817
You have no idea what you're talking about.

>>33980033
looks to me like he knows exactly what he is talking about.

would you care to share exactly what parts of what he said are wrong?

Nerfing spellcasters is really easy to do even by RAW if you are an even remotely competent GM

>>33980078
>implying that PC saves being optimizable has any bearing on monster saves
>implying that it is not massively more difficult to optimize stealth than it is perception, especially as MAD classes against classes with SAD, some of them with Wisdom as their primary stat
>talking about spell components beyond the ones that have a specificed cost, ever

>>33980078
So how would you nerf a full caster?

>>33980118

The first one I'll give you, but see the last line about munchkins. It's kinda important.

The second one, you're fucking retarded.
>implying wis/dex make up any meaningful amount of your skill total
Leave now. Even in a broken as fuck game where they, for some retarded reason, have a wisdom of 40, that's still only +15, which isn't even as high as the bonus from ranks. Any fucktard who has played 3.x games can tell you for every item that increases perception there's 10 that increase stealth.

>implying that wasn't referring to the ones with a cost.

>>33980119
ah so you are one of the GMs who just didnt read that whole section on spell components. Its not about what they are, its about whether or not they have access to them. Somatic compenets means that for a spell the wizard has to do something like pull out a tuft of cotton light it on fire and sprinkle it with powdered cinnamon. difficult to do something like that in certain situations.
>>33980118
Its all about nickle and dimeing
1) Keep a close eye on his sheet, know his spells as well as he does, if not better
2) Have Challenges that require him to use up multiple spell slots to get past. Basically get them to use up their slots on utility spells instead of blasting and combat spells
3) Dont let him rest all the time. This goes back to Nickle and Dimeing. Give them a good reason that they cant just stop and rest for 8 hours once the wizard is all out of Fireballs. also the party should NEVER be allowed to rest before a boss fight
4) Have them fight other casters. If casters are so broken, then why is it only the PCs using them? Make up some wizards to accompany the encounter, Have the bad wizards buff up the party, forcing the fighters to have more of a challenge or the wizard to use more spells debuffing. all while these bad ones are trying to counterspell him
5) Remember Spell Components. maybe a room is silenced. now the caster cant use verbal competents to cast his spells unless he lengthens the casting time with silent spell metamagics. maybe they have to fight something underwater. good luck casting fireball underwater, and yes please cast ur lightning bolt underwater. this leads to
5) The Enviroment. have a gu who likes to throw fire everywhere? prehaps a room is filled with methane. fireball goes out, room ingnites. not enough damage to kill the party, but enought to piss them off and make them think twice. also this goes back to water, maybe there is half an inch of water in the room. cast a lightningbolt there lol

>>33980078
The problem with casters isn't that they can punch out a ton of damage or that their DCs are impossible to hit.

The problem is that they have the ability to shut down fights and plotlines almost before they begin. Overland Flight, Time Stop, and Force Cage are the biggest offenders. They utterly sideline anything else the party is doing in favor of making everyone stop and obey the wizard, and martial classes just have no answer to that.

>>33980238
>its about whether or not they have access to them
Hmm...
>A spellcaster with a spell component pouch is assumed to have all the material components and focuses needed for spellcasting, except for those components that have a specific cost, divine focuses, and focuses that wouldn't fit in a pouch.

>>33980238
Not letting the casters rest dicks over the Fighter, too. Because if the caster's out of spells there's a good chance he's out of HP, and with how slow mundane recovery is he's got no chance but to stop.

>>33980238

1) >Work
2) >Work
3) >Players cry
4) >Work
5) >Work

I think I found the problem!

>>33980238
continueing
6) Archers. Intelligent bad guys need to fight intelligently. they see a dude throwing spells around, they are gonna get him first cuz yes he is a far greater threat than the fighter with a bustersword. Fill him with arrows. force him to use up more spells to protect himself from the arrows
7) Antimagic. ya casters whine about it but if magic is a part of the game, so is antimagic. just dont abuse it, use only when nessesary as to not seem unfair.
8) Reputation. Magic users are powerful and gain a reputation, both good and bad. Like it or not, someone somewhere is gonna put a bounty on him. and there are quite a few classes in pathfinder speifically designed to hunt mages. Off the top of my head, one is a gunslinger who can counterspell with bullets (but guns in muh fantasy. again, its part of the game and core, deal with it)
9) You are the GM. Anything they can do you can do better. If you havent learned this one by now you may as well just stick to being a player

>>33980258
and you cant turn around and ambush the caster with a force cage of your own because???
>>33980261
that is not what i mean. its not what is in the pouch that matters, it it wether or not they can pull X component out of said pouch and manipulate it in the appropriate way
>>33980271
ever hear of these things called wands of healing, or health potions? if ur party doesnt invest in these, quite frankly they deserve to die
>>33980283
oh no go forbid the GM actaaully has to do work to make his game decent. how horrible!

anything good takes work. if u dun wanna do the work ur game is gonna suck and that is your fault, not the players and not the rules

also if ur player cry when they fight other caster, then ur playing with munchkins. I think i found YOUR problem

>>33980258
also, ifthey can do a fuck ton of damage, this uis why u make them use up their slots on minions and non combat chalenges. If you are letting ur wizard go into every fight fresh and well rested, you are GMing wrong.

and all these 'broken' abilities wizards can use, you can also use as a GM. Anything they can do, you can do better

>>33980283
>most of these things are not work
>spellcasters are broken cuz i never bother to plan ahead
>actually giving a shit about crying munchkins

>>33980359
And does this do anything about Druids, aka Mr. I Have A Fighter As A Bonus Class Feature And Still Get Full Casting?

>>33980335
Having to manipulate material components in the right way is fantastic. As well as things like humidity and water and temperature destroying components so they can't be used properly anymore.

Also, fuck this>>33980261
>A spellcaster with a spell component pouch is assumed to have all the material components and focuses needed for spellcasting, except for those components that have a specific cost, divine focuses, and focuses that wouldn't fit in a pouch.

I don't give a shit if the rule book says this. It's not some magic fucking pouch unless the player has put in the time and coin to make it a magic fucking pouch. If you're playing any kind of caster who needs material components, I expect you to be able to keep track of your fucking inventory.
Here's a list of ways to reduce caster effectiveness:

>Increase the casting time of all spells by one tier/x2.
>Make successful saves a tiered result. Perfect saves means no damage or negative effects at all. Close calls means partial damage/effect.
>Components: Track that shit nigga. Track it hard. Make components for problems spells hard to get. Have things possibly fall out during a fight. Stop being a lazy piece of shit DM.
>Concentration under threat of violence should not be easy for some bookworm who can hardly hold a knife. Increase the difficulty for concentration checks.
>Learning new spells should not be easy. Some spells should simply be unobtainable, or be obtainable purely through quests that the whole party has to agree upon.
>Spell failure can be and will be disastrous. We're talking about classes that mess with the fabric of reality, commune with the gods that be, etc. But they're still mortal, and prone to fuck ups. And when you're dealing with cosmic powers, those fuck ups are going to hurt. Fail a concentration check to cast that Metamagic Fireball? Guess who's hands are now covered in burns? That color spray? It got it your eyes.

Now, let's buff martial and half caster classes a bit.

>>33980461
>4) Have them fight other casters. If casters are so broken, then why is it only the PCs using them? Make up some wizards to accompany the encounter, Have the bad wizards buff up the party, forcing the fighters to have more of a challenge or the wizard to use more spells debuffing. all while these bad ones are trying to counterspell him


and he has a pet fighting with him? what a coincidence, this wizard a fighters for bodyguards.

also, send another Druid after him periodically as a recurring villian


its remarkibly easy if you just take some time to think about it. could send them where is giant bear pet cant fit, or maybe he has to leave it behind to guard someone or something for a bit.

if they have a pet like that, feel free to whallop on it with traps, poison it, use fear spells on it, curse it. now he has to use up a bunch of spells to make sure his little special snowflake pet doesnt die. Wyvern Poison is fucking nasty and can be bottles and applied to arrows

speacking of which while typing I though of antoher. have a ranger hunting his pet as a favored enemy

these are all just stuff off the tiop of my head. If you took a minute to think instead of just whineing and complaining about it you would realise how easy it is to balance this stuff

>>33980543
>casters aren't overpowered
>no one but a caster can shut down a caster
Really making your point there.

>>33980506
im inclined to agree, but I prefer to stick to what is referenceible in the rules than homebrewing anything.

>Increase the casting time of all spells by one tier/x2.
why? no point on intentionally nerfing what is not that hard to counter
>Make successful saves a tiered result. Perfect saves means no damage or negative effects at all. Close calls means partial damage/effect.
I dont like it, there are class features and skills that do this. adding this renders those pointless
>Components: Track that shit nigga. Track it hard. Make components for problems spells hard to get. Have things possibly fall out during a fight. Stop being a lazy piece of shit DM.
if they cast lots of a certain spell ver and over, sure they may run out of some materials, but 1)A spellcaster with a spell component pouch is assumed to have all the material components and focuses needed for spellcasting, except for those components that have a specific cost, divine focuses, and focuses that wouldn't fit in a pouch. and 2) this is easily countered by just buying 3 in town. they are cheap. I wouldnt bother with this
>Concentration under threat of violence should not be easy for some bookworm who can hardly hold a knife. Increase the difficulty for concentration checks.
there are already rules for this
>Learning new spells should not be easy. Some spells should simply be unobtainable, or be obtainable purely through quests that the whole party has to agree upon.
again says this right in the rules, tho they can always get some thing just through advancement as part of experimentation of eldritch gifts. I prefer to say yes, then use the spells against them rather than say no

>>33980461
In PF trying to pretend wildshape makes you a combat god end in shocked exclamations of "WHY ISN'T CODZILLA WORKING?!"

>>33980566
>no one but a caster can shut down a caster
did I say this? no but thanks for trying to put words in my mouth. i merely gave a few examples off the top of my head. there is an entire 9 point list i already typed up that covers this stuff if you bothered to take the time to read it

>>33980506
continueing >>33980589
>Spell failure can be and will be disastrous. We're talking about classes that mess with the fabric of reality, commune with the gods that be, etc. But they're still mortal, and prone to fuck ups. And when you're dealing with cosmic powers, those fuck ups are going to hurt. Fail a concentration check to cast that Metamagic Fireball? Guess who's hands are now covered in burns? That color spray? It got it your eyes.

I use spell failure, but it really only comes into play on critical fumbles, which, for spells that dont require an attack roll, 2 natural 1's in a row, cuz i really dont see how a wizard would fuck up most mundane spells he has been casting for years.

>>33980566
> have a ranger hunting his pet as a favored enemy
do you even read or do you just skim and take away what little supports your strawman arguement?

>>33980506
>I don't give a shit if the rule book says this.
Then don't fucking talk about RAW.

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Seriously, does anyone even read the rules anymore? I honestly think /tg/ only plays pathfinder so that they can have something to bitch and whine about on here to help them deal with the fact they cant DM for shit

>>33979560
They are in a weird limbo between tier 1 and 2.
They can still solve most situation via Expanded Arcana though.

>>33980767
No?

The rules aren't there to protect the players from the DM. They're there to give a DM an example of how to set the boundaries of a campaign.


If I, the DM, decided to alter/remove a spell that gives a level 1 caster infinite material components, or make weapons lose their edge if they're not maintained, then I do it.

You don't like my change? Convince me otherwise. If a whole group wants to play a mary-sue weaboo campaign, I'll run the game for them. If they want to bitch about balance, I'll balance it for them. But I'm the DM. My word is final on any subject. Period. End of story. Don't like it? Leave.

No one is forcing you to play. I listed some ways to balance casters. DM's don't have to use those ways. Players don't have to play in campaigns that use those methods.

Stop limiting role playing to a series of books. Be grown ups and agree on a set of rules before hand. No bitching, no whining.

>>33980923
I'm going to say it again:

Don't talk about RAW if your suggestions are not RAW.

>>33980923
Everybody knows that in the end it's up to the fucking DM.

That has nothing to do with a discussion about RAW.

>>33981179
>>33981200

Hold on, I'm trying to find where OP strictly limited this thread to using only materials published and endorsed by Paizo. Oh wait, he didn't. He specifically mentioned making changes if necessary. (Oh noes, that's not in accordance with the written materials! How dare OP even consider that!)


Wanna talk about RAW? Here's one: Anti-magic fields. Fill a couple rooms with them. Bam, fighters got work to do.

Here's another: Enemy Casters targeting the party caster. Bam, party caster has more work to do.

Want one more? Increased sr! Holy fuck! A built in mechanic for reducing the effectiveness of magic in an encounter!
Did I mention OP never restricted this thread to raw? I did right?
Oh, and fuck raw. fuck it hard. Games need to be balanced, which means rules need to be changed. A lot. Don't want to change the rules? Then:

Stop. Your. Fucking. Bitching.

So go eat a dick you two. Just make sure to sharpie the entire 3.P library onto the shaft so you get that daily dose of raw you so desperately need along with that protein.

>>33981437
Anti-magic fields screw over everyone, not just the wizard. At that level everyone needs their stuff to contribute basically anything.

>>33981474
How the fuck are you building your encounters so that antimagic fields fuck the entire party over?

Do you seriously coddle your party with hordes of magic items? The fuck is wrong with you?

>>33981522
>Do you seriously coddle your party with hordes of magic items?
Well, gee, it's almost as if Fighters are infinitely worse than CR equal monsters without magic items, which is why WBL exists!

Fuck off.

>>33981522
Wealth By Level fucking matters with the way high CR monsters are statted out.

Also, D&D is a game about killing things and taking stuff. You can't just cut out half the game right off the bat.

>>33981522
The game is designed for players to have significant access to magic items as they grow in experience. Its built into the monsters and challenge ratings.Not to mention, its the only way martial classes even stay useful at their one job.

>>33981536
Cuz god forbid they learn to use the environment to bring down that hydra, or dragon. I guess if they ever have to fight an orc or ogre with one level more of barbarian than the party average, they're screwed.

If I throw a BBEG caster at them, they're all dead! Oh No!

>>33981541
Yeah, taking stuff. Like the dragons horde of gold. Or selling the chimeras venom glands to an alchemist. Or gaining local prestige by parading that evil demons head around on a stick.

Seriously, learn to think beyond the fucking books.


>>33981570
>their one job

This is even worse.

Have you even heard of skill challenges?

>Anti-magic canyon is filled with harpies and rocs.
>No magic nigga, gotta climb the old fashion way.
>Guess who's shit at climbing? The caster.
>Guess who's better at climbing? the fighter, the barb, anyone with decent points into climb and strength bonuses.
>Guess who's gotta help the useless caster? The martial characters.

Don't even get me started on survival challenges, chase scenes, real trap challenges, politics.

Do you faggots literally just reduce pathfinder to combat? Lazy little shits is what you are.

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>>33981769

>>33971823
Maybe make Casters have to pass a spellcraft check before lobbing a spell (link Spellcraft to their casting stat, and make the DC equal to 15+ the spell level.
Now casters are like other classes - there's a chance for failure whenever they do their thing, but it's balances by a fast progression of the skill in question.

>>33981857
Skills don't fail on a natural 1 and you can get that to succeed on a 1 without any special optimization at all.

>>33981857
Isn't that what spell resistance is for?

>>33981814
>gets fucking told
>doesn't even have the nerve to respond just posts an image.

Holy shit get btfo more

>>33981907
SR is a joke of a mechanic that does very little aside from crap on blasters, who are not very good in the first place.

SR is utterly useless against a caster who buffs his party, attacks indirectly, or just uses spells that ignore SR outright.

>>33981920
No, it's just that as usual, the shitstains that think Pathfinder is perfectly balanced have no fucking clue what they're talking about.

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>>33981769
>Anti-magic canyon
>Better scry and teleport to the other end of it

>>33981881
Add a rule that makes it so that casters CAN fluff it on a Nat 1, then. Same with martials botching ona natural 1 - in principle, it should happen every time. In practice, GMs rarely use this rule with consistency

>>33979817
this guy.
Actually, your thoughts can make some people mad. but i second.

>>33981998
>botching on nat 1
You are the cancer that has killed our hobby.

>>33982019
But a 1 in 20 chance of wasting my turn is so much fun!

>>33982036
Especially if I get to stab myself in the foot while doing it!

>>33982036
I personally dislike that rule (or at least amend it so that you get bonus XP or 'fail forward' if you do choose to botch), but >>33981881
mentioned about skills not failing on a natural 1, and I explained how this could be implemented.

I'm just proposing changes that could fix the "OMG caster mang wtf" whinging I've seen (and lived) far too much of.

>>33971823
Just use Tome Martials and you should be fine.

Casters are fine, as long as you don't play retarded campaigns (i.e. high level superhero shit). It is for that reason I love Epic6 and Epic8.

>>33981881
Then increase it to 15+(X x Spell Level) and make it so a 1 on a roll means the spell backfires, hits someone else, etc.

>>33981907
>>33981885
Enemies get SR, casters put points into Spellcraft or Concentration, or whatever. I see no problem. Casting spells shouldn't be easy, nor should things be have little to no defense against magic.

As far as spells like Fly and Tele, increase their casting time so they can't be used on a whim, and require team support to protect that caster ass. Also make fly checks actually matter, and give enemy flying units this little thing called death from above.
>>33981962
>HEY! WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT SACRED VIAL WE NEEDED!
>It's um... still in the canyon.
>Why in the nine hells is it still there?
>Well you see, uh. The Wizard did his magic thing and said we should just skip the canyon and all that. Since he can't cast his magic there and such.
>Oh, so does this Wizard happen to have a sacred vial for us instead?
>No he uh, has this normal vial though. Several normal vials actually.
>I see. Guess what then?
>We're going back to the canyon?
>Yep. Don't come back without the vial.

>>33982355
>Hey, so what's guarding the sacred vial again?
>The Crucified soul of the holy man who had it.
>So, incorporeal undead.
>Yep.
>Anti-magic zone.
>Yep.

>>33982355
Why would the wizard even need to go into that canyon in the first place? He can chillax in his tower with a brewski waiting for the groundpounders to finish up.

>>33982607
No one is allowed off the plot railroad. Choo choo, motherfucker!

It's very interesting watching the evolution of a thread like this. You can read this shit like the rings in a tree. It all starts with some idle trolling, and a few people adressing the question. As the thread goes on it quiets down a bit. If it stretches, which this one has, you can chart the slow decline in reading comprehension, grammar, and writing ability, as people who know what they're talking about, and have the ability to communicate it effectively, have made any contribution they would like to, and are beginning to sit back to see how the thread goes. Eventually even the people who might have something to add are too busy reading through the thread to post, and the thread becomes youtube commenters replying to youtube commenters. Then it makes its slide into the back pages.

We, as historians of /tg/, must recognize the patterns that are created in these cycles. They are extraordinarily important in determining when a thread has outlived its usefulness.

>>33982591
Because a vial sacred to an ancient society of warriors because it contains the blood of the founder of their order wouldn't be guarded by members of said order who happen to be high level fighters and barbarians. Because hordes of harpies and other flying beasts attacking your party while you climb isn't hard enough. Let alone the random traps along the canyon wall, poisonous snakes, scorpions, spiders, hiding about ready to bite your hand as you reach for a place to grip. But I guess that's too simple, need to add magic to make it interesting.

>>33982607
>>33982670
He doesn't. No one does. They don't get the vial, princess dies, enemy hordes take over the nation, party has to deal with that instead.

But for the sake of letting everyone get involved, the door to the monastery requires in depth arcane knowledge to open. Not a spell, but rather, a series of arcane and cosmological symbols need to be pressed at in right time and order. Guess the fighter will just have to figure it out. Maybe if he pushes them in random order, it will work. It's too bad the casters in the party never bothered investing in other skills, and are completely useless without their spells. Sad shame.

>>33982902
You don't really understand why your argument is retarded, do you?

>>33982973
start explaining then.

>>33984221
That's not "making a challenge where everyone gets to participate". It's "invalidating 3/4 of the wizard's class because you personally think it's imba and can't balance otherwise"

>>33984313
Also the wizard literally sits the entire session doing nothing, absolutely NOTHING during EVERY SINGLE COMBAT AND CHALLENGE until he gets to the door and rolls his knowledge arcana check.

>>33984313
>>33984334

False, false, and false again.

>"making a challenge were everyone gets to participate"

Hmmm It's too bad wizards have no BAB or weapon proficiencies. And no skills beyond Knowledge (x), Spellcraft, and Concentration.

Oh, wait. They have a BABs, and every Wizard/Sorc I've ever DM'd for learned very quickly that having a crossbow and quarterstaff or spear was a very wise investment.

Not to mention that climb up is not going to be easy. How do you know you picked the right foot/hand hold? What if the rogue misses a couple traps on the way up? Oh if only a poor magic-less wizard could make perception/spot checks.

>I roll for Knowledge!
>Great, you understand the symbols, and the theory behind them. Here's the riddle in plain English, the tiles drawn on note cards, and the mathematical clues.
>I'll tell you when you've arranged them correctly. It's a 15ft step between each tile, and a standard action to activate them.
>Unless you guys can succeed in your own Knowledge Arcana checks, you can't help him unless he directs you.
>Oh, and a massive worm comes slithering out of it's hiding place as the sun dips below the horizon.
>Enjoy.
Oh, hey. I found a way for everyone to reasonably contribute to a session beyond "Combat starts, wizard casts (x). Combat ends." or "X obstacle stands in your way. Wizard uses (x). Obstacle is no longer a problem."

But, lets say you're right, and the wizard/sorc can't participate meaningfully because they can't roll play for shit. It is better to have one session where 3/4 players can actually be of use than one where only the casters meaningfully contribute. If the casters decide to turn tail or cozy up and wait until next session, they're little bitches who fail to live up to the title adventurer. If they're intelligent, they've invested outside of their normal sphere of power so they can actually help. If they're intelligent they don't rely solely on magic to get shit done.

>>33971897
I'm sure OP is glad you can demonstrate the circular argument but that wasn't the question asked.

>>33984740
>The Wizard can shoot his crossbow!

At any level where climbing a cliff and being attacked by harpies is the challenge, the wizard is going to have somewhere between +5 and +7 to hit with his dinky crossbow, against a BARE MINIMUM of AC 20, most likely 23 or higher. With a light crossbow, he does 1d8 damage. Once per round, because he has to reload. Even if he's on flat ground, and thus discounting all the climbing penalties, he'll probably hit once ever 4 rounds. That is BARELY more than one damage per round. And we're assuming like a level 10 wizard here with 14 dex. A fighter at that level with a proper build outputs approximately 50~ DPR against an AC 24 target.

"Nobody but the wizard is allowed to help with this puzzle. I don't care if you guys want to participate. It's his turn, you're not allowed to think. Just wait until combat starts so you can roll your D20s or whatever. You're martial characters, you don't get to think."

You are a horrible DM. Instead of working with your characters to eliminate "The Wizard Does Everything" and creating situations where everyone feels like they're contributing, you pigeonhole and force them into retarded situations where members of the party are utterly useless. You might as well put glowing signs along the adventure trail that say "It's now THIS PERSON'S turn to do a thing! Everyone else sit down!"

a

>>33984740
Weapons on an arcane caster are only moderately useful up to around level 5, and the whole caster dominance thing only really kicks in around level 7-8. If this is a mid-high level adventure you're suggesting, the wizard cannot meaningfully contribute to combat in an antimagic zone at all. It is literally impossible for him to contribute to the standard defenses of most creatures, martially, as they are all tailored against fighters or rangers or rogues of the same level.

>>33985009
to contribute against the standard defenses*

I don't think Magic will generally be used to its full gamebreaking potential unless your player has high system mastery and feels the campaign requires that, but the primary thing is that people have noticed the disparity in that martials are expected to kill things while casters are expected to solve problems, including killing things. The Wizard spell list is honestly just too damn big and versatile for its own good; with some diligent research, a clever wizard will be able to find a spell for pretty much everything and can accidentally invalidate far more encounters you set up than Fighty McGee.

It's pretty easy to set up a boss fight-style encounter that can stand for a few minutes with the party in combat, but you're also going to have to take into account measures that stop a caster from peeking at his location and teleporting the party there if you want them to see the rest of the dungeon you spent three days mapping out a lot of the time.

Some of it's just kind of annoying, though. The party wizard in my group won't go anywhere without sending out an Arcane Eye or two, and it can be off-putting to describe a good chunk of the dungeon before anyone else gets to take a step inside. I still haven't found any effective way to stop them from dragging around corpses in a bag of holding to interrogate with Speak with Dead at the local church, either. Is there a way in the rules that a body is rendered useless for Speak With Dead after death?

>>33979290
Willpower is literally a chemical in your brain that you can use up temporarily. Clearly spells are the same.

>>33979489
What level is the party? In my experience casters begin becoming extremely powerful around level 6 and outclass everything by level 10.

>>33984946
>A fighter at that level with a proper build

Biggest issue. Who said anyone has a proper build? I tailor encounters to challenge the party, not coddle their min-maxed builds and raise everyone's egos. Is the fighter going to do more damage than the wizard? Yes. Just like how there are plenty of times were a wizard will do more damage than the fighter. Also, the fighter happens to be hanging from the wall too, has to reload his crossbow (if he has one) and his damage will also be greatly reduced. If the party decided to climb the wall without planning for the harpies they deserve to die. I don't cater to idiots. I forgive stupid mistakes, but not stupid decisions.

>Nobody but the wizard is allowed to help with this puzzle

You obviously can't read:
>you can't help him unless he directs you.

If the wizard has it all figured out, then yes, he can get the other players to help. Otherwise, there is no reasoning behind a fighter or barbarian or ranger with no ranks in Knowledge Arcana having a sudden epiphany. It'd be like a programmer going up to an mma fighter with no understanding of computers and asking: Why doesn't my code work?

If he's mentally handicapped and can't solve a simple encryption puzzle, then sure, the other players can help him. But that's only if I'm DMing for a retard. Which I don't do, ever.

>>33985009
The caster dominance is present from level 1 on. There is nothing a standard Rogue/Fighter/Cleric/Wizard party can do at level 1 that a Druid/Druid/Cleric/Wizard party could not also accomplish. Unless it all took place in an anti magic area, but even then they'd both finish alive and well.

The only time a character is truly useless in a game, is if their player is so stupid, shallow, and terrible that they follow some min-max build, optimize for one style of play, and refuse to think beyond what their online guide told them.

>>33979817
First off, we aren't talking pvp. Unless you use soley human enemies with player classes then your first points are garbage. If you are then yea, its easy to make a martial built to counter a spellcaster with in depth knowledge of their abilities. Except when a caster can fly, be invisible and summon monsters that are better fighters than your average fighter.
As for spell components, the vast majority of spell components are handled by spell component pouches and/or eschew materials. I'd actually be surprised if people were forgetting the expensive components, less so non-expensive focuses but I don't personally.
Somatic can of course be still-spelled, or maybe theres no way to get your hands on an invisible and flying wizard? Or they just pass their check to cast while grappled or whatever else. Martials can do even less when they can't move their hands
Matrial(sic) This is covered under Spell coponets(sic).
Verbal, again there is silent spell also how much shit is going to stop him from speaking? Another spellcaster casting silence? A gag?
Divine, is a fucking joke, he's always going to be holding this thing and iirc theres a special equipment version you don't hold in a book somewhere. Most martials can't do shit without their "martial focus", aka a fucking weapon
But yea, the key part is not having munchkins in your game. Play with cool people and you'll play cool games regardless of system inadequacies.

>>33984946
Though I am curious: How do you accomplish this:

>working with your characters to eliminate "The Wizard Does Everything" and creating situations where everyone feels like they're contributing

So far all you've done is pick apart my solutions (very poorly) and declare they don't work. So, how would you do it then? What is your magical solution?

>>33985036

Stop doing four and out. Arcane eyes only last 10 minutes, can be blocked by a closed door, and can't see in the dark. I don't know what level your party is, but there is a point where spending 4th level spells on recon means you're a bit low on firepower.


The PCs should be able to beat anything that's even close to a "level appropriate encounter" if they can prepare for it and take specific countermeasures for whatever the enemy is. Don't give them that time to do so. Make them rush, have proactive enemies who attack them when they're not ready.


And speak with dead doesn't work unless the body is "mostly intact". Smash it to pieces if you're worried about the PCs overusing the spell, or put that cryptic babble the dead are prone to giving to good use, and make all your answers technically accurate but impossible to understand. Since you can only use it on one corpse per week, they shouldn't have the time to sit around masturbating until they can cast it again before whatever crisis comes to a head.

>>33971823
> Magic users are rare
This only means the enemies will have a harder time defending themselves against the party.

>>33985454
By being a reasonable person, talking with your players, figuring out what concept they want to play and helping the player work towards that without becoming imbalanced? Doesn't really help if you play with munchkins, but why are you playing with munchkins?

>>33985468

Thanks, this is all great advice. I definitely think after I close out the current campaign in a week or two, I'm going to make sure the next one has a more time-constrained feel to it. I've let my party be too leisurely about things this time.

>>33985364
>Is the fighter going to do more damage than the wizard? Yes. Just like how there are plenty of times were a wizard will do more damage than the fighter
Please stop posting about games you don't play. Blasting is horrible for damage.

>>33985454
You accomplish it by playing a game where class roles exist and each role is as important to the party's success as any other.

So basically don't play 3.5.

>>33985716
Munchkins don't last in my games. Unless we all agree that the game is going to be a munchkin one. Then they might.

>>33985752
Doesn't mean people don't play blasters. Do you demand that your players all play utility casters? If so, you're a fag. Also, I count damage done by pets, creations, and summoned creatures as part of a casters damage because they wouldn't exist without the caster.

>>33985940
>Doesn't mean people don't play blasters.
I haven't seen someone play a blaster in ages.

>>33985971
Guess you don't play much. Either that or you play with the same general group over and over again.

>>33985971

Well, yeah. Talking about playing on /tg/ isn't playing shithead.

>>33979290

They can.

If the spell is a ritual in 4th or 5th edition.

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>>33971823
>Why does /tg/ think magic in PF is overpowered?
See pic.

Has a leak for the Advanced Class Guide come out yet?

>>33987504
For the thirtieth time, no.

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>>33987585
...What about now?

>>33987938

Give it a week, anon. Currently the versions that have been given out are physical. The PDF drops next thursday, as I recall.

>>33971823
Versatility

Magic offers a LOT of options to fuck up an encounter whereas a fighter has to hit it til it dies, and a rogue has to flank to be worth a fuck.

>>33971823
>Why does /tg/ think magic in PF is overpowered?
It was already OP as fuck in 3.5, and while PF tried to reduce options, it also added new bullshit of its own and another slew of buffs. In 3.5 if you wanted to play a Wizard you had to deal with a shitty d4 hitdie and pray you didn't get killed. It was part of the price you paid for ultimate arcane power, and not much of a price when you got out of those low levels. In Pathfinder, you have a d6+1 (3.5 lvl 1 wizard: starts with 4 hp; PF Wizard starts with 7: massive difference; as they level their hitpoints are like 3.5 Wizards with +4 CON.) because of favored class bonus, which horribly favors spellcasters because martials are really better off multiclassing for more class features and saving throws (Which is better? Fighter? Barb? Take a level of Barb on your Fighter. Maybe dip a level or two of monk for ignore-prereq-feats & great-saves too. But in Pathfinder you lose Favored Class Bonus for doing that.)

Spell wise, new bullshit includes Dazing Spell metamagic (autoban), Paragon Surge racial spell (autoban), Samsaran Mystic Past Life alternate racial trait (autoban), and then there's stuff like Create Pit spells adding a new slew of Reflex Save crowd control (reflex save is generally worst save on classes, but it's mainly used for damage, not taking enemies out of the fight), etc.

But for the most part if you want to play a campaign where caster supremacy isn't as big of a thing, just ban all full spellcasters (Clerics/Wizards/Sorcerers/Oracles/Druids/Shamans) and Summoner (who is basically 8th level caster disguised as 6th with all those nonstop discounts all over his list). Inquisitor/Bard/Magus are enough to cover the basic spellcasting needs in the party, really.

>>33988956
>Give it a week, anon. Currently the versions that have been given out are physical. The PDF drops next thursday, as I recall.
Sure, but info leaks man. What did they do?

>>33985009
>Weapons on an arcane caster are only moderately useful up to around level 5
Nah, just dualwield Spell Storing weapons. Slap yourself or buddies for 1 nonlethal and deploy buffs with a full attack in your first round of combat.

>>33988956
>Give it a week, anon. Currently the versions that have been given out are physical. The PDF drops next thursday, as I recall.
Just looked at Paizo boards:

>I got the shipping mail some hours ago, so I was able to download the PDF

Nope, PDF is out too.

>>33981857
>Now casters are like other classes - there's a chance for failure whenever they do their thing, but it's balances by a fast progression of the skill in question.
That doesn't fix *anything*. God damn. If you want to fix casters, you have to redo their spell lists. No way around it.

>>33972548
Zen Archer and Qingong/Sensei/Hungry Ghost are tier 4.

>>33995548
Zen Archer is a high Tier 5 (which compared to regular Monk as a Tier 6 looks fucking amazing), but he still loses to an Archer Fighter, Archer Ranger, and Archer Paladin.

>>33985423

Every metamagic feat further limits his spells by raising the spell level. As far as spell componets go, take the fucking pouch from them. Built into the rules for grapple is a free "at your option they can not talk". For divine focus, again, fucking take it. "OH LOOK THAT PRIEST CAN'T CAST WITHOUT HIS CROSS, MAYBE EVEN MY DUMB MONSTER SELF WILL KNOW TO TAKE IT?"

As for invisible flying spell caster, about 50% of the monsters at any high level munchkin game like that will have easy answers to it. Built in SR so all the wizard is doing is wasting his time in the air since he can't actually hurt the monster, see invisibility, invisibility purge, true sight. Any natural flight speed, any magical flight.

All of my platyers know better than to pull any "flying invisible wizard" munchkin bull shit, because they will get fucked for it. Unless they take EVERY SINGLE meta magic too take out all components they will be screwed for it. But that's what? Using 3 level higher slots? And 3 feats gone. And you can't take divine focus out. Nor do I let my players take the stupid tattoo focus, it has to be a physical object on the person.

What it boils down to is, if your spellcasters are pulling some shit that starts to really over shadow the martial classes, put them up against smarter monster and ACTUALLY PLAY THOSE MONSTERS SMARTER.

>>33995548
>Qingong/Sensei/Hungry Ghost are tier 4
What the fuck, no. Tier 5, the lot of them.

>>33997897
>Every metamagic feat further limits his spells by raising the spell level.
I see you've never heard of metamagic rods, metamagic gems, staff of the master, and other discounting shenanigans.

>As far as spell componets [sic] go, take the fucking pouch from them.
Carry 10 pouches. It's really easy. Your monster is welcome to waste his attacks grabbing pouches.

>Built into the rules for grapple is a free "at your option they can not talk".
No, it's not. Also, teleportation subschool wizard shifts out of your grapple with a swift action. Gee, that was easy. Ring of Freedom of Movement also makes grappling the Wizard impossible. Emergency Force Sphere also gives him an easy time not getting grappled.

>For divine focus, again, fucking take it.
Carry 10 of those also. Or fifty. Who cares. It's only 1 gp each.

>As for invisible flying spell caster, about 50% of the monsters at any high level munchkin game like that will have easy answers to it.
See invis and truesight work against the invis part, sure.

>Built in SR so all the wizard is doing is wasting his time in the air since he can't actually hurt the monster
Wow, you're retarded. Not only is SR easy to overcome (Ye elf Wizard has a +2 to overcome SR for free, add Piercing Spell, Spell Penetration feat, Sure Casting spell, whatever other shit, wheee) and bypass (hey did you know that not every spell gives a rat's arse about SR? This is the favorite way to deal with SR: Just cast something that doesn't involve it. It's so easy.) but in many cases Wizards just cast completely non-interactive spells like Wall of Ice and no amount of saving throw or spell resistance is going to protect your monsters from the fact that they just got removed from the fight without a single die roll.

tl;dr: You're a shit GM and you have shit players. You also sound like an asshole.

So i'm playing a Good Cleric at level 6, anyone have any item recommendations? I haven't played clerics before.

>>33998965

Literally every reason you gave was min/max munchkin shit. Very specific things to power game. Not even worth going over your examples.

>implying any player who doesn't grab things to blow through encounters is shit, and any GM who doesn't let them is an asshole.

>>34000309
>Literally every reason you gave was min/max munchkin shit.
Proof you're a bad GM with bad players. I mean seriously, carrying multiple spell component pouches and divine focuses is just common sense. For the exact same reason why you want to grab them.

>>33981943
lol no one said it was balaenec, just tht there a LOTS of ways within the rules to to deal mwith casters short of changing the rules, please read the thread...
>>33981998
no reason to alter rules when there are better ways to do things
>>33984334
then he is a shitty player for not having a backup for when his magic dont work. every wizard i have every played, played with, or dmed for ALWAYS brings a backup for when he runs out of spells. even if its just a crossbow. but most i see also bring adventureing gear for when his spells run out, like pitons, rope, smoke sticks and flaks of acid.

>>33985297
right now they are lvl 7

hey are supposed to be extremely powerful imo, they are wield the power of gods.

but never forget, anything they can do you can do better.

I have a reccuring villan that is a arcane trickster kobold who has sworn an oath to kill them as the party cut his fathers head off and parraded it aorund on a pike. mage hand to pickpocket spellbooks off the wizards is highly amusing as the wizards are all now forced to share 1 spellbook 9lucvky they were smart and all shared spellbooks at first so all the spells they know collectively are all in this one book.

basically there are many ways to deal with casters if u use ur head. anything they can do u can do better. if u cant, ur a shitty DM

>>33985940
blasters are the easiest of the spellcasters for DMs to counter. ur arguement is bad and you should feel bad

>>33998965
>I see you've never heard of metamagic rods, metamagic gems, staff of the master, and other discounting shenanigans.
those are expensive. let them waste money and feats buying those
>Carry 10 pouches.
and all of those puches are easily and readily accessible? same for divine focus, or does ur cleric look like a shitty rapper with 10 chains around his neck?

>Wow, you're retarded. Not only is SR easy to overcome...
now they are using up feats that could otherwise go to better things
also, if ur a DM who only thorws monsters and never magic users at the magic user, u are a crap DM. in addition, there a templates to raise SR, and many other things to turn their area control spells against the party, including simply having spell trigger a trap as it is cast.
Its a real shame ur wall of ice was cast overtop of the pressure plate u didnt bother looking for, now the wall is shooting out a jet of fire.

im not the person u reponded too, but i just want to point out how there are plenty of ways of dealing with spellcasters that u feel are OP

as I have said before, and will keep saying: Anything they can do, you can do better. you are the Dm for chist sakes, dont let ur players walk all over the game. get creative

>>33971823
Read a wizard optimization guide. If a player plays a wizard smart, fights are broken before they start.

>>34001115
>waaahh wizards are a powerful class and im a shitty DM who didnt read the gamemastery guide and dont have the creative skill to counter them so it must be their fault and not mine as a DM

>>33972676
My history major wife saw your image on my screen, laughed, and said that, translated for tg, "you can't into peasantry."
She says that is not an image of a peasant.
I liked your post, just wanted to share her response because it tickled me.

>>33971823
This link reveals all that you need to know, in musical form.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmv5_h_xUOA

>>33971823
Nothing in the game is overpowered if you know what u are doing as a GM

Low Magic settings usign pathfinder are generaly really dumb and if any player picks a spellcaster as their class, they will end up quite powerful as the setting means u have limited options for countering them

ive found that the more common magic is, the less usefull the wizard is. hard to consider anything OP compared to the abilities of both statted and non statted gods u have access to as a DM

>>34001103
>those are expensive. let them waste money and feats buying those
It's not a waste by any stretch. Some of those are quite powerful. Metamagic gems are really only for high levels though.

>and all of those puches are easily and readily accessible?
Yes. A person usually has space for more than one pouch, and if you're decked out like one of those iconics then apparently you could fit some fifty bags on your person no problem.

>same for the divine focus
Sure. A cleric who has more than one image of his holy symbol isn't strange by any stretch.

>now they are using up feats that could otherwise go to better things
They don't need to use feats (metamagic is for rods unless you are using discounts or applying free metamagics) and they don't need to cast spells that involve spell resistance.

>also, if ur a DM who only thorws monsters and never magic users at the magic user
"Spellcasters are balanced by throwing other spellcasters at them," you mean? I find it a rather telling form of balance.

>Its a real shame ur wall of ice was cast overtop of the pressure plate u didnt bother looking for, now the wall is shooting out a jet of fire.
It's a curious thing that the wall of ice didn't manage to freeze that pressure plate shut, and curiouser still that I wouldn't know a pressure plate is there when I have a free alertness from my familiar with a maxed perception skill (everyone maxes perception in PF) and both of us are looking around for traps when we walk around unknown spaces in dungeons. Heck, usually I'd prefer to drag the fight back to an area where we already checked for traps just to be safe (or because we can stick our own traps there).

>Anything they can do, you can do better. you are the Dm for chist sakes, dont let ur players walk all over the game. get creative
There's a difference between getting creative and using fiat to cause problems for the party (ie. "dirty GMing").

I personally think spell casting would be better if it took longer.

Nearly every spell takes less than six seconds to cast.

Magic Missile? sure, standard action. Fireball? at LEAST two turns. Say it's to gather the energy.

>>34001103
>as I have said before, and will keep saying: Anything they can do, you can do better. you are the Dm for chist sakes, dont let ur players walk all over the game. get creative

If you have to turn to adversarial DMing, then you've already lost.

>>34001830
I'm working on rewriting the list of spells for my setting using my formula.
There are variations of each spell with longer casting times making the spells take less energy to cast.
Certain disciplines have some variations, other disciplines have others.

relation to OP? homebrewing and houseruling D&D until only the setting is familiar

Speaking of magic in pf, what are some good spells to cast as a blasting sorcerer on things with improved evasion? Scorching ray comes to mind but evasion and high touch ac usually go hand in hand.

Try any or all of these:

1. Make the caster have to gather magical ingredients both in-game and OOC when first learning the spell. Gathering fairy wings in-game might be easy as a mere bit of fluff, but they'll have to either make something (tissue paper with glitter might work) or torture a beetle/cockroach/dragonfly.
2. Make the spell's power in each subsequent based on them acting out a ritual or some shit - bonus if it's during a key moment and they make it cheesy as hell.
3. Make spell choices have to fit in with their character in some way. e.g. it would make sense to learn grease if they used to work as an apprentice at a grist mill, but not as a shopkeeper in a bookstore.

Hopefully this should keep powergamers in check.

>>33987462
Too bad Dragons have always been and will always be immune to sleep effects.

>tripping a dragon

>beating a dragon's SR

>>34003380
They're also strangely immune to anything that specifically targets humanoids. It might be that the dragon was mainly used as a generic indicator of an encounter, y'know.

Also, overcoming SR is quite doable, but if you want to do shit on a dragon you might as well go cast Shivering Touch in 3.5 and watch the Dragon's dex drop to zero. Yeah, he's done.

>>34003380
>tripping a dragon
Read the pic. Is the dragon a humanoid?

>>34003226
These are all retarded because all it does is add needless bookkeeping. If someone really wants to play a caster, pat yourself on the back as they derail the campaign in order to fulfill the trite side quests required for them to function as they should and hogging more of the spotlight with mandatory stunting.

>>34003179
You know that immobilizing targets is a prerequisite to every good blasting? Not all fogs and greases let you DEX your way to safety, and many a fragile speedster has juicy low STR that can be quickly drained to zero.

Then you start saying ''...targeting...targeting...'' and making battleship noises while the DM is desperately trying to think of an asspull.

>>33979122

Give martials every feat in existence, and 1 billion skill points. They're still outclassed by a ridiculous margin.

They need non-mundane capabilities to deal with DnD spellcasters who have arbitrary spell powers.

>>34001830
Fireball does not need a nerf.

>>33971823
/tg/ thinks it's overpowered because they don't play the game at a level lower than 12 or their DMs hand out levels like fucking candy.

What gets me is everyone is bitchy about this when D&D has always been programmed this way, where the Wizard is a fucking wimpy piece of shit that as they level become godlike and they outpace the Fighter.
The fact their mad about it is some kind of fucking mentally debilitating disease that only arose out of some hipster like loathing for anything vaguely mainstream that /tg/ has developped because nerds fucking hate change.

In reality the only thing OP about magic, at an ACTUAL LOWER LEVEL is the fact that 0 level spells make some skill checks kind of pointless, because the creators of the game decided to build the casters in such a way where they would fit in a balanced game...if the Martials were not built like complete shit and their rules not thought of for more than five fucking seconds. Like the fact that Rangers aren't the only people that can Track, but honestly if anyone tries before a Ranger that person is a cunt.

In short: There is nothing wrong with Casters unless you Optimize them to specificially be akin to gods through builds like the Cancer Mage, but Martials are complete shit and impossible to do much of anything competantly UNLESS you Optimize. That isn't caster supremacy, that's Caster Mediocrity and Martials being complete ass. The only casters that can outstep Martials easily without optimizing them unnecessarily is Druid and Summoner but again, lack of thought in their creation.

>>33975227
"Hey wizard, how would you like free infinite scrolls?"

>>33979817
>high saves neutralize spells with DC
Yes, but there's enough spells without a save, or which are worth it even if the save is made. We're not talking damage or instant-death spells, necessarily, but things like a huge wall preventing you from attacking the wizard, or wind wall stopping missiles, or the wizard flying or teleporting away.
I don't know if there's any Pathfinder spells that destroy a non-magical character with good saves, but many of the wizard's spells neutralize threats on their own.

> Caster can't see you, caster can't hit you
Out-of-combat this is true for both casters and non-casters. Ambushes are deadly.
In-combat, there are some limits on stealth, and some limits on Invisibility. However, for the wizard Invisibility is just another 2nd level spell and not an investment.


I'm not saying all casters in all games are OP, but they have much better tricks than other types of characters. Depending on which tricks the player uses, and what the other characters can do, it might be very difficult to challenge the party as a whole.

>>33997897
>>Every metamagic feat further limits his spells by raising the spell level.

It's Power Attack for magic. An advantage that comes with a drawback.

>>34000861
>but never forget, anything they can do you can do better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO23WBji_Z0

You are now imagining a tsundere arcane trickster kobold doing a duel/duet with the party wizard.

>>34009589
>An advantage that comes with a drawback.
If you're paying the drawback, you're doing it wrong.

That's why we use metamagic rods.

>>34007629
>/tg/ thinks it's overpowered because they don't play the game at a level lower than 12 or their DMs hand out levels like fucking candy.
>translation: CASTER SUPREMACY IS ONLY A HIGH LEVEL THING, DUDES!
No, you fucking moron. Color Spray, Sleep will destroy encounters as 1st-level spell. Spells like Create Pit will destroy it from 2nd level spells onwards. Wizard doesn't really run out of ways to screw over encounters.

Color Spray Oracle is infamous for shitting on practically everything that can get hit with color spray (and some things that shouldn't, threnodic spell, coaxing spell, and all that) all the way into level 12 or shit.

Ok on a scale from one to ten, with one being wizard and ten being fighter, where do the other classes fall in terms of magic ability?

>>34014687
Purely in terms of number/power of spells they can cast:
1: cleric, druid, witch, wizard
2: sorcerer, oracle
4: summoner
5: alchemist, inquisitor, bard, magus
8: paladin, ranger
10: barbarian, cavalier, fighter, gunslinger, monk, ninja, rogue, samurai

>>34015185
I'd frame it more like.
1: Wizard (His spell list is that strong), Shaman (ton of versatile spell access), Arcanist
2: Cleric, Druid, Witch, Sorcerer,
3: Summoner, Oracle
4: Skald (Spell Kenning is strong.)
5: Alchemist, Inquisitor, Bard, Magus, Warpriest, Hunter, Investigator
6: Adept, Sacred Servant Paladin
7: Paladin, Witchguard Ranger, Bloodrager
8: Ranger
9: Qinggong Monk (which would be every Monk), racial SLAs
10: Barbarian, Cavalier, Fighter, Gunslinger, Ninja, Rogue, Samurai, Swashbuckler, Slayer, Brawler

>>34000309
Wait. Wait. Spell Penetration is 'min-maxing munchkin shit'? Since, fucking, when?

Spending your wealth on extra objects that you require to cast your spells. Spells that bypass SR. True sight/See Invis. All of these are 'munchkin shit.' Are you joking me?

You heard it here folks. Acid Arrow is now the strongest wizard spell. We're done here. Pack it up. There is no more optimization to be done, we've found the true method of breaking the game.

You're a moron and it sounds like anything that threatens your ideal of 'how to beat a caster' is immediately blanket-banned.

>>34017925
>Since, fucking, when?
Follow the program
>GM wants to screw over player
>Player does not get screwed over because he invested in contingencies to prevent that.
>Therefore, player is a munchkin.

Real players get screwed over when the GM wants to screw them over, anon. That's how a proper GM handles it. Always resort to adversarial GMing to prove who's on top.

>>34017767
The witch should be top. She's got quite a lot of spells per day plus her hexes that are supernatural abilities.

>>34019301
She does, but her spell list isn't that strong and her hexes are mostly Save or Lose material.

>>33984946

Wizard can Fly starting at 3rd level, your cliff scaling challenge is rendered obsolete by casters before casters even really start the gamebreaking shit.

Please be less bad at DMing. It is in fact not good DMing when you tell a character they can't do X because you haven't bothered to look at what the class does.

And thus, the problem of caster utility follows logically: The class does *everything* and a DM cannot reasonably be expected to think of *everything* which leads to a bad place where the DM is constantly trying to outwit a single player on the party, and the power curves involved cause most other classes (and all Martial classes) to fall behind in short order.

The main problem with Wizards and casters isn't their range of utility (well, it is, but that's not the ONLY thing).

What's worse is that their utility always works like this:
>Input a standard action
>Receive any benefit you want, from being able to fly, to putting every enemy on the field to sleep, to opening up a black hole in someone's ballsack.

See, because in a single round of combat, a character relying on martial powers can do a few things: Move towards the enemy, swing their weapon a few times, or try a combat maneuver.

In a single round of combat, a Wizard can call a storm of meteors, send enemies to other planes of existence, turn everyone invisible, polymorph the giant into an ant, or summon a herd of Dire tigers.

THAT is the major problem.

>Wizards will never have xp loss on cast again
>Wizards will never burn part of their soul to huck a fireball at some kobold

>>33981522
>How the fuck are you building your encounters so that antimagic fields fuck the entire party over?

Counter question, how are you building an encounter so it fucks over the caster, and only the caster, in a way he can't negate it just by walking out of it?

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I open this thread, started reading the arguments... Then I realized I don't care and skipped the rest. This is already a solved debate. I don't need to waste my time in PF threads ever again. I feel enlightened... Freed even!

>>33995336
Of make the Spell Sunder ability of barbarians something everyone can do.

>>34022181
That guy in the pic is wrong you know. Levels exist to provide progression, not power equivalency. Before 3E, Wizards needed more exp to level so in any given campaign after a while the fighter just outlevels the Wizard.

>>34022423
That wouldn't fix spellcasting either. There are a lot of spells that it doesn't work against, you know.

>>34022802
>There are a lot of spells that it doesn't work against, you know.
Pathfinder noob here. What spells are these?

>>33971823
I think most of the problems come from the assumption that a mage will have every spell available at all times. You can control much of the game by simply making sure that is not the case.

Another problem that TG tends to see is that mages can be better at nearly any 'job' that a non-spell caster has. So a mage can (if he has the right spells) be a better fighter than a fighter, a better thief than a thief, etc.

But a lot of that is fixed by not allowing mages to recover spells whenever they want. Sure, a mage can be a better fighter than a fighter, but he can only do that one time and he does it at the expense of being able to do anything else.

If mages have to actually plan out their spell list from a limited allocation this becomes a non-issue.

There are some spells though that can simply break an encounter if the mage has them. Movement spells are some obvious ones that can break entire scenarios rendering your encounters null.

Just watch the spells your mages get and you should be fine.

>>34022802
And in those systems a wizard and a fighter of the same xp amount will be at about the same tier.

>>33971823
Martials were built to do mundane things. Casters were built to do extraordinary things. It makes sense from a setting point of view that magic trumps anything physical but it upsets game balance.

To fix: let your martials do extraordinary things.
Protip: fixing what the players don't see as a problem tends to complicate things. They're gonna play the game they want to play, be it the fixed version or the base version.

>>34023043

This is why spontaneous casting of a small selection of spells known is a much healthier game option than prepared casting, but Vancian magic appears to be one of those sacred cows. I feel like while a full caster can be very POWERFUL off of a sorcerer's magic capabilities, they aren't able to make that power manifest in a dozen different ways unless the GM takes up antagonistic GMing as a hobby.

I don't like solutions where a player needs to be punished for competently making use of their class to make the party seem on more even footing than they are normally.

>>34023452
>To fix: let your martials do extraordinary things.

So basically

>To fix: Do what 4e did

>>34022883
Basically anything with a permanent or instantaneous duration.

>>34003380
Could the dragon stand in for monsters in general?

No, then you'd be an idiot.

>PHB only
>Low level
>final destination

casters are fine

>>34025166

>the game is fine if you ignore most of it

>>34025540
Yes.

High-power campaigns in ANY system are shitty.

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>dorn
tactics of his chapter were pretty queer. so much bolter fire and siege shenanigans. But the guy had a pretty calm head (until he saw his dad and brother murdered) then he goes berserk and tries his damnedest to hunt down the traitor legions. Woulda fought the smurfs, centaurs and that shadowy raven fuck about it too, had he not calmed his raw family issues down enough to realize that another civil war wasn't gonna solve shit. Reasonable as fuck. Plus Auric Armour Gold looks sick.

>>34025166
>>PHB only
>>Low level
>>final destination
>casters are fine
Sleep. Color Spray. Pretty sure they just shat all over most your encounters. You were saying?

>>34026024
>2 of those and they're done
>5 encounters in a dungeon

boom

also
>players that don't like invalidating entire encounters with cheesy spells

boom

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>>33974881
>I always found the memorization part of spells "weird" and didn't quite make logical sense to me.

My group has a sort of house ruled lore for this. The "memorization" is similar to scroll work. Creating a scroll, you scribe down the symbols and arrays for the casting of the spell, then imbue them with you magic. As long as the symbols remain intact the stored magic remains. Memorization is a world harder. The medium for storing the power are symbols kept in the mind's eye, infused with power just like a scroll. If the caster's image of the spell flickers for even a moment, the stored power is lost. This is why casters can contain so few spells at lower levels.

>>33971823
Just block all full casters, everything is still doable with a mix of partial and no casters.

>>34026066
>2 of those and they're done
For a level 1 caster:
3, assuming it's a wizard who is not specialized and doesn't have arcane bond.
5, if it's a sorcerer without an arcane bond.

>also
>>players that don't like invalidating entire encounters with cheesy spells
>boom
It's a bad system where you need players to underperform in order to maintain some sort of balance.

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>>34026066
I'm personally fond of playing my wizard as a support, but I always keep a few cheese spells prepared in the event shit hits the fan on my lesser nonmagical bretheren.
Spend a whole session of combat just casting webs, pits, grease, fog, shields.
Then like clockwork the big bad hits the paladin with a lucky crit, the rogue finally fails of few reflex saves, the cleric decides they can make a 10 foot horizontal jump in full plate.
Time to pull out dimensional steps, black tentacles, summon monster 5 and if I'm feeling kinky cloudkill

>>34026180
It's not "underperforming" it's seeing a power that invalidates entire encounters and thinking "well that's not very interesting, why would I take that?"

>>34026274
That's what we call underperforming. Sure, the power is bullshit, but it's still the system's fault for presenting something that stupid so cheaply.

I'd rather a system where players felt free to actually push their limits and try whatever without worrying about destroying the game for everyone.

>>34026347

If you choose your powers based on what's good, rather than what fits your character and makes things more interesting, then you're a shit player, regardless of the system.

>>34026347
To be fair, you can have encounters that push both the limits of casters and physical combatants. It's a complex solution called shittons of enemies. Full casters have the limited casts, make them use them all or make them believe they need to conserve their spells. This lets martial classes have their time in the spotlight.

>>34026373

If you make a mechanically useless character in the name of roleplaying something interesting while your compatriots make fully functional characters that WORK, you are being a liability to your party and a headache for your GM.

RP takes priority until it fucks with the group's effectiveness. You can make plenty of interesting character-fitting concepts without expecting the party to pick up the slack if you gimped yourself on purpose for flavor.

>>34026433
Mechanically useless =/= not mechanically optimized.
You can have a caster work on even power with the rest of the group and still be highly effective.

>>34026433
Even a full party of fucking commoners with 8 strength and daggers will be able to beat most low level encounters. It's not hard to make a mechanically good-enough character.

>>34026486
I can confirm this, my party runs level one modules with exclusively commoners.

>>34026467

You're not exactly being Munchkin McNofun if you think your trickster wizard learning spells to throw colorful lights in your opponent's eyes and grease things up sounds more fun and interesting than shooting magic bullets at them and dealing out electric touches, but one of those selections is going to make the goblins and zombies you encounter early on wish they'd never been born and the other is not. You don't need to be mechanically optimized to stumble over options casting classes have that will effect the flow of combat in ways Fighty McGee never will.

>>34026373
>Implying that optimizing a character must mean you're going to be shit roleplayer.
Roleplaying v. Optimization False Dichotomy all over again.

You can roleplay *and* optimize, dumbass.

>>34026794
>You can roleplay *and* optimize, dumbass.
Cut him some slack. He's from pathfinder where many roleplaying decisions simultaneously gimp the shit out of your character. He's just superimposing his limited experience as the natural state of all roleplaying, instead of recognizing something might be wrong with pathfinder.

>>34026794
I dunno, if every encounter from 7-12 is. "I cast black tentacles and every enemy I can see is dead forever" It becomes hard to not just turn into a gimmick character.

>>34026794
Optimizing characters is necessarily bad. A good roleplayer has a target strength for their character. You should be wanting to play anywhere from a tired old soldier who's losing his edge to an apex warrior who's unmatched in combat. Your character's concept, backstory, etc (which should always be designed first) will inevitibly imply some power level, and it will rarely be "AS STRONG AS POSSIBLE."

A roleplayer carefully crafts his character to a specific strength level. An optimizer tries to make his character as strong as he can. The two are mutually exclusive.

>>34026613
In the situation you described the wizard is performing a job different from the fighters, the fighters feel necessary since they're still needed to actually defeat the goblins, and nobody is really upstaged. Sounds good to me.

>>34026865
If your idea of roleplaying is killing shit in combat, you're a bad roleplayer.

>>34026890
>You should be wanting to play anywhere from a tired old soldier who's losing his edge to an apex warrior who's unmatched in combat.
Both these fuckers have frighteningly little personality from your description. Still...
>to an apex warrior who's unmatched in combat.
>an apex warrior
I rarely have *that* as my theme. But all the same, next you say:

>it will rarely be "AS STRONG AS POSSIBLE."
>optimizing is mutually exclusive with roleplaying.
See, even I don't have "AN APEX WARRIOR" as my roleplaying goal, but if that's your idea of a roleplaying option and somehow optimizing this character means you can't roleplay him in your eyes, then you might be retarded.

>>34026905
If you think the manner your character engages in combat has no roleplaying to it, you're a bad roleplayer. You really can't have it not effect the entirety of the campaign roleplay dynamic if you're the only one doing any of the combat.

>>34026985
I was describing only a single aspect of a character: his power level, as I was illustrating a point re: power level. The two examples are extremes of the spectrum.

>>34026890
>In the situation you described the wizard is performing a job different from the fighters, the fighters feel necessary since they're still needed to actually defeat the goblins, and nobody is really upstaged. Sounds good to me.
Are you stupid? The Wizard who greases things up and throws colorful lights in his opponent's eyes ends fights almost immediately. The fighter just ends up being the mop-up squad rather than really mattering. The Wizard who shoots magic bullets and deals out electric touches is making *less* progress on ending the fight than another fighter.

>>34027017
I don't know about you, but combat makes up about 10% of my D&D time.

>>34027063
>I was describing only a single aspect of a character: his power level, as I was illustrating a point re: power level.
Right, and you forgot the roleplaying in your roleplaying argument. Happens all the time, I'm sure.

>>34027083
>Color spray
If a single color spray hits all of the monsters in a combat it's an extremely poorly designed encounter

>Grease
Greased monsters aren't done fighting. It's not even a big AOE. They can leave your grease in a single move action. Even if they trip, they're still fighting, just with lower AC.

>>34027017
>If you think the manner your character engages in combat has no roleplaying to it, you're a bad roleplayer.
Oh it has *SOME* roleplaying to it but that is not what defines your character unless you want to be one of THOSE guys.

>>34027112
>what are specifics

I was talking about a single, specific aspect of roleplaying, and so everything in my post is relevent to that single, specific aspect.

Your character's background will imply that they are a certain level of optimized, from very optimized to not at all optimized. A good roleplayer will carefully tune his character's strength, whereas an optimizer will always try to maximize it.

This is not difficult to understand.

>>34001194
Tell your wife she's an autistic who can't enjoy a joke.

>>34027129
And lower to-hit.
To the point where, early game, they're guarenteed misses, pretty much. Neutered to oblivion, Save or Suck, or provoke the AoOs and die.

The fighter is there to play whack-a-mole with the game the wizard set up for him, like a child enjoying their time with a particularly bat-poop-smelling carny.

>>34003059
umm.. so the Dm isnt supposed to be an adversary of they party?

all that "anything they can do you can do better" means is that there are more options to dealing with them when ur a DM they they get as players.
obviously, the unwritten part here is to not be unfair, but ive said that already above

>>34027195
until they leave your 20 foot square, which isn't even very hard.

>>34004547
if ur DM hasnt already thought of this before the encounter and doesnt read ur sheets for eha u can do, then ur have a shit DM

>>34027157
None of this invalidates the point that optimized characters can be roleplayed effectively.

>>34027326
They can be.
But they aren't.

>>34027223
>umm.. so the Dm isnt supposed to be an adversary of they party?
Not really, no.

The DM prepares the gameworld, but he doesn't go out of his way to attack the party. DM is god: that's not a good matchup. You're just cheating at that stage.

>>34013704
lol so u are saying color spray is OP?

As a DM, things like color sprayh, sleep and create pit simply make things more interesting

also, again, Y are u letting them rest before every fight and go into every encounter with a full spell list? oh u color sprayed them? ok cool, good thing these guys fight in waves *4 more pop out in an ambush*

sleep and create pit, space bad guys out so they cant all be slept at once. create pit? reflex saves are good on most monsters like wolves

all it seems to me is ur gettign all butthurt when players play smart. be a beter DM n players wont walk all over you

(I had a guy who cast create pit on everything he saw, so i started making him fight stuff with climb speeds, and while waist high in running water "oh u pitted him? to bad the water coushined his fall reducing the damage, and now he is floating back up to the surface, enjoy wasting ur spells)

you make me laugh anon

>>34027380
Is English your second language or are you just retarded?

>>34027349
...

Either way, the problem isn't how the character is optimized. The problem would be how the character is roleplayed, which is a separate issue.

There is no intrinsicness to the roleplaying quality of an optimized character. Ergo, your claim that optimizing and roleplaying are exclusive is bullshit. And by extension dragging roleplaying complaints into a mechanical discussion is also irrelevant and stupid.

>>34021070
-.- the point of the cliff challenge is for the wizard to use up a bunch of his spels making the party fly. now he goes into the encounter down a spell per party member. throw a couple more of these challenges thgether, now the wizard is going into batle with only 5 spells if done right.

use nickle and diming to control his spell list you fool, and stop letting the wizard get 8 hhours of rest between each combat

also >In a single round of combat, a Wizard can call a storm of meteors, send enemies to other planes of existence, turn everyone invisible, polymorph the giant into an ant, or summon a herd of Dire tigers.
ya, and a DM can make another wizard the encounter...

anything they can do you can do better

>>34027422
Optimizing and roleplaying aren't exclusive.
Optimizers and roleplayers are.

>>34027435
I'm sure you have some hard sources for why some who optimizes is physically incapable of roleplaying, Anon.

>>34026865
if this is the case then ur a shit DM, dont blame the play that has got ur shit stratagys figured out

>>34023892
Precisely. Let that martial throw out debuffs with special attacks, maximize damage with a -6 to hit, and so on.

>>34001194
Ooh! Ooh! Who IS it an image of? Did she say?

>>34027353
>encounters
>not supposed to go out of his way to attack the party

so im just supposed to draw a map and let them do whatever they want with no consiquences at all
"oh u killed the king of the nation i made with a fireball, oh well here is a magic staff"

3/10 fr making me respond

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>>34027410
>cant attack the arguement
>instead attacks spelling and grammer in an online forum

>>34027380
>lol so u are saying color spray is OP?
Correct.

>also, again, Y are u letting them rest before every fight and go into every encounter with a full spell list? oh u color sprayed them? ok cool, good thing these guys fight in waves *4 more pop out in an ambush*
Believe it or not, no party wants to keep fighting after their spellcasters are out of spells. They call it a day, pitch a tent, and gtfo. Forcing the party to fight without their wizard is just going to make the party want to go back early so that their wizard still has spells available for the inevitable fight on the way back.

>sleep and create pit, space bad guys out so they cant all be slept at once.
If you can, sure, but he's still removing a lot of threats from the fight immediately.

>create pit? reflex saves are good on most monsters like wolves
That's great. Are these wolves going to jump over the pit or stay on the other side? A good pit can be a lot like a wall in the way it splits up a fight.

>making him fight stuff with climb speeds
That's a racial +8 to climb checks, and it can take 10 and climb out faster. He still has to make the DC (25 for create pit, 30 for acid pit, 35 for hungry pit.

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>>34027596
>>not supposed to go out of his way to attack the party
>so im just supposed to draw a map and let them do whatever they want with no consiquences at all
That's an amazing leap of logic. We call this logical fallacy "The Fallacy of the Excluded Middle." (The image would file it under Black-and-White.)

Anyway, if you can't tell the difference between letting the gameworld react and being an adversarial GM, you're just a bad GM.

>>34027596

It is generally speaking considered that a good GM is acting as a referee in a series of trials they have set up to challenge the party.

It is the sign of a bad GM when they start specifically picking on players and abusing their infinite power to dick with people because they can't design encounters that truly challenge them so they have to throw bullshit like monsters knowing to go for that small pouch the wizard's got squirreled away somewhere or creating an endless series of contrived moral dilemmas in hopes he can steal the Paladin's powers away.

You're making a world for your PCs to find their way through, not setting out to crush them to prove your superiority. You're GOD. The PCs succeed at your mercy, but you're being a dick if you keep going out of your way to make sure that's the ONLY reason they ever succeed.

>>34027616
>grammer

>>34027634
>Believe it or not, no party wants to keep fighting after their spellcasters are out of spells. They call it a day, pitch a tent, and gtfo. Forcing the party to fight without their wizard is just going to make the party want to go back early so that their wizard still has spells available for the inevitable fight on the way back.
sometimes they dont have a choice.
please read >>33979444

the rest of the stuff, that is just basic combat control. stuff 99% of parties do and if you think that is OP then u are a bad DM. these are not OP things, these are smart things and I dont punish players for smart decision. but how do you deal with it? u nickle and dime them and force them to be smarter. creaures who are even moderately intelligent usesoftening up tactics.
bandits shouldnt just jump out of the trees swinging swords, they would watch and track their enemy. send some dogs after them, set some traps, send a small skirmisher group to test defenses.
if the wizard starts throwing spells at all this stuff then he is gonna run out of spells real fast

this make him have to act smarter and conserve spells

there are so many ways to deal with these things, but to just throw up your arms and cry out "this shit is OP" without even thinking about it makes you sound like a child
please do more reading and less whining

>>34027703
>>34027709
yes, i used a logical fallacy because you also used one. accommodating for a wizard in the campaign is not picking on them.
also, in regard to letting the game world react... if there is a guy with a staff wearing a point hat who looks obviously like a wizard and he is throwing fireballs, would the baddies not try n get him first? that not picking on people, that is allowing the game world to react.

The only real opint im trying to make is that Wizards are not OP when the Dm plans accordingly. If you allow a wizard to walk all over your game, you deserve what happens. but thats not OP, thats smart players,

>>34027762
The funny thing is that playing monsters intelligently completely destroys classes like the Fighter.

>>34027703
>>34027709
How does "Anything they can do you can do better" turn into "you are intentionally picking on the players"

I just dont think wizards are OP. powerful, yes. but they should be, they are wielding the power of gods. that being said, you should plan accordingly as a DM.

>>34027866
oh no! god forbid the party should have to use things like teamwork and interdependence rather than be able to solo each encounter

>>34027889
God forbid that one class isn't fucking useless thanks to the DM being a shit and exploiting their complete incompetence out of a fight.

>>34027889
Have you ever DM'd? Have you even even played D&D beyond 10th level?

>>34027889
Yes, because "spend all your time keeping the fighter alive because he's literally the most vulnerable member of the team despite being the only one capable of wearing full plate" is a wonderful exercise in teamwork.

Players tend to have fun when they don't feel useless. Either the fighter will feel useless because they are or the wizard/cleric/druid will feel useless because you're forcing them to hold back in order to let the fighter feel useful. If a player has to intentionally hold themselves back in order to help keep a game balanced, it's a shit game. That's not on the players or DM, it's on the game designers for not properly doing the job they were paid money to do.

>>34027917
care to give an example of how making monster fight remotely intelligently renders a fighter completely useless? or would you just like to whine like a munchkin some more?

>>34027889
Well both of those are fairly alien concepts in D&D.

>>34027992
>Fighters have zero chance of being able to deal with ambushes because of no Wisdom and no Perception bonuses anywhere
>anything but an archer Fighter is useless in attempts to ambush enemies
>have ZERO survival skills and limited skills period, so they're not even good at everything you'd expect a professional soldier to be
>no interaction skills worth a shit

>>34027954
so let me get this straight, my example of having an encounter of bandits turn into 3 encounters by having a skirmishing party and a wave of attack dogs renders both the spellcasters and the fighter in the group 100% completely useless?

>That's not on the players or DM, it's on the game designers for not properly doing the job they were paid money to do.
if the rules are soo terrible, gi get opaid to write your own, or fuck play another game. take some responsibility like an adult.

>>34027992
Because a dude with a handful of feats waving a sword around is really fucking easy to deal with.

>>34028034
>renders both the spellcasters and the fighter in the group 100% completely useless?
No. It doesn't do shit to spellcasters and a class like the Druid would make any attempt to do this backfire on you.

It shits on the Fighter, who does not have the skills to deal with it.

>>34028034
If your example encounter is good enough to render the spellcasters useless, it's sure as hell good enough to render the fighter 100% useless unless it's something that specifically targets magic and magic only, and even then it just leaves the fighter open to be wailed on. The problems are inherent in the mechanics of the game and it takes a stupidly large amount of effort by the DM to make an encounter that's actually balanced without changing the mechanics of the game.

>or fuck play another game
Most of us do because we realize the system is fucking shit and you're retarded for defending it. For those of us still stuck DMing the shit system, the fixes are mechanical, like restricting the number of spells known for casters and giving martial classes extra abilities. It's not something that can just be handwaved with "make a good encounter"

>>34028031
how to be a bad fighter 101. not the DMs fault u built a char who does nothing but "me hit it with sharp-sharp"

also, this is why you rely an party members.. there is more than just one player in a party. if you party doesnt have its nessesary niches filled, ur gonna have a bad time.

fuck me its it only munchkin players on this damned board anymore...

>>34028019
thats the players fault, not the rules and not the DM. I force my players to work together, use eachother skill to balance eachother out and make up for eachothers faults.\
and you know what is crazy? they enjoy it, imagine that?

>>34028107
>how to be a bad fighter 101.
How to be any Fighter 101 because the class has 2+INT skill points and cannot afford INT or else they start sucking in combat because of the lack of their physical scores or because their Will save just took a hit.

>>34028107
>how to be a bad fighter 101. not the DMs fault u built a char who does nothing but "me hit it with sharp-sharp"
That is literally every fighter ever mechanically. Anything else is either a martial class that isn't a fighter or multi-classed. Go ahead and give one example of a fighter that does more than "me hit it with sharp-sharp"

>>34028036
again, examples? or are you just gonna keep whineing like a munchkin?

>>34028056
so why is the spellcasters not buffing the fighters? Teamwork, it works.

>>34028095
how does my example render a spellcaster useless? ifn he uses his spells poorly he is gonna have none. does he not have a backup for when he runs out of spells?

> we realize the system is fucking shit and you're retarded for defending it.
all I have ever said was spellcasters arent OP if the Dm knows what he is doing. but thanks for putting words in my mouth

>>34028171
>so why is the spellcasters not buffing the fighters?
Buffing the Fighter does not remove their out-of-combat shittiness.

>>34028135
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/variant-rules-3rd-party/adamant-entertainment/Drawbacks
oh whats this, a rule that allows fighter to gain more skills?

>>34028152
so if the player doesnt have a backup plan when hitting it with a sword doesnt work, that is the DMs fault?

>>34028221
ummm actually it can..... there are spells for damn near anything

and being that were were specifically talking about combat, ur point is dumb on 2 levels

>>34028268
>3rd party

>>34028268
>so if the player doesnt have a backup plan when hitting it with a sword doesnt work, that is the DMs fault?
If the DM was enough of a cunt to make hitting it with a sword a bad idea when that is all the class can do because the game forces you to hyperspecialize or suck as a Fighter, yes, it is the DM's fault.

>>34028286
>there are spells for damn near anything
You can give them +2 to skill checks, eventually +4, and a small enhancement boost to a mental stat of your choosing!

Which is totally going to make up for the Fighter having no skill points.

>>34028295
oh no 3rd party! cuz were were specifically talking about RAW here. lol

doesnt change the fact that I have provided a prefectly sound way for a fighter to gain more skill pits via a published rule and you havent shown dick

>>34028307
hehehe ur opinion is so uninformed it is hilarious. please go and read some more then come back

>>34028171
>how does my example render a spellcaster useless?
Not talking about your example specifically, just saying that IF an encounter of capable of rendering a caster useless, the fighter is absolutely fucked no matter what happens.

>again, examples? or are you just gonna keep whineing like a munchkin?
Any form of trap will fuck over a fighter because he doesn't have trapfinding and his Int will likely be mediocre at best. Grappling a fighter renders him useless as long as the enemy grappling him has a higher strength. Tripping a fighter leaves it vulnerable to being wailed on. Disarming or sundering the fighter's weapons leaves it useless since it's now reduced to a 1d3 non-lethal unarmed strike.

Enemy spellcasters can fuck over a fighter via spells that target its Will save, or Reflex save if it's wearing heavy armor. Just for a 1st level wizard, that means Cause Fear, Charm Person, Hypnotism and Sleep (Will) or Grease (Reflex). Being dependent on armor for defense also makes it vulnerable to ranged touch attacks, such as Ray of Enfeeblement. And that's just a level 1 wizard using core spells only.

The fighter has the fewest options available to it and is therefore the easiest to deal with if your enemies have brains.

>>34028397
>I have never played a Fighter, ever