Quick travel or access to interplanar travel is not a necessity to a campaign or story.
Unless the campaign or story revolves around it, I assume?
I don't think you can call something 'underpowered' on the grounds that it doesn't have the means to change the basic plot or basic assumptions of the world. While the ability to dictate the sort of story you are in may be attractive, it isn't the basis for judging whether or not a class is 'underpowered'.
Right... except I'm not... so... what's the issue here?
Your statements seem to indicate that a system as a whole can be 'underpowered' if it doesn't provide the easy options and world shattering power of some other system.
Your misconceptions are not my problem.
Perhaps you should recommend everyone play Scion?
Thanks, I'll look into it. I heard it is very fun.
Well, sure, most optimizers would certainly set the bar higher than the reasonable expectations of a tier 5 class. But most optimized builds can take on equal CR or EL challenges without assistance,
The most immediate counter example I can think of are battlefield control and buff casters who need the other party members to deal damage to the enemy.
and to truly strain a party of 4 optimized builds would probably require at least 3-4 EL+4 encounters in a day.
A Swift Hunter is an optimized Scout/Ranger built, but you won't need 3-4 EL +4 encounters to truly strain it. Optimized is not synonymous with "broken" or "overpowered".
Take your hydra suggestion. We could just as easily look at Fire Giants or Bebelith, but 11 Headed Hydra is a fine example. Suppose we have 4 characters dealing 25 damage each. The our hydra with its 120 hitpoints at fast healing 21, if it doesn't put up a strong resistance, is going to die sometime in the second round.
Which means it gets one round to savage a PC. Given that the classes available are Warmage, Healer, Knight, Ninja, Swashbuckler, Monk, Soul Knife, Aristocrat, Expert, Warrior, and Commoner, at least half of them are going to have really bad AC. Given that a CR 10 hydra has 11 heads which attack at +16 each for 1d10+6 damage each... I'm pretty sure the NPC classes at least stand a pretty good chance of snuffing it on the Hyrda's first round. Rogues, Monks, Swashbucklers, Ninjas, Soulknifes, Healers and Warmages all wear either light or no armor, so they're vulnerable as well - better hope the Hydra doesn't pop out from under a bridge and proceed to attack the party like the one in the Red Hand of Doom.
Against the Hydra, I don't think our Warmage is going to feel useless assuming the rest of the party is built to a similar tier.
Looking back on everything I just said... I think the Warmage is actually the least likely to feel useless in combat.
The Hydra has a move speed of 20', and a charge of 40'. The Warmage has several options:
1) Mass Fire Shield - If everyone has Fire Shield up, each attack by the hydra inflicts 1d6+10 damage to the hydra. Full attack by the Hydra on a party so protected can quickly kill the Hydra. Of course, optimally, the party avoids this fate but even in the worse case this expedient alone is probably going to win the fight provided that Hydra can be made to stick to a 'tank' whose hit points at level 10 are going to be comparable to the hydras (85 or more) and who has an AC high enough that say 1/3rd or more of the attacks will miss. After that, it is the application of a single heal spell to restore our pounded tank to fighting strength.
Do you know how tanking works in WOW? Melee classes get a taunt ability that draws aggro. With few exceptions, this does not exist in DnD. Fortunately, the
Knight class does get to do this... if the enemy has an Int of 5 or greater, which the Hydra does not. (Though it would be useable against other opponents.)
The other way of doing it is the
Goad feat, which requires an Int of higher than 3... and the Hydra has an Int of 2. (Again, this would work be usable against other opponents, so perhaps a Hydra's just a bad example in this case.)
Anyways, the point of this is that the Hydra is not going to be forced to stick to the party tank and can just as easily rip one of the more lightly armored PCs to shreds. Heck, a CR 8 Hydra with its 9 attacks at +13 each for 1d10+5 damage would probably have the same effect on its target.
Even if it dies as a result of the attack, you've still got a dead PC. This is not allowing a weak class to shine.
2) Evard's Black Tentacles - Tradiational hydra tactics revolve around 'kiting' the hydra so that it is kept at a distance for as long as possible. The Warmage is exceptionally well suited for this as a ranged attacker capable of dealing 20 or more damage at range for many rounds in a row, without resorting to a full attack. Additionally the Warmage has limited battlefield control. A field of tentacles will require the Hydra at least two rounds to cross, during which time the party can adjust and pour on ranged fire. There is also a reaonable change the +18 grapple bonus of the tentacles will beat the hydras +25, sticking the hydra in place for one or more rounds.
Yes, as you have noticed the Warmage is the best class available. Still, the Warmage seems to be the only one contributing, as the other classes aren't good at archery. To hit with archery you need Dex, and to do damage you need Str. Given that there aren't going to be stat boosters or magic weapons, hitting and dealing damage with bows is going to be a problem.
Which, incidentally, reminds me:
the OP should probably avoid throwing ghosts and incoporeal undead at the party. A CR 3 allip could be devastating if the party includes neither a Healer or Warmage; a group of them would be murderous.
3) Multiple sources of ranged area of effect fire damage: The war mage is going to be able to regularly hit the hydra with ranged damage doing an average 35+ damage prior to the save, with about 50% chance of save. Average damage is going to be around 27, sufficient by himself to overcome the fast heal and automaticlly burning any exposed stumps should any heads have been severed.
A Hydra's heads can only be severed by a Sunder attempt. Do you mean to say that the Warmage will be cauterizing the stumps after the party "tank" has severed one or more heads? (Presumably to avenge the Tank's untimely demise at the hands of the multiheaded, befanged horror?)
Also, one thing that bugs me about this example is that it apparently assumes a Hydra will just sit there and take it instead of taking cover.
Presumably the rest of the party will be roughly as capable as the Warmage in this rebalanced game.
A CR10 hydra may well be a considerable challenge for the level 10 Tier 5 party, but I don't feel that in that situation a level 10 Warmage is going to feel like his presence is unjustified or that somehow his abilities 'invalidate themselves'.
If you really feel that the description does not apply to the Warmage, then take it off and apply it to one of the other classes. Pretty much any other class than Rogue could take it with good justification.
The challenges that a party is supposed to take on are almost completely arbitrary.
I am aware that the default assumption is that PCs will face challenges of varying CRs, sometimes below their level and at other times above it.
Is that what you mean by arbitrary, or are trying for something else?
If from the conception of the game, every class was as powerful as Commoner, then all that would change is we'd have a different scale for what monsters made a balanced challenge at a given level. When we adjust the numbers, all we are adjusting is arbitary numbers. The tendency of the game has been to continually adjust these numbers upward in to higher and higher reaches. But the fact that the numbers are now arbitrarily larger doesn't necessarily change anything.
Quite frankly, I disagree with your assessment that the game is purely numerical in nature. What about actual abilities, such as Shape Stone, Control Weather, Contact Other Plane, and even Create Food and Water, which have effects that cannot be quantified with mere figures.
A class that can control the world is broken. A class that can influence the world is probably ok. A class that can't do anything significant is underpowered. Not having easy options and world shattering power is not what makes a class underpowered, it's not having any options or power at all that does it.
I personally feel that most of the allowed classes come rather close to not having significant abilities to impact the world, ie, to shine. For example, A Rogue can do many things, such as be a backstabbing combat opportunist, a silver tongued con-man, or an advanced scout. What can a Commoner do? A Warmage, as you noted, has tactical options in combat. What can the Warrior do?
The contrast is most striking between PC and NPC classes as the latter were designed to be redshirts, but it's still present between some of the PC classes listed like Rogue vs Ninja.
And even with the stronger classes, what does a Warmage or Rogue do if there's an enemy that you have to fly to catch up with, or who burrows into the ground, or who lives under the sea? (Which, incidentally, are also challenges the OP should probably avoid.)
