Are Casters 'still' way better than noncasters after level 6?

[Psion]

It would seem easy to see who has regularly DMed high level characters (levels 15 and above) and who has not. Simply put, at these levels casters dominate. Pathfinder has made it so that high level non-casters can still do cool stuff which is a good thing. But I find that people who say "I've never experienced the 15 minute workday", or that "jamming in some random encounters" fixes this "perceived" problem have never DMed a group with a powerful wizard smartly played.

I'm wondering if I should now feel insulted on behalf of my wizard players or myself.

I'm here to tell you that:
1) I have run games to high levels
2) I did find under 3.5, the 15-minute workday was a non-issue (which is not the same as saying it never happened.)

- A high level wizard chooses when the group has encounters. They stay in a safe place and then magic themselves to the enemy, ready to bug out when necessary. Essentially, gate and greater teleport are too powerful. You can metagame around this as the DM here and there for the main special encounters but by then, the high level cleric can nut out your secrets meaning you're back at square one. While you can also do the whole time limit thing, this can get tired quickly if over-used and half the time, they can go directly to the final encounter anyway. In other words, the party only needs to do a 15 minute workday to achieve their goals the majority of the time.

That sounds like a weakness of the WotC monsters/boss design paradigm. The way I typically ran things, there wasn't a final encounter to jump to. There were situations and active NPCs progressing to goals as the PCs progressed to theirs.

- A high level wizard is unkillable unless you program their death. There are too many spells and too much magical equipment that simply shuts down certain attack or spell patterns.

The thing here is that GMs have access to all the tools that the wizard has and more. In addition to being able to give NPCs the same sort of spells and items the party has, there is a large selection of creatures with perturbing abilities to throw a monkey wrench in the wizards' plan.

- The difference in what a party can handle if the wizard sits on their spells or if they go nova is too great.

And that's where not letting the PCs always call the encounters comes in. To do so is the instrumental in both the 15 minute day complaint and the nova complaint.

Now, I'll concede to you that if a wizard and cleric players really pull out the stops and uses all the abusable material out there, it's still going to be a headache for the GM. The advantage of pathfinder here is that
1) Much of the abusable material in the core is gone
2) It sort of takes explicit GM permission to bring in supplemental material. And any GM should think twice about importing stuff from 3.5 supplements, as it was loaded with bad ideas.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I'm wondering if I should now feel insulted on behalf of my wizard players or myself.

When I wrote that last night, I was feeling particularly grumpy and so I think I was trying to offend everyone.

I'm here to tell you that:
1) I have run games to high levels
2) I did find under 3.5, the 15-minute workday was a non-issue (which is not the same as saying it never happened.)

I think we're on the same page here. Generally what I'm saying is that at high levels, when the PCs wish to accomplish something, they can, and generally will in a single encounter (the classic 15-minute workday by result, not by choice through lack of resources). It's not a problem because they are generally investigating or performing minor magics to get to that point - which uses up a minimum of resources. But when the group decides to act, either they are "winning", or they are losing and bug out.

That sounds like a weakness of the WotC monsters/boss design paradigm. The way I typically ran things, there wasn't a final encounter to jump to. There were situations and active NPCs progressing to goals as the PCs progressed to theirs.

But there is a kind of "final" encounter when the NPC in question is defeated/converted. It is the story of such that keeps the game going but eventually and purposefully there will be resolutions to such things. When the PCs decide to act, the result will be swift, one way or the other.

The thing here is that GMs have access to all the tools that the wizard has and more. In addition to being able to give NPCs the same sort of spells and items the party has, there is a large selection of creatures with perturbing abilities to throw a monkey wrench in the wizards' plan.

True but a single creature might be able to get through about 1 or 2 of the protective layers that the high level wizard in question has (of about 5 typically plus the others they bring in reacting to stuff: Mind Blank, Spell Resistance, Spell Turning, Moment of Prescience and Mirror Image (Quickened or not) bringing in Protection from Energy or Stoneskin as suits or even antimagic as suits. However, to get through and be able to kill the wizard, you have to program it. Now for the big campaign boss, he might know the mage in question well enough to through the right combination of stuff but even then, time stop or wish if they have to can basically nullify this.

And that's where not letting the PCs always call the encounters comes in. To do so is the instrumental in both the 15 minute day complaint and the nova complaint.

They don't call all of them but they control almost all of them. Again from my experience, they have too many resources at their command. Getting the opportunity to strip away those resources only happens if I the DM program it (which as I said is not fair on the players). Again I put forward that finding the sweetspot at high levels to challenge the party (rather than individuals in the party) is incredibly hit and miss, enough for me to believe that no sweetspot exists in that circumstance.

Now, I'll concede to you that if a wizard and cleric players really pull out the stops and uses all the abusable material out there, it's still going to be a headache for the GM. The advantage of pathfinder here is that
1) Much of the abusable material in the core is gone
2) It sort of takes explicit GM permission to bring in supplemental material. And any GM should think twice about importing stuff from 3.5 supplements, as it was loaded with bad ideas.

Agree totally with this. Things like greater mirror image and the orb spells were such a ridiculously bad idea it was not funny. I still counter though that much of the abusable material in the core is still there. Enough that you find yourself planning around what the wizard can do more so than any of the other characters.

OR they simply DMed smarter than the wizard?

The wizard has their defences to make them "unkillable". You as the DM know how to get around this. You can contrive (or as I mentioned previously program) their death by getting through these defences by creating the exact set of circumstances to get in the killing shot/spell/hit. It is not a case of outsmarting - the path is there to be taken if you so wish. It is a case of whether you wish to "destroy" a character or not. Otherwise, you play it fair, chip away a couple of defences, maybe scare them with an antimagic aura but in the end, their defences will hold. Again, it is not a case of outsmarting, it is a case of gumption.

You MUST teleport or the princess will die.

That's OK she can die and be resurrected. Or if they try to hide her soul somewhere, they have a neat investigation before eventually saving her (such as bargaining with Asmodeus or whatever). Generally though, nothing can happen in the game that cannot be erased or fixed or remedied. Otherwise the PCs just simply have to say so be it. But this is the fun of the game at that level.

And what PC use, BBEG can use, sometimes even more.

And this way is the downward spiral. Either PCs get their arses handed to them and bug out and res up, or the BBEG bites the bullet big time and the PCs get his truckload of goodies raising the stakes ever more so the next time around you choose to attempt to challenge the party.

In my experience, the above happens when one designs high level adventures like the ones at level 1.

By the time the PCs have ready access to Plane Shift and Greater Teleport, the game has completely changed. The world as it was still exists. It is just what challenges the PCs drastically changes. Now it is more about what is unknown and making it known. Once something is "known", it will be swiftly dealt with or not. Designing high level adventures is much more about the story than about the usually all-to-swift-resolution by combat. High level spells determine the when and the where, not the DM trying to keep to the same adventure style from levels 1 to 20+.

All of this is of course my experience which is just as valid as everyone elses. Sorry for the agressive original post but as of yet, I can see no way around this but to drastically alter the available spell selections for high level wizards or to limit the number of spells that a wizard may have active at any one point in time. I maintain though that high level play and DMing is centred around what the high level well played wizard has or does.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Kaiyanwang]

The wizard has their defences to make them "unkillable". You as the DM know how to get around this. You can contrive (or as I mentioned previously program) their death by getting through these defences by creating the exact set of circumstances to get in the killing shot/spell/hit. It is not a case of outsmarting - the path is there to be taken if you so wish. It is a case of whether you wish to "destroy" a character or not. Otherwise, you play it fair, chip away a couple of defences, maybe scare them with an antimagic aura but in the end, their defences will hold. Again, it is not a case of outsmarting, it is a case of gumption.

Your unbeatable wizard could be an AMF or mage disjunction away. Moreover, if the story twists, be prepared for X makes you not prepared for Y. I've yet to see, in a world filled with powerful dragons, fiends, and mosnsters with all sort of special ability, the perfect defense. Or at least, the pratical perfect defense, with all the right spells cast in the right time, the right magic items in place at the right time, and so on.

That's OK she can die and be resurrected. Or if they try to hide her soul somewhere, they have a neat investigation before eventually saving her (such as bargaining with Asmodeus or whatever). Generally though, nothing can happen in the game that cannot be erased or fixed or remedied. Otherwise the PCs just simply have to say so be it. But this is the fun of the game at that level.

What if barghests or beats of bane feast on her? Moreover, most of your examples are features and andventures hooks, not problems! And... a lot of things can be fixed and remedied, but the spell must be cast after an adventure, or at the start of an adventure. I guess we really have different, different gamestyles.

If the level raises, what's at stake raises in relevance too. PCs can "fix" easily what was a problem in previous levels, like a fighter can one-shot what was a "boss" in previous levels. High level play? Current problems would be world-shattering, not things fixable with a spell.

And this way is the downward spiral. Either PCs get their arses handed to them and bug out and res up, or the BBEG bites the bullet big time and the PCs get his truckload of goodies raising the stakes ever more so the next time around you choose to attempt to challenge the party.

You mean here a lot of magic items to make the BBEG unbeatable? I meant a wise use of spells (ONOEZ SCRY&DIE ---> forbiddance, fortress in a zone immune to teleport - they DO EXIST, see spell text). If there are spells to protect the wiz, same spells will be cast on enemy spellcasters. Players will learn to deal with their weapons.

By the time the PCs have ready access to Plane Shift and Greater Teleport, the game has completely changed. The world as it was still exists. It is just what challenges the PCs drastically changes. Now it is more about what is unknown and making it known. Once something is "known", it will be swiftly dealt with or not. Designing high level adventures is much more about the story than about the usually all-to-swift-resolution by combat. High level spells determine the when and the where, not the DM trying to keep to the same adventure style from levels 1 to 20+.

Again, we play differently. I see how, raising in level, the players have more chance to change the world and the story.. BUT THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE. They will grow, bargain with powerful beings, build empire.. what's the sense of being powerful if you don't have an influence on the world? What's the sense of stretching the same power level for ever phase of the PC career?

Moreover, ou assume spells alwas working, and cast to resolve a situation. Teleport and planeshift, are there to START a situation, or to avoid the "adventurous journey of the party nr 45".

All of this is of course my experience which is just as valid as everyone elses. Sorry for the agressive original post but as of yet, I can see no way around this but to drastically alter the available spell selections for high level wizards or to limit the number of spells that a wizard may have active at any one point in time. I maintain though that high level play and DMing is centred around what the high level well played wizard has or does.

First and foremost, altering the spell list is perfectly reasonable, since, IMO, the game is a big toolbox and if one, as an example, needs a world in wich magic is exclusively enchantment and illusions, just uses those spells.

Secondly, the ways you can just screw a player, spellcaster or not, targeting him or something/someone he cares, are just too many. The world expanded. The problems expanded.



[/QUOTE]

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Moreover, most of your examples are features and andventures hooks, not problems!

That was kind of my point. Just different ways to solve different problems. The problem is the ways to solve them generally feature the mage first and foremost.

You mean here a lot of magic items to make the BBEG unbeatable? I meant a wise use of spells (ONOEZ SCRY&DIE ---> forbiddance, fortress in a zone immune to teleport - they DO EXIST, see spell text). If there are spells to protect the wiz, same spells will be cast on enemy spellcasters. Players will learn to deal with their weapons.

So my PCs defeat the BBEG and go to take his stuff only for me to pull the rug out from under them by saying he had minimal equipment of interest? Not going to happen. Just as the players, BBEG will have an interesting mix of abilities, equipment and possibly spells.

As for the "no you can't teleport there" thing - the Forbiddance evil cult of [inset deity] is fun once, somewhat trite twice and boring from that point on. Nothing that Greater Dispel or Wish then Greater Dispel can't fix - although it IS fun to try and come up with other ways of screwing over deities and their followers. As a DM, you have such things in your arsenal to pull out when it matters but for the vast majority of the time - greater teleport is king.

Secondly, the ways you can just screw a player, spellcaster or not, targeting him or something/someone he cares, are just too many. The world expanded. The problems expanded.

I just don't like screwing over players by waving the DM mallet of doom. As you say though, the wider the world, the more profuse the problems but unfortunately, most of the solutions hinge around the wizard as the default.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[IronWolf]

As for the "no you can't teleport there" thing - the Forbiddance evil cult of [inset deity] is fun once, somewhat trite twice and boring from that point on. Nothing that Greater Dispel or Wish then Greater Dispel can't fix - although it IS fun to try and come up with other ways of screwing over deities and their followers. As a DM, you have such things in your arsenal to pull out when it matters but for the vast majority of the time - greater teleport is king.

I just don't like screwing over players by waving the DM mallet of doom.

I agree that one shouldn't intentional work to scew over the players and use knowledge of their equipment to detail intricate plans to target a weakness that would not be reasonably known by the NPC.

But... when it gets to the higher levels it only makes sense that the higher level enemies are going to have more thought and depth to their own protections. They didn't make it to this high of level by not doing things because it wouldn't be fair to the characters. The NPCs know what powers are out there and would presumably take appropriate counter measures. In addition to their own counter measures they will likely have their own escape plans for if things start going bad and such.

 

[Philosopher]

In my experience, the above happens when one designs high level adventures like the ones at level 1. The game has changed, and powerful spells (as well ass the occasional 300 damage crit that blows up the ring from Sauron's hand) or are needed to MOVE the plot.

Again, we play differently. I see how, raising in level, the players have more chance to change the world and the story.. BUT THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE. They will grow, bargain with powerful beings, build empire.. what's the sense of being powerful if you don't have an influence on the world? What's the sense of stretching the same power level for ever phase of the PC career?

This, right here, is all important. The problems that high level adventurers face should not be the sort of thing solved by killing the bad guy. The PCs should be facing vast armies, dealing with huge natural (or supernatural) disasters, trying to find ways to fool the gods, trying to find ways to usurp the gods, and the like.

This is something I've always liked about BECMI D&D. No other edition gave you the explicit tools to do this quite as well.

 

[Kaisoku]

There have been good articles and posts regarding how 3e D&D scales up in levels, and what you should expect from higher level gaming vs lower level gaming.

The issue I often see is that the gameplay you should be experiencing across the 20 levels changes greatly (from mundane "normals", to heroic fantasy, to high fantasy/wushu fly-by-wire, to near godliness), but campaigns and adventure paths are designed around the idea of leveling up in a single story arc, gaining inexplicable power usually quite quickly.

I recall an article that described how high level adventures should be written. Instead of writing a murder mystery, and then getting upset that it's easily solved by a quick speak with dead or commune spell (or blocking them by fiat)... high level adventuring should be making them necessary to solve the plot.
Is teleport readily accessible at this level? Then a time limit, or difficult terrain/access to transport should be used to make this option required.

It's about calibrating what you should expect at these levels.
A Fighter will need to be able to hit a certain AC and deal a certain amount of Damage, and take a certain amount of damage for a given level.
A Rogue is expected to beat a certain DC or opposed check.

For a class that has non-linear utility effects (spellcasters), it's a little bit different, but the application is the same. You should expect that some spells and effects will become necessary instead of just being "the easy button".

And while this sounds like the spellcaster has more "power" (and in fact, it might so), this doesn't invalidate the abilities of the others. Fighters and Rogues have a different type of gameplay (like checkes to a wizard's chess). Some people like that... others need the ToB to make their Fighter's gameplay into "chinese checkers"...

Ultimately, I've found that with good encounters designed with the right expectations of the gameplay level result in players utilizing all the resources (ie, players) at hand.
Sure, a wizard *might* be able to handle mostly everything himself... but if he can buff a Fighter to handle a portion of the problem at hand, most of the players I've gamed with tended to follow the approach of "involve everyone".

It doesn't "solve" the issue of 'Fighter's encounter versatility is weaksauce'... but as long as the Fighter's player isn't pining for chinese checkers, everything tends to play out fine.

... that, and playing with core rules tends to make the DM's job of creating "encounters with the right expectations" easier.

 

[gamerprinter]

Under 3.5 we played one campaign to upper Epic levels 60 to 85th level with both single class and multi-class characters. We 'saved' the multiverse about seven times. It was never about killing a BBEG, it was about stopping cosmic cataclysms, vast outerplanar armies, threats from the Far Realm. While I don't really care for Epic play, the tools are there for D&D 3.5 and doing the same in PF shouldn't be a big issue for a creative DM. I don't need another ruleset to accomplish that.


GP

 

[Kaiyanwang]

That was kind of my point. Just different ways to solve different problems. The problem is the ways to solve them generally feature the mage first and foremost.

I see - actually, in a "perfect game" some spell should have drawbacks, like in AD&D. And yeah, magic is very powerful. But martial prowess has his exploits with skilled player. That Devastating Blow, Strenght Surge, or six CD 50 skill checks in a row could surprise you.

So my PCs defeat the BBEG and go to take his stuff only for me to pull the rug out from under them by saying he had minimal equipment of interest? Not going to happen. Just as the players, BBEG will have an interesting mix of abilities, equipment and possibly spells.

I never said the opposite. But from our post, I understood that you were afraid to over-equip the BBEG to avoid too much loot after the battle, and I was stating that is easily avoidable. That's all.

As for the "no you can't teleport there" thing - the Forbiddance evil cult of [inset deity] is fun once, somewhat trite twice and boring from that point on. Nothing that Greater Dispel or Wish then Greater Dispel can't fix - although it IS fun to try and come up with other ways of screwing over deities and their followers. As a DM, you have such things in your arsenal to pull out when it matters but for the vast majority of the time - greater teleport is king.

Greater dispell CANNOT dispel a whole forbiddance. And no, the fact that if there is a cleric there is a forbiddance is just normal in my world. My players would break their suspention of disbelief in a different situation. Why would an organization decide to be vulnerable? To be different? That's disgustingly gamist. An the DM adjudicates wish. And wish is not spammable.

In other istances, the teleport will be great to RP. If there is a menace that threats the world, be able in the same day to talk with the mage tower and the elven king.

In other istances, it will be useful to just come out from a dimensional trap (the other two, one will be disabled by the rouge, and another will be smashed by the barbarian).

I re-state it: if you say that "teleport is king", IMO, you design the challenge like at level 8. But probably is me.

I just don't like screwing over players by waving the DM mallet of doom. As you say though, the wider the world, the more profuse the problems but unfortunately, most of the solutions hinge around the wizard as the default.

I exaggerated saying "screw". But players are interesting creatures. If properl challenged, they come up with imaginative, awesome ways to win. I was only suggesting to keep the challenge tight.

 

[Mojo_Rat]

One impression I got reading wizards rule fighters drool threads is a lot of people seem to have spent a lot Of tiime making out encounters specifically difficult for melée types. With out a similar amount of time devoted against wizards. Really the fighter will only "suck" if he's deliberately put into such situations.


Were on our first pf game right now about level 8 and so far the fighter is doing pretty well. Though I realize level 8 is still early