Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Potions, Medicine, Special Materials & more...
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 8079607" data-attributes="member: 12731"><p>Well, we have five players and three martials, so it's not that the Barbarian has to fight all the critters by herself. The Fighter and Ranger aren't afraid to enter melee, I mean - they're both geared for melee (obviously, since ranged deals clearly less damage, and unless everybody stays at range, creating a ranged martial is actually a weakness for the group, since by avoiding melee all you do is help monsters to focus their damage, which in PF2 is lethal)</p><p></p><p>The Fighter uses a Halberd. He's happy how the reach helps him get his attack of opportunity (and how it eases flanking). The ranger does best when ranged is required (and loses the fewest actions when you can't reach your foe). But he too prefers melee, where he deals more damage.</p><p></p><p>Since the Ranger players his character as more cautious (to tank a significant foe), it seems too early to attribute the fact the Fighter and Barbarian takes the brunt of the incoming damage (and the Barbarian obviously taking more) solely on AC differences. I suspect the Ranger would have done just as well as the Barbarian had he shared her confidence.</p><p></p><p>Since we have five players the issues with having one of them be a Wizard are obviously lessened compared to a default group of four. I shudder at the thought of running Extinction Curse with only two martials, the Cleric and then the Wizard. It would likely have become painfully obvious the group would have been better off with a third martial instead, even somebody as absurd as a Giant Instinct Barbarian.</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>What I'm trying to get at is the fundamental fact that any fantasy ruleset must justify the inclusion of any squishy character.</p><p></p><p>The whole reason you bring along</p><p>...a cleric despite dealing weak damage is because of her awesome healing powers</p><p>...a rogue despite being too squishy to be a frontliner is because of her awesome DPS (and somewhat for her utility)</p><p>...a wizard despite being too squishy at all is because of her awesome area spells, boss take-downs, and overall sheer utility</p><p></p><p>Playing one of these characters just because it's fun is okay in a friendly home game, but not when the difficulty is racking up.</p><p></p><p>After all, while a Giant Instinct Barbarian has poor defenses, she still does far better than a puny Wizard! The fact the Wizard is starting to keep up damage-wise (when expending his best slots) doesn't mean the overall package is better, since the defense is still so poor. You say you'd choose Cone of Cold, but you don't think of who's going to take the Barbarian's place, and I'm pretty sure you're not volunteering the front lines for your Wizard!</p><p></p><p>In my opinion, 5E forgot that its feats add a lot of power to fighters - they forgot to add a similar power-up feat to rogues. The result is that 5E rogues feel like a weak link (in games with feats). (It's first when they get access to reliable Haste and thus can do two easy sneak attacks every round they gain the damage they need to compete)</p><p></p><p>And in PF2, Paizo clearly forgot the fundamental fact for its Wizards. Just creating a Wizard class for wizard fans isn't enough. Such a squishy class needs to be given the tools to do stuff the other characters can't do, in order to explain why wizards adventure. When a group facing a difficult adventure is better off replacing the wizard with nearly any other class, something is really broken.</p><p></p><p>That this might change at some level isn't the point. Whether the change comes already at level 7 or maybe at level 14 isn't the point. It should come no later than level 5, just like in every other edition of the game.</p><p></p><p>Even if I accept your numbers as is, [USER=12386]@Puggins[/USER] the fact remains. Why would any group include a character that needs protection and can't survive on his own only because he kind of can deal three (or even four) times the attack damage in a round. After all, he can only do that three rounds a day (or something like that).</p><p></p><p>Every other edition of D&D (again maybe not 4E) answers the question "why bring a wizard" with a much more compelling answer.</p><p></p><p><strong>Including 5th edition.</strong> (That d20 does it isn't exactly a good thing, since casters are so overpowered there). But 5th Edition does it despite it too fixing LFQW.</p><p></p><p>This gets to what's bugging me so greatly - how Paizo utterly failed to learn from the explosive success of 5E despite having <em>years</em> to study that game and what made it great.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CapnZapp, post: 8079607, member: 12731"] Well, we have five players and three martials, so it's not that the Barbarian has to fight all the critters by herself. The Fighter and Ranger aren't afraid to enter melee, I mean - they're both geared for melee (obviously, since ranged deals clearly less damage, and unless everybody stays at range, creating a ranged martial is actually a weakness for the group, since by avoiding melee all you do is help monsters to focus their damage, which in PF2 is lethal) The Fighter uses a Halberd. He's happy how the reach helps him get his attack of opportunity (and how it eases flanking). The ranger does best when ranged is required (and loses the fewest actions when you can't reach your foe). But he too prefers melee, where he deals more damage. Since the Ranger players his character as more cautious (to tank a significant foe), it seems too early to attribute the fact the Fighter and Barbarian takes the brunt of the incoming damage (and the Barbarian obviously taking more) solely on AC differences. I suspect the Ranger would have done just as well as the Barbarian had he shared her confidence. Since we have five players the issues with having one of them be a Wizard are obviously lessened compared to a default group of four. I shudder at the thought of running Extinction Curse with only two martials, the Cleric and then the Wizard. It would likely have become painfully obvious the group would have been better off with a third martial instead, even somebody as absurd as a Giant Instinct Barbarian. --- What I'm trying to get at is the fundamental fact that any fantasy ruleset must justify the inclusion of any squishy character. The whole reason you bring along ...a cleric despite dealing weak damage is because of her awesome healing powers ...a rogue despite being too squishy to be a frontliner is because of her awesome DPS (and somewhat for her utility) ...a wizard despite being too squishy at all is because of her awesome area spells, boss take-downs, and overall sheer utility Playing one of these characters just because it's fun is okay in a friendly home game, but not when the difficulty is racking up. After all, while a Giant Instinct Barbarian has poor defenses, she still does far better than a puny Wizard! The fact the Wizard is starting to keep up damage-wise (when expending his best slots) doesn't mean the overall package is better, since the defense is still so poor. You say you'd choose Cone of Cold, but you don't think of who's going to take the Barbarian's place, and I'm pretty sure you're not volunteering the front lines for your Wizard! In my opinion, 5E forgot that its feats add a lot of power to fighters - they forgot to add a similar power-up feat to rogues. The result is that 5E rogues feel like a weak link (in games with feats). (It's first when they get access to reliable Haste and thus can do two easy sneak attacks every round they gain the damage they need to compete) And in PF2, Paizo clearly forgot the fundamental fact for its Wizards. Just creating a Wizard class for wizard fans isn't enough. Such a squishy class needs to be given the tools to do stuff the other characters can't do, in order to explain why wizards adventure. When a group facing a difficult adventure is better off replacing the wizard with nearly any other class, something is really broken. That this might change at some level isn't the point. Whether the change comes already at level 7 or maybe at level 14 isn't the point. It should come no later than level 5, just like in every other edition of the game. Even if I accept your numbers as is, [USER=12386]@Puggins[/USER] the fact remains. Why would any group include a character that needs protection and can't survive on his own only because he kind of can deal three (or even four) times the attack damage in a round. After all, he can only do that three rounds a day (or something like that). Every other edition of D&D (again maybe not 4E) answers the question "why bring a wizard" with a much more compelling answer. [B]Including 5th edition.[/B] (That d20 does it isn't exactly a good thing, since casters are so overpowered there). But 5th Edition does it despite it too fixing LFQW. This gets to what's bugging me so greatly - how Paizo utterly failed to learn from the explosive success of 5E despite having [I]years[/I] to study that game and what made it great. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Potions, Medicine, Special Materials & more...
Top