Fact: Pathfinder has solved the Caster/Non-Caster Disparity of 3.5

[Talore]

Incorrect.

I said that in response to someone who said that paizo hated fun.

I am saying that pathfinder IMO is much more balanced that people think.

Yeah that person was me. You sure could've fooled me with your subsequent arguments, though.

Those who worship the Tier System as a means to condemn 3E cannot accept Pathfinder because it doesn't change the 3E paradigm. The changes they want require a complete overhaul of the system. That has now been done, twice. Many are happy playing 4E. Many other are happy playing 5E.

There are 3E fans who never liked Pathfinder because 3E was never a problem for them and don't care for the changes Pathfinder made, especially in feats. Those who like Pathfinder who came from 3E never hated 3E to see it go bye-bye when 4E came around. They see in Pathfinder an improvement of what 3E provided. Increasing the diversity and utility of the warrior-type is one of those things, and they don't give a Hoover they don't have something akin to Gate or Teleport. They didn't give a Hoover when it was just 3E.

Those are quite the assumptions, there. What on Earth do you mean by "worship" of the tier system?

I accept that the tier system has merit and is a good way to analyze the design of 3.X without hating 3.5 or PF. I came from 3.5 (fairly recently) because I recognized that PF was an improvement over 3.5, but that does not mean that I don't have problems with the system or that I'm blind to its flaws. I do care about the imbalances but because PF does some things that other games don't and that there are lots of games/players for PF, I still play it along with many other systems.

I'll also note that the wealth of quality 3pp material from publishers like Dreamscarred Press and Drop Dead Studios plays a large factor into the enjoyment of PF for many people, especially due to the changes they provide for some of Pathfinder's fundamental flaws.

[Jack_Simth]

Like this:
You have Spell Perfection for Channel the Gift, and ideally a metamagic reducer for it too.
You cast Quickened Echoing Channel the Gift. This gives you a free casting of Channel the Gift, to be used whenever you want during the day.
Then, during your next round, you can cast Quickened Echoing Channel the Gift again. Due to the spell effect, this does not expend a spell slot - however, this is only possible on account of Spell Perfection, since it allows you to apply metamagic without raising the level, and it's only possible to quicken due to the metamagic reducer. This is not "reprepare or recast" a spell, it's just casting a spell without expending it. This also gives you another echo of Channel the Gift, to be used any time during the day.
Then during your next round, you can cast another Quickened Echoing Channel the Gift, getting another echo of it to be used any time during the day.
Then, during the next round....you can do this ad infinitum, only taking six seconds per casting, so you can do it 600 times in an hour.

As a result, you have a huge supply of Quickened Echoing Channel the Gifts - which you can swift-action cast, then follow it up with any third-level spell you want during the same or next round.

Given that this NEEDS spell perfection to work (otherwise you can't chain like this due to level restrictions on Channel the Gift), it's a high-level tactic.
But I don't really see anything that breaks it. FAQ states that you always treat metamagiced spells as the least favorable level for you, but with Spell Perfection you don't increase the level at all. And while Echoing spells prohibits recasting the spell, that's not what you're doing - you're casting a spell without expending it, which is different. Of course, that point can be argued a lot.

Still, this is a potentially potent high-level tactic for prepared casters - certainly for casters who use a lot of low-level spells (Bards, Rangers, Magus all have access to it).

So let's see if I have this straight...
1) You prepare two copies of Channel the Gift.
2) You cast the first Channel the Gift on yourself, and add Echoing via Spell Perfection, so you can recast it later.
3) You cast the second Channel the Gift on yourself, burning the first so it never gets expended, and add Echoing via Spell Perfection so that you can cast it later again.
4) Repeat 3 until bored.
5) Later on, when you use an echo'd copy of Channel the Gift, you use Spell Perfection on the Echo to Quicken it.

- OK, that maybe works (depends on interpretation, though - another is that Echo Spell simply means the original isn't expended the first time... and as you were feeding via Channel the Gift, it simply wouldn't have been expended in the first place - the two benefits overlap, and there's no net effect), and you never actually 'use up' the second Channel the Gift, so if you run low on echos you can restart it. Still, you're 15th level (requirements for Spell Perfection), and it only helps with your 3rd level and lower spells, and it eats your swift action that round. So it's not useful in combat unless you're facing lots of mooks; good for non-combat utility (Unlimited Cure Serious Wounds for the party, Fly everyone across the chasm, Silent Invisibility, that sort of thing) and low-level buffs (keep Shield up all day), but it'll be rare that you'll actually use it when action costs matter (battle).

[stanprollyright]

I could very easily imagine a game where people have daily spell slots, but those slots must be used on spell lists that are tightly themed.

That would be nice.

The first ten levels were balanced in 3.5, more or less.

Eh. Level 1 is all about Druids and Barbarians, and by level 10 the tiers are pretty much in effect.

Paladin and Ranger are irrelevant in high level play.

Compared to a Cleric and a Druid, sure. Not compared to a Fighter.

Rogues are good because of Sneak Attack and Trapfinding which they could handle with half the skill points. Skills aren't good enough for being at-will to matter

Sneak Attack is an awful ability that is never as cool in-game as it is in your head, and trapfinding is just arbitrary niche-protection. Rogue has the most skill points of any class; that's why it's called a skill monkey. Technically its most powerful feature is that it has UMD as a class skill and the ranks to use it. A Rogue's combat abilities leave something to be desired, but at low levels you're the God of Noncombat Scenarios until a Bard shows up. Even into mid levels the Wizard doesn't have enough slots to cast Knock every time you come across a locked door, and you can just as easily bypass encounters with Stealth or Diplomacy as you could with a spell, at any level.

and in any case the Wizard has as many base skill points as the Fighter with a higher Intelligence score.

True. But like I said before, it doesn't much matter to the Wizard whether he has ranks in Stealth or not when he casts Invisibility. The Fighter? That's a whole extra thing he can do.

[Calthropstu]

There are spells at level 5 that can turn noncasters obsolete (lesser planar binding for one). The reason you experience the disparity at level 15 and not level 9 is because the casters are intentionally not playing to their fullest potential, for fun.

I haven't really optimized pathfinder so there might be ways that I'm unaware of that makes noncasters obsolete sooner.

Lesser binding doesn't really do it. The long term costs become prohibitively expensive, and if your gm plays it smart, you run into "you are messing with the cosmos, prepare to be pimpslapped by a planetar" or some such (generally more than enough to handle a 9th level wizard.) Planar binding is not an infinitely abusable spell, there are consequences.

Those trying to infinitely abuse greater planar binding will genarally be facing a Solar at some point. So planar binding and gate is not a game breaker unless the gm allows it to be. Even the spell itself states this.

Other supposed game breakers are generally gm blunders as well. I have seen a lot of severely questionable interpretations from this site that no gm I have ever played with would accept. Yes, there are many spells that greatly alter the dynamic of the game, but it is not until very high levels (eg, 8th level spells) that a spell caster can really solo just about anything. And even then, the martials are not irrelevant with even a reasonable build.

Even the supposedly gam breaking pathfinder summoner builds have glaring weaknesses. I played in a Mythic game with a summoner oracle, and there were many times where my oracle was completely useless at high levels because the ac's were just out of my summons' league, and the sr was too high. Meanwhile, our fighter/dervish and our magus simply outshone my character against such creatures. However, when we faced hordes of monsters, my character was in a class all his own.

Sure, in a 1v1, the character ran a 90%+ chance of mopping the floor with the other characters in the party (mythic initiative, auto 20 on init roll, speedy summons, improved summons) except one who had a higher init and had a 20% of going first and outright slaughtering me before I went (the fighter dervish) but those situations where I was useless made the whole party schematic we had going WORK. No one was overpowered, no one was underpowered. We even had 2 wizards in our party and not once did anyone feel irrelevant or did anyone outshine the rest.

So the people complaining either 1: just really don't know how to role play, 2: have terrible gm's who make bad calls or 3: don't know how to make characters stay relevant or 4: play with severe rules lawyers who TRY to break the game.

In all cases, I have to say it's a pretty bad call to say pathfinder is the cause. Pathfinder, in my experience, tends to work quickly to faq out any horrendous exploits people find.

[Talore]

Lesser binding doesn't really do it. The long term costs become prohibitively expensive, and if your gm plays it smart, you run into "you are messing with the cosmos, prepare to be pimpslapped by a planetar" or some such (generally more than enough to handle a 9th level wizard.) Planar binding is not an infinitely abusable spell, there are consequences.

Those trying to infinitely abuse greater planar binding will genarally be facing a Solar at some point. So planar binding and gate is not a game breaker unless the gm allows it to be. Even the spell itself states this.

Other supposed game breakers are generally gm blunders as well. I have seen a lot of severely questionable interpretations from this site that no gm I have ever played with would accept. Yes, there are many spells that greatly alter the dynamic of the game, but it is not until very high levels (eg, 8th level spells) that a spell caster can really solo just about anything. And even then, the martials are not irrelevant with even a reasonable build.

Even the supposedly gam breaking pathfinder summoner builds have glaring weaknesses. I played in a Mythic game with a summoner oracle, and there were many times where my oracle was completely useless at high levels because the ac's were just out of my summons' league, and the sr was too high. Meanwhile, our fighter/dervish and our magus simply outshone my character against such creatures. However, when we faced hordes of monsters, my character was in a class all his own.

Sure, in a 1v1, the character ran a 90%+ chance of mopping the floor with the other characters in the party (mythic initiative, auto 20 on init roll, speedy summons, improved summons) except one who had a higher init and had a 20% of going first and outright slaughtering me before I went (the fighter dervish) but those situations where I was useless made the whole party schematic we had going WORK. No one was overpowered, no one was underpowered. We even had 2 wizards in our party and not once did anyone feel irrelevant or did anyone outshine the rest.

So the people complaining either 1: just really don't know how to role play, 2: have terrible gm's who make bad calls or 3: don't know how to make characters stay relevant or 4: play with severe rules lawyers who TRY to break the game.

In all cases, I have to say it's a pretty bad call to say pathfinder is the cause. Pathfinder, in my experience, tends to work quickly to faq out any horrendous exploits people find.

So, tick "Rule 0", "It's never been a problem at our table", and Stormwind Fallacy off of the bingo card. You were doing okay until you drew those ridiculously simplistic conclusions. You can't blame everything on the GM and players when other games don't have these problems.

[Calthropstu]

So, tick "Rule 0", "It hasn't happened in my games", and Stormwind Fallacy off of the bingo card. You were doing okay until you drew those ridiculously simplistic conclusions. You can't blame everything on the GM and players when other games don't have these problems.

Every system I have ever played had problems. In fact, the more realistic any system tries to be, the less fun it seems to become. Shadowrun has problems, 5e has problems, 4e has problems, exalted has problems, gurps has problems...

But this is a 3.x/pathfinder (by extension) forum. And most times I have seen people complain about stuff here generally only exist because of what I stated at least pathfinder wise. Pathfinder did a really good job at limiting pure cheese. There aren't any raw infinite combo exploits I have seen, and anything that DOES go off, generally get's a Paizo "no."

Pathfinder is a fairly solid system, probably one of the best I've played. And much of the exploits from 3.5 have been completely nullified.

[Talore]

Every system I have ever played had problems. In fact, the more realistic any system tries to be, the less fun it seems to become. Shadowrun has problems, 5e has problems, 4e has problems, exalted has problems, gurps has problems...

But this is a 3.x/pathfinder (by extension) forum. And most times I have seen people complain about stuff here generally only exist because of what I stated at least pathfinder wise. Pathfinder did a really good job at limiting pure cheese. There aren't any raw infinite combo exploits I have seen, and anything that DOES go off, generally get's a Paizo "no."

Pathfinder is a fairly solid system, probably one of the best I've played. And much of the exploits from 3.5 have been completely nullified.

Yes every system has its own problems, but 3.X seems to be the only group with these specific caster/non-caster disparity issues - the topic of the thread. It really doesn't matter that loopholes were closed when the main problems are systematic. The fact still remains that spellcasters have disproportionate influence over the game. Players and GMs can of course work to mitigate those issues, but that also does not mean that those fundamental flaws stop existing.

[Cosi]

The problem with Ice Assassin is that WotC forgot what a bunch of powergamers they were writing for. If the spell just said 'This creates an exact duplicate of someone, who has an overwhelming compulsion to kill the original', I'm pretty sure it would've been OK. It's the 'caster has total control over it' part that let some creative soul turn it into Simulacrum+++.

I don't think making a clone of a CR 17+ monster that is (kind of) on your side is terribly balanced either.

This thread is focused on whether Pathfinder did or did not fix caster / non-caster disparity. Pathfinder does not include beguilers, warmages, or dread necromancers,

It does actually, because it's (supposed to be) backwards compatible with all those things.

The GM isn't vetoing anything. There's a section of the book that says "Hey, here are all the massive narrative changing powers. If it's appropriate for players to have these in your world, you have all the rules to use them. If they're not, flip to the next chapter".

I don't understand how that's anything other than a veto in your mind.

I believe that many powers simply aren't appropriate as spells that click right into a spell slot. Wish and wail of the banshee simply aren't even in the same wheelhouse. Spells that drastically alter large areas of the world shouldn't be something a character just stitches together whole cloth when they level up, they should be gated narrative components that exist separately from slot-based daily use magic.

Why not? If "control plate tectonics" is a level appropriate ability for a 15th level character, why should a 15th level character go through any additional hoops to get it?

Those who worship the Tier System as a means to condemn 3E cannot accept Pathfinder because it doesn't change the 3E paradigm. The changes they want require a complete overhaul of the system. That has now been done, twice. Many are happy playing 4E. Many other are happy playing 5E.

I don't understand how you think anyone whose complaint was "Fighters don't get things like gate" would be happy with 4e or 5e. In fact, your whole post seems to be "people are happy playing games", which is true, but not really an argument.

Compared to a Cleric and a Druid, sure. Not compared to a Fighter.

And compared to a Commoner, Fighter is a great choice.

Sneak Attack is an awful ability that is never as cool in-game as it is in your head, and trapfinding is just arbitrary niche-protection.

Sneak Attack is a very potent DPS ability, and the items needed to bypass its limits (wands, Ring of Blinking) are pretty simple to acquire. Trapfinding may be arbitrary niche protection, but that doesn't make having it not important.

True. But like I said before, it doesn't much matter to the Wizard whether he has ranks in Stealth or not when he casts Invisibility. The Fighter? That's a whole extra thing he can do.

If A > B, A + X > B + X for any X.

Other supposed game breakers are generally gm blunders as well.

If the game breaks, it is the fault of the designers. End of story. The idea that the DM should arbitrarily nerf problem powers is one of the reason why people keep making bad games.

In all cases, I have to say it's a pretty bad call to say pathfinder is the cause. Pathfinder, in my experience, tends to work quickly to faq out any horrendous exploits people find.

Paizo's practice of pretending the FAQ is errata is terrible, and you should not use it to defend their game.

[Calthropstu]

Yes every system has its own problems, but 3.X seems to be the only group with these specific caster/non-caster disparity issues - the topic of the thread.

Not true. Every D&D edition has had this disparity except for 4th... which had the issue of "every character class was exactly the same." And that edition was WIDELY rejected by the vast majority of core rpg fans. The fact that Pathfinder, even now, STILL outsells D&D 5e in many areas and blew 4e out of the water is very telling. Previous to 3rd edition, 2nd edition was even more abusable in terms of magic and 1st edition didn't even have a cap on how many times enlarge person could be cast on someone... a first level spell could, RAW, wipe out an entire planet with repeat castings.
Apart from D&D, I have found Shadowrun casters to be overly potent as well with the ability to send hordes of elementals/spirits into a fray. I had one caster in a game attempt to summon the spirit of an entire city... which would dwarf anything any other class could possibly even attempt to access.
I have also seen classes in other games which most gm's flat out bar from their games because it was overpowered. I forget the one in the MIB rpg that was banned, and pretty much everyone wants to play the Jedi in star wars because of the overwhelming powers it obtains.
So this is NOT merely a PF/3.x issue.

It really doesn't matter that loopholes were closed when the main problems are systematic. The fact still remains that spellcasters have disproportionate influence over the game. Players and GMs can of course work to mitigate those issues, but that also does not mean that those fundamental flaws stop existing.

I will disagree here and think this may be an opinion matter. The party is built to rely on each other. And there are more than enough situations where a mage is simply not the best answer. Sure, the mage can cast charm person to get someone to do what they want right now. But when the spell wears off guess what... the person is pissed off and begins to take actions against the character in question... whether it is reporting them to the police, trying to get revenge on the character, or warning others to watch out for your character. It will eventually bite you in the ass if improperly used. Meanwhile, everyone loves the bard naturally and can be talked into assistance. And that never wears off.

Sure, you can nova that Dragon to death as a psion. And have nothing for that next encounter which happens shortly after... but it's best to conserve and let the fighter do his job of beating it into submission because a fighter never runs out of sword. Meanwhile, you can eke out some power points to greater effect by assisting the fighter and be sure to stay relevant in future fights should they occur.

The biggest bonus to the noncasters is their abilities never run out. Wizards are finite in their abilities, so no matter how powerful they become there exists a means to eventually exhaust their resources. Meanwhile, a fighter has infinite uses of "swing sword." In a sea of infinite goblins, the wizard eventually loses to the fighter.

[Mato]

Still, you're 15th level (requirements for Spell Perfection), and it only helps with your 3rd level and lower spells, and it eats your swift action that round.

I expected someone to claim a higher level caster considers third level spells worthless as some sort of debate tactic to ignore this.

Did you expect what comes after that? That would be my comment that if the primary rebuttal is a caster can do something better instead of something like the unchained classes can do something better, then PF probably hasn't solved caster supremacy.

What you're probably really debating is how low in level does the wizard have to be in order for someone else to finally out perform him. Is it 9th? 4th? the first level? Who knows, but what is known is the debate is already based on the notion that as the level gets higher then caster supremacy become more and more apparent. So the simple answer is no, PF did not get rid of it.

[javcs]

Not true. Every D&D edition has had this disparity except for 4th... which had the issue of "every character class was exactly the same." And that edition was WIDELY rejected by the vast majority of core rpg fans. The fact that Pathfinder, even now, STILL outsells D&D 5e in many areas and blew 4e out of the water is very telling. Previous to 3rd edition, 2nd edition was even more abusable in terms of magic and 1st edition didn't even have a cap on how many times enlarge person could be cast on someone... a first level spell could, RAW, wipe out an entire planet with repeat castings.
Apart from D&D, I have found Shadowrun casters to be overly potent as well with the ability to send hordes of elementals/spirits into a fray. I had one caster in a game attempt to summon the spirit of an entire city... which would dwarf anything any other class could possibly even attempt to access.
I have also seen classes in other games which most gm's flat out bar from their games because it was overpowered. I forget the one in the MIB rpg that was banned, and pretty much everyone wants to play the Jedi in star wars because of the overwhelming powers it obtains.
So this is NOT merely a PF/3.x issue.

I will disagree here and think this may be an opinion matter. The party is built to rely on each other. And there are more than enough situations where a mage is simply not the best answer. Sure, the mage can cast charm person to get someone to do what they want right now. But when the spell wears off guess what... the person is pissed off and begins to take actions against the character in question... whether it is reporting them to the police, trying to get revenge on the character, or warning others to watch out for your character. It will eventually bite you in the ass if improperly used. Meanwhile, everyone loves the bard naturally and can be talked into assistance. And that never wears off.

Sure, you can nova that Dragon to death as a psion. And have nothing for that next encounter which happens shortly after... but it's best to conserve and let the fighter do his job of beating it into submission because a fighter never runs out of sword. Meanwhile, you can eke out some power points to greater effect by assisting the fighter and be sure to stay relevant in future fights should they occur.

The biggest bonus to the noncasters is their abilities never run out. Wizards are finite in their abilities, so no matter how powerful they become there exists a means to eventually exhaust their resources. Meanwhile, a fighter has infinite uses of "swing sword." In a sea of infinite goblins, the wizard eventually loses to the fighter.

While it is true that a caster can run out of spells/power points/etc, before he does, in actual play the party will stop for the day before he does. And, once a caster gains a few levels, he's going to have ways to ensure his safety while resting to restore spells.

The caster(s) running out of spells is really only a concern at low levels, or in certain specific circumstances (usually some sort of imposed time pressure) - and even for most of those circumstances, a higher level caster can get around those limits with the right spells.

[Talore]

Spoiler: For anybody playing at home

Show

Not true. Every D&D edition has had this disparity except for 4th... which had the issue of "every character class was exactly the same." And that edition was WIDELY rejected by the vast majority of core rpg fans. The fact that Pathfinder, even now, STILL outsells D&D 5e in many areas and blew 4e out of the water is very telling. Previous to 3rd edition, 2nd edition was even more abusable in terms of magic and 1st edition didn't even have a cap on how many times enlarge person could be cast on someone... a first level spell could, RAW, wipe out an entire planet with repeat castings.

The fighter is king in 2e, and 5e's disparity is not nearly on the same level of 3.X. Never played 1e or OD&D.

I will disagree here and think this may be an opinion matter. The party is built to rely on each other. And there are more than enough situations where a mage is simply not the best answer. Sure, the mage can cast charm person to get someone to do what they want right now. But when the spell wears off guess what... the person is pissed off and begins to take actions against the character in question... whether it is reporting them to the police, trying to get revenge on the character, or warning others to watch out for your character. It will eventually bite you in the ass if improperly used. Meanwhile, everyone loves the bard naturally and can be talked into assistance. And that never wears off.

Sure, you can nova that Dragon to death as a psion. And have nothing for that next encounter which happens shortly after... but it's best to conserve and let the fighter do his job of beating it into submission because a fighter never runs out of sword. Meanwhile, you can eke out some power points to greater effect by assisting the fighter and be sure to stay relevant in future fights should they occur.

The biggest bonus to the noncasters is their abilities never run out. Wizards are finite in their abilities, so no matter how powerful they become there exists a means to eventually exhaust their resources. Meanwhile, a fighter has infinite uses of "swing sword." In a sea of infinite goblins, the wizard eventually loses to the fighter.

Five-minute adventuring day was already pointed out, but then there's this common idea that it is okay for casters to have so much more versatility because it's a team game. That fighter still gets to do next to nothing outside of combat. The bard is tier 3 but is still mediocre in combat at best, but hooray for it not being completely obsoleted by a 1st-level spell. These circles you're running around the issue don't make the issues go away.

[Nifft]

Spoiler: For anybody playing at home

Show

The fighter is king in 2e, and 5e's disparity is not nearly on the same level of 3.X. Never played 1e or OD&D.

Fighter was pretty cool in 1e and OD&D. They had great saving throws -- the best in the game, I think -- and that meant they were more likely to survive trouble.

The "Thief ability problem" hadn't become enshrined, so many tables allowed all characters to do whatever they wanted (including climbing walls and hiding), and traps were more about puzzles & deception than rolling to find the trip-wire. A Thief could do all that stuff in otherwise impossible situations -- like hiding where there's no real cover, just using nearby shadows -- but under normal circumstances, a Fighter could participate in larceny.

Some magic items were only usable by Fighters, including a lot of the better buff potions.

Different weapons had different attack modifiers depending on the target's base AC type, so having access to a lot of different weapon types was frequently useful... if you remembered to ask what kind of armor the enemy was wearing.

Rangers, which were a Fighter subclass, had cool powers like "you are almost never surprised" and "your party surprises the other guys most of the time".

Also, if you rolled for ability scores, you might only be able to pick Fighter or Thief as your class. Not all classes were balanced against each other -- some were "balanced" by being difficult to roll high enough to enter.

[khadgar567]

I think in order to fix the system we need to fix good old wizard it self my interpretation on wizard goes to ditch the spells higher then 4th level. this at least kills scry & die, batman wizard and god wizard arch types and for how broken pathfiner we have spells that destroy kingdoms and conjure perfect cappuccino on the same freaking list for asmodeus sake. I mean destroy kingdom basicly a whole plot and cappuccino is damn skill roll WTF they snorting when they try to fix the game

[5ColouredWalker]

Spoiler: For anybody playing at home

Show

You're missing 'Use UMD', 'Martials can use skills', 'Martials are Tougher' (I think, by saying they don't have the 5 minute adventuring day.), Stick to the CRB, and 'Run a low magic campaign' by saying play low level.

[Arbane]

Every system I have ever played had problems. In fact, the more realistic any system tries to be, the less fun it seems to become. Shadowrun has problems, 5e has problems, 4e has problems, exalted has problems, gurps has problems...

I'd argue 'realism' is a large part of the problem.
Specifically, the Guy At The Gym Fallacy, since it's the reason Fighters HAVE to suck. Meanwhile, since magic doesn't exist, it's OK for magicians to be able to do ANYTHING.

[Coretron03]

Incorrect.

I said that in response to someone who said that paizo hated fun.

I am saying that pathfinder IMO is much more balanced that people think.

Pathfinder is not really that balanced (personally I think the desingers are stupid but I can still have fun with it). Casters beating non-casters is a design flaw and fixing it would require a redesign of the games base mechanics. As for a fighter, take my battle oracle. Benefits of each at level 4
Fighter: 2 more feats, bravery +1, armour training and 4hp more (average) and full bab
Oracle: more skills, better skill list, some curse benfits and Spellcasting
There is not a very big difference when you compare the two of them in melee combat, with oracle focusing on Str, Cha and Con with fighter focusing on Str, Con and maybe dex if you want to benifit from armour training.

[MeeposFire]

A lot of people are talking about what they did to casters but what people are ignoring is what they did NOT do for people using weapons.

THe full attack action still exists people and despite having YEARS of lay testing before they even considered making PF they missed out on fixing a core problem in the 3e ruleset which is that

weapon users get shafted more and more as they level up due to action cost while casters almost never have that problem. If you move 10 feet in a round and then want to attack a weapon user is apparently too uncoordinated to make his full attacks. A spell caster that has to use tiny magical components and complicated gestures has no problem what so ever. Remember in a basic sense a level 6 fighter loses 50% of his attacks if he moves 10 feet. A level 20 loses 75% of his attacks. That is nuts. And yes I know if you know your optimization you can somewhat get around this but honestly that is not something you should have to do. A weapon user should be able to move 10 feet and make their normal attacks (or something of similar value). Casters can why not the weapon user who frankly should be better at that concept.

Also if you look they are constantly making material based off of the full attack action.

People will tell you that ToB was so great because of its abilities and this is true but the most unsung hero part of it was that it allowed you to be effective as a melee combatant when you need to only use a standard action which is not something you can do as almost any other weapon using class.

For the most part the core writers for PF have managed to miss out on this core issue with weapon users and it is really unfortunate.

Also vital strike does not count as it is fairly weak and you need to use at least 3 feats to keep up. How is that 3 feats? At worst it should be one that scales. Once again a case where the people in PF really have not learned from the early mistakes of 3e and vital strike is not the only feat that has that issue either.



Honestly PF should have figured out an alternative for the full attack action. It isn't like the ability to move and make effective weapon attacks is unbalanced or unusual. Rulescyclopedia, 2e, 4e, and 5e at the very least allowed you to move a significant distance and allowed you to make your full attacks per round in melee. 3e is the black sheep in this regard and it is one of the unfortunate things they kept in PF.

[Coretron03]

Which is funny, due to my oracle a few times a day able to move as a immediate action whcih can negate that issue somewhat while a fighter has to rely on magic items like the quickrunners shirt. This is part of the reason why archers are likely the best martials, due to 1) full attacks almost everywhere 2) feats that improve archers even further over 3.5(manyshot, deadly shot) 3) in a lower OP enviroment be anti casters via readied actions to try to disrupt casting (along with some feats like Overwatch style that let you deal with quickened spells and/or multiple casters). Of course, this goes out the window if the caster gets time to pre buff with stuff like invisibility or displacement

Separately casters can craft magic items very easily and something like craft wonderous item can give a huge increase in WBL or divination wizards autowinning initive with a score of +13 available from level 1 (assumes 14 dex, divination wizard, improved init and reactionary and a +4 init famliar).

[MeeposFire]

Which is funny, due to my oracle a few times a day able to move as a immediate action whcih can negate that issue somewhat while a fighter has to rely on magic items like the quickrunners shirt. This is part of the reason why archers are likely the best martials, due to 1) full attacks almost everywhere 2) feats that improve archers even further over 3.5(manyshot, deadly shot) 3) in a lower OP enviroment be anti casters via readied actions to try to disrupt casting (along with some feats like Overwatch style that let you deal with quickened spells and/or multiple casters). Of course, this goes out the window if the caster gets time to pre buff with stuff like invisibility or displacement

Separately casters can craft magic items very easily and something like craft wonderous item can give a huge increase in WBL or divination wizards autowinning initive with a score of +13available from level 1 (assumes 14 dex, divination wizard, improved init and reactionary and a +4 init famliar.

Oddly archery is one of the things where PF opted to eliminate one of the few core decent standard attack options in many shot. They changed it to a bonus to full attacks. Archers really did not need a boost to that so much as they already had things like rapid shot. Many shot gave them a decent option if they ver need to use a standard action instead of a full action. Niche but I found it more useful than just another penalty to accuracy for an additional attack which while potent is not something I really needed to bring to the table.


However the gist of what you say is true your fighter needs a shirt for something so simple as moving as a swift action. If weapon users need to use full attack actions then they should be able to use their skills to ensure they can get them but that is one area where often times they cannot.


I will admit though that in a number of groups in my area they do not have this problem because they just allow full attacks all the time essentially. They just do not realize that they are breaking the rules. I don't even want to tell them because they are having so much more fun that way. Enemies are potentially nastier but so are the PCs and it is a lot less frustrating.

[Coretron03]

On a different forumn I there is a interesting thread about bad things about pathfinder (taken to extremes) that between the swearing and name calling it has some interesting insights about pathfinders issues, right before they go off topic and discuss the price of medieval land . I do not wish to cause any flame wars so please don't and I cannot vouch for the appropriate-ness of it.
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t...er=asc&start=0

[Ssalarn]

It does actually, because it's (supposed to be) backwards compatible with all those things.

That literally has nothing to do with anything when talking about whether or not Pathfinder fixed 3.5. Those are 3.5 classes with no PF reintroduction, and some of them, like the warmage, were intentionally replaced with options like the magus.

I don't understand how that's anything other than a veto in your mind.

The player never had the options to begin with. They're in an optional part of the book that the GM can open up to them for campaigns where it's appropriate.

Why not? If "control plate tectonics" is a level appropriate ability for a 15th level character, why should a 15th level character go through any additional hoops to get it?

Because it's not, or shouldn't be, an appropriate ability for a 15th level character. Literally breaking the game world in half should be gated to GM control, both from a meta and in-world perspective. There shouldn't be a cohesive world existing in the first place if that power is readily available without even digging into the full spread of your daily resources for characters at that level, someone would have gone Frieza long ago and nuked the planet. And there's no trope of some random wizard waking up one day and deciding to wish the sun away, there's always a build-up and multi-tier process towards accomplishing something that massive. For the game to work both as a roleplay story-telling mechanism and a coherent game, abilities like that should be gated.

Sneak Attack is a very potent DPS ability

It's "meh". You're talking 35 points of very mitigatable damage that doesn't multiply on a crit, by level 19. A Power Attacking warrior with a greatsword is getting 18 with a better chance to hit before any other bonuses are calculated in (like better damage die from improved proficiencies, DPS spreads accounting for longevity due to higher AC and HP, etc.)

, and the items needed to bypass its limits (wands, Ring of Blinking) are pretty simple to acquire.

Exactly.

Trapfinding may be arbitrary niche protection, but that doesn't make having it not important.

You only need it to disarm magical traps, and there are other ways to do that, like minionmancy, dispelling, or saying "Oh yeah, any trap that trapfinding would work on is something the barbarian can walk through without dying. After you Cronk!"

Paizo's practice of pretending the FAQ is errata is terrible, and you should not use it to defend their game.

If a company's going to take the time to address problem issues in a formalized and maintained area, it's relevant. It actually shows that they're attempting to take the time to maintain their game and respond to community feedback promptly, not just waiting for new print runs to issue corrections and address problems that slipped through editing. It's actually very cool of them, because they're doing it solely for the benefit of their fans and customers with absolutely no profit or even provable value to them as a company. The fact that I may not like or agree with an unfortunately large amount of their FAQs doesn't mean there isn't value and relevance in what they're doing. It just means that the largest fanbase they're catering to unfortunately doesn't play the game quite like I do.

[Arbane]

Which is funny, due to my oracle a few times a day able to move as a immediate action whcih can negate that issue somewhat while a fighter has to rely on magic items like the quickrunners shirt.

Guess what got nerfed! We can't have a FIGHTER actually doing their job almost as well as an Oracle can, now can we?

[Coretron03]

Also Paizio does not do niche protection, as they made a traits that gives disable device as a class skill, a +1 bonus and able to disable magic traps meaning the rogues niche was stolen by a trait, so a gunslinger could disable traps better then him (at least for a few levels and even then the bonus is tiny).

[Coretron03]

Guess what got nerfed! We can't have a FIGHTER actually doing their job almost as well as an Oracle can, now can we?

Agreed, some person with no veiw of balance complained about on the paizio boards as it, quote "let martials full attack too often". Their board is weird sometimes. There was a quote somewhere about a paizio develepor saying the c-md is a myth from people with agendas. Obviously a coup to nerf the poor underpowered wizards.

On a side note has anyone heard of AM BARBARIAN?

[stanprollyright]

And compared to a Commoner, Fighter is a great choice.

The disparity between Commoner and Fighter is roughly the same, but the disparity between Fighter and Wizard is a bit lower. All I'm asserting is that it's a relative improvement, albeit small but noticeable.

Sneak Attack is a very potent DPS ability, and the items needed to bypass its limits (wands, Ring of Blinking) are pretty simple to acquire. Trapfinding may be arbitrary niche protection, but that doesn't make having it not important.

Sneak Attack is so overrated. The damage is lower than what other classes can do every round, and by the time it's reliable, martials are irrelevant.

If A > B, A + X > B + X for any X.

It's not so simple. There's a system of redundancies and probabilities and opportunity costs. The Fighter having more skill power makes him more versatile because it increases the number of challenges to which he can meaningfully contribute. The Wizard can contribute to virtually every encounter already. That, and not all class skill lists are created equal. Knowledge skills are inefficient at best, useless at worst, depending on your DM. At the very least, there will be few times that a single knowledge check is sufficient to solve an encounter on its own. Cross-class skills aren't terrible, and Wizards do gain from the change since they have a crappy class list and high Int, but it ends up being more for flavor than anything.

[Coretron03]

Does anyone know a no save way prevent a mounted charging character that surprises you and can spell sunder buffs/walls/ other (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core...pell-sunder-su to not kill you? Being level 20, full caster and would liely have to be a diviner wizard with buffs having to last at least 6 hours to be up

[AvatarVecna]

Does anyone know a no save way prevent a mounted charging character that surprises you and can spell sunder buffs/walls/ other (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core...pell-sunder-su to not kill you? Being level 20, full caster and would liely have to be a diviner wizard with buffs having to last at least 6 hours to be up

Well, Overland Flight comes online at lvl 9, and allows you to be flying basically all day. This doesn't necessarily cause the charger problems, if their mount can fly, although flying mounts aren't as common as unflying mounts. Still, let's assume the charger either has a flying mount, a mage making their mount fly temporarily, or paid an NPC mage to make their mount fly, or paid an NPC mage to make a magic item that would let their mount fly indefinitely. A vaguely reasonable buff for a lvl 20 mage to have up would be Shapechange (since it lasts a couple hours), but that's awfully late-game for a "get out of imminent death free" card; far earlier and potentially better is Contingency (if surprised: Dimension Door); Contingency becomes available at lvl 11, and can be used with Dimension Door at lvl 12. If you really want to bring this online at lvl 11, there's probably a short-range 3rd lvl teleportation spell of some kind in Pathfinder. This won't end the fight, necessarily, but it keeps you from getting charged in the surprise round, since you're no longer in the vicinity of the charger, and that gives you time. Alternatively, prior to the errata, a Selective Antimagic Field could do the trick, letting you keep your buffs while the barbarian was unable to sunder your buffs since that's an Su ability (they'd have to sunder the antimagic field from outside it first, and then sunder your buffs, and then ubercharge you, all in the surprise round)...but that's not possible anymore due to errata requiring Selective Spell to be applied to an instantaneous spell. There's probably still a way to do it, it'll just be rarer.

But yeah, that Contingency should do fine, and is a pretty reasonable one to have.

[Serafina]

It's much simpler than that: Emergency Force Sphere.
Sure, Spell Sunder can get through it - but that combat maneuver actually takes an action, so you've already prevented their full attack (if not all of their attacks because Spell Sunder IIRC defaults to a standard action).
A Wall of Stone also won't be affected by Spell Sunder at all, on account of not being an ongoing spell effect. You can shape it quite freely, so it's easy to make it quite thick and prevent them from going around it - while leaving a window open to fire spells through. Sure, it can be smashed - but again, that takes time, and you can't tell me that a high-level caster can't defeat someone with a weak will save in a few rounds (or at the very least get away).


Of course, the ability to kill each other doesn't equal balance either.
Even if a 20th-level Fighter (or other non-caster class) could poke anything with irresistible insta-death while moving, we'd still have a Caster/Non-Caster disparity in favor of Casters.
Because the Non-Caster can then do this one combat-specific, hyper-specialized thing. They still can't do anything worthwhile outside of combat. Combat is a huge part of D&D, but it's hardly the only thing.

[Mordaedil]

I mean, if I wanted to play a perfectly balanced game, I would probably play 4th edition instead.

AD&D, AD&D 2nd, D&D 3e/3.5/Pathfinder and D&D 5th were all not designed as balanced experiences at all and I kinda find that a part of the charm. Not the "casters have spells that completely invalidate other classes" bit, that can go and die in a fire.

The reason I still stick with 3.5 and Pathfinder is because it allows so many options to create a unique character and I am not really talking optimization-wise, I mean pure flavor, such as the Blood mage, whom can toss himself through monsters to re-emerge from inside someone else and that is just bloody cool.

I don't feel like they are perfect systems, if they were, then prestige classes like eldritch knight, mystic theurge, arcane trickster and ultimate magus would just be inherent in the multiclass rules instead of a poor man's patch. If they still allowed multiclass such as it was in AD&D 2.0 as well as regular multiclassing, that would have fixed it in a better way, I think.

And honestly, that was my hope they were going to take it with 4th edition, but instead we got... An overly balanced, flavorless cardboard cut-out of a boardgame. I realize this kinda started with third edition with the reliance on minis, but it just seemed like they had no interest in a system that offered complexities anymore.

5th edition tries to take it back, but doesn't go far enough. Pathfinder does it well, but still doesn't fix the problem I had with multiclassing. Oh well.

As for the question, posted by the thread title, it doesn't fix it, because it doesn't need to really be fixed; it's a false problem, instigated by people wanting the game to be "fair and balanced".

I dunno though, I'd just settle for something that wasn't boring.