Are full casting progression and high tier characters overrated?

[ColorBlindNinja]

Because the WotC licencing allows them to do so. It also allows them to use product identify features; like mindflayers, beholders, the names "Leomund" and "Tenser" etc; that are not part of the open gaming licence.

The point is, the first party publisher is Wizards of the Coast. Paizo is not Wizards of the coast. Dragon magazine is officially licenced third party content. That's just all there is to it.

Why bother to make a distinction between official content?

[RoboEmperor]

Why bother to make a distinction between official content?

Quality. Every Author has its own style and bias, and Paizo's style is different from WotC.

Dragon Magazine is considered by virtually everyone, an "unrevised, unplaytested mess". Open-minded DMs allow/disallow on a case-by-case basis, but generally DMs don't allow it and blames Paizo for it.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Quality. Every Author has its own style and bias, and Paizo's style is different from WotC.

Dragon Magazine is considered by virtually everyone, an "unrevised, unplaytested mess". Open-minded DMs allow/disallow on a case-by-case basis, but generally DMs don't allow it and blames Paizo for it.

On that basis, you'd have to toss out more than a few 1st party books.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Why bother to make a distinction between official content?

Basically this;

Quality. Every Author has its own style and bias, and Paizo's style is different from WotC.

Dragon Magazine is considered by virtually everyone, an "unrevised, unplaytested mess". Open-minded DMs allow/disallow on a case-by-case basis, but generally DMs don't allow it and blames Paizo for it.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Basically this;

Again, there are more than a couple of 1st party books that are less than well put together.

Also, not all Dragon Magazine content is broken.

[Kelb_Panthera]

On that basis, you'd have to toss out more than a few 1st party books.

That's fairly common practice. Ever heard anyone have anything nice to say about Serpent Kingdoms?

In any case, Dragon is consistently worse than 1st party content, it's also broadly scattered and often poorly formatted.

[unseenmage]

...

Dragon Magazine is considered by virtually everyone, an "unrevised, unplaytested mess". Open-minded DMs allow/disallow on a case-by-case basis, but generally DMs don't allow it and blames Paizo for it.

This one I'll disagree on. Dragon content is no more or less borked than the core rules and their assorted bald faced dysfunctions.

Drown healing, wish Gating, Simulacrum... the list goes on.

My contention would be that Dragon isn't as accessible and is a near endless list of splat books is more the problem.

[ColorBlindNinja]

That's fairly common practice. Ever heard anyone have anything nice to say about Serpent Kingdoms?

So, is it more worthy of banning than Dragon Magazine?

In any case, Dragon is consistently worse than 1st party content, it's also broadly scattered and often poorly formatted.

Is it?

EDIT: Can you provide any examples that are significantly more broken than core spells like Simulacrum or Gate?

This one I'll disagree on. Dragon content is no more or less borked than the core rules and their assorted bald faced dysfunctions.

Drown healing, wish Gating, Simulacrum... the list goes on.

My contention would be that Dragon isn't as accessible and is a near endless list of splat books is more the problem.

I would agree wholeheartedly.

[RoboEmperor]

This one I'll disagree on. Dragon content is no more or less borked than the core rules and their assorted bald faced dysfunctions.

Drown healing, wish Gating, Simulacrum... the list goes on.

My contention would be that Dragon isn't as accessible and is a near endless list of splat books is more the problem.

1st party have some borked stuff. Dragon Magazine however, virtually ALL of it is borked. Almost all of the non-borked dragon magazine content has been published as 1st party after revision, like SpC. Don't know about Dragon Compendium though as I haven't used that.

Seriously, whenever i see something thats "ZOMG OP AS ****", I audit the build and find out that the chief offender is a dragon magazine feat. The other chief offender is FR content.

[ColorBlindNinja]

1st party have some borked stuff. Dragon Magazine however, virtually ALL of it is borked. Almost all of the non-borked dragon magazine content has been published as 1st party after revision, like SpC. Don't know about Dragon Compendium though as I haven't used that.

Seriously, whenever i see something thats "ZOMG OP AS ****", I audit the build and find out that the chief offender is a dragon magazine feat.

Could you provide some examples?

[RoboEmperor]

Could you provide some examples?

Someone else probably can. I don't have good memory on things I have no interest in.

I can tell you really like some content in dragon magazine, but the sad reality is that the vast majority of the DMs I played with hated Dragon Magazine with a passion. They didn't even allow Dragon Compendium.

[magicalmagicman]

Could you provide some examples?

Easy Metamagic. Some crazy metamagic reducing builds can pull off the shenanigans they can because of Easy Metamagic.

Also Troll-Blooded. Regeneration is not fast healing, it's hell of a lot better than fast healing. Unkillable even when you get coup de graced, and NPCs won't use a torch to do it unless they are metagaming.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Someone else probably can. I don't have good memory on things I have no interest in.

I can tell you really like some content in dragon magazine, but the sad reality is that the vast majority of the DMs I played with hated Dragon Magazine with a passion. They didn't even allow Dragon Compendium.

I've heard that more than few DMs ban the Tome of Battle, so I don't think that numerous DMs banning something is an indication of anything.

[unseenmage]

1st party have some borked stuff. Dragon Magazine however, virtually ALL of it is borked. Almost all of the non-borked dragon magazine content has been published as 1st party after revision, like SpC. Don't know about Dragon Compendium though as I haven't used that.

Seriously, whenever i see something thats "ZOMG OP AS ****", I audit the build and find out that the chief offender is a dragon magazine feat. The other chief offender is FR content.

Please write up a guide for us all detailing the perils of Dragon content in detail if you would.

It would be nice if everyone could benefit from your clearly comprehensive understanding of all the 3.x magazines.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Easy Metamagic. Some crazy metamagic reducing builds can pull off the shenanigans they can because of Easy Metamagic.

Better than Arcane Thesis or Divine Metamagic?

Also Troll-Blooded. Regeneration is not fast healing, it's hell of a lot better than fast healing. Unkillable even when you get coup de graced, and NPCs won't use a torch to do it unless they are metagaming.

Plenty of monsters use fire, but I will grant that feat is pretty OP.

Edit: But it looks like it's a regional Barbarian only feat.

[eggynack]

I'd expect the guy who wrote the druid handbook to try to defend druids, but you're simply wrong about their spell list.

No, I'm not. You're just looking at a weird minority of their spell list.

Sure, it has some bfc but that bfc is terrible. Most of them slow down the enemy but doesn't stop them. Sure, there's a few decent ones but level by level, their spell list simply loses.

A lot of it both slows down and stops them, depending on the enemy's rolls. Entangle, impeding stones, plant growth, sleet storm, stone shape, wall of fungus, eye of the hurricane, wall of salt, control winds, blizzard, call avalanche, and a bunch of others I'm not naming. A lot of these are directly comparable to same level wizard options, especially the 5th level natural disaster spells, and likely better than what a cleric is doing in this area.

Plus, their spell list is extremely selfish as far as buffs are concerned.

Yes, it is. However, those selfish buff spells can also be very powerful.

This is the class that is supposed to wield and control the power of nature, but I don't get that feeling from this class. Call lightning, for example, is extremely weak. 3d6 damage can be safely ignored by simply 10 points of resistance. Compare that to lightning bolt (which druids should totally get btw). It just flat loses. But, since you agreed that they lose to wizard, that's beating a dead horse.

Call lightning ain't the best. Neither is lightning bolt. They're both decent though, and call lightning lets you take some advantage of locking down the battlefield.

I am going to blatantly ignore the unicorn thing. "An item exists in something somewhere that allows the druid to cast a spell to summon this creature..." No. I'm sticking to what you will generally see at a standard table using mid optimization.

It's a core summoning option. Ignoring it is ridiculous, especially given the fact that spontaneous summoning is a thing.

Besides, outside of combat, there are plenty of options for healing that don't require spell slots. If you're needing spell slots for healing, that healing is probably needed RIGHT NOW.
So expending a 4th lvl spell slot and a 1 round action to get the result of a 2nd level spell won't cut it. As such, I maintain clerics are flat better at healing.
What's that? Druids can cast those healing spells too? Yeah, prepared... kinda hurts your case that druids are better than clerics if they have to prepare healing spells in slots that clerics don't have to.

Again, unicorns are spontaneous. You don't need to prepare them any more than a cleric does. And it's not just a 2nd level spell. It's a 2nd and three 1st's. The end result is 42.5 points of healing split across up to four characters. At 4th level, the cleric is spontaneously casting cure critical wounds, which is 25 points of healing that can only hit a single character. I do not think that this alone renders the druid the superior healer. However, it is a sizable advantage at some levels and in some healing areas, and I definitely don't think that

Let's look at the d20 srd.

Not sure why this is being limited to core, but alright.

1st lvl.
Druid:
Not a lot going on here. Entangle and shalelaeigh are clear winners. Entangle allows for both str and dex based to have outs though, so likely trapping few for more than a round. Still, it keeps the same usability at all levels. Shalelaeigh turns your staff into a magic double bladed great sword. Pretty neat. Too bad only you can use it. Summon nature's ally has no need to be prepared and the rest of that list is flat garbage, extremely situational or is also received by the cleric.

You're missing faerie fire, goodberry, obscuring mist, produce flame, and maybe speak with animals. Pretty diverse and strong set of effects right there. And yeah, strength and dexterity can both help with entangle, but the related DCs are pretty high, especially early on.

Cleric list:
Bless, a mass buff.
Bane, a mass debuff. Both together is pretty damned effective, applies to all atracks on both sides and are easily a great choice all around.
Cause fear. An enemy flat out runs away. Any enemy. Where the druid spells only function on animals, the cleric also affects animals and everything else.

Pretty sure I'd rather have entangle than all three of these.

Comprehend languages. Awww yeah... we can now understand the other side and try to assuage their fears or prevent horrendous misunderstandings.

A reasonable effect that druids don't have much replication of (though there are some ways). Still, I'd say that the core druid list is advantaged here.

Barkskin, a fairly decent buff.
Fire trap, a situationally decent trap.
Fog cloud, a very good escape spell. Needs decent tactical acumen to use to its full potential otherwise.
Heat/chill metal, neat. Make your opponent drop his weapon, or deal a bit of damage by heating his armor. Takes a while though, and they're likely dead before the full damage hits them.
Hold animal... unless you're regularly fighting animals in the wilderness... useless. And getting attacked by animals is RARE. Or should be.
Soften earth is actually very powerful situationally. You could theoretically bring down a castle with enough castings. But again, very situational, and hard to use.

You're missing summon swarm and spider climb here. I also kinda like reduce animal in some contexts, though not as much in core. Combining it with aspect of the wolf and something like desmodu bat form for an hours/level source of extra AC and initiative is amusing.

For 2nd level the buffs are reasonably even. But cleric wins BIG in utility and combat spells.

I'd generally agree here. Druid core 2nd level spells are pretty weak.

That disparity continues in every spell level with clerics crushing druids.

You've gotta know that what you have here won't be sufficient. We haven't even started with the vast array of source books that help in a lot of areas. 2nd level spells are a particularly improved area. Lotta fun stuff you can do.

[NineInchNall]

The perception of Dragon Magazine content suffers severely due to selection bias. Most people, even those with access to large numbers of official books, don't and didn't have access to Dragon. Thus, the things that people see from the magazine are the outliers, because there's little point in talking about the things that are merely mediocre.

Since people usually use the availability heuristic, and what's available is extreme, they think Dragon's extreme.

No, I'm not. You're just looking at a weird minority of their spell list.

I'm pretty sure he mostly plays Pathfinder.

[Kelb_Panthera]

So, is it more worthy of banning than Dragon Magazine?



Is it?

EDIT: Can you provide any examples that are significantly more broken than core spells like Simulacrum or Gate?

Perhaps not quite to that extreme but the worst 1st party offenders are in the core rulebooks, which makes them much harder to avoid unless the DM is experienced enough to know about and deal with them.

That out of the way; eidetic spellcaster, half-minotaur, and a PrC whose name escapes me but gives a caster access to other class' spell lists ala rainbow warsnake with less investment all leap to mind. (Somebody help me out with the name of that one?)

I would agree wholeheartedly.

I did mention that in passing.

[magicalmagicman]

Better than Arcane Thesis or Divine Metamagic?

Yes. Arcane Thesis targets one spell, meaning if you want to use more than one spell then you're gonna run out of feats.

Easy Metamagic targets a Metamagic feat, meaning with 1 feat investment all spells get a reducer.

Divine Metamagic requires resources and is only a problem with Persistent Spell.

Practical Metamagic is identical to Easy Metamagic, except it has a +1 spell level minimum limit while Easy Metamagic doesn't, and even this requires the Dragonblood subtype to acquire.

Metamagic Spell Focus is limited to 3/day.

So... no special restrictions to qualify for the feat, better than existing metamagic reducers who give a similar effect, very feat unintensive, and has a minimum of 0 spell level instead of +1 spell level like Arcane Thesis.

It's better than all of the metamagic reducers combined.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Perhaps not quite to that extreme but the worst 1st party offenders are in the core rulebooks, which makes them much harder to avoid unless the DM is experienced enough to know about and deal with them.

OK.

That out of the way; eidetic spellcaster, half-minotaur,

Why is Eidetic Spellcaster broken?

And doesn't Half-Minotaur have LA?

and a PrC whose name escapes me but gives a caster access to other class' spell lists ala rainbow warsnake with less investment all leap to mind. (Somebody help me out with the name of that one?)

I would be very curious to hear more if you remember the name.

I did mention that in passing.

Very well.

[RoboEmperor]

That out of the way; eidetic spellcaster, half-minotaur, and a PrC whose name escapes me but gives a caster access to other class' spell lists ala rainbow warsnake with less investment all leap to mind. (Somebody help me out with the name of that one?)

What? Eidetic Spellcaster is broken? I've been using that ACF as the poster child of non-broken dragon magazine content.

[NineInchNall]

Practical Metamagic is identical to Easy Metamagic, except it has a +1 spell level minimum limit while Easy Metamagic doesn't, and even this requires the Dragonblood subtype to acquire.

I don't think you've read the feat.

You can never reduce the spell-slot cost below one level higher than the spell's actual level.

[magicalmagicman]

I don't think you've read the feat.

I did read it, but I had trouble understanding it. Now that you've isolated it, i can understand it better, but it's still superior to Practical Metamagic in every single way possible.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Yes. Arcane Thesis targets one spell, meaning if you want to use more than one spell then you're gonna run out of feats.

Depending on how high OP we're going, tier 1 casters can have as many feats as they want.

Easy Metamagic targets a Metamagic feat, meaning with 1 feat investment all spells get a reducer.

Easy Metamagic only works for spontaneous casters, doesn't it?

Divine Metamagic requires resources and is only a problem with Persistent Spell.

Divine Quicken isn't broken?

Practical Metamagic is identical to Easy Metamagic, except it has a +1 spell level minimum limit while Easy Metamagic doesn't, and even this requires the Dragonblood subtype to acquire.

Metamagic Spell Focus is limited to 3/day.

So... no special restrictions to qualify for the feat, better than existing metamagic reducers who give a similar effect, very feat unintensive, and has a minimum of 0 spell level instead of +1 spell level like Arcane Thesis.

It's better than all of the metamagic reducers combined.

So, that's, what, two feats that are OP?

[NineInchNall]

I did read it, but I had trouble understanding it. Now that you've isolated it, i can understand it better, but it's still superior to Practical Metamagic in every single way possible.

Yes, but so what? Extra Rings is also strictly superior to Additional Magic Item Space (rings), too.

Easy Metamagic only works for spontaneous casters, doesn't it?

Nope. That's Practical Metamagic.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I don't think you've read the feat.

You can never reduce the spell-slot cost below one level higher than the spell's actual level.

Really? Good to know.

EDIT:

Nope. That's Practical Metamagic.

Ah, I must have misremembered.

[RoboEmperor]

So, that's, what, two feats that are OP?

If you really want to know I suggest you make a separate thread so Dragon Magazine experts will know you're asking such a question and answer it.

[ColorBlindNinja]

If you really want to know I suggest you make a separate thread so Dragon Magazine experts will know you're asking such a question and answer it.

If you're making an argument that Dragon Magazine is broken, then you should provide more examples of broken feats than 2. Especially, since neither are as broken as some 1st party content.

[RoboEmperor]

If you're making an argument that Dragon Magazine is broken, then you should provide more examples of broken feats than 2. Especially, since neither are as broken as some 1st party content.

I didn't give those examples, someone else did, I was sharing my experience and the experiences of other DMs with dragon magazine, and I have no interest in dragon magazine so I forgot a great deal of its content.

If you want to know why people hate dragon magazine and consider it broken/unplayable, I'm telling you, make a thread so people like unseenmage that don't follow this thread can give you the information you seek.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I didn't give those examples, someone else did,

I realize that, but my point stands.

I was sharing my experience and the experiences of other DMs with dragon magazine, and I have no interest in dragon magazine so I forgot a great deal of its content.

Very well.

If you want to know why people hate dragon magazine and consider it broken/unplayable, I'm telling you, make a thread so people like unseenmage that don't follow this thread can give you the information you seek.

I was asking for evidence of a claim that was made. Nothing more.