[QUOTE=Rents;47087660]That's kinda what Fighters are though, they're the best at hitting people with bits of metal and get a load of feats to make them the best with their prefered type of metal thing, although you can use those feats for other things that interest you as well.
Slayer or Cavalier are good not-magic choices instead of fighter if you want. Nothing's forcing people to play Urist McGreatax of Clan Cleave Path.[/QUOTE]
Gotta agree with the Slayer being an amazing martial class, it's got all the advantages of Rogue and Ranger with none of the disadvantages.
The best I've seen by far however is the Aegis; sure it's third-party and psionic, but the range of strong options available to the player along with the fact you're basically playing [I]Iron Man[/I] is awesome.
Cavalier's good, but it's kind of fucked over since most campaigns don't give a lot of room for the Cavalier to use their horse.
[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;47087680]It's just that the best way to counter a wizard is with another wizard, and I'm quite frankly exasperated at this model Paizo has made where they're going for something with "gritty realism, unless magic is involved."
Like fuck, this isn't even a problem with just casters; monsters generally get some pretty insane HP, to-hit and AC bloat by the high levels which most martials simply can't keep up with, especially for AC.[/QUOTE]
gritty realism my ass, a 5th level fighter can survive a fucking boulder launched from a catapult hitting him directly pretty fucking reliably
[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;47087700]Cavalier's good, but it's kind of fucked over since most campaigns don't give a lot of room for the Cavalier to use their horse.[/QUOTE]
That's why you choose a small race and use a dog/wolf as your mount.
[QUOTE=elowin;47087698]Theoretically? Sure. A wizard, assuming he knows every spell (he won't, but theoretically he could), with infinite preperation time (he won't, but theoretically he could), one hundred percent calling exactly what he will need (he won't), and at the highest level, would be ridiculously overpowered.
[B]Practically? no.[/B][/QUOTE]
Gotta disagree with you there, any high-level wizard worth his salt will have access to divination magic, which means he'll have plenty of prep time to come up with all the spells he'll need for an adventure.
Or he could just summon some demons, raise undead, make a golem or hire mercs to handle the problem.
[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;47087700]Gotta agree with the Slayer being an amazing martial class, it's got all the advantages of Rogue and Ranger with none of the disadvantages.
The best I've seen by far however is the Aegis; sure it's third-party and psionic, but the range of strong options available to the player along with the fact you're basically playing [I]Iron Man[/I] is awesome.
Cavalier's good, but it's kind of fucked over since most campaigns don't give a lot of room for the Cavalier to use their horse.[/QUOTE]
Swashbucker is also pretty fun, forgot about that one, Brawler is more niche but punching things never goes out of style and they're by far the most flexible melee martial class.
[QUOTE=elowin;47087706]gritty realism my ass, a 5th level fighter can survive a fucking boulder launched from a catapult hitting him directly pretty fucking reliably[/QUOTE]
While I agree, the developers have always said HP is an abstract system and would probably write off getting hit by a boulder as "you jump out of the way at the last second."
[QUOTE=elowin;47087698]Theoretically? Sure. A wizard, assuming he knows every spell (he won't, but theoretically he could), with infinite preperation time (he won't, but theoretically he could), one hundred percent calling exactly what he will need (he won't), and at the highest level, would be ridiculously overpowered.
Practically? no.[/QUOTE]
Divination + Personal pocket plane = you win. Sorry, wizards at about level 14 become unstoppable deities. Before that they are STILL way tougher than the rest of the party with minimal thought in spell selection but not the demigods that they become when they get access to a place to plot their every next move with effectively 0 change in earth-time (since you can alter the flow of time in this plane)
3rd edition, and by extension Pathfinder, are HORRIBLY balanced. At the end of the day though, who fucking cares as long as everyone is having fun? The issue is when people stop having fun because the caster is hogging ALL the glory and instantly winning EVERY possible scenario that crops up. You should be able to solve that OOC by asking the caster to back off for a while so people can have fun, and booting him if he continues to act like a prima donna.
[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;47087745]While I agree, the developers have always said HP is an abstract system and would probably write off getting hit by a boulder as "you jump out of the way at the last second."[/QUOTE]
That's stupid, and has always been stupid.
HP in D&D does not make any sense if you make it an abstract system.
Besides that, there's literally no arguing that higher level characters are basically mythological bullshit figures anyway. If you want gritty realism, stick to the very low levels, or preferably, another fucking game.
[QUOTE=Rents;47087723]Swashbucker is also pretty fun, forgot about that one, Brawler is more niche but punching things never goes out of style and they're by far the most flexible melee martial class.[/QUOTE]
I'll be honest here, some of the new classes they've released has gone a long way to assuage the fears of "the same old martial hate" that Paizo arguably has. The swashbuckler is pretty exciting and the Brawler has been called praised for it's versatility.
It's a case of wanting martials to have effective options to deal with different threats in different ways, rather than simply being tough. People want to do more than just full attack all day, and the new classes are really making that hope realized.
That new Paladin archetype has real potential, the Chosen One. It replaces your divine bond with a quirky familiar you have at level 1 (and you start at "Sorcerer" age, which means 16-18.) Let's you cast divine spells through it as well, which was always one of the things that made Witches strong.
[QUOTE=elowin;47087771]That's stupid, and has always been stupid.
HP in D&D does not make any sense if you make it an abstract system.
Besides that, there's literally no arguing that higher level characters are basically mythological bullshit figures anyway. If you want gritty realism, stick to the very low levels, or preferably, another fucking game.[/QUOTE]
Yeah if you want realism you play almost ANYTHING else because D&D has characters reliably surviving shit that should kill you instantly. And if you use "abstract" HP then what is a cure wounds spell doing and why would you ever need one at a higher level if you don't actually take WOUNDS?
[QUOTE=Chronische;47087765]Divination + Personal pocket plane = you win. Sorry, wizards at about level 14 become unstoppable deities. Before that they are STILL way tougher than the rest of the party with minimal thought in spell selection but not the demigods that they become when they get access to a place to plot their every next move with effectively 0 change in earth-time (since you can alter the flow of time in this plane)
3rd edition, and by extension Pathfinder, are HORRIBLY balanced. At the end of the day though, who fucking cares as long as everyone is having fun? The issue is when people stop having fun because the caster is hogging ALL the glory and instantly winning EVERY possible scenario that crops up. You should be able to solve that OOC by asking the caster to back off for a while so people can have fun, and booting him if he continues to act like a prima donna.[/QUOTE]
I'm not going to argue against there being certain combinations of spells that are ridiculously OP. That's fact. Every class has some utterly crazy, game breaking combinations, but yes, casters have the best ones.
But overall wizards are not nearly as OP as people make them out to be, unless you are specifically trying to break the game with them. It's not a problem unless you're playing with utter twats.
Guys, let's not fight! Let's talk about something we can all agree with. Alighnments!
The thing people keep forgetting with D&D/PF is the scale.
A first-level character is already a cut above the rest. You can get into Mensa with INT 12.
A third-level character is world-class. A third-level rogue could compete in the Olympics. A third-level soldier could be in Seal Team 6. All of the non-Maiar characters in Lord of the Rings can be specced out as third level characters, or lower - Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, all third-level or lower.
A fourth-level character is a once-in-a-century master. You could spec Einstein out as a fourth-level physicist, or Alexander the Great as a fourth-level cavalier. Fiction-wise, here's where you'd put Gandalf the Gray, Saruman, and the other wizards even I can't remember the names of. For fighters, this might be Heracles or Achilles.
Fifth-level characters are beyond reality. You can't come up with real-world examples of what a fifth-level character is like. Lord of the Rings might put Gandalf the White up here, although he might just be 4th with some magic items.
Anything above tenth-level is no longer high fantasy, but [i]epic[/i] fantasy. And that's where the problem is - you can come up with epic-fantasy magic easily, but epic-fantasy combat is hard to do in an actual game.
Honestly, if my players ever get that high in level, I'm probably going to switch systems. Maybe EX3 will be out by then...
[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;47087722]Gotta disagree with you there, any high-level wizard worth his salt will have access to divination magic, which means he'll have plenty of prep time to come up with all the spells he'll need for an adventure.
Or he could just summon some demons, raise undead, make a golem or hire mercs to handle the problem.[/QUOTE]
This is, again, straight up not true. Divination spells are simply not nearly as good as you seem to think they are.
When it comes to remote sensing divination spells, almost all of them require that you know the target or area that you're sensing before casting, and the few that don't are painfully limited like Arcane Eye. You'd have to be remarkably lucky to be able to scan anywhere near the majority of the dungeon before you enter it, and even if you can, it'd take you days of meticulous scanning to do it properly.
As for precognition style divination spells, there simply are none. You cannot tell the future. The closest you'll get is Foresight.
And of course, there's no guarantee that you will even have time for any major amount of preparation such as this. And you will need a lot of it for any kind of divination, especially if you also want to change your prepared spells judging by your divinations, and even more if you hadn't already prepared the divination spells.
As for your second point, yes. He could do that. But it'd require inordinate amounts of resources, time and effort. And here's the kicker, you're no longer an adventuring wizard. You're not getting any XP for whatever your minions are doing. You're not participating in any adventures, you're just sitting in your wizard tower making golems all day.
And nothing is stopping any other character from becoming a leader of some group either.
[editline]6th February 2015[/editline]
woops, sorry for wall of text
[QUOTE=gman003-main;47087923] Maybe EX3 will be out by then...[/QUOTE]
There's a full leak available, fyi.
[QUOTE=gman003-main;47087923]The thing people keep forgetting with D&D/PF is the scale.
A first-level character is already a cut above the rest. You can get into Mensa with INT 12.
A third-level character is world-class. A third-level rogue could compete in the Olympics. A third-level soldier could be in Seal Team 6. All of the non-Maiar characters in Lord of the Rings can be specced out as third level characters, or lower - Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, all third-level or lower.
A fourth-level character is a once-in-a-century master. You could spec Einstein out as a fourth-level physicist, or Alexander the Great as a fourth-level cavalier. Fiction-wise, here's where you'd put Gandalf the Gray, Saruman, and the other wizards even I can't remember the names of. For fighters, this might be Heracles or Achilles.
Fifth-level characters are beyond reality. You can't come up with real-world examples of what a fifth-level character is like. Lord of the Rings might put Gandalf the White up here, although he might just be 4th with some magic items.
Anything above tenth-level is no longer high fantasy, but [I]epic[/I] fantasy. And that's where the problem is - you can come up with epic-fantasy magic easily, but epic-fantasy combat is hard to do in an actual game.
Honestly, if my players ever get that high in level, I'm probably going to switch systems. Maybe EX3 will be out by then...[/QUOTE]
Not quite.
Pitax (tinpot kingdom in the land of International Clusterfuck) elite soldiers are canonically around level 7-9, while their king is level 13. The greatest Orc war-chief in Belkzen is a bog-standard level 10 Fighter.
The Emperor of Taldor, Stavian III is a level 8 Aristocrat/level 4 Wizard, while the Queen of Kyonin is a level 15 Wizard/Archmage 2.
The highest level character in the game that I know of is Sveinn Blood-Eagle, who is a level 18 Barbarian.
In Reign of Winter they establish that [sp]Russian soldiers from WW1 are level 6 fighters.[/sp]
What we can garner from this is that the cut-off between "really damn good at what they do" and "you're something out of myth and legend" is level 10-12.
Which reminds me.
Exalted 3rd Edition.
I has it. Old players, role call!
[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;47088227]Not quite.
Pitax (tinpot kingdom in the land of International Clusterfuck) elite soldiers are canonically around level 7-9, while their king is level 13. The greatest Orc war-chief in Belkzen is a bog-standard level 10 Fighter.
The Emperor of Taldor, Stavian III is a level 8 Aristocrat/level 4 Wizard, while the Queen of Kyonin is a level 15 Wizard/Archmage 2.
The highest level character in the game that I know of is Sveinn Blood-Eagle, who is a level 18 Barbarian.
In Reign of Winter they establish that [sp]Russian soldiers from WW1 are level 6 fighters.[/sp]
What we can garner from this is that the cut-off between "really damn good at what they do" and "you're something out of myth and legend" is level 10-12.[/QUOTE]
I was speaking of the rules, not of the lore. I don't give a single shit about official lore, precisely because it so misunderstands its own game system.
[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;47088227]Not quite.
Pitax (tinpot kingdom in the land of International Clusterfuck) elite soldiers are canonically around level 7-9, while their king is level 13. The greatest Orc war-chief in Belkzen is a bog-standard level 10 Fighter.
The Emperor of Taldor, Stavian III is a level 8 Aristocrat/level 4 Wizard, while the Queen of Kyonin is a level 15 Wizard/Archmage 2.
The highest level character in the game that I know of is Sveinn Blood-Eagle, who is a level 18 Barbarian.
In Reign of Winter they establish that [sp]Russian soldiers from WW1 are level 6 fighters.[/sp]
What we can garner from this is that the cut-off between "really damn good at what they do" and "you're something out of myth and legend" is level 10-12.[/QUOTE]
Lol, no.
What we can garner from this is that the guys at Paizo, and especially the guys doing the adventure paths, are completely out of touch with how "powerful" in real world terms a character of a certain level really is in their own game.
Golarion is an utterly shit setting overall, anyway.
[QUOTE=gman003-main;47088241]I was speaking of the rules, not of the lore. I don't give a single shit about official lore, precisely because it so misunderstands its own game system.[/QUOTE]
The rules are equally schizophrenic, though, what with saying you need to be a level 7 fighter to move full-speed in plate armor (historically false) or you need to be a level 6 Sorcerer/Wizard to cast Fireball (also historically false.)
[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;47088281]The rules are equally schizophrenic, though, what with saying you need to be a level 7 fighter to move full-speed in plate armor (historically false)[/QUOTE]
that tbh just seems to be a failure to understand that it's not ~that~ hard to move in full-plate armor
most people instantly assume that it's fucking impossible to move in when they first see it (i did too), because it really looks like it
and uhh
[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;47088281]or you need to be a level 6 Sorcerer/Wizard to cast Fireball (also historically false.)[/QUOTE]
u wot m8
i didn't know there historically were fucking wizards period
also wizards can cast fireball at level 5 just fyi
In summation D&D and Pathfinder a shit.
Why do fighters do D12 against large creatures?
[QUOTE=General;47088401]Why do fighters do D12 against large creatures?[/QUOTE]
They don't, unless you take a weapon that does d12 damage in general, or a feat/archetype that lets you do d12 to creatures larger than you or something like that.
[QUOTE=General;47088401]Why do fighters do D12 against large creatures?[/QUOTE]
what game are you playing
I'm currently watching Itmejp's roleplay thing
I guess the DM has custom rules
best balance is CP2020 because everything in that game is unbalanced so the only rule for balancing is just: make the players fear you to stop powergaming. pre-2000 gaming at it's finest :downs:
[QUOTE=General;47088479]I'm currently watching Itmejp's roleplay thing
I guess the DM has custom rules[/QUOTE]
Well what game is he playing? 2e had some weapons deal more damage to large creatures (longsword was 1d8 against normal enemies and 1d12 against large enemies) but i don't think that has been in any edition since
As a tangent, I had a thought. If you guys ever wanna put your players in a moral dilemma, make them trust an NPC, and have the NPC do something bad.
Let's say there's an informant for them, tells the party really useful information a lot of the time. Then you spring it on them that the informant killed a dude in cold blood.
Now they have a dilemma, they like this dude, but at the same time, he's a killer. But the information he's given you is really good and has definitely saved lives, but at what price did he go to get it? And are you guys responsible?
MORALITY.
[QUOTE=cdr248;47088684]best balance is CP2020 because everything in that game is unbalanced so the only rule for balancing is just: make the players fear you to stop powergaming. pre-2000 gaming at it's finest :downs:[/QUOTE]
man I wish I still had that copy of Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads
it's really fucking terrible GM advice for the most part
like I love you Maximum Mike please stop telling me to put claymore mines under my players' beds
[editline]6th February 2015[/editline]
as in characters
Maximum Mike Pondsmith did not, in fact, tell me to go bomb a nerd
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