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Power and Pathfinder Classes - Forked Thread: Pathfinder - sell me
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<blockquote data-quote="Roman" data-source="post: 4785965" data-attributes="member: 1845"><p>I was going to respond to this earlier, but I forgot while writing other responses - sorry about that. </p><p></p><p>I want to say that I somewhat agree with you, but not completely. In principle, it would be possible to balance spellcasters by altering the spells. In practice, however, unless these are deemed incompatible by default (and that would be a pretty huge area of incompatibility), there are hundreds or even thousands of spells from 3.5E sources that will be used - the Pathfinder RPG will inevitably only alter the PHB spells. Hence it is probably more productive to concentrate on the inherent features of the Wizard class rather than the indefinite expandable feature: spells. Sure, some classes of spells, like the polymorph subschool, might need to be changed anyway, but I am not sure concentration on spells is the best balancing mechanism in this case. </p><p></p><p>Though not quite as severe, because spells are obviously designed with spellcasters in mind, it reminds me of the problem with polymorph and monsters. The huge and ever-expanding roster of monsters made it very difficult to keep the polymorph sub-school balanced. In principle, it could be done by balancing every monster with polymorph in mind, but in practice it is much easier and more viable to change the polymorph sub-school in itself. The comparison is obviously somewhat deficient, because spells are explicitly designed for spellcasting unlike monsters, which are not explicitly designed for polymorphing (at least so one would hope <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> ), but the problem of sheer volume of existing spells from the 3.5E baseline applies. </p><p></p><p>It is also a question of how far Pathfinder will go with balancing through spell alteration even with the PHB spells. Consider save or die spells. Death effects from save or die spells have been converted to hit point damage (a boring way to resolve the issue, I think, but certainly workable from the balance point of view). As of the BETA, however, all the other effectively save or die spells remain as save or die, so instead of using the finger of death as a save or die spell, the spellcaster can still use turn to stone. </p><p></p><p>Another issue is how much do we really want to nerf spells. The point of magic for me is that it should be magical - nerfing magic itself to any great extent (and I am not saying Pathfinder does this - this is more of a hypothetical tangent on design issues) might indeed be productive from the balance point of view, but a great deal of 'magic' might be lost in the process (pun intended). As such, nerfing non-magical aspects of a magic-based class, such as the Wizard, in order to compensate for his magical might is something I also prefer from the flavor point of view although achieving balance may be more difficult than if the spells were changed. Nerfing magic itself might be necessary in some cases (polymorph might be an example) - I am just pointing out the danger of going too far along this direction (not that I necessarily think Pathfinder will do that).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Roman, post: 4785965, member: 1845"] I was going to respond to this earlier, but I forgot while writing other responses - sorry about that. I want to say that I somewhat agree with you, but not completely. In principle, it would be possible to balance spellcasters by altering the spells. In practice, however, unless these are deemed incompatible by default (and that would be a pretty huge area of incompatibility), there are hundreds or even thousands of spells from 3.5E sources that will be used - the Pathfinder RPG will inevitably only alter the PHB spells. Hence it is probably more productive to concentrate on the inherent features of the Wizard class rather than the indefinite expandable feature: spells. Sure, some classes of spells, like the polymorph subschool, might need to be changed anyway, but I am not sure concentration on spells is the best balancing mechanism in this case. Though not quite as severe, because spells are obviously designed with spellcasters in mind, it reminds me of the problem with polymorph and monsters. The huge and ever-expanding roster of monsters made it very difficult to keep the polymorph sub-school balanced. In principle, it could be done by balancing every monster with polymorph in mind, but in practice it is much easier and more viable to change the polymorph sub-school in itself. The comparison is obviously somewhat deficient, because spells are explicitly designed for spellcasting unlike monsters, which are not explicitly designed for polymorphing (at least so one would hope ;) ), but the problem of sheer volume of existing spells from the 3.5E baseline applies. It is also a question of how far Pathfinder will go with balancing through spell alteration even with the PHB spells. Consider save or die spells. Death effects from save or die spells have been converted to hit point damage (a boring way to resolve the issue, I think, but certainly workable from the balance point of view). As of the BETA, however, all the other effectively save or die spells remain as save or die, so instead of using the finger of death as a save or die spell, the spellcaster can still use turn to stone. Another issue is how much do we really want to nerf spells. The point of magic for me is that it should be magical - nerfing magic itself to any great extent (and I am not saying Pathfinder does this - this is more of a hypothetical tangent on design issues) might indeed be productive from the balance point of view, but a great deal of 'magic' might be lost in the process (pun intended). As such, nerfing non-magical aspects of a magic-based class, such as the Wizard, in order to compensate for his magical might is something I also prefer from the flavor point of view although achieving balance may be more difficult than if the spells were changed. Nerfing magic itself might be necessary in some cases (polymorph might be an example) - I am just pointing out the danger of going too far along this direction (not that I necessarily think Pathfinder will do that). [/QUOTE]
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