Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

[BassoonHero]

I concur with ColorBlindNinja's assessment. Uberchargers are a problem, but a single feat is not to blame. Ideally, I would like to nerf the combo back to sanity while buffing other combat options.

[Ignimortis]

All Shock Trooper does is allow you to take the penalty from power attack from to hit to AC.

It's feats like Leap Attack that actually allow charging to deal obscene levels of damage. Shock Trooper on its own doesn't do that.

But it does turn an offensive penalty for offensive benefit into a defensive penalty for offensive benefit, therefore encouraging players to kill stuff before it can actually attack.

[ColorBlindNinja]

But it does turn an offensive penalty for offensive benefit into a defensive penalty for offensive benefit, therefore encouraging players to kill stuff before it can actually attack.

Players already are incentived to kill enemies before they attack. Shocktrooper just means that melee characters can hit for extra damage without missing.

EDIT: Also, why are we complaining about Shocktrooper when charging builds are one of the martials best answer to dealing massive amounts of damage? Without it, they fall even farther behind than they already are.

[EldritchWeaver]

Alright, I will share a few of my "easy fix" ideas, that would be quick means to moving forward.


1. All casters get 2 skill points per level+ int. All non-casters get access to ALL skills, 6 skill points per level, and have individual features per class which max out 2 or 3 skills automatically, without use of skill points; And every level provides another rank in said skills.

Example. Rogue gets automatic maxed out slots in Hide,Move silently, and slight of hand.
Fighter gets maxed out ride, swim, Jump. Scout gets Spot,Listen,Survival.

The point is that spell casting takes up so much learning that regular skills aren't paid attention to, but the non-spellcasting classes earn their bread and butter by them.


2.All non-spellcasting classes get TOB Maneuvers, but only have choice between two schools. Advance as warblade.



3.Armor provides DR=to AC.


4.Artificer's Item Creation Class feature is now a feat. Requires 4 ranks in craft, 4 ranks in spell craft, and 4 ranks in Use Magic device.

In regards to #1: Does not affect the wizard. Hurts all other casters, which aren't Int-based. In particular the bard, who is supposed to be a skill-monkey. Also, effectively you give 9 + Int to martials, but with 3 fixed skills. The inversion is enormous, since this does make casters dependent on spells which circumvent or improve skills or they can't participate in skills that much (except for wizard).

#1 and #2: Multiclassing is a thing. What happens if you cross the streams? Do you get access to the benefits? Do you lose them? Does it only depend on the respective levels?

#4: PF2 is going to grant this kind of access, too. But why do you require these prereqs at all, if everyone can take it? As it is, since wizard doesn't have UMD, a wizard needs level 5 to reach that limit. Which makes ironically the iconic item crafter worse than mundanes.

[death390]

double damage on leap attack is fine as printed when it was only considered to affect a single strike, the pounce combo with it broke uberchargers damage wise. whereas shocktrooper broke uberchargers to-hit wise by shunting the penalty from to-hit to AC.

the "massive" numbers that uberchargers put out are due to this feat combo nearly alone. without the penalty to attack that power attack generated in the first place then dumping as much as possible to the point of even reducing to negative AC doesn't much matter (easier to hit than a die roll) since you kill almost everything in one shot + 30 damage from PA lvl 20 dumping all BaB 2H weapon but almost no miss change since to-hit is not harmed.

whereas leap attack/pounce doubles the power attack damage. even just a greatsword (2d6) + 30 Str (+10) + 10 PA (15) *2 + 5 weapon = 2d6 + 45 Per hit @ lvl 10 with only a -10 to hit. with shock trooper that adds an extra 15 damage to every hit with -0 to-hit bringing it up to 2d6+ 60 but everything has a much higher chance of hitting; @ lvl 20 its 2d6 + 90. hell for -2 to hit you could add a number of odd weapons for TWF (tail blade/ armor spikes/ ) ect to add about 1d3-4 + 5 Str dmg from Leap attack for only -2 to-hit if considered light or -4 if the extra weapon is considered 1handed (1d4-8 +10 Str + PA damage: x2) then all the two weapon fighting iteratives.




i am pretty sure that the tail blades are considered 1H weapons due to the fact they are 3.0 medium sized weapons (and if you look at the PHBs the 3.0 medium weapon list was straight converted to 1H weapons) and it would only take 1 feat to get a tail (if you picked a dragonblood race, 2 if not) and 1 more for EWP (tail blade/club). that would net you an extra weapon to use for TWF that is 1H and can make use of PA. so 1d8 + 30 STR (5 damage) + 20 *2 PA. for a total of -4 -4 of regular and tail weapon attacks. then it only depends on how many extra attacks you get from TWF line. should be easy as a fighter to spend some of those.

silverbrow human Kensai Variant fighter (tail blade[get WP tail blade free]) (each fighter feat (Fx is offset by 1 as normal for uberchager build F4 is ECL 5 for example)
1: Dragon Tail
H: TWF
F1: tail blade expert (+1 attack/ damage +1 @5, 10, 15, 20)
Lion totem barb @ lvl 2 (can now full attack on charge with greatsword and tail blade)
F2: Power attack
3: Improved Bull Rush
F4: Leap Attack
6: shocktrooper
F6: Imp TWF
F8:
9:
F10: Greater TWF
12:
F12:
F14:
15:
F16:
18:
F18:

as you can see like normal the fighter has a lot of open slots left but @ lvl 20 (assuming 30 STR) has 4 greatsword attacks dealing 2d6 + 90 @-4 to-hit and 3 tail club attacks dealing 1d8+ 50 @ +1 to hit (iterative negatives applied as they go). totals are 8D6 + 360 & 3d8 +150. so about an additional 1/3 damage. then there is all the OTHER feat slots to deal with weapon focus/ spec/ect. (& 2 more feats if playing with flaws)

[Ignimortis]

Players already are incentived to kill enemies before they attack. Shocktrooper just means that melee characters can hit for extra damage without missing.

EDIT: Also, why are we complaining about Shocktrooper when charging builds are one of the martials best answer to dealing massive amounts of damage? Without it, they fall even farther behind than they already are.

Not complaining, just pointing out that Shock Trooper turns an (assumed) even trade into an uneven one. I don't think it's bad for the game or anything, since if Shock Trooper didn't exist, fighter wouldn't even have ubercharging.

[Cosi]

Uberchargers are a bad game design. They're some of the most binary characters in the game. Either they can charge you (in which case you die) or they can't charge you (in which case they do nothing). The fact that they are the best martial build is exactly why I view all solutions that aspire to bring the Wizard down to the level of the Fighter as fundamentally wrongheaded. That said, if you are going to remove the ubercharger (which, to be clear, you should), you can't replace it with nothing. But you should replace it with things like Tome of Battle, where martial characters have dynamic-ish sets of options.

You don't need to make Martials as potentially good as Wizards for them to be balanced, as witnessed by the fact there' not many threads asking "How do we balance Partial Casters vs Wizards". We all know the Bard doesn't have the same potential, but it has enough that it's not a big deal.

I think the weakness of the Bard is a big deal. A Core Bard is an anemic waste of space that doesn't have any core competency in which he is level appropriate. It just happens that Bards got enough buffs from splats that people forgot how bad they were to begin with, and even then they don't play as a Jack of All Trades type -- Bardblades are melee/buffs, DFI are straight buffs, Sublime Chords are straight magic, and so on.

Finally, I think including a free scaling magic weapon (or armour, or amulet of mighty fists, or whatever) in class would be useful for granting more utility, as then they can use their WBL for a bunch of things.

I like "Weapon of Legacy, but no penalties". The penalties are stupid and turn what would otherwise be a perfectly good system for stealth-buffing underperformers into an underpowered mess. Also, it fits the source material. Mjolnir isn't just a +5 bonus to attack rolls, it's flight and lightning powers too. Also probably some level of super strength.

Fix/ban some of the obvious stuff.

This is covering a lot of ground in very little detail. What is "the obvious stuff"? What needs to be banned? What do the fixes look like?

Make battlefield control easier to resist.

Battlefield control is already fairly easy to resist, martials just don't have those resistances.

Write less unwieldy rules for ability damage.

Ability damage is terrible and breaks the game. In any amount that isn't lethal it's either a minor debuff (everything but CON damage if you hit a relevant stat), regular damage attached to a debuff (CON damage), or meaningless (everything but CON damage if you don't hit a relevant stat). If you can do lethal amounts, it allows you to crap all over the level system. There's no version of it that's good, but it's ingrained enough that you can't easily dump it.

Add a robust parrying mechanic.

I don't think combat needs more die rolls to be resolved. I'm not convinced parrying is cool enough for the overhead that would be required here. Can't "parry" just be a defensive option offered by Iron Heart or Setting Sun maneuvers?

variations of old feats. (only PHB ones)

Shock Trooper is a good example of a feat that's already at the right power level. Other feats could learn a lot from Shock Trooper.

None of these do enough to be meaningful if you get one feat every three levels. You (by which I mean "the game") need(s) to decide whether feats are a minor bonus that is nice to have or unlocks a novel technique (most feats) or are character transforming powerups (as is suggested by the slowness with which you get feats, and also things like DMM or Natural Spell). Asking for people to pay the same price for Weapon Focus and Energy Substitution as Lord of the Uttercold and Greenbound Summoning is insane. You either need to commit to "feats are minor flavor buffs", in which case people should get one a level or more, or "feats are big and character defining", in which case people should be taking things like the Races of War Combat Feats.

This is a fairly general problem with 3e. Many things are not so much horribly imbalanced as operating wholly or partially at several different power levels. This gives you the opportunity to pick any of the power levels, depending on your preference, but it leaves the rules as they exist in an imbalanced state.

For anyone who likes the idea of moderately nerfing casters and buffing martials, check out Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might. My group uses them along with DSP stuff and the disparity is much less

"Have you heard the good word of Spheres of Power?"

At the very least, it's poorly written. I also believe that flat-out negating a tactically interesting class of spells is a bad idea, not to mention grappling. It's too strong of a silver bullet, in my opinion.

I think anything that causes people to not have to think about the grapple rules is an unalloyed good.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Not complaining, just pointing out that Shock Trooper turns an (assumed) even trade into an uneven one. I don't think it's bad for the game or anything, since if Shock Trooper didn't exist, fighter wouldn't even have ubercharging.

Alright, I get what you're saying.

[BassoonHero]

This is covering a lot of ground in very little detail. What is "the obvious stuff"? What needs to be banned? What do the fixes look like?

I'm talking about spells like alter self, shivering touch, and planar binding that are obviously broken or that have extreme potential for abuse. I'm being deliberately vague because I think that this point is largely outside the scope of the present discussion.

Battlefield control is already fairly easy to resist, martials just don't have those resistances.

In other words, BFC is very difficult for martial characters to resist. One way to address this is to give martial characters magical tools to resist them. Another answer is to provide alternative ways to resist those spells. For instance, a fighter might power through solid fog with an Athletics check.

Ability damage is terrible and breaks the game.

Well, I did imply I don't like the current system. :-) I don't have finished rules for this. I think that in some cases ability damage could be a partial substitute for one-shot save-or-die spells.

I don't think combat needs more die rolls to be resolved.

In the draft I'm looking at, parrying is a combat maneuver; it does not add die rolls. The mechanic as a whole could add die rolls to the extent that it might incentivize dual-wielding or shields.

None of these do enough to be meaningful if you get one feat every three levels.

Eh. Feats every other level are probably a good thing, but the difference is three feats over twenty levels — significant, but not a game-changer.

Asking for people to pay the same price for Weapon Focus and Energy Substitution as Lord of the Uttercold and Greenbound Summoning is insane.

Greenbound Summoning is insane, and Weapon Focus is useless. I think there's a reasonable middle ground. Power Attack, Rapid Shot, Karmic Strike — there's quality stuff out there.

I think anything that causes people to not have to think about the grapple rules is an unalloyed good.

Grappling should be a standard option, but it's a pain in the assn. This is easily fixable by rewriting the mechanic. I don't think of that as a balance change, though. Along the same lines, the rules for unarmed combat, multiweapon fighting, and natural weapons need to be rewritten.

[Mordaedil]

I hear a lot of grief about grappling (it was even one of the big advertisements for 4th edition), but isn't the function of grappling at the table fairly straight forward, despite the rules being fairly large? I've seen it become kind of a mess at the table because people start to look it up, but it's essentially just all about opposed grapple checks or escape artist if you want to evade it. The rules aren't even very specific (for instance, how do you free someone who is being grappled by someone else?), but at the table, it can be essentially narrowed down to "okay, roll me a grapple check to see if you succeed".

And I don't think anyone is confused about what weapons they can use in a grapple.

[EldritchWeaver]

Do I interpret this correctly?

Uberchargers are a bad game design. They're some of the most binary characters in the game. Either they can charge you (in which case you die) or they can't charge you (in which case they do nothing). The fact that they are the best martial build is exactly why I view all solutions that aspire to bring the Wizard down to the level of the Fighter as fundamentally wrongheaded. That said, if you are going to remove the ubercharger (which, to be clear, you should), you can't replace it with nothing. But you should replace it with things like Tome of Battle, where martial characters have dynamic-ish sets of options.

You recommend the use of supplement A to solve this problem.

"Have you heard the good word of Spheres of Power?"

Someone else recommends the of supplement B to solve the same problem. And then you mock them? If you do, that's hypocritical.

[Mordaedil]

Do I interpret this correctly?



You recommend the use of supplement A to solve this problem.



Someone else recommends the of supplement B to solve the same problem. And then you mock them? If you do, that's hypocritical.

It isn't hypocritical if he doesn't like one of the supplements, but likes the other. Besides, one is official and the other... Exists.

[EldritchWeaver]

It isn't hypocritical if he doesn't like one of the supplements, but likes the other.

Like or dislike doesn't factor in being hypocritical. Fact is, both approaches have the same solution - "use different rules".

Besides, one is official and the other... Exists.

Being produced by WotC is making rules automatically really great, everything else is so bad you can just ignore it? If that would be true, then the core classes wouldn't be so imbalanced in the first place. And people wouldn't be willing to recommend SoP/SoM so readily.

[Mordaedil]

Like or dislike doesn't factor in being hypocritical. Fact is, both approaches have the same solution - "use different rules".

I can't speak on Cosi's behalf with regards to this, but I think you are misrepresenting the argument here. He doesn't make any value statement with regards to using different rules. He just simply offers his own and dismisses another. That doesn't mean he's being hypocritical at all. That's just dismissing his viewpoint without trying to understand where he comes from.

Being produced by WotC is making rules automatically really great, everything else is so bad you can just ignore it? If that would be true, then the core classes wouldn't be so imbalanced in the first place. And people wouldn't be willing to recommend SoP/SoM so readily.

People recommend SoP/SoM because they have played with it and find it great for their games. But this isn't an universal opinion of those rules. Everybody is entitled to their own opinions on them.

Also, I'm not saying "because WotC made them, the rules are automatically better". That's putting words in my mouth. Official products carry clout. That's the only difference. SoP/SoM is no better than homebrew content and fact is every homebrew content works really well for the tables that make them and they work for the games they are made with in mind. SoP/SoM simply has a goal to be better managed than most homebrew content, but they lack that clout that any official printed book has. And there is no way around that for them.

[Cosi]

In other words, BFC is very difficult for martial characters to resist. One way to address this is to give martial characters magical tools to resist them. Another answer is to provide alternative ways to resist those spells. For instance, a fighter might power through solid fog with an Athletics check.

My point there was to suggest that since there exist counters, it is easier and safer to provide broader access to those counters rather than add new ones. In particular, adding new counters that work for anyone has the potential to screw up encounter balance. Lots of monsters (e.g. giant vermin) exist in the space of big dumb bruisers and are supposed to be beaten by BFC, or otherwise negating their ability to melee. If you make it possible for big dumb bruisers to avoid being crowd controlled, those monsters become a lot more dangerous. Therefore, I think a solution that makes Fighters not be big dumb bruisers is preferable to one which makes big dumb bruiser a more effective thing to be.

Well, I did imply I don't like the current system. :-) I don't have finished rules for this. I think that in some cases ability damage could be a partial substitute for one-shot save-or-die spells.

I think ability damage should just not exist. Long duration conditions and negative levels handle most of what it should do (provide lasting debuffs as a result of a fight), and don't have the property of one-shotting certain classes of monster. However, it is very ingrained in the system, and trying to cut it out of the game as it exists may well be more trouble than it's worth.

Eh. Feats every other level are probably a good thing, but the difference is three feats over twenty levels — significant, but not a game-changer.

I meant feats every level. If I'm expected to be taking Spontaneous Summoner or Wolverine's Rage as a feat, I should be getting a huge pile of feats. Not waiting as long as many games last to get your third feat.

Greenbound Summoning is insane, and Weapon Focus is useless. I think there's a reasonable middle ground. Power Attack, Rapid Shot, Karmic Strike — there's quality stuff out there.

I think Greenbound Summoning is at or close to the correct power level if you get one feat every three levels. At that rate, feats should be character defining or character transforming. Not "I can hit less accurately to do more damage".

Someone else recommends the of supplement B to solve the same problem. And then you mock them? If you do, that's hypocritical.

That comment (like the one about the grapple rules) was meant largely in jest. People who support Spheres of Power tend to be fairly aggressive in their advocacy for using it (to the point that I've seen at least one poster explicitly request not to have it recommended as a solution). It's worth noting in this context that I've suggested a bunch of things which aren't Tome of Battle.

Like or dislike doesn't factor in being hypocritical. Fact is, both approaches have the same solution - "use different rules".

What possible solution to "the rules are bad" that isn't "use different rules" exists? Also, rulesets have strengths and weaknesses and can be evaluated on that basis. I personally think Spheres of Power is a bad ruleset that works towards a solution I don't like (making casters more mechanically focused on a few abilities), and it's off topic for this thread.

[BassoonHero]

...isn't the function of grappling at the table fairly straight forward, despite the rules being fairly large?

Yep. That's why I feel it could be rewritten pretty easily.

My point there was to suggest that since there exist counters, it is easier and safer to provide broader access to those counters rather than add new ones. In particular, adding new counters that work for anyone has the potential to screw up encounter balance. Lots of monsters (e.g. giant vermin) exist in the space of big dumb bruisers and are supposed to be beaten by BFC, or otherwise negating their ability to melee. If you make it possible for big dumb bruisers to avoid being crowd controlled, those monsters become a lot more dangerous. Therefore, I think a solution that makes Fighters not be big dumb bruisers is preferable to one which makes big dumb bruiser a more effective thing to be.

Easier, yes. Preferable... well, that's a matter of preference.

I meant feats every level.

I admit that's not a suggestion I've often heard.

If I'm expected to be taking Spontaneous Summoner or Wolverine's Rage as a feat, I should be getting a huge pile of feats. ... I think Greenbound Summoning is at or close to the correct power level if you get one feat every three levels.

These are all feats for spellcasters, and they span the range from "broken" to "okay" without occupying the center of "good". So this hard for me to evaluate in the context of martial characters. Are there any martial feats that you would consider to be at an appropriate power level? What would a Greenbound-Summoning-level martial feat even look like?

[Cosi]

Easier, yes. Preferable... well, that's a matter of preference.

I think if you are not rewriting the system, whatever requires you to make less changes (and in particular, to add less new interactions) is better.

I admit that's not a suggestion I've often heard.

Feats are tiny and stupid, but you get them very rarely. That's obviously not functional, but you could fix it in either direction. Either give people more minor feats, or the same number of feats that are bigger.

These are all feats for spellcasters, and they span the range from "broken" to "okay" without occupying the center of "good". So this hard for me to evaluate in the context of martial characters. Are there any martial feats that you would consider to be at an appropriate power level? What would a Greenbound-Summoning-level martial feat even look like?

In RAW (and mostly ignoring prerequisites), Shock Trooper would be the standout. But really I'd want people to be taking the Races of War Combat Feats. Those are explicitly designed to work for martials and to fix exactly this problem.

[BassoonHero]

I'm not a fan of the Races of War feats. I think that if you want to give a character a bunch of different abilities, there's no need to group them into feats that do a bunch of different things.

Take the first one on the list, Blind Fighting. The first two abilities are a sort of fixed version of the original Blind-Fight feat. (As it happens, it's almost identical to a skill trick in the system I'm working on.) Then, at sixth level, you get the capstone -- I approve, although myself I just make this another skill trick. Then, at level 11, you get a slightly longer-range ability that doesn't work on flying enemies. Finally, at level 16 you get slightly-better Uncanny Dodge.

Then look at Blitz, the next one on the list. It gives you two alternate combat options right away, but while the mechanics are different they're doing the same thing in principle. At level 6, you get a great ability. At 11, you get another new option, tied to the Intimidate skill. At 16, you get an ability you needed ten levels ago (and that I would give away for free anyway).

Combat Looting is useless unless you're a grappler rogue or something. Combat School is just plain broken.

Overall, the Races of War feats look like one or maybe two good ideas with a bunch of random filler. They just don't seem to hold together; they're too fiddly for the benefits. Obviously, your mileage may vary.

[upho]

First off, I appreciate you having an actually serious go at this difficult challenge, Cosi. And for trying to maintain a focus on both what needs changing and how to change it with a minimum of work. IMO, over the years there have been too many threads and posts simply whining about more or less relevant related issues without offering solutions, and too many suggesting solutions which require far too massive and laborious changes to be anywhere near practical for most people.

Disclaimer: It's been nearly a decade since I last played 3.5, so please bear with if I don't remember certain details correctly and take my comments with a grain of salt. That said, I do believe I'm sufficiently up to speed when it comes to PF, and I think the general C/MD problem exists in PF in pretty much the same way as it does in 3.5 (and with some minor tweaks the solutions suggested should be applicable to PF as well).

Several people have posted threads recently about how to balance casters. Mostly these threads aren't terribly serious (though at least one of them was), but there are various comments, in those threads and elsewhere that express the same incorrect belief -- the correct solution to the balance problems 3e has is to make casters less powerful. This is wrong, and its wrong for a two major reasons. First, people don't like nerfs. In general, they dislike nerfs more than they like buffs. So we should be very careful to avoid nerfing things to as large a degree as possible when addressing imbalance (though I will admit there are some things that need to be nerfed, e.g. planar binding and wish). Second, casters are better than mundanes. I don't mean that in the sense that they are more powerful (although, yes, that is obviously true), I mean that Wizard is better designed than Fighter.

I'm not sure I agree with the extent of caster nerfing you believe to be the minimum required, nor with your last claim about wizard being better designed than fighter.

With regards to the minimum nerfing required, I believe there are quite a few spells - besides those most obvious higher level ones - which aren't necessarily nearly as unbalanced, but nevertheless have a very high risk of becoming disruptive and bad for the game at the level when they're first made accessible. Examples include freedom of movement, dimension door, polymorph, teleportation and similar, many spells offering effect immunity or the ability to flat-out ignore a target's immunity, and most SoD/SoL spells (sleep is awful game design). That is, even in game where "mundanes" have similar abilities, some of these spells remain "I win" buttons with boring binary effects similar to the overkill caused by a successful charge by an optimized übercharger, while others frequently require the DM puts in a ton of tedious additional prep work simply to prevent major interesting challenges from being easily bypassed.

While I agree it wouldn't be practical to change all of these high-risk spells, I believe at least the most problematic ones should be addressed. How do you intend to do that, and if not, why not?

Regarding whether the wizard is better designed than fighter, I believe that's entirely dependent on the game they're supposed to be in. So I think it would be far more accurate to say the fighter is very poorly designed for a game including the wizard, and vice versa. Which in itself says quite a lot about how great the C/MD is.

So clearly, when confronted with the imbalance between casters and martials, we should attempt to move martials up before we attempt move casters down. To do that, we need to address two things.

First, the difficulty of building an effective martial character. To this end, the obvious solution is access to high-floor options like Tome of Battle (likely as a free Gestalt with whatever martial class the player would otherwise take), or the homebrew scaling feats from Races of War. An important thing to remember is that the goal of buffs like these should not be to give people the resources to create a 20 level build that can be notionally effective if they are allowed to dumpster dive through every printed splat, but to give people options that allow them to make an effective character quickly and cleanly. This also has the advantage of mitigating the linearity of martial characters. Races of War feats are designed to replace entire feat chains, meaning it is no longer prohibitively expensive to be effective with both a bow and a sword.

ToB gestalt and the scaling Races of War feats will certainly up the power floor of martials and add plenty of combat versatility. But I still fail to see how these suggestions are enough to allow martials to take on new combat roles, much less perform them at a level comparable to that of a wizard. That is, martials will generally still crowd the single-target "striker" niche, at least while also meeting the "make an effective character quickly and cleanly" goal. To make their combat versatility and effectiveness comparable to that of a wizard, martials must actually have comparable options, many of which simply doesn't exist for martials. I mean, Races of War feats (like Command) and ToB maneuvers are still far from able to grant control power on a level comparable to that of a BFC/summoning focused conjurer, nor do these options allow a martial to take on any combat focus/role to the extent their damage output can be ignored as completely as full casters built for the same role can.

In short, I don't see how martials are supposed to be as effective and versatile in combat as casters without supporting abilities as strong as those casters have. How do you intend to address this issue?

Second, the dearth of utility options available to martials, particularly outside combat. A Fighter needs something to do when the combat music is not playing. Not just because that makes his character more effective, but because extended sequences where a character is unable to act are unfun for the corresponding player, which means that for extended non-combat sequences to occur (allowing casters to use their non-combat abilities), martials need something to contribute to those sequences. The obvious solution would be to simply give martials casting, but there isn't an elegant way of doing that without also allowing them to use that casting in combat. Instead, I suggest some combination of custom Weapons of Legacy (with penalties removed), access to Infusions as an Artificer (which have few in-combat applications without access to Action Points), or a free Factotum Gestalt (which also provides some in-combat utility).

I'm not a fan of the Weapons of Legacy idea, as I believe it would require too much customization work in order to transform the relevant benefits into suitable class options, and/or would further increase magic item dependency in both mechanics and flavor. IIRC Artificer Infusions could work for out of combat/utility stuff, though I don't really remember whether they could also give enough of a boost to martial combat related things like melee reach, AoOs/round and opposed Str checks. The Factotum Gestalt might be the easiest to just slap on, but it wouldn't exactly make building a martial less complex, and the casting feels like giving up on finding a more elegant solution not dependent on spells IMO.

Hmm... One possible option may be stealing the PF Summoner's eidolon evolutions along with a fitting pool of evolution points. Evos are fantastically fun and flavorful IMO, and can greatly improve versatility both in and outside of combat (see my Wrathblood homebrew bloodrager archetype for an example of this now tried and tested in several different games and groups). It's definitely not a suitable general solution for all martials, but it may very well be one possible option for certain martial character concepts instead of say Artificer Infusions.

[upho]

Overall, the Races of War feats look like one or maybe two good ideas with a bunch of random filler. They just don't seem to hold together; they're too fiddly for the benefits. Obviously, your mileage may vary.

Yeah, I have to say I agree with this. They don't exactly come off as quality material, many of them merely offering a somewhat vague conceptual idea with what I'd best describe as place-holder mechanics, having a lot of gaping holes and providing poorly balanced benefits seemingly chosen almost randomly (or possibly in order to suit the needs of specific PCs in the creators' games). As written, I wouldn't recommend using any of them except possibly the two or three most finished and well-designed ones.

Are there no good alternatives? Maybe homebrew feats similar to these PF ones (which are great, but few applicable to 3.5), but perhaps providing a bit more drastic and scaling benefits?

[Cosi]

Take the first one on the list, Blind Fighting.

I disagree that those abilities are thematically unlinked. To me, that looks like a group of abilities that are very clearly evocative of a concept that is basically Daredevil.

Then look at Blitz, the next one on the list. It gives you two alternate combat options right away, but while the mechanics are different they're doing the same thing in principle. At level 6, you get a great ability. At 11, you get another new option, tied to the Intimidate skill. At 16, you get an ability you needed ten levels ago (and that I would give away for free anyway).

Again, I think "free Intimidate" matches pretty well to "reckless aggression". Certain, you could give away the final ability earlier or for free, but I don' think that's required.

Combat Looting is useless unless you're a grappler rogue or something. Combat School is just plain broken.

Combat Looting is a niche option, but niche options are fine. I'm not really sure what you think is broken about Combat School. It's good, and I could see maybe swapping the daze with either the +11 or the +16, but I don't think it's broken. Dazing on your attacks doesn't seem much more deadly than dropping a stinking cloud on a fight.

Incidentally, that link cuts off partway through the combat feats. The full sourcebook (with the full list of feats) is here.

With regards to the minimum nerfing required, I believe there are quite a few spells - besides those most obvious higher level ones - which aren't necessarily nearly as unbalanced, but nevertheless have a very high risk of becoming disruptive and bad for the game at the level when they're first made accessible. Examples include freedom of movement, dimension door, polymorph, teleportation and similar, many spells offering effect immunity or the ability to flat-out ignore a target's immunity, and most SoD/SoL spells (sleep is awful game design). That is, even in game where "mundanes" have similar abilities, some of these spells remain "I win" buttons with boring binary effects similar to the overkill caused by a successful charge by an optimized übercharger, while others frequently require the DM puts in a ton of tedious additional prep work simply to prevent major interesting challenges from being easily bypassed.

freedom of movement: I could certainly see an argument for nerfing the immunity spells, but I think that in general they provide a valuable service by preventing the game from falling into "I do my one thing" ad infinitum. If some enemies are immune to grappling/illusions/death effects/whatever, characters can't just be one trick ponies, which is desirable.
dimension door: This spell seems totally fine to me, and I have never seen complaints about it previously.
polymorph: I agree that this spell needs to be nerfed. It should probably be replaced with a choice from a menu of buffs and a disguise.
teleportation: I have seen lots of complaints about this, but I think they are fundamentally misguided. The effect of teleportation isn't to skip encounters, it is to allow the party to only participate in encounters they want to participate in. If you are observing players using teleport to skip to the end of your adventures, that probably means that you have written an adventure whose only interesting encounter is at the end. Generally, I think most complaints about "I win" buttons and encounter bypassing come from DMs who are Dming badly. I can go into more detail if you would like.
SoD/SoL: I think Save or Dies have advantages (4e pretty clearly demonstrated the flaws of a combat system where there's no quick way to end a fight), but I could see arguments for nerfing them. If I were redesigning the system entirely, I would probably require that targets be at half HP or lower to be vulnerable to spells that take them out of the fight. As is, I don't think the negative impact of these spells is enough to justify sweeping changes.

Regarding whether the wizard is better designed than fighter, I believe that's entirely dependent on the game they're supposed to be in. So I think it would be far more accurate to say the fighter is very poorly designed for a game including the wizard, and vice versa. Which in itself says quite a lot about how great the C/MD is.

I think that's leaning too heavily on balance point as a part of design. Yes, the Wizard and the Fighter aren't compatible because of their power gap, but that's a different question from "which one is better designed", and the answer to the design question is something that should guide us in determining which balance point is preferable. Once you stop including balance in your game design assessment, it becomes very difficult for me to imagine anyone looking at the Fighter as well designed. The Fighter ... isn't a class. It's a citation to a bunch of rules shared by all the classes. The only things that are definitively Fighter exclusive are the Weapon Focus line of feats, and those feats are both boring and garbage. I certainly think there are classes that are better design than the Wizard (even some non-casting classes), but I think the literal Fighter versus Wizard comparison is very clearly favorable to the Wizard (and I also think the abstract Mundane versus Caster comparison is favorable to the casters).

ToB gestalt and the scaling Races of War feats will certainly up the power floor of martials and add plenty of combat versatility. But I still fail to see how these suggestions are enough to allow martials to take on new combat roles, much less perform them at a level comparable to that of a wizard.

I think those options would allow martials to fill a reasonable variety of combat roles. Even allow characters to fight passably effectively at range is a big bump. But between those options, they afford the ability to do a reasonable variety of combat things (albeit usually mediated via damage). A martial character with those options could pull off single target damage, AoE damage, some on-attack debuffs, some buff and support abilities, and possibly trip-based BFC. Consider something like a Warblade//Marshall. You get an aura that provides some minor bonuses, the ability to grant your allies actions (both via white raven tactics and Grant Move Action), taking Horde Breaker and Whirlwind and wielding a Spiked Chain allows you to do a passable job threatening large groups of enemies, and your maneuvers give you good defenses or additional offensive options. Plus potentially some Weapon of Legacy stuff. Certainly, it's not as much as a Wizard can, but it's enough to be viable.

I'm not a fan of the Weapons of Legacy idea, as I believe it would require too much customization work in order to transform the relevant benefits into suitable class options, and/or would further increase magic item dependency in both mechanics and flavor.

Not super sure what you mean by too much customization work. You pick from a set of menu options. As far as magic item dependency goes, it does sort of increase that, but it does so in a way that is much more in line with the source material D&D is trying to emulate. King Arthur doesn't have a +5 Holy Longsword, he has Excalibur, a legendary weapon that turns aside the blades of his enemies and entitles him to the kingship of England. In fantasy, characters do have single, powerful weapons that grant unique abilities. They don't have lots of little magic items that grant numeric bonuses. Moving to a paradigm where people have things like Weapons of Legacy instead of the assortment of items they do now is probably net-neutral in terms of item requirements, but makes characters much close to genre expectations.

IIRC Artificer Infusions could work for out of combat/utility stuff, though I don't really remember whether they could also give enough of a boost to martial combat related things like melee reach, AoOs/round and opposed Str checks.

In-combat, infusions get you some basic buffs, the ability to add enhancement effects to magic weapons, a bunch of stuff that does things to constructs, spell storing item, and at high levels some BFC. All in all, basically reasonable stuff

The Factotum Gestalt might be the easiest to just slap on, but it wouldn't exactly make building a martial less complex, and the casting feels like giving up on finding a more elegant solution not dependent on spells IMO.

Factotum doesn't really add that much build complexity. You can take some different skills (and if there were more non-core skills, dumpster diving for them might be a real issue), but the only real complexity is at play time when you try to find the perfect spell. It does give you spellcasting, but that spellcasting is really crappy for use in combat, and if you had access to maneuvers (or simply more effective attack actions), you wouldn't try to use it there. You would use it outside combat, but outside combat you have to give people spells because nothing else is written up with non-combat effects. I mean, I guess "psionic powers", but I don't think that fixes anyone's issues.

Hmm... One possible option may be stealing the PF Summoner's eidolon evolutions along with a fitting pool of evolution points. Evos are fantastically fun and flavorful IMO, and can greatly improve versatility both in and outside of combat (see my Wrathblood homebrew bloodrager archetype for an example of this now tried and tested in several different games and groups). It's definitely not a suitable general solution for all martials, but it may very well be one possible option for certain martial character concepts instead of say Artificer Infusions.

Certainly there are other things you could feasibly give other characters.

[BassoonHero]

I disagree that those abilities are thematically unlinked. To me, that looks like a group of abilities that are very clearly evocative of a concept that is basically Daredevil.

Blind-Fighting is definitely the one that holds together the best.

Again, I think "free Intimidate" matches pretty well to "reckless aggression".

You and I are looking for different things here. One of the things I like best about feats is that they are discrete. In my mind, that sets them apart from, say, prestige classes. The Blitz feat doesn't feel like an ability that scales, but like a pile of separate abilities.

'm not really sure what you think is broken about Combat School. ... Dazing on your attacks doesn't seem much more deadly than dropping a stinking cloud on a fight.

I strongly disagree. For one thing, daze is a much more powerful condition than nauseated. For another, you can force a single opponent to save several times in a single round. You never run out, and there is no opportunity cost to use the ability. Every melee character should take this feat, including dexterity-based characters.

If some enemies are immune to grappling/illusions/death effects/whatever, characters can't just be one trick ponies, which is desirable.

Martial characters are forced to be one-trick ponies anyway (Tome of Battle excluded). The feat taxes in 3.5 are too severe for a martial character to be good at more than one thing. On the other hand, spellcasters are never forced to be one-trick ponies.

There's a common pattern in 3.5 where an offensive option is powerful and difficult to resist via ordinary means, but is utterly nullified by a silver bullet (freedom of movement, true seeing, death ward, mind blank). The typical result is that access to the silver bullet is [considered mandatory at higher levels](http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...ry-Magic-Items). The end result is that the offensive ability is either overpowered or ineffective depending on the players' access to answers. This is uninteractive, and it's a significant contributor to the "rocket tag" of high-level combat.

Adding insult to injury, it's almost always easier and cheaper for spellcasters to acquire the necessary immunities. This subproblem can be addressed by granting martial characters broader access to those immunities, but to me this looks like adding epicycles. The underlying dynamic needs to change. In some cases, the offensive abilities can be powered down. This is basically the save-or-die problem, and it's a whole other discussion.

In other cases, I prefer to come up with mundane resistances, like using Athletics to charge through solid fog. This is fundamentally interactive in a way that buying freedom of movement is not. From the martial character's perspective, it feels a lot more awesome than spending 12,000 gp and a swift action to ignore the effect. And it's a way to differentiate characters -- the wizard uses a spell, the barbarian brute-forces it, and the rogue (perhaps) dives out of the way before the fog solidifies. A subtle benefit of this example implementation is that the action economy slightly favors the non-casters: the Athletics check can be made as part of regular movement, whereas casting a spell or activating an item takes an action of some kind.

Once you stop including balance in your game design assessment, it becomes very difficult for me to imagine anyone looking at the Fighter as well designed. The Fighter ... isn't a class. It's a citation to a bunch of rules shared by all the classes.

I actually disagree here. I don't think there's anything wrong in principle with a class that just gives a pile of bonus feats. In practice, of course, the fighter sucks, because the feats don't stack up.

Regarding items, I think that a significant part of a system upgrade should be reducing the number of boring magic items that characters have. Numerical bonuses for ability scores, weapons and armor, and so on should be baked into character advancement.

[Vaern]

I almost always play some sort of spellcaster, but 4th edition actually made martial characters enjoyable to play. Outside of planning out your overall build, there isn't a lot of decision making involved in playing a martial character in 3.5. Your attacks are simple and straightforward, which can become boring if it's the one thing your character is built to do. 4E giving martial characters a variety of different maneuvers that can push or pull enemies into strategically advantageous positions, inflict status effects, or allow them to to take a blow for a nearby ally makes them a lot more interesting to play.
Martials would still be outshined by casters if you let them pick up abilities like that in 3.5, but it would add a lot of extra utility to them and make them more appealing if for no other reason than a bit of extra fun factor.

[Arbane]

(I've been posting this rant a lot in these threads, because I think it's a good one.)

It's phrased in all kinds of different ways. Fighters shouldn't be too "anime". Or maybe Fighters should be more Conanesque. Or whatever. But it's actually really common that people think of a "Fighter" and they think of some fictional character who is like 4th level. Mad Martigan from Willow, Conan from Conan, Gimli from LotR, or whatever. That's their concept of a Fighter, and they don't want their character to do anything that character does not do.

Where this gets problematic is when it bumps right next to their next demand, that the party is hitting 5th level and they still want to be limited to a benchmark that is essentially 4th level. And while at that point you can in fact keep things kind of hobbling along with the same character with bigger numbers, after a few levels of that it becomes untenable. When the player is asking for their character to be archetypically identical to a 4th level concept and asking to be mechanically balanced with 9th level casters, you're up **** Creek.

That was the horrible revelation that was caused by the Tome Fighter. The harsh reality is that Mad Martigan is a 4th level character and the people who hold up Mad Martigan as the example are seriously not saying that they want higher level abilities that happen to be skinned as guts and luck, they are literally saying that they want to be quintessentially 4th level characters while being balanced with 9th level characters. It's an actually and actively contradictory thought pattern and there is no solution.

Contrariwise, the Tome Monk get accepted with hardly a blip. Some people quibble about it being overpowered. Some people even helpfully informed us that it was more powerful than a Core Monk. But people didn't tell us that any of it was out of theme. Because the Monk theme is one which can in fact continue growing until it's Goku. Similarly, "Wizard" is a character concept that just keeps growing forever. Your summoner summons electric rat, and then he summons a storm crow, and then he's summoning a thunder dragon. No one bats an eye at this poo poo.

But Fighter players seriously do get annoyed and even offended when their character can beat up an elephant with their bare hands. Also they get annoyed and offended when they notice that the other characters are more powerful than they are. It really is cognitive dissonance, and the solution is to force people to abandon the Fighter concept after a few levels. Mandatory PrCs is the only way to get people to accept their own character having level appropriate abilities at high level.

And I think he's right. Given D&D's "Magic ALWAYS beats Non-Magic" bias, "Fighter with no magic" is a concept that tops out around level 6, if not sooner. Magic geegaws can spackle the cracks a bit longer, but actual magicians can use geegaws too.

(For a good laugh, find Gary Gygax's effort to stat up Conan the Barbarian for AD&D - he had to break ALL THE RULES to do it, as Conan is just too _competent_ to be a Fighter. He also gave Conan psionic powers. )

[ColorBlindNinja]

(For a good laugh, find Gary Gygax's effort to stat up Conan the Barbarian for AD&D - he had to break ALL THE RULES to do it, as Conan is just too _competent_ to be a Fighter. He also gave Conan psionic powers. )

I'm not overly familiar with Conan, but I think he wouldn't be too difficult to model in 3.5.

[Morty]

Conan's big problem in 3.x D&D is the system's insistence that if a non-magical character can tie their own shoelaces outside of combat, they're a rogue or ranger, not a fighter or any other "warrior" type.

[death390]

I almost always play some sort of spellcaster, but 4th edition actually made martial characters enjoyable to play. Outside of planning out your overall build, there isn't a lot of decision making involved in playing a martial character in 3.5. Your attacks are simple and straightforward, which can become boring if it's the one thing your character is built to do. 4E giving martial characters a variety of different maneuvers that can push or pull enemies into strategically advantageous positions, inflict status effects, or allow them to to take a blow for a nearby ally makes them a lot more interesting to play.
Martials would still be outshined by casters if you let them pick up abilities like that in 3.5, but it would add a lot of extra utility to them and make them more appealing if for no other reason than a bit of extra fun factor.

4th edition basically EVERYONE is a caster with a re-skinning of their abilities.

also loved that rant because it is too true. my group is basically having this same problem right new WE ARE IN GOD DAMN E6 AND THEY ARE BITCHING I'M TOO POWERFUL @ lvl 3!!! i diluted my character concept to fit all the roles we are missing; trapfinding, out of combat healing, magic damage, magic identification, trap/ lock disabling, AC/ miss chance melee as a character with 11 HP, ranged combat, scouting, stealth. hell the only things i don't cover are BFC cause i ran out of spells availible and track because 3 of my 7 man group are F&#* RANGERS, 2 Fighters, and a guy who changes character every other game! in order to reach everything we needed i am M.A.D., those not great feats/traits, and dumped a buch of my skill points in cross class skills. i have an AC of 20 with 20-50% miss chance (if i use hide its 50% but that takes part of a move action), i do 1d6/lvl with kelgores acid bolt as my only damage spell, 1d8 with my blade, and thats it for damage.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Conan's big problem in 3.x D&D is the system's insistence that if a non-magical character can tie their own shoelaces outside of combat, they're a rogue or ranger, not a fighter or any other "warrior" type.

Barbarians actually have a half way decent skill list, as do Warbldaes. Plus, a dip in another class helps with skills in general.

[Snowbluff]

Disregard fighters.
They lack mechanical depth.
Play casters.

[zlefin]

was trying to follow the conversation; but the link to the races of war stuff isn't working. is it workin for other people?