New OOTS products from CafePress
New OOTS t-shirts, ornaments, mugs, bags, and more
Page 7 of 12 FirstFirst 123456789101112 LastLast
Results 181 to 210 of 356
  1. - Top - End - #181
    Pixie in the Playground
    Join Date
    Apr 2017

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Martials should have monk like developments for every martial, just not at a progression as fast as monks. If and when martials do fail their saves, within reason, allow them to act for one round normally or a situational extraordinary ability activates, while under the effects of the suck. Also allow martials to act, NOT ALWAYS, in surprise rounds but again, when situations or clauses are satisfied. Quality of life discussions to help mend different approaches to what, how, etc., martials can accomplish would be great.

  2. - Top - End - #182
    Troll in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2011

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    The common wisdom is that whatever balance point is desired, people should stay at or within one tier of it. A fighter in a group of T1s is going to be a paperweight and if paying a bit of attention will be incapable of not realizing it. Commonly people are not okay with this and complain. People generally don't enjoy large amounts of complaining in their hobby. Like, if you're an exception who will go into the situation of being far outclassed eyes wide open without complaining good for you. You're in the minority but good for you.

    Similarly this reaction will occur if a T1 is in a party low tiers, but as he is in minority his T1ness is considered rude.

    This thread is about a desired balance point of T1 and buffing Martials such that there will be no complaining. The things to haggle over are how far to buff, how much player effort should be involved in using the buffed classes, how to fluff it, and what specific set of rules to use to reach these goals.
    Most people see a half orc and and think barbarian warrior. Me on the other hand? I think secondary trap handler and magic item tester. Also I'm not allowed to trick the next level one wizard into starting a fist fight with a house cat no matter how annoying he is.
    Yes I know it's sarcasm. It's a joke. Pale green is for snarking
    Thread wins: 2

  3. - Top - End - #183
    Troll in the Playground
    Join Date
    May 2010

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by skunk3 View Post
    I really don't understand why this is such a huge debate.

    I guess it's time to post

    Spoiler: the Bingo Board
    Show


    Last edited by Arbane; 2018-05-31 at 05:29 PM.
    Imagine if all real-world conversations were like internet D&D conversations...
    Protip: DnD is an incredibly social game played by some of the most socially inept people on the planet - Lev
    I read this somewhere and I stick to it: "I would rather play a bad system with my friends than a great system with nobody". - Trevlac
    Quote Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera View Post
    That said, trolling is entirely counterproductive (yes, even when it's hilarious).

  4. - Top - End - #184
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

    Join Date
    Jan 2015
    Location
    Frozen City
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by ryu View Post
    The common wisdom is that whatever balance point is desired, people should stay at or within one tier of it. A fighter in a group of T1s is going to be a paperweight and if paying a bit of attention will be incapable of not realizing it. Commonly people are not okay with this and complain. People generally don't enjoy large amounts of complaining in their hobby. Like, if you're an exception who will go into the situation of being far outclassed eyes wide open without complaining good for you. You're in the minority but good for you.

    Similarly this reaction will occur if a T1 is in a party low tiers, but as he is in minority his T1ness is considered rude.

    This thread is about a desired balance point of T1 and buffing Martials such that there will be no complaining. The things to haggle over are how far to buff, how much player effort should be involved in using the buffed classes, how to fluff it, and what specific set of rules to use to reach these goals.
    I guess the balance point has to be, "Is hard to challenge without DM Fiat and can usually solve problems with a single mechanical ability." Something so ridiculously powerful enemies have to have an "Anti-Fighting Field" ability just so random people not in the know can point to it and claim it's balanced because there exists a relatively useless ability that, in theory, shuts down a class.
    "Movement speed is the most important statistic in this game."

    "Give them no mercy for they give no mercy to us."

    "I see one of those I kill it!"

  5. - Top - End - #185
    Troll in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2011

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by Karl Aegis View Post
    I guess the balance point has to be, "Is hard to challenge without DM Fiat and can usually solve problems with a single mechanical ability." Something so ridiculously powerful enemies have to have an "Anti-Fighting Field" ability just so random people not in the know can point to it and claim it's balanced because there exists a relatively useless ability that, in theory, shuts down a class.
    Balanced enemies for a T1 party are simple. More T1 casters or other such creatures with powerful spellcasting or equivalent. Psionics for example aren't generally considered spells, and a creature with a nasty selection of spell like or supernatural abilities can quite reliably challenge a party of casters.
    Most people see a half orc and and think barbarian warrior. Me on the other hand? I think secondary trap handler and magic item tester. Also I'm not allowed to trick the next level one wizard into starting a fist fight with a house cat no matter how annoying he is.
    Yes I know it's sarcasm. It's a joke. Pale green is for snarking
    Thread wins: 2

  6. - Top - End - #186
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

    Join Date
    Jan 2015
    Location
    Frozen City
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by ryu View Post
    Balanced enemies for a T1 party are simple. More T1 casters or other such creatures with powerful spellcasting or equivalent. Psionics for example aren't generally considered spells, and a creature with a nasty selection of spell like or supernatural abilities can quite reliably challenge a party of casters.
    You must have really weak casters.
    "Movement speed is the most important statistic in this game."

    "Give them no mercy for they give no mercy to us."

    "I see one of those I kill it!"

  7. - Top - End - #187
    Troll in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2011

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by Karl Aegis View Post
    You must have really weak casters.
    I have to have weak casters for casters to challenge casters? Have we reached a point where someone believes A doesn't equal A? Are the basic mathematical proofs no longer valid?!
    Most people see a half orc and and think barbarian warrior. Me on the other hand? I think secondary trap handler and magic item tester. Also I'm not allowed to trick the next level one wizard into starting a fist fight with a house cat no matter how annoying he is.
    Yes I know it's sarcasm. It's a joke. Pale green is for snarking
    Thread wins: 2

  8. - Top - End - #188
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

    Join Date
    Jan 2015
    Location
    Frozen City
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by ryu View Post
    I have to have weak casters for casters to challenge casters? Have we reached a point where someone believes A doesn't equal A? Are the basic mathematical proofs no longer valid?!
    That's the point of a Tier 1. They cannot be challenged if you are playing the game normally. If you are being challenged there is a good chance you're either not spending your wealth correctly or you've made bad enough decisions to drop a few tiers.
    "Movement speed is the most important statistic in this game."

    "Give them no mercy for they give no mercy to us."

    "I see one of those I kill it!"

  9. - Top - End - #189
    Troll in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2011

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by Karl Aegis View Post
    That's the point of a Tier 1. They cannot be challenged if you are playing the game normally. If you are being challenged there is a good chance you're either not spending your wealth correctly or you've made bad enough decisions to drop a few tiers.
    ANYONE can be challenged by someone on the same level of power as them. This idea you hold is applying definitions based on encountering bog standard uncustomized monsters to situations where that isn't the case. A party of tier ones doesn't spend its time curb-stomping weaklings. They fight actually threatening things.
    Most people see a half orc and and think barbarian warrior. Me on the other hand? I think secondary trap handler and magic item tester. Also I'm not allowed to trick the next level one wizard into starting a fist fight with a house cat no matter how annoying he is.
    Yes I know it's sarcasm. It's a joke. Pale green is for snarking
    Thread wins: 2

  10. - Top - End - #190
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

    Join Date
    Jan 2015
    Location
    Frozen City
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by ryu View Post
    ANYONE can be challenged by someone on the same level of power as them. This idea you hold is applying definitions based on encountering bog standard uncustomized monsters to situations where that isn't the case. A party of tier ones doesn't spend its time curb-stomping weaklings. They fight actually threatening things.
    "Actually threatening things" can be counted on one hand. More than half of them are malicious DMs.
    "Movement speed is the most important statistic in this game."

    "Give them no mercy for they give no mercy to us."

    "I see one of those I kill it!"

  11. - Top - End - #191
    Troll in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2011

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by Karl Aegis View Post
    "Actually threatening things" can be counted on one hand. More than half of them are malicious DMs.
    You're talking in circles boy. Ignoring you for the thread because this is going nowhere.
    Most people see a half orc and and think barbarian warrior. Me on the other hand? I think secondary trap handler and magic item tester. Also I'm not allowed to trick the next level one wizard into starting a fist fight with a house cat no matter how annoying he is.
    Yes I know it's sarcasm. It's a joke. Pale green is for snarking
    Thread wins: 2

  12. - Top - End - #192
    Banned
     
    RedWizardGuy

    Join Date
    Dec 2015

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    The debate between Ryu and Karl demonstrates exactly why the Tier System is unhelpful for discussions of this type. Karl is loudly and repeatedly insisting that it is impossible to challenge true Tier Ones. Ryu is loudly and repeatedly insisting that you can challenge characters with appropriate opposition. Careful examination shows that these positions are not in conflict. Tier One can be defined as "unchallengable" (making Karl right) while there still exist campaigns that rely on the particular features of classes in Tier One that challenge those classes (making Ryu right). The entire debate is a result of assuming different semantics for "Tier One", and is therefore stupid. Talking about this in terms of the Tiers obscures the important (and, in my view, obviously true) point that there are exciting and worthwhile campaigns that are unique to full casters with the much less important observation that cheese exists.

    One is tempted to speculate that this conflation is intentional, but that speculation is pointlessly conspiratorial, and should instead be replaced by an attempt to produce alternative language that refers precisely to "characters with non-broken abilities non-casters can't duplicate". Then we can stop trying to pretend that Chain Binding is a reason that evard's black tentacles needs to be worse.

    Quote Originally Posted by skunk3 View Post
    I really don't understand why this is such a huge debate. Different 'tiers' of classes negatively impacting the game only happens if players and DMs allow it to happen.
    Yes. This thread is examining a particular set of tools DMs might use to prevent the imbalance that exists in RAW from impacting the game. Namely, providing options to non-casting characters at a power level compatible, if perhaps not comparable, with casters.

    I think that if people refuse to play classes other than T3 and up due to a fear of not being 'powerful' that reflects poorly on them.
    I think it reflects poorly on you that you would intentionally play a character that doesn't carry its weight. D&D is a cooperative game, and you are defecting. That makes you a bad person.
    Last edited by Cosi; 2018-05-31 at 09:33 PM.

  13. - Top - End - #193
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGirl

    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    Michigan
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by MeimuHakurei View Post
    A Tier 1 without the broken stuff is a Tier 3. This is where a wizard ends up with less horizontal (Beguiler, Dread Necromancer) or vertical (Bard) power ends up. Similarly, a Wild Shape Ranger is a good approximation of a Tier 3 Druid (the cleric doesn't have such an equivalent).
    .
    It depends on what you mean by broken, Tier 1/2 classes have plenty of abilities that I don't think are broken, but are still unbalanced, like the wing spells for sorcerers or narratively powerful like teleport.


    Quote Originally Posted by Cosi View Post
    That said, it seems clear that even casters without cheese aren't Tier Three, or at least have abilities that no Tier Three character has (making "Tier Three" a bad descriptor for the desired balance point). Of the character classes listed in the Tier System, the only ones that have teleport or plane shift are Tier Two or higher. Now, yes, maybe that's because there's some other variable those things correlated with in the sample data. In fact, that is probably true. But that variable is what the Tier System was measuring!
    That depends on what tier list you use, Shugenjas get teleport and domain adepts can get the travel domain. Warmages ecletic ACF can let it grab teleport or planeshift with its advanced learning and then there is the nonclass options like arcane domain and fiendish heritage feats or just using magic items. Now obviously it is much narrower and/or coming at a higher cost for them than that of a tier 1/2.
    Last edited by Lans; 2018-06-01 at 12:20 AM.

  14. - Top - End - #194
    Troll in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2011

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    I'm pretty sure he was talking about native access. If you're willing to put enough work into it literally every class has access to every spell. It's about what's natively accessible, and sometimes things that can be acquired at minimal cost.
    Most people see a half orc and and think barbarian warrior. Me on the other hand? I think secondary trap handler and magic item tester. Also I'm not allowed to trick the next level one wizard into starting a fist fight with a house cat no matter how annoying he is.
    Yes I know it's sarcasm. It's a joke. Pale green is for snarking
    Thread wins: 2

  15. - Top - End - #195
    Orc in the Playground
     
    ElfRogueGirl

    Join Date
    Mar 2016
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by skunk3 View Post
    I really don't understand why this is such a huge debate. Different 'tiers' of classes negatively impacting the game only happens if players and DMs allow it to happen. It's not like D&D is a sport in which people compete against each other, requiring major balancing and regulation to ensure that the playing field is fair. It simply is what it is. I've never played a Star Wars D20 game (although I'd love to) but I can only imagine that playing a Wizard in D&D would be like playing a Jedi or Sith master. You're going to dominate lesser classes, like a Smuggler or Imperial Commando. It's just gonna happen. In the game that I'm starting next week I am going to be by far the least powerful PC at the table... I'm going to be playing with a Wizard, a Cleric that will be going into Radiant Servant and possibly other stuff, and a Druid / Beast Master build of some sort... while I will be, for brevity's sake, an Assassin. Do I care that I will be outshined in almost every single way? Nope. I am well aware that casters are simply better than non-casters, with some casters even being better than others, and some caster PrCs being super crazy, like Dweomerkeeper, Incantrix, etc. I'm just going to play my role as well as I can and have fun with it. I think that if people refuse to play classes other than T3 and up due to a fear of not being 'powerful' that reflects poorly on them. With the enormous amount of base classes and PrCs available we have the tools to make a huge variety of characters that can fit into almost any archetype and any optimization / power level necessary for whatever campaign we're in.
    honestly i would recommend the D6 system it is more balanced than D20. a Jedi with a couple of small things is basically unkillable in D20 system.

    Quote Originally Posted by ryu View Post
    The common wisdom is that whatever balance point is desired, people should stay at or within one tier of it. A fighter in a group of T1s is going to be a paperweight and if paying a bit of attention will be incapable of not realizing it. Commonly people are not okay with this and complain. People generally don't enjoy large amounts of complaining in their hobby. Like, if you're an exception who will go into the situation of being far outclassed eyes wide open without complaining good for you. You're in the minority but good for you.

    Similarly this reaction will occur if a T1 is in a party low tiers, but as he is in minority his T1ness is considered rude.

    This thread is about a desired balance point of T1 and buffing Martials such that there will be no complaining. The things to haggle over are how far to buff, how much player effort should be involved in using the buffed classes, how to fluff it, and what specific set of rules to use to reach these goals.
    well crap due to poor building choices that means i need to be stuck in t6 with my group. i wonder if i can use the truenamer in some fashion .....
    Quote Originally Posted by BassoonHero View Post
    No, the problem is that the limit one can achieve with physical brute force from a human body is low, very, very, very low, so obviously someone pursuing strength via muscles is not going to get far.
    This is certainly true in 3.5, but I don't think that it's an inevitable feature of the fantasy genre. Look at wuxia. Look at mythology. Look at what "peak human" means in the DC universe. I think that "strength via muscles" can do some pretty amazing things if the system allows for it.

  16. - Top - End - #196
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    GreatWyrmGold's Avatar

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    In a castle under the sea
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    I really, really like Cosi's original post in the thread. They clearly display an understanding of game design and how that applies to TRPGs, which few people bother doing. I started reading the rest of the thread, and was disappointed to see it immediately spit out the same stuff you get whenever balancing 3.5 comes up. I'd like to change that. To do that I'm going over the two parts to Cosi's description of the problem—mundane characters needing versatility in-combat, and being almost useless outside of combat.

    The first isn't just a matter of power—while a well-built caster can outperform a well-built fighter or rogue, that isn't what Cosi was getting at. What Cosi was getting at is both the reason why casters tend to outperform mundanes and a way in which martials are poorly-designed.
    In combat, martials have limited options. They can attack; maybe they can power attack or charge or something; maybe they can move and attack or spring attack or something. Barbarians can rage, but the only interesting decision there beyond normal attacks is "Is this fight important enough for a rage?" Rogues and their ilk have it a little better, with a few special abilities they might break out, but that's it.
    Contrast this with casters. In a 5e campaign, I'm playing a Light Cleric, which means that my domain spells are fire and radiant blasty stuff. Even without other prepared spells, I have options ranging from battlefield control with wall of fire to AoE destruction with fireball to single-target strikes like guiding bolt or scorching ray (which can also be spread among multiple targets). It's not that these options are inherently more powerful than hitting people with a piece of metal (though some really are), it's that they have multiple options for different situations.
    Obviously, versatility is a source of power like any other; the bigger your box of tools, the more problems you can solve, even if the tools themselves aren't incredible on their own. But there's more than that; choosing between spells to use is far more interesting than choosing between attacking or...attacking someone else?
    As with many things, I'd suggest looking to see how video games solve this issue. Their solutions won't be perfect, but they can inspire abilities which would fit thematically into a "Fighter" or "Barbarian" model. But speaking of which...

    There is a problem with giving noncombat abilities to the iconic martial class of D&D: Said class is only characterized as a "fighter". Much the same is true of the silver-medal martial class, the barbarian. These two classes really can't have any thematic non-combat abilities aside from "break stuff" and "threaten to break stuff," since their core concepts are basically "guy who fights" and "guy who fights while mad". To get reasonable noncombat abilities, we could add a new type of common noncombat challenge that only high Strength scores can solve (comparable to traps, which only rogues can solve), but I don't like traps, so...no.
    Without that option, we would need to redefine what these classes are.
    Which gets us into another problem with mundane classes in general. Why are they mundane? Why, in a world where everything and the kitchen sink can give you magic powers, would there be anyone who didn't use any magic? Yes, it makes sense that magical specialists would be rare, just like only a few people in our world specialize in driving cars or using computers or whatever, but that doesn't mean everyone else just doesn't do those things. They don't do them as often, or as well, or as deeply, but they do do them.
    The reason for this, as with many of D&D's quirks, is that D&D is trying to be everything. It's trying to allow (to pick some arbitrary examples) Bilbo Baggins, Conan, Dr. Strange, and Princess Zelda to go on an adventure together. As with many things, this works best at low levels; a 1st-level barbarian and a 1st-level wizard feel like they could be part of the same universe, but a 20th-level barbarian is like Conan and a 20th-level wizard is like Dr. Strange. Never mind the power discrepancy, those two don't really belong in the same universe. Either the barbarian needs to be more like Thor or the Hulk, or the wizard needs to be more like Thoth Amon or Kalanthes.
    I don't think there's an easy fix to this problem. D&D is trying to be as generic and open-ended as possible (to make sure the barrier to entry is as low as possible), but it isn't willing or able to go the GURPS route of having multiple mutually-exclusive sets of optional rules that cover completely different types of campaigns. So it just has to shove Conan and Dr. Strange into the same world and hope for the best. (Mind, I can't think of a way to solve this problem while sticking to D&D's apparent design goals.)
    If I were designing a solution to this problem, I'd smash (or at least blur) the line between mundane and magical. Clerics and wizards and whatnot are still by far the best at magic, with a wide variety of powerful magical abilities, but barbarians and rogues and whatnot can all use magic, too—they just use it to support their mundane talents. A fighter who channels the power of storms, a barbarian who uses magic to enhance his physique as he charges into battle, a rogue who weaves a cloak of literal shadows...etc. Sure, that makes it definitively high-fantasy, but I don't think any story where the protagonists get the ability to raise the dead, control the seas, and create life should be classified any other way.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Blade Wolf View Post
    Ah, thank you very much GreatWyrmGold, you obviously live up to that name with your intelligence and wisdom with that post.
    Quotes, more

    Winner of Villainous Competitions 8 and 40; silver for 32
    Fanfic

    Pixel avatar by me! Other avatar by Recaiden.

  17. - Top - End - #197
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Oct 2011

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by MeimuHakurei View Post
    A Tier 1 without the broken stuff is a Tier 3. This is where a wizard ends up with less horizontal (Beguiler, Dread Necromancer) or vertical (Bard) power ends up. Similarly, a Wild Shape Ranger is a good approximation of a Tier 3 Druid (the cleric doesn't have such an equivalent).
    So, if you declare a tier 3 game, I can bring a Wizard, so long as I don't take any broken options? Cool. We may have different definitions of "broken", though.

    Quote Originally Posted by MeimuHakurei View Post
    And I agree with Talakeal in so far that, while a T1-adjusted game does not necessarily homogenize the classes too much, this is very much a challenge your game design needs to be able to overcome. For instance, in your dimensional travel example, you should be able to examine the effects and limitations of each method of travel so that when those five adventure together, there's different situations that call for the Teleport spell, the Bifröst, the glass object, the TARDIS or the magic mushrooms and nobody is obsolete or the absolute best. Of course, there's other balancing factors that could come in play as well (such as the Doctor being somewhat limited as a combatant and Thor being very unfamiliar with earthly cultures).
    I think you're looking at backwards from Cosi and the thread's intent. There are stories that are appropriate for Wizards, in which the Fighter, as written, just sits and spins. The question, if I understand correctly, is, what would it take to buff the Fighter to the point where he actually contribute?

    Also, the small glass object is a not-so-cubic Cubic Gate.

    Quote Originally Posted by ryu View Post
    Even if the worse parts of a T1s list, worse in the sense that other T1s have it better or have it earlier, are never used in a given party it's still good that they're there. ANY party of T1s can, in one form or another, access just about any magical effect you need. It's more efficient if you've a balanced group with easy native access to most or all the good lists, but no party is ever stuck for want of a nail so to speak. This is a good thing. This means that if no one wants to play a cleric or druid you can still have your healing, rezzing, and so on. The same level of metaphorical waterproofing simply isn't true in lower tiers.
    I tend to strongly agree here. It's nice when the game is usually about progressing, rather than about dead ends and TPKs.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cosi View Post
    It's less that it's pushing an agenda, and more that people don't want to (for whatever reason) acknowledge that it has a specific function and is not useful outside that function. The stated purpose of the Tier System is to identify which classes are likely to break the game by being too powerful. That's it. Its entire purpose was to look at the game, and give DMs a heads up about which classes might break their adventures. Except now people want it to be about how classes should be balanced. But it doesn't do that.
    So, it's worse than I thought? It's not a description of balance, with an agenda of vilifying those who can break campaigns, it's actually explicit core function is to discuss breaking things?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cosi View Post
    The problem, I think, is that what Talakeal wants in terms of differentiation is for some things to be adventures. When you ask people how the Fighter should get to another plane, the answer is almost always either "get a Wizard to do it" or "find a portal". But the problem is that those things aren't different ways of overcoming the challenge, they are lower level ways of overcoming the challenge. There was nothing stopping the Wizard (actually, the Cleric -- hey look, a way casting classes are different) from finding planar portal, it's just not as good as using plane shift. It's like the Frank Trollman quote from earlier says. What the people who dislike the idea of Fighters being buffed want is for their characters to be low level. When you ask people how they would like Fighters to solve problems, their answer is "with low level solutions".
    Actually, using the portal is better than casting Plane Shift in a number of ways - the most obvious of which is conservation of resources. Subtlety, not giving away your capabilities... there's lots of reasons using the existing portal could be a better plan.

    Quote Originally Posted by ryu View Post
    The common wisdom is that whatever balance point is desired, people should stay at or within one tier of it. A fighter in a group of T1s is going to be a paperweight and if paying a bit of attention will be incapable of not realizing it. Commonly people are not okay with this and complain. People generally don't enjoy large amounts of complaining in their hobby. Like, if you're an exception who will go into the situation of being far outclassed eyes wide open without complaining good for you. You're in the minority but good for you.

    Similarly this reaction will occur if a T1 is in a party low tiers, but as he is in minority his T1ness is considered rude.

    This thread is about a desired balance point of T1 and buffing Martials such that there will be no complaining. The things to haggle over are how far to buff, how much player effort should be involved in using the buffed classes, how to fluff it, and what specific set of rules to use to reach these goals.
    You're had several very clear explanations in this thread - kudos on that!

    About the effort bit - if the Fighter winds up with the same ceiling as a Wizard, but also has the same (or lower) floor, have we succeeded?

  18. - Top - End - #198
    Troll in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2011

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Can we have the common decency to at least give hints about useless options or nudges towards the good stuff? Total optimization isn't strictly necessary, but few things are worse for a game than realizing you can't do anything because you bungled your build. Possibly also remove options so bad that no sane person would ever take them, or at least put a joke label on them. Looking at YOU hold portal.
    Most people see a half orc and and think barbarian warrior. Me on the other hand? I think secondary trap handler and magic item tester. Also I'm not allowed to trick the next level one wizard into starting a fist fight with a house cat no matter how annoying he is.
    Yes I know it's sarcasm. It's a joke. Pale green is for snarking
    Thread wins: 2

  19. - Top - End - #199
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Snowbluff's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2011

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by ryu View Post
    Can we have the common decency to at least give hints about useless options or nudges towards the good stuff? Total optimization isn't strictly necessary, but few things are worse for a game than realizing you can't do anything because you bungled your build. Possibly also remove options so bad that no sane person would ever take them, or at least put a joke label on them. Looking at YOU hold portal.
    This is something I would love. Perhaps each article in a book would have a power level rating or something similar, maybe with an excerpt about the challenges in poses in a game for a player and a DM. This could also serve a peer review for articles, so we don't get feats like the PF one that says "you can shoot a crossbow while prone."

    However, this could lead to more reading for the player, and poorly rated articles due to obliviousness or outright mistakes by the author and editor, which has been common in 3e and PF.

    EDIT:
    As for your earlier reply, I would argue that if Fighters have no place in the games you like to play, that's a good thing.

    Quote Originally Posted by skunk3 View Post
    I really don't understand why this is such a huge debate. Different 'tiers' of classes negatively impacting the game only happens if players and DMs allow it to happen. It's not like D&D is a sport in which people compete against each other, requiring major balancing and regulation to ensure that the playing field is fair. It simply is what it is. I've never played a Star Wars D20 game (although I'd love to) but I can only imagine that playing a Wizard in D&D would be like playing a Jedi or Sith master. You're going to dominate lesser classes, like a Smuggler or Imperial Commando. It's just gonna happen. In the game that I'm starting next week I am going to be by far the least powerful PC at the table... I'm going to be playing with a Wizard, a Cleric that will be going into Radiant Servant and possibly other stuff, and a Druid / Beast Master build of some sort... while I will be, for brevity's sake, an Assassin. Do I care that I will be outshined in almost every single way? Nope. I am well aware that casters are simply better than non-casters, with some casters even being better than others, and some caster PrCs being super crazy, like Dweomerkeeper, Incantrix, etc. I'm just going to play my role as well as I can and have fun with it. I think that if people refuse to play classes other than T3 and up due to a fear of not being 'powerful' that reflects poorly on them.
    Well first off, there is the Oberoni Fallacy. We can't call 3e or PF "balanced" because a GM can fix it.

    I will say that people might not want to be outshone is a definite thing. It kind of breaks verisimilitude when there's a guy in the party who does nothing. Of course, DND is a cooperative and also a roleplaying game, meaning that you are greater than the sum of your sheet. On the other hand, some DMs are just incompetent, or the players are simply not on the same page.

    Furthermore, people don't understand Tiers. Tiers past T1-2 is a measure of game brokeness. If there is that stuff going on, your game is busted unless your DM is prepared and doing equally busted stuff. T4 is barely competent, and T5-6 are incompetent, but if you have a low power samurai game going on, it could totally work.

    With the enormous amount of base classes and PrCs available we have the tools to make a huge variety of characters that can fit into almost any archetype and any optimization / power level necessary for whatever campaign we're in.
    Snowbluff Axiom
    Last edited by Snowbluff; 2018-06-01 at 01:43 PM.
    Avatar of Rudisplork Avatar of PC-dom and Slayer of the Internet. Extended sig
    GitP Regulars as: Vestiges Spells Weapons Races Deities Feats Soulmelds/Veils
    Quote Originally Posted by Darrin View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Snowbluff View Post
    All gaming systems should be terribly flawed and exploitable if you want everyone to be happy with them. This allows for a wide variety of power levels for games for different levels of players.
    I dub this the Snowbluff Axiom.

  20. - Top - End - #200
    Troll in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2011

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    How would we massively miscalculate an option? We're not spitballing for most of this. We're system vets. Also it could be as simple as a little number per option and listing of what numbers mean.

    Alternatively low work method is just to add a tag of Joke/Bad to previously mentioned worthless stuff. You're still expected to work for your full gittin gud, but the landmines have been defused.
    Most people see a half orc and and think barbarian warrior. Me on the other hand? I think secondary trap handler and magic item tester. Also I'm not allowed to trick the next level one wizard into starting a fist fight with a house cat no matter how annoying he is.
    Yes I know it's sarcasm. It's a joke. Pale green is for snarking
    Thread wins: 2

  21. - Top - End - #201
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Snowbluff's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2011

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by ryu View Post
    How would we massively miscalculate an option? We're not spitballing for most of this. We're system vets. Also it could be as simple as a little number per option and listing of what numbers mean.

    Alternatively low work method is just to add a tag of Joke/Bad to previously mentioned worthless stuff. You're still expected to work for your full gittin gud, but the landmines have been defused.
    I'd liked to point out that those mistakes I mentioned were done by people who literally wrote the book on the subject. Also, people will disagree what power would mean in a game.

    For example, I might do something cheesy to do something benign more easily, but someone might do cheesy to do something crazy powerful. I would say what I did is fine and the latter was not, but another people might say that cheese is cheese and he is lactose intolerant.
    Avatar of Rudisplork Avatar of PC-dom and Slayer of the Internet. Extended sig
    GitP Regulars as: Vestiges Spells Weapons Races Deities Feats Soulmelds/Veils
    Quote Originally Posted by Darrin View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Snowbluff View Post
    All gaming systems should be terribly flawed and exploitable if you want everyone to be happy with them. This allows for a wide variety of power levels for games for different levels of players.
    I dub this the Snowbluff Axiom.

  22. - Top - End - #202
    Troll in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2011

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Writing the book means nothing when your actual method of testing involves half the people using none of their features, and the other half not actually trying all the options when you're literally forced to take an option. Do I really need to make a case that the average forumite understands DRUIDS better than the designers did at the time of release? Really? Like for really really for real for real?
    Most people see a half orc and and think barbarian warrior. Me on the other hand? I think secondary trap handler and magic item tester. Also I'm not allowed to trick the next level one wizard into starting a fist fight with a house cat no matter how annoying he is.
    Yes I know it's sarcasm. It's a joke. Pale green is for snarking
    Thread wins: 2

  23. - Top - End - #203
    Orc in the Playground
     
    ElfRogueGirl

    Join Date
    Mar 2016
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by Snowbluff View Post
    This is something I would love. Perhaps each article in a book would have a power level rating or something similar, maybe with an excerpt about the challenges in poses in a game for a player and a DM. This could also serve a peer review for articles, so we don't get feats like the PF one that says "you can shoot a crossbow while prone."

    However, this could lead to more reading for the player, and poorly rated articles due to obliviousness or outright mistakes by the author and editor, which has been common in 3e and PF.

    EDIT:
    As for your earlier reply, I would argue that if Fighters have no place in the games you like to play, that's a good thing.



    Well first off, there is the Oberoni Fallacy. We can't call 3e or PF "balanced" because a GM can fix it.

    I will say that people might not want to be outshone is a definite thing. It kind of breaks verisimilitude when there's a guy in the party who does nothing. Of course, DND is a cooperative and also a roleplaying game, meaning that you are greater than the sum of your sheet. On the other hand, some DMs are just incompetent, or the players are simply not on the same page.

    Furthermore, people don't understand Tiers. Tiers past T1-2 is a measure of game brokeness. If there is that stuff going on, your game is busted unless your DM is prepared and doing equally busted stuff. T4 is barely competent, and T5-6 are incompetent, but if you have a low power samurai game going on, it could totally work.

    Snowbluff Axiom
    the idea of a power level rating has been used in at least 1 other RPG but not to any major extent; Champions hero system runs off of a build your own abilities system. it has 2 indicators for DM keep an eye on this and STOP (hammer time :P) because no player should have this ability for some reason.

    " The powers have all been assigned point costs to balance them against each other. however there are some circumstances where a power is more efficient than it may initially appear. powers that may be extreemly efficient depending on circumstances are marked with a: [magnifying glass]. for example a character with a variable power pool (kinda like a spontaneous caster) or absorption (convert HP damage into a boost like bonus STR [2 types of health stun/HP]) may in certain circumstances have capabilities that outstrip their point totals.
    a second group of powers have the ability to substantially alter a gms storyline [ these are the ones with STOP markers]."

    a partial listing of STOP marked abilities include clairestience (basically the entire list of dnd's scry abilities), extra dimensional movement (planar travel anyone), Summoning (SNA, SM, SU, Plannar ally, gate), and transform (polymorph other series).

    their system is only used to show effects that can derail a game. the idea of listing low power options could work but then as others have said everyones idea of power is different. to me trait level abilities include misc modifier skill boosters, small movement speed boosters (+10 from a UA trait vs +5 from a feat really?), +1-2 point bonuses (flat not scaling), and such. but to that +2 weapon damage from weapon specialization is worth a feat. what would basically happen is a listing of all the extremely high (versatile spellcaster, power attack, shock trooper, ect) and low power feats (no one disputes run, weapon focus, and dodge are meh) and a marker for abilities which can combo with others to become broken if not on their own (precocious apprentice, heighten spell, ect)
    Quote Originally Posted by BassoonHero View Post
    No, the problem is that the limit one can achieve with physical brute force from a human body is low, very, very, very low, so obviously someone pursuing strength via muscles is not going to get far.
    This is certainly true in 3.5, but I don't think that it's an inevitable feature of the fantasy genre. Look at wuxia. Look at mythology. Look at what "peak human" means in the DC universe. I think that "strength via muscles" can do some pretty amazing things if the system allows for it.

  24. - Top - End - #204
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    upho's Avatar

    Join Date
    Jul 2013
    Location
    Stockholm, Sweden
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by death390 View Post
    ok we have all seemed to have gotten off track and are just arguing.
    Hey! Some (two?) of us have actually been discussing solutions for quite a while now.

    Quote Originally Posted by death390 View Post
    Knockback: actually in dnd as the feat knockback uses a bull rush check to determine how far back. (IE like sauron is doing in the previous GIF, though he IS a caster)
    I can't think Knockback/BR would be a fitting game mechanic to describe what is shown in that gif, it's more like some kind of super-boosted Awesome Blow + Cleave/Whirlwind combo. Which might be a decent development of Knockback in a high power game, come to think of it.

    (Dunno what Sauron is, as the terms in used in the descriptions of him in the books are intentionally changing dependent on the context/speaker and also kinda vaguely defined. But a sorta semi-corporeal ghost-ish(?) "fallen angel" older than time itself would be a "caster" in some sense, I guess? Anyhow, in the movies, his previous more corporeal form shown in the gif is definitely not fighting like anything resembling a caster IMO. And he's not using any kind of apparent magic while doing so, aside from his obviously supernaturally high innate strength, great durability and awesome martial prowess, enhanced by a magic item. Pretty much exactly like your typical high level fighter does in 3.5, really, except with results far less impressive than those of Sauron for some weird reason...)

    Quote Originally Posted by death390 View Post
    Flight: only thing i can think of is Superman style jump checks (since he "technically" doesn't have the ability to fly just pushes off the air is some renditions)
    I'd simply add a number of (Su) flight minutes/day to any martial stance of say 3rd level or higher. Magic, in the "supernatural" sense, is required for "super-jump-flight" anyways, and in order to get martials up to scratch in other regards for that matter.

    Quote Originally Posted by death390 View Post
    BFC (rough Terrain): use a blunt melee weapon to smash the ground so hard it becomes rough terrain. Attack Roll VS DC 15? +1 square per 3 over DC made by? Pre-req: power attack.
    CC (Shaking Earth): Use a blunt melee weapon to smash the ground knocking enemies prone, reflex save vs DC BaB + Str? Pre-reqs: Power Attack.
    Considering difficult terrain is typically irrelevant by no later than 10th level, I don't really see how these abilities are supposed to be powerful. Maybe if they had a similar slowing effect on all movement types and also worked as an AoE dimensional anchor within a sphere radius? (Fluffed as the blow disrupting all matter in the sphere to such an extent it becomes impossible to enter from/exit into another dimension, or something along those lines?)

    Quote Originally Posted by Arbane View Post
    Be invincible, except for one spot.
    Split a mountain in half.
    Leap to the top of a nearby mountain, rip the top off and leap back with it.
    Shoot eight of the nine suns out of the sky.
    Drink so much of the ocean that the sea-level lowers.
    Lasso a tornado and ride it.

    .... a good start, but then there's the problem that as long as the Fighters' ONLY schtick is 'Fighting', they're still going to be second-fiddle to the Wizards, whose schtick is 'DO ANYTHING'.
    Thankfully, aside from the ones I left, these things can already be done, at least with a bit support from PoW options. And while kinda cool stunts to impress love interests with, I also question the practical value of mountain-splitting/ripping, sun-murdering, ocean-drinking and tornado-riding...

    Quote Originally Posted by Lans View Post
    The fighter getting no unique feats is not why they lack depth, its that the feats they get rarely do enough.
    Yep. Although such a mechanical depth wouldn't exactly be fighter exclusive unless most feats which would "do enough" were. Which would kinda needlessly screw over the other martial classes.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lans View Post
    If each feat was like the ones in the Path of War you would need 2 and a half other characters to be as versatile on it.
    While the average power of PoW feats is certainly greater than that of 1PP combat feats (in PF as well as 3.5), in practice this claim smells of quite a bit of hyperbole IME. Mainly because the average power of 1PP combat feats is dragged down by tons of trap options which most people rarely take twice, while the PoW feats have a distinct lack of both such traps and options more powerful than the top 5-10% of 1PP feats which typically also see the most use IME.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ignimortis View Post
    For in-combat purposes, Jaunters are strictly inferior to Harbingers (DimDoor up to 120 feet per day, as a standard action? No thanks, I've got at-will teleports as a move, swift, full-round with damage, and so on), which I can attribute to power creep between 3.5 and PF. For out-of-combat purposes, it's a pretty nifty way of getting some transportation spells.
    Yeah, in combat the jaunter is pretty darn weaksauce in comparison to the harbinger. And the generally higher floor and ceiling of the PoW classes might actually be exploited here, as it shouldn't be too much work to backport them into 3.5. Which comes with the added boon of having several additional initiator class options.

    And speaking of, I think importing at least some of the PoW disciplines and/or certain individual maneuvers would be good for this purpose as well. Especially those more powerful and/or having themes/mechanics not really covered in ToB, such as Riven Hourglass, Fool's Errand, Eternal Guardian, Primal Fury, Cursed Razor, Tempest Gale, Broken Blade and Stance of the Thunderbrand.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cosi View Post
    I agree that this would work, but I think starting from mechanics in this way produces undesirable characters. A good character doesn't have a single tool that's been swiss army knived to work everywhere, it has a variety of tools. A martial shouldn't be a Tripstar that works when Tripstaring normally doesn't, they should have other tactics that work when Tripstarring doesn't. Even a BFC caster has a variety of BFC options.
    Sure. But the swiss army shtick isn't really the goal I was trying to describe. It's about adding stuff which: a) makes an entire specific shtick combo like Tripstarring applicable in a greater number of scenarios - but far from every scenario - and b) can use of many of the shtick's required individual investments (feats, items, stat priorities etc) in other combos applicable in other scenarios.

    So for example a Spiked Chain Tripstar needs ways to overcome trip size caps to widen the applicability of the specific shtick, and viable Str-based ranged attack options using the Tripstar combo's Spiked Chain to gain a ranged combo taking advantage of much of the Tripstar investments, applicable in other scenarios.

    While some of the mechanics needed for increased forms specialization applicability may exist for certain specializations, adding them through existing build options typically require a lot of splat diving and optimization, and they won't be enough to provide anything comparable to that of a wizard's combat effectiveness. Note also that a comparable combat effectiveness of course likely will - and should - be different for martial classes than for casters. Here's a PF RAW example of how such an effectiveness may actually work in practice, though due to the nature of current options it's of course very complex (taken from Nelly Nephilim, an example build I made for Castilonium's (excellent) PoW zealot guide, please ignore the numbers if you think they'd be OP - the combat method is the relevant bit):

    Spoiler: Nelly Nephilim - Basic Combos and Tactics
    Show
    This section details Nelly's (practically) always active melee attack hit effects and the rather complex chains of actions these effects may grant, plus her typical pre-combat preparations and her typical tactics during combat.

    Basic Melee Combos
    A large portion of Nelly's build options are geared towards improving her melee attacks, regardless of the action taken which included the melee attack (strike, combat maneuver, AoO, charge, etc) or when she took it (during her own turn or outside of it), and - as far as possible - also regardless of the target's passive melee defenses (AC and CMD values, size, immunities etc). These options make up combinations which primarily provide free action demoralization and combat maneuvers which may stack increasingly severe penalties on the target, and grant Nelly additional control options and additional attacks against the target in the form of AoOs, potentially forming very long chains of actions with devastating total effects.


    Spoiler: The Big 3 Melee Combos
    Show
    In the hopes of making this a bit easier to grasp, I've divided the main components of mentioned chains into three distinct combos.


    Thunderbull Gauntlet Bashing Combo
    This combo forms the basis of Nelly's action chains and requires plenty of build resources. Although virtually all components are likely to provide benefits (not necessarily listed below) during all levels, the combo isn't fully online until Nelly reaches 11th level when her zealot IL and Awakened Blade levels allow her to pick Stance of the Thunderbrand:

    Level Class Key Components Key Mechanics Resulting Combo
    1 Monk 1 Gauntlet strike, shielding fist, Improved Shield Bash Gauntlet strike and shielding fist makes (any) gauntlets count as bucklers in addition to their other effects/properties. Improved Shield Bash is a prerequisite for Shield Slam. Nelly's (spiked) gauntlets are also treated as bucklers and she can make shield bashes without losing the shield bonus (but she must still use a light or heavy shield to bash).
    3 Warder 1 Combat Reflexes based on Wis, fiend’s grip Additional AoOs equal to Wis mod each round, and the ability to manifest fiend's grips which are treated as spiked gauntlets and natural attacks. Nelly can make additional AoOs and the radius of the area she threatens with her fiend’s grips/gauntlets increases with a distance equal to her natural reach.
    4 Warlord 1 Two-Weapon Fighting The second feat in the classic shield fighting chain and also prerequisite for Shield Slam. -
    11 Awakened Blade 3 Buckler Bash, Shield Slam, Stance of the Thunderbrand Buckler Bash allows making shield bashes with a buckler, Shield Slam grants a free action bull rush on a shield bash hit, and the stance means any movement in threatened area provokes an AoO. Nelly can make a bull rush attempt as a free action on any hit with her fiend’s grip, and the movement caused by her bull rush provokes an AoO from her.

    At 20th level, Nelly can effectively make up to 7 bull rushes, provoking and triggered by 6 AoOs (or 17 bull rushes and 16 AoOs with Oath of Eternity), all against a target she hits once with any kind of melee attack. Provided she keeps hitting and successfully bull rushing the target, of course.


    Soulless Seraph of Sarenrae Combo
    In order to demoralize a large majority of her opponents as far into uselessness as possible, Nelly uses a fairly standard combination of demoralization related feats, their mechanics enabled by a somewhat non-standard trait for an aasimar who "falls" from a Good alignment. This standard combo is in Nelly's case also enhanced with an item and some options from the Privateer class template:

    Level Class Key Components Key Mechanics Resulting Combo
    3 Warder 1 Black Seraph's Glare, fiend's grip The Black Seraph stance is a prerequisite for the Black Seraph Style feat and gives a free demoralize attempt vs hit enemy, and a fiend's grip is a slashing weapon. Nelly can demoralize enemies she hits as a free action, and uses a slashing weapon (condition for gaining the benefits of the Blade of Mercy trait, see below).
    4 Warlord 1 Daring gambit, dazzling gambit Grants a warlord gambit, and a free demoralize attempt vs enemies within 30' when successfully performing a warlord gambit. Nelly can demoralize all enemies within 30' as a free action when she successfully performs her warlord gambit.
    8 Zealot 4 Enforcer Grants free demoralize attempt vs enemy damaged by nonlethal damage. Nelly can demoralize enemies she damages with nonlethal damage as a free action, without having to be in the Black Seraph's Glare stance.
    9 Awakened Blade 1 Additional Traits (Blade of Mercy), Black Seraph Style Blade of Mercy allows dealing nonlethal damage with slashing weapons w/o penalties. Black Seraph Style grants a scaling bonus to saves and AC vs creatures suffering from fear conditions. Nelly can use Enforcer with her fiend's grips w/o penalties for dealing nonlethal damage, and gains a scaling profane bonus to defenses against attacks/abilities of scared opponents.
    10 Awakened Blade 2 Intimidating Prowess Adds Str mod in addition to Cha mod to Intimidate skill checks. Nelly gains a bonus to Intimidate equal to her Str mod, ensuring her demoralization attempts always succeeds against non-immune creatures.
    13 Awakened Blade 5 Fiendskin At least two damnation feats are required to gain the key benefit of Soulless Gaze (see below). -
    15 Awakened Blade 7 Black Seraph's Malevolence, Black Seraph Annihilation Creatures within 30' lose immunity to fear effects (even if immune to mind-affecting). Nelly's demoralization attempts ignores the immunities of targets within 30' of her.
    19 Zealot 5 Soulless Gaze, Menacing Mask* When demoralizing a target already demoralized, its fear condition may become more severe rather than have its duration extended. The Menacing Mask grants a +10 competence bonus to Intimidate. Whenever Nelly demoralizes an opponent she has already demoralized, the fear condition increases (up to panicked/cowering from 3 successful attempts), and her Intimidate checks always succeeds.
    *Approximate level when the item is gained.

    In short, Nelly is one seriously scary cameraph (= camel-seraph, meaning an angel-blooded aasimar of gamla descent). Again, please note that Soulless Gaze was deliberately delayed until the next to final level, being an extremely powerful feat which would be much more likely to feel/be OP if gained earlier, especially by a competent melee combatant having plenty of highly synergizing mechanics (like Nelly).


    Dirty Opportunism Combo
    To really ramp up the power of her AoOs and her ability to chain multiple AoOs from a single trigger, Nelly's final distinctive melee combo consists of a warlord's gambit, dirty trick feats, Seize the Opportunity and a few boosting items (the most significant listed below). This dirty trick combo gives Nelly a good chance to debuff her enemies with sure-fire, long-lasting and serious penalties from 4th level and onward, and its Dirty Trick Master "capstone" (deliberately delayed until the final level), grants Nelly the ability to nauseate or daze an enemy, completely removing it from combat using no more than two AoOs (naturally chained through her Thunderbull Gauntlet Bashing combo detailed above).

    Level Class Key Components Key Mechanics Resulting Combo
    4 Warlord 1 Dastardly gambit, salt in the wound (Improved and Greater Dirty Trick) Dastardly gambit grants Cha mod luck bonus to dirty trick attempt, and the two feats grants the usual combat maneuver feat benefits, extends the duration and changes the required action to remove a condition imposed by dirty trick from move to standard. Nelly can make a dirty trick gambit, has a +4 to dirty trick CMB and can make dirty tricks without provoking. A condition applied by her dirty trick typically lasts longer than normal and the target must spend a standard action to remove it.
    5 Zealot 1 Seize the Opportunity Allows making an attack action or standard action combat maneuver in place of the normal attack as an AoO. Nelly can make a dirty trick attempt instead of a normal melee attack when making an AoO.
    12* Awakened Blade 4 Dueling (PSFG/psionic) Amulet of Mighty Fists Provides a luck bonus equal to twice the enhancement bonus to dirty trick performed with the weapon (in addition to the enhancement bonus). Nelly gains up to a +14 luck bonus to her dirty trick attempts made with her fiend's grips (meaning virtually all her dirty trick attempts).
    20 Zealot 6 Dirty Trick Master When successfully making a dirty trick against a target already suffering from a condition from previous dirty trick, the existing condition can be worsened in place of adding a different normal condition. When Nelly succeeds on a dirty trick attempt against an enemy dazzled or sickened from a previous dirty trick, she can make the enemy dazed or nauseated so the enemy can not remove the condition.
    *Approximate level when the item is gained.

    In short, since two dirty trick AoOs can nauseate or daze an enemy for several rounds, Nelly can remove up to at least 3 enemies from combat each round with her 6 AoOs (or up to at least 8 enemies during a round when she uses Oath of Eternity). Besides the silly power of Dirty Trick Master, I personally think the most noteworthy aspect of this combo is how darn cheap it comes, primarily because of the amazing prereq bypassing freebies granted by the Privateer warlord dip. Apparently Nelly's a salty dame, and the soundtrack of her combat style, as well as her fall from grace, was obviously written by her old pirate crew of ancient rocker grognards from "down under"...


    Other Components
    The "Big 3" combos above are also supported and complemented by several additional components, most notably:
    • Gargantuan Size and 55' Reach granted by her gamla heritage (gained at birth), (minor) metamorphosis (gained at 12th and 17th level), fiend's grip (at 4th), protection mission (at 8th), Stance of the Thunderbrand (at 11th) and wand of long arm (plus Use Magic Device ranks, at approx. 14th). These components multiply the value of all her other options which improve her melee attacks and vastly increase her capabilities as a defender, and grant large bonuses to CMB and allow her to ignore nearly all size difference caps on combat maneuvers.
    • Grab ability of the fiend's grip (gained at 4th), providing Nelly with a free grapple attempt on each melee hit.
    • Constrict ability of the Anaconda's Coils Belt (gained at approx. 13th), enabling Nelly to deal constrict damage - and therefore also to make additional free demoralize attempts - with each successful grapple attempt.
    • Fiend's Grips treated as both spiked gauntlets and natural attacks, allowing Nelly to simultaneously gain any magic abilities of her gauntlets as well as other items or spells (such as an Amulet of Mighty Fists or a strong jaw spell), granting her increased versatility and a considerable boost to wealth in especially higher levels.
    • Furious, Leveraging and Psychic Weapon and various minor items (the first gained at approx. 12th), providing very substantial bonuses (up to +42(!) to reposition and trip) for a relatively low cost to several of Nelly's CMB checks.
    • A bunch of maneuvers boosting combat maneuvers and/or granting multiple attacks.


    Combined Result
    When all the above is in place at 20th, a single successful melee attack, granted by any action at any time, can provide for example the following chain of actions (average damage, indentation means the listed action is dependent on the last previous action(s) with less indentation being successful):
    1 Free - grapple attempt granted by grab (usually only made during Nelly's own turn in order to not prevent her from releasing the grapple and making further AoOs): target moved to adjacent to Nelly and both are grappled
    2 None - constrict granted by grapple and Anaconda’s Coils Belt: 44 damage
    3 Free - demoralize attempt granted by Enforcer and constrict damage: target is shaken and Nelly gains +5 profane to AC and saves vs the target's attacks/abilities
    4 Free - Nelly ends grapple: target and Nelly are no longer grappled
    5 Free - demoralize attempt granted by Enforcer and damage of initial attack (if any): target is sickened for 1 round (Cruel Weapon) and frightened
    6 Free - bull rush attempt granted by Buckler Bash and Shield Slam: moving target at least 5' after:
    7 AoO granted by Stance of the Thunderbrand - dirty trick granted by Seize the Opportunity: target dazzled
    8 Free - grapple attempt as 1 above
    9 None - constrict as 2 above
    10 Free - demoralize attempt granted by Enforcer and constrict damage: target is panicked, dropping anything it holds
    11 Free - Nelly ends grapple as 4 above
    12 Free - lock attempt granted by Lesson VI: Supremacy: target is locked (must make Reflex save vs DC 38 to move)
    13 Free - bull rush as 6 above
    14 AoO granted by Stance of the Thunderbrand - dirty trick granted by Seize the Opportunity: target dazed
    15 Free - grapple attempt as 1 above
    16 None - constrict as 2 above
    17 Free - demoralize attempt granted by Enforcer and constrict damage: target is panicked for additional rounds
    18 Free - Nelly ends grapple as 4 above
    19 Free - bull rush as 6 above
    (And so on, up to a total of 4 additional AoOs, each dealing 65 damage or imposing additional dirty trick conditions, and triggering subsequent grabs, bull rushes and demoralization attempts, increasing the number of rounds the target is panicked)
    20 Automatic - target is pushed back the total distance (typically more than 15') caused by successful bull rushes (6, 13 and 19 above)

    So in total, the target takes at least 132 damage and is locked, sickened for 1 round, dazed for typically more than 2 rounds, panicked (or cowering) for typically at the very least 6 rounds, and bull rushed at least 15' back and potentially knocked prone. This is in addition to any damage dealt and any other effects caused by the initial hit triggering the combo.


    Basic Tactics

    Before Combat
    Nelly adopts Lesson VI: Supremacy with Stance of Thunderbrand and manifests banshee’s hearing and heartbinding at the start of each day (both powers having a 12 hours duration), preferably targeting another Str based frontline combatant in her collective with heartbinding so Nelly and the target can share morale bonuses throughout the day. Yes, that means an ally of Nelly gains all the bonuses of her rage without any of the penalties; +6 to Str and Con, and +2 to Will saves.

    When Nelly suspects she's likely to run into enemies within minutes, she starts cycling Time Skitter, manifests metamorphosis (11 min. duration, effects detailed in build summary) using her cognizance crystals before using her own PP reserve, and uses her wands of contingent action (5 min.), fly (6 min.), long arm (5 min.), and strong jaw (7 min.). At this high level, Nelly typically sets the contingent action to enter the Black Seraph Style stance, to be triggered when she rolls initiative, but if she believes she won't face any enemies immune to fear or mind-affecting, she may instead use the granted action to make an additional strike in the first round. These effects are included in the build summary. In addition, if Nelly believes the upcoming battle will be very challenging, she can also manifest metamorphosis on one or more of her allies through the Shared Power feat, and activate her Boots of the Battle Herald, sharing also those morale bonuses via heartbinding (these effects are not included in the build summary).

    During Combat
    Coming soonTM!



    Spoiler: Nelly Nephilim - Example Opening Combat Round, CR 32 Encounter
    Show
    Credit to exelsisxax for general hole-poking!

    In order to show Nelly's 20th level combat mechanics against truly dangerous opponents and hopefully provide at least a glimpse of her actual in-game combat effectiveness, without me having to write the equivalent of a PhD thesis on the subject, I'm going to describe an opening round in a somewhat simplified fight against Pazuzu (the CR 30 demon lord). Since Nelly is rather heavily optimized to be effective in a primary defender/controller (secondary leader) combat role, she should be capable of beating the opposition on her own while also protecting and supporting a few useless squishy allies, even if Pazuzu has brought along say three balor lords (CR 25 each, let's call them "Leftbal", "Midbal" and "Rightbal"). For simplicity's sake, I've assumed that Nelly and her useless allies encounter these monsters in some dark featureless place with plenty of room to move, starting about 60' from the enemies (when a combatant is first able to see and target an opponent):


    LB = Leftbal, MB = Midbal, RB = Rightbal
    P = Pazuzu (flying 20' above ground)
    N = Nelly (flying 20' above ground)
    A = Nelly's PC allies

    I've also assumed that no combatant is surprised and all have some rudimentary knowledge of the opposition's strength gleaned from scouting, Knowledge skill checks, potential previous run-ins etc. (For Nelly, this would include say approximate minimum CR and maybe the most obvious creature/class type, meaning something along the lines of "one unique(ly) badass demon lord of a CR above 28, and three martially oriented balor-ish demons, each of a CR above 24".)

    The following describes the combatants' likely actions and their effects, including average damage (adjusted for hit chance but not including crit damage, rounded to closest integer) and average/typical chances and results of other effects. As before, indentation means the listed action is dependent on the last previous action(s) with less indentation being successful. Note also that outside of the rules specifically for AoOs, there are AFAIK no general rules detailing the order in which to resolve multiple free and potentially interrupting actions triggered by one single event and/or its immediate effects, so in the cases when the rules are silent I've assumed the creature performing the actions in question decides the order. Naturally, I've tried to adhere strictly to RAW.

    1 Initiative roll
    Nelly has the highest initiative bonus so she is likely to act first.

    2 Automatic by Nelly
    Nelly's contingent action is triggered, and she enters Black Seraph Style stance.

    3 Standard by Nelly
    Nelly initiates Lord of the Pridelands: Nelly and her allies gain +10 morale to hit, damage, AC, and saves for 1 round (assuming her allies are 3 PCs and at least one of them has a familiar/AC/eidolon or similar).

    4 Free by Nelly
    Nelly uses Precognitive Defenses by expending her psionic focus to initiate Oath of Eternity: for 1 round, Nelly's AoOs deals +3d6 damage and curses target for 1 round, and she can make a total of 16 AoOs.

    5 Move by Nelly
    Nelly flies off to pick a fight, moving 55' straight north to within 10' of Pazuzu and 30' of the balor lords (of course taking the opportunity to call the demon lord "A chicken little chicken!" and cackle mockingly for emphasis). Nelly would have automatically succeeded on the save vs Pazuzu's Aura of Locusts (Fortitude +44 vs DC 43), but she does not need make the throw as Pazuzu is pushed back at least 20', after he takes 179 damage (mostly nonlethal) and becomes blinded for at least 2 rounds, cowering for 3 rounds, cursed and sickened for 1 round and dazed for 10 rounds:
    5.1 Free - Precognitive Defenses by Nelly expending her Deep Focus, triggered by Nelly being exposed to Pazuzu's Aura of Locusts, allowing her to initiate Break the Hourglass
    5.2 Move granted by Break the Hourglass - in this situation, Nelly unfortunately can't use this move for anything more constructive than going "Nye, nye, nye, nye, nye!" at Pazuzu and sticking out her tongue at him
    5.3 Standard granted by Break the Hourglass - Hammer of the Immortal vs Pazuzu: 95% hit chance (+57 vs AC 48) for 98 damage, -4 AC and CMD, and Nelly and her allies gain +2 morale to attack for 2 rounds
    5.4 Free - demoralize attempt granted by Enforcer: Pazuzu shaken for 3 rounds (Intimidate +59 vs DC 57) and Nelly gains +5 profane to AC and saves vs his attacks
    5.5 Swift - Dastardly Gambit: Nelly gains +6 luck to dirty trick (doesn't stack with the +14 luck already granted by Nelly's Dueling (PFSG) Amulet of Mighty Fists)
    5.6 Free - dirty trick attempt granted by Hammer of the Immortal: 90% chance of Pazuzu being blinded for at least 2 rounds (dirty trick CMB +85 vs CMD 88); Nelly recovers Hammer of the Immortal, allies recover 1 maneuver (and all gain +6 morale to damage which doesn't stack with the +10 already granted by Lord of the Pridelands)
    5.7 Free - Hypercognitive Focus granted by Nelly recovering a maneuver: Nelly regains her Deep Focus
    5.8 Free - Intimidate attempt vs enemies within 30' granted by Dazzling Gambit: Pazuzu frightened for 3 rounds (Intimidate +59 vs DC 57), and the balor lords are shaken for 6 rounds (Intimidate +59 vs DC 43), and Nelly gains +5 profane to AC and saves vs their attacks as well
    5.9 Free - grapple attempt granted by grab: 0% success chance since Pazuzu is protected by constant freedom of movement (Though not listed, Nelly might make additional free grapple attempts on her following hits (5.11, 5.14 and 5.16 below) without realizing the futility of it.)
    5.10 Free - bull rush attempt granted by Buckler Bash and Shield Slam: 99% success chance (bull rush CMB +74 best of two rolls vs CMD 77), moving Pazuzu at least 5' after:
    5.11 AoO granted by Stance of the Thunderbrand - 95% hit chance for 81 damage and Pazuzu is cursed and sickened for 1 round
    5.12 Free - demoralize attempt granted by Enforcer: Pazuzu panicked for 3 rounds (Intimidate +59 vs DC 57), dropping the Scepter Of Shibaxet
    5.13 Free - bull rush as 5.10 above
    5.14 AoO granted by Stance of the Thunderbrand - dirty trick granted by Seize the Opportunity: Pazuzu dazzled for 5 rounds (dirty trick CMB +85 vs CMD 77)
    5.15 Free - bull rush attempt as 5.10 above
    5.16 AoO granted by Stance of the Thunderbrand - dirty trick granted by Seize the Opportunity: Pazuzu dazed for 10 rounds (dirty trick CMB +85 vs CMD 77)
    5.17 Free - bull rush attempt as 5.10 above
    5.18 Automatic - Pazuzu is pushed back the total distance (typically at least 20') caused by successful bull rushes (5.10, 5.13, 5.15 and 5.17 above)

    6 Standard by Leftbal
    In their current positions, none of the balor lords are close enough to Nelly's allies to be able to see and target them, so the demons are therefore likely to decide to first concentrate on the most immediate threat, meaning Nelly. Especially since that threat just made their boss soil his feathers in fear before hitting him over the head so hard even the balors can see the obligatory imaginary little chattering quasits flying in circles around their leader, cartoon style. So unless Leftbal decides to simply flee instead of attacking (unlikely), it must try to either charge Nelly, move south towards where it probably has heard Nelly's allies, and/or cast a spell. Going by the tactics section in the bestiary entry for balor lords, Leftbal is most likely to try using a damaging SLA, like firestorm, targeting the whole space Nelly occupies. And if Leftbal does so, all three balor lords are most likely doomed, each one taking 98 damage (mostly nonlethal), being frightened for 12 rounds, dazed for 16 rounds and pushed back up to at least 30', while Leftbal's firestorm never occurs since Nelly's immediate response to the threat interrupts the balor's action to use the SLA:
    6.1 Immediate - Clairsentient Counter by Nelly expending her Deep Focus and Hunting Party, triggered by Nelly potentially being affected by Leftbal's firestorm
    6.2 Standard granted by Clairsentient Counter - Hammer of the Immortal vs Leftbal: 95% hit chance (+57 vs AC 33) for 98 damage, -4 AC and CMD, and Leftbal is sickened for 1 round (and Nelly and her allies gain +2 morale to attack for 2 rounds)
    6.3 Free - demoralize attempt granted by Enforcer: Leftbal is frightened for 6 rounds (Intimidate +59 vs DC 43)
    6.4 Free - dirty trick attempt granted by Hammer of the Immortal: Leftbal is dazzled for 8 rounds (dirty trick CMB +85 vs CMD 62)
    6.5 Free - bull rush attempt granted by Buckler Bash and Shield Slam: 99% success chance (bull rush CMB +74 best of two rolls vs CMD 62), moving Leftbal up to at least 15' after:
    6.6 AoO granted by Stance of the Thunderbrand - dirty trick granted by Seize the Opportunity: Leftbal is cursed for 1 round and dazed for 16 rounds (dirty trick CMB +85 vs CMD 62)
    6.7 Free - bull rush as 6.5 above
    6.8 Automatic - Leftbal is pushed back the total distance (typically up to at least 30') caused by successful bull rushes (6.5 and 6.7 above)
    6.9 None - Hammer of the Immortal vs Midbal: as 6.2 - 6.8 above but against Midbal
    6.10 None - Hammer of the Immortal vs Rightbal: as 6.2 - 6.8 above but against Rightbal

    Resources Spent When the first round ends, Nelly has expended Hunting Party and all her readied zealot/awakened blade maneuvers except Temporal Body Adjustment, Thrashing Dragon Twist and Time Skitter, plus her psionic focus and Deep Focus. She has also used her Hypercognitive Focus for the round and made 6 AoOs (10 additional AoOs possible before the start of her next turn).

    Clearly, Pazuzu and his balor lords lost this fight almost before it started. As they end up dazed and cowering or frightened for several rounds, Nelly and her allies have plenty of time to take care of the beaten demons in the way they prefer before Pazuzu is able to threaten anyone with so much as bad language.

    Spoiler: What if Pazuzu can act first?
    Show
    Due to Pazuzu's +13 to Initiative and the inherently fluky nature of opposed d20 rolls, there's a considerable risk Pazuzu wins the initiative and may act before Nelly. But even if he can do so, he still doesn't stand much of chance against her in a straight up fight like this. None of his SLAs or (Su) abilities has a DC high enough to affect Nelly while she's affected by Lord of the Pridelands, and even should she not be, none of his SLAs will be effective and none of his (Su) abilities will have more than a 40% chance to succeed if Nelly makes a saving throw (the most powerful ones being avoided with a successful Fortitude or Will save vs DC 43). But most importantly, any effect he tries to expose Nelly to can be countered by her Clairsentient Counter or Break the Hourglass, meaning Pazuzu grants Nelly up to a standard and a move action to interrupt his triggering standard action each time he uses any such offensive SLA or (Su) ability. On top of that, Nelly's Precognitive Defenses, Deep Focus and Hypercognitive Focus ensures she may typically make two such interrupting counters per round at any time, in addition to her normally granted actions, while Pazuzu may only take the normal single standard action during his own turn, leaving him far behind Nelly in the action economy race.

    Instead, if Pazuzu is lucky and gets to go first, to avoid further humiliation and likely being captured, his best chance is actually to just get the hell abyss out by using his greater teleport as his very first action. That can at least save his ruffled feathers long enough for him to start trying to deal with Nelly in some much less overt manner. But Pazuzu is highly unlikely to realize this without having very extensive and highly detailed knowledge of Nelly's combat abilities. And if he does have such knowledge, he probably would've used his considerable power to ensure he doesn't risk ending up anywhere remotely close to Nelly in the first place, much less in a fight he knows he's bound to lose. Instead, he'd probably try offering Nelly some kind of agreement to help her against common enemies, hoping to (further) corrupt her soul in the process so he may eventually turn her into his powerful servant once her life is at an end.

    The next best thing Pazuzu can do if he wins initiative is probably to go for Nelly's magic items and buffs using a targeted greater dispel magic. This action has the same problem of triggering Nelly's Clairsentient Counter or Break the Hourglass, and may very well put Pazuzu within range of Nelly's interrupting attacks since he must be within 60' in order to see and target her. But this option at least has a chance of causing Nelly some minor annoyance and may delay Pazuzu's downfall another round if he can get most of his allies between him and Nelly.




    Quote Originally Posted by Cosi View Post
    Maybe there's a disconnect between my experiences and others. Can you give some more concrete example of what you're talking about?
    The last such incident I can recall in a game I played in myself included a long chain of mostly non-magic but nasty defenses guarding the entrance passage to the keep in a huge fortress, taken over by goblinoids led by a group of evil wizards and clerics (none of a level/CR much higher than that of the 9th level party). Teleport made the whole thing a cake-walk, while it otherwise would've been a pretty significant challenge requiring a lot of creative thinking and numerous different talents (including other spells). But come to think of it, I don't really believe it's a particularly great example, since I think using teleport was also a pretty creative and far from obvious solution. And our DM agreed, though we felt kinda cheated when he later told us about the awesome potential social interactions with hobgoblin generals and bugbear chefs we missed...

    Quote Originally Posted by Cosi View Post
    In general, I don't think you can make martials viable at high levels without hitting complaints about being "castery". Maybe you can do it in combat, but out of combat is probably impossible. It's certainly impossible working with mostly existing material.
    This.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cosi View Post
    Overhauling the system, I would probably just institute something like Paragon Paths and mandate that Fighters got their high level powers from being Thunder Lords or Verdant Princes.
    That could've worked far better than the current system, likely also avoiding most of the "too caster-y"-complaints any mechanic of value given to fighters now are likely to get.
    Last edited by upho; 2018-06-01 at 11:26 PM.

  25. - Top - End - #205
    Orc in the Playground
     
    ElfRogueGirl

    Join Date
    Mar 2016
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by upho View Post
    Hey! Some (two?) of us have actually been discussing solutions for quite a while now.

    I can't think Knockback/BR would be a fitting game mechanic to describe what is shown in that gif, it's more like some kind of super-boosted Awesome Blow + Cleave/Whirlwind combo. Which might be a decent development of Knockback in a high power game, come to think of it.

    (Dunno what Sauron is, as the terms in used in the descriptions of him in the books are intentionally changing dependent on the context/speaker and also kinda vaguely defined. But a sorta semi-corporeal ghost-ish(?) "fallen angel" older than time itself would be a "caster" in some sense, I guess? Anyhow, in the movies, his previous more corporeal form shown in the gif is definitely not fighting like anything resembling a caster IMO. And he's not using any kind of apparent magic while doing so, aside from his obviously supernaturally high innate strength, great durability and awesome martial prowess, enhanced by a magic item. Pretty much exactly like your typical high level fighter does in 3.5, really, except with results far less impressive than those of Sauron for some weird reason...)

    I'd simply add a number of (Su) flight minutes/day to any martial stance of say 3rd level or higher. Magic, in the "supernatural" sense, is required for "super-jump-flight" anyways, and in order to get martials up to scratch in other regards for that matter.

    Considering difficult terrain is typically irrelevant by no later than 10th level, I don't really see how these abilities are supposed to be powerful. Maybe if they had a similar slowing effect on all movement types and also worked as an AoE dimensional anchor within a sphere radius? (Fluffed as the blow disrupting all matter in the sphere to such an extent it becomes impossible to enter from/exit into another dimension, or something along those lines?)
    ~snipped since deals with outhers ideas~
    i get what you mean by it doesn't quite fit but the point was that people were hit and subsequently flung away. that is in of itself knockback just not the totality of the thing (power attack and great cleave or like you said whirlwind attack). funny thing is i don't think sauron can do what he did with that strike in the actual LorR RPG since you can't multi-hit from what i remember. hell it takes 3 combat actions to fire an arrow (draw weapon, nock an arrow, fire) because the edge ["feat"] quickdraw doesn't technically work with arrows (my dm ruled for it though). i think that the most strikes you can get in a round are 3? 2 for action economy & +1 for two weapon fighting edge ["feat"]. but i digress... as for him not using magic, in LotR rpg there are a number of combat enhancements (one of the few decent magics in that game) so he is probably buffed to high hell (CoDZILLA anyone?)

    idk about just giving flight/minutes flat out. that just leads to everyone getting it for some reason (tbh everyone does need it at higher levels). more likely a feat that allows jump checks to "grant flight" based on the check would be more in tune with that. probably for 1 round/ 5pts above DC or something and the ability to "push off of air" at a DC increase to allow continuous flight (one piece air step basically).

    difficult terrain is often negated by flight so how about aireal difficult terrain generation by creating "waves" of air pressure by swinging a weapon?
    Quote Originally Posted by BassoonHero View Post
    No, the problem is that the limit one can achieve with physical brute force from a human body is low, very, very, very low, so obviously someone pursuing strength via muscles is not going to get far.
    This is certainly true in 3.5, but I don't think that it's an inevitable feature of the fantasy genre. Look at wuxia. Look at mythology. Look at what "peak human" means in the DC universe. I think that "strength via muscles" can do some pretty amazing things if the system allows for it.

  26. - Top - End - #206
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Nov 2008

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    If level 15+ martials need to be superheroes to compete, you might as well throw in flight and breath weapons and stuff.
    The gnomes once had many mines, but now they have gnome ore.

  27. - Top - End - #207
    Troll in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2011

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by Bucky View Post
    If level 15+ martials need to be superheroes to compete, you might as well throw in flight and breath weapons and stuff.
    I mean.... It's a positive step?
    Most people see a half orc and and think barbarian warrior. Me on the other hand? I think secondary trap handler and magic item tester. Also I'm not allowed to trick the next level one wizard into starting a fist fight with a house cat no matter how annoying he is.
    Yes I know it's sarcasm. It's a joke. Pale green is for snarking
    Thread wins: 2

  28. - Top - End - #208
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Nifft's Avatar

    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    NYC
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by Bucky View Post
    If level 15+ martials need to be superheroes to compete, you might as well throw in flight and breath weapons and stuff.
    I dunno, that's all just combat stuff.

    Martial PCs need help with everything else except combat.

  29. - Top - End - #209
    Orc in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jul 2017

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by Cosi View Post
    The debate between Ryu and Karl demonstrates exactly why the Tier System is unhelpful for discussions of this type. Karl is loudly and repeatedly insisting that it is impossible to challenge true Tier Ones. Ryu is loudly and repeatedly insisting that you can challenge characters with appropriate opposition. Careful examination shows that these positions are not in conflict. Tier One can be defined as "unchallengable" (making Karl right) while there still exist campaigns that rely on the particular features of classes in Tier One that challenge those classes (making Ryu right). The entire debate is a result of assuming different semantics for "Tier One", and is therefore stupid. Talking about this in terms of the Tiers obscures the important (and, in my view, obviously true) point that there are exciting and worthwhile campaigns that are unique to full casters with the much less important observation that cheese exists.

    One is tempted to speculate that this conflation is intentional, but that speculation is pointlessly conspiratorial, and should instead be replaced by an attempt to produce alternative language that refers precisely to "characters with non-broken abilities non-casters can't duplicate". Then we can stop trying to pretend that Chain Binding is a reason that evard's black tentacles needs to be worse.



    Yes. This thread is examining a particular set of tools DMs might use to prevent the imbalance that exists in RAW from impacting the game. Namely, providing options to non-casting characters at a power level compatible, if perhaps not comparable, with casters.



    I think it reflects poorly on you that you would intentionally play a character that doesn't carry its weight. D&D is a cooperative game, and you are defecting. That makes you a bad person.

    Not at all. A properly optimized martial character (not even talking about uberchargers or any other generic cheese) is going to be very helpful in most games, at least until roughly the halfway mark. Even after that point a straight-up fighter with no fancy min/maxing is still going to be reasonably competent at many tables. Not carrying one's "weight" completely depends on the game you're playing. Sure, if you are playing in a high OP game full of casters and psionics then yeah, your fairly vanilla fighter is going to be a joke after a certain point compared to other character classes, but even then that doesn't mean that they cannot fulfill certain roles. You just have to play your role and stop being worried about being a badass demi-god juggernaut. There's nothing wrong with being an above-average human being doing their best to thrive in a crazy world with strength and steel. Your contrary opinion kinda illustrates the point behind my comment... Nobody is "defecting" by choosing to play a class that doesn't shine as brightly as a full caster. Yes, D&D is a cooperative game and there's many ways to play and cooperate. I am not saying that there is no imbalance here... I'm just saying that people can and should homebrew any (relatively minor) changes that they see fit but not go overboard because playing less powerful / capable character often leads to a lot of fun. Imagine how boring D&D would be if you played a T1/T2 class every time.
    Last edited by skunk3; 2018-06-02 at 12:54 AM.

  30. - Top - End - #210
    Orc in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jul 2017

    Default Re: Balancing Casters by Buffing Martials

    Quote Originally Posted by Snowbluff View Post



    Well first off, there is the Oberoni Fallacy. We can't call 3e or PF "balanced" because a GM can fix it.

    I will say that people might not want to be outshone is a definite thing. It kind of breaks verisimilitude when there's a guy in the party who does nothing. Of course, DND is a cooperative and also a roleplaying game, meaning that you are greater than the sum of your sheet. On the other hand, some DMs are just incompetent, or the players are simply not on the same page.

    Furthermore, people don't understand Tiers. Tiers past T1-2 is a measure of game brokeness. If there is that stuff going on, your game is busted unless your DM is prepared and doing equally busted stuff. T4 is barely competent, and T5-6 are incompetent, but if you have a low power samurai game going on, it could totally work.

    Snowbluff Axiom
    I personally do not feel that the game is as imbalanced as many people here make it out to be. It was never meant to be perfectly balanced. Yeah, there's a lot of minor changes here and there that COULD be make to certain classes and/or PrCs to make them more viable and attractive, but I think the larger issue here, for me anyway, is that people seem to not want to play anything unless it is fairly powerful and optimized. I don't know if this is because they feel inadequate IRL and want to be a beast on the table or what... but I find it repellant in general. I could have plenty of fun playing any class. Does this perceived imbalance cause you to not have fun playing the game? If so, why? Are you mad that after a certain point you're outshone? Why do you feel that being outshone isn't going to or shouldn't happen? As I have mentioned before, I feel that a lot of people take issue with certain balancing issues because they simply don't want to be the weak link... which speaks to their personality. I get it - being a badass in the game is fun. Who doesn't like to feel godly from time to time? That said, I think that the overall balance of most classes is acceptable. Some homebrew tweaks here and there wouldn't hurt but the problem is that if you're going to play in a game in which one class gets buffs or added class skills or whatever non-standard bonuses, you have to look at each and every class for the PC's in that game and determine if they too get any buffs or nerfs, and DM's also have to factor all of these changes in when it comes to generating CR-appropriate challenges. It's essentially opening a can of worms. From what I gather here on the forums a lot of people play in games in which they can do almost anything they want in terms of taking feats, selecting classes/prc's, taking flaws that don't really hurt their character in any meaningful way, and generally optimizing to the high heavens. In most of the games that I have played in, DM's have been very strict about what is and isn't allowed, so a great deal of these hypothetical character builds on the forum wouldn't fly at all due to being way, way OP.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •