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

[Kaisoku]

When playing a high level Fighter in 3e, I felt I ran out of feats that I wanted... nothing seemed to pop out anymore.

In Pathfinder, there's the Critical feats, and on top of that the Fighter got some class specific feats that are pretty good (the DR piercing ones are quite nice).

 

[Shisumo]

After reading the Pathfinder rulebooks I didn't feel they changed much to help high-level play, but apparently the devil's in the details and it would probably be wrong to judge it without some actual playtesting.

This is something I've noticed about a lot of Pathfinder critics (which doesn't include you, Jhaelen, for the record - you just made me think of this); because a number of the differences between 3.5 and Pathfinder are minor, and seemingly inconsequential at first glance, they claim that "nothing has changed," and thus Pathfinder is as bad as 3.5 was. What turns out to be the case, though, is that the "seemingly inconsequential" changes have a cumulative effect that is often only apparent through serious, in-depth reading and thought or, by preference, actual play, and things are actually much, much different - and, in my opinion, anyway, much better.

Maybe I can can convince some of the 3e fans in my group who don't like 4e to DM a couple of Pathfinder test sessions.

Indeed! The Pathfinder Society modules are very inexpensive and are available at a range of levels - if you want to see what, say, 11th level play is like, you can drop $4 to pick up a mod like Shadows Fall on Absolom and run it with some 11th level characters at the highest tier; even with rule lookups and the like, it should be playable in a single evening, and give you some feel for what the game is like. (Note that if you do this, you wouldn't be able to actually report the mod for the Pathfinder Society for those characters, but that's probably not a real concern for you at this time...)

 

[Werebat]

However while this may seem doom and gloom, if you only play up until about 11th level, Pathfinder really hums with the focus on what a group can achieve, rather than what the individuals in that group can achieve. Beyond this and the cracks are still there.

E6 also solves a lot of problems...

 

[Dandu]

Why shouldn't wizards be batman?

The bag of holding is like batman's utility belt with all the low-level gadgets, as long as they never come up with the Shark Repellent spell I'll be happy.

They did.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I think the best way to put it is that Pathfinder still has the general class imbalances from 3.5 but decreased the overall distance in power.

 

[Banshee16]

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.

I think you're talking about a different game paradigm. You keep referring to Wizards as unkillable. Unless you're using supplemental material that goes far beyond the core, then, no, they're not. Stoneskin, Repulsion, Globe of Invulnerability, Haste, Greater Invisibility. None of these are insurmountable,

And if you're going to bring in the optional material that could make Wizards unkillable, then the DM has plenty of options that make death final. There are spells and/or items that allow characters to be killed permanently....that shatter their souls into multiple fragments that have to be reclaimed individually, etc.

And Raise Dead, Resurrection, etc. Sure, you could use them on your princess. But will she come back? The PCs are somewhat special cases. If *everyone* could come back via spells like that, whenever they want, then kings would never fear assassination or even death. Getting too old to rule? Get yourself killed, then have your druid flunky reincarnate you in the body of a teenager. Sometimes the Gods don't allow this. This is partly simulated by the idea that characters can choose whether or not they want to come back. On that note, many NPCs *won't*.

And if you want to allow all the various sources to be used, those sources also give lots of mage-killing spells...stuff to cleave through wards and protective shells...things like Reciprocal Gyre, Disjunction, etc.

I've seen this argument before and it just seems like the people who cleave to it are basing their examples on very specific situations, and picking the stuff that supports the case, while ignoring the rest.

It was the same thing with the rationale behind the change to Polymorph Other. Because someone somewhere figured out to use it to turn the fighter into a dragon or fire giant for massive permanent strength bonuses (for instance), it was decided to change the spell so that you literally *couldn't* use a 5th level spell to turn your opponent into a dairy cow. In all my years running 3E games, I *never* had players use the original spell to gain massive bonuses to their own characters. Or game the system to the degree required to gain these advantages.

I guess my players and I were just weird then, because apparently we "missed the boat"

Banshee

 

[gamerprinter]

Wizards make good butter...

Our last 3e Epic campaign ended with my barbarian/shaman at 48th and 35th level multiclass, his primary activity was turning opposing wizards into butter to spread with his greatsword onto the floor and walls. Wizards as gods? That's a myth my barbarian will disprove for you - just ask him.

GP

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I think you're talking about a different game paradigm. You keep referring to Wizards as unkillable. Unless you're using supplemental material that goes far beyond the core, then, no, they're not. Stoneskin, Repulsion, Globe of Invulnerability, Haste, Greater Invisibility. None of these are insurmountable,

I agree that none of these are insurmountable, although Stoneskin has it's uses. An unkillable wizard would scoff at such minor magics though. You did not mention Mind Blank, Spell Turning, Moment of Prescience, Spell Resistance (a little help from the party cleric), and perhaps the most annoying of all: mirror image (quickened if necessary). [Shapechange was also in here but fortunately, it was changed and fixed].

When you bring these big boys to the table, the wizard in your party becomes "unkillable". Now by unkillable, I mean of course you can knock them off but you have to program your way through these defences. And that requires specifically targetting the spell caster - something I mentioned I prefer not to do unless he's really pissed off an Archmage or powerful Lich.

And if you're going to bring in the optional material that could make Wizards unkillable, then the DM has plenty of options that make death final. There are spells and/or items that allow characters to be killed permanently....that shatter their souls into multiple fragments that have to be reclaimed individually, etc.

The spells I mentioned above that you failed to are all core and all very very powerful. If you allow optional material then sure, the game changes further. I personally prefer to always have someone as saveable - even if it takes several wishes to divine the weird arsed way of doing it. This is the bread and butter of high level gaming.

And Raise Dead, Resurrection, etc. Sure, you could use them on your princess. But will she come back? The PCs are somewhat special cases. If *everyone* could come back via spells like that, whenever they want, then kings would never fear assassination or even death. Getting too old to rule? Get yourself killed, then have your druid flunky reincarnate you in the body of a teenager. Sometimes the Gods don't allow this. This is partly simulated by the idea that characters can choose whether or not they want to come back. On that note, many NPCs *won't*.

Interesting although I disagree. The way of "killing" a King is taking away their power and making their living being irrelevant. Anyone can be brought back but it is costly and Cleric's generally won't do it unless it suits their agenda and even then... I suppose you could eradicate all the high level clerics... interesting story device actually...
I prefer to embrace the rules as written and the various implications following on from them. Put up too many roadblocks and the players get frustrated.

And if you want to allow all the various sources to be used, those sources also give lots of mage-killing spells...stuff to cleave through wards and protective shells...things like Reciprocal Gyre, Disjunction, etc.

I have to agree here with Mordenkainen's Disjunction. That is the ultimate "I'm going to scare you spell". Player's don't like it when the DMs start getting joy-happy with this guy and vice versa. [Reciprocal Gyre is not core/pathfinder but Spell Turning deals with this very handily regardless.]

I've seen this argument before and it just seems like the people who cleave to it are basing their examples on very specific situations, and picking the stuff that supports the case, while ignoring the rest.

Fair enough, but considering you did not mention what I consider to be the pillars of a high level mage's defence, I'm not entirely sure how familiar you are with high level wizard play - please correct me if I am wrong. Those spells will basically save the mage in any fair encounter they participate in making them effectively "unkillable". Try it and you'll see what I mean. It is a very general set of circumstances, and not specific or purely case-supporting. I have both played and DM'd against this and stick to the statements I have made on this thread - read through the entire conversation with Kaiyanwang and you will hopefully see where I'm coming from. Your quote of mine above is just me reflecting on high level play and how death no longer becomes a barrier - more a story device.

It was the same thing with the rationale behind the change to Polymorph Other. Because someone somewhere figured out to use it to turn the fighter into a dragon or fire giant for massive permanent strength bonuses (for instance), it was decided to change the spell so that you literally *couldn't* use a 5th level spell to turn your opponent into a dairy cow. In all my years running 3E games, I *never* had players use the original spell to gain massive bonuses to their own characters. Or game the system to the degree required to gain these advantages.

I guess my players and I were just weird then, because apparently we "missed the boat"

Banshee

Polymorph other was cute but it was Shapechange that was the real problem (and as I mentioned above, it was fixed). I don't think you missed the boat at all. None of what I mention above is abusing the spells in question, it is just using them effectively as written straight out of the pathfinder core rules.

Best Regards
Sam

 

[Banshee16]

I agree that none of these are insurmountable, although Stoneskin has it's uses. An unkillable wizard would scoff at such minor magics though. You did not mention Mind Blank, Spell Turning, Moment of Prescience, Spell Resistance (a little help from the party cleric), and perhaps the most annoying of all: mirror image (quickened if necessary). [Shapechange was also in here but fortunately, it was changed and fixed].

Hmm...Shapechange....yes.....well, whether or not it was the ultimate spell of doom depended (IMO) upon which of the 30 versions of it WotC errata'd over the life of 3E. In some instances it was worse or better than others.

Personally, a simple fix I implemented was ruling that my players couldn't have a spellcaster just go shopping through the MM to pick the best form. I just ruled that they were only able to turn into creatures they had personally seen. That tended to reduce the forms selected by a fair amount.

Mirror Image I didn't mind. It didn't help against AoE attacks, and *did* give the Wizard some protection against melee attacks. Frankly with 1d4hp/lvl, and no armour, wizards were very vulnerable to fighters. If those magical defenses got taken down, or wore off or whatever, a Wizard (even high level) was one good hit away from -10 hp. Given that I didn't use the whole "go nuke, then camp" paradigm, the Wizard had to ration out his abilities over the day. If they *did* go nuke and then camp, they usually got attacked while sleeping, and oftentimes the beaten up party would end up worse off than before they started resting. I tended to enforce everything from running out of food, to sleeping without armor on in order to get a proper rest. And if they decided to camp, and didn't get interrupted, well, the NPCs weren't twiddling their thumbs either. For every statement about the party wizard being able to determine the rules of engagement and when the fight would occur.....well, the NPC villains could do the same thing. If they had Outsiders, or a Wizard themselves, they would just reverse those tactics on the PC. Or just go ahead and off the princess or something....and then the King would hear from some bystander/witness (maybe a plant, by the NPCs, disguised as an innocent), that they fled the fortress or whatever, and left the princess to die, because they seemed to want to limit their risk.

When you bring these big boys to the table, the wizard in your party becomes "unkillable". Now by unkillable, I mean of course you can knock them off but you have to program your way through these defences. And that requires specifically targetting the spell caster - something I mentioned I prefer not to do unless he's really pissed off an Archmage or powerful Lich.

The spells I mentioned above that you failed to are all core and all very very powerful. If you allow optional material then sure, the game changes further. I personally prefer to always have someone as saveable - even if it takes several wishes to divine the weird arsed way of doing it. This is the bread and butter of high level gaming.

Even ones like Moment of Prescience are limited. It's a bonus with a long duration...but it's expended as soon as you use it...once. So, it's an 8th level spell that's effectively "protection from death". How many games take place where there's only once in the adventure that the party faces death?

Spell Resistance was excellent......but it basically had to be used shortly before the big battle...otherwise it would wear off while you're getting there. Mind Blank was definitely useful. But it wouldn't do much against most damaging spells......nor would it stand up to Greater Dispel Magic or Disjunction. Spell Turning was great, as long as you were facing targeted spell effects, and not AoE effects.

Again, it sounds like we had different paradigms for our game. I tended to have a bit of a gritty feel to my games, and the feel that events were going on around the PCs, regardless of what they did....and sometimes as a consequence of what they chose to do or not do. Enemies didn't stand still and wait in their 10x10 room for someone to come kill them. They might scry on the party, and if they couldn't see the wizard, they might still see the fighter, for instance. Or, without scrying, they might have something simple.....like the opposing wizard has a crow familiar. The PCs would have to have a reason to be trying to spot a single crow out of a flock of 50 of them sitting in a group of trees (for instance). And even if they did notice the crows, do they know that one of them is a familiar? How do they tell it apart from the others? Does it have a name tag?

Interesting although I disagree. The way of "killing" a King is taking away their power and making their living being irrelevant. Anyone can be brought back but it is costly and Cleric's generally won't do it unless it suits their agenda and even then... I suppose you could eradicate all the high level clerics... interesting story device actually...
I prefer to embrace the rules as written and the various implications following on from them. Put up too many roadblocks and the players get frustrated.

I have to agree here with Mordenkainen's Disjunction. That is the ultimate "I'm going to scare you spell". Player's don't like it when the DMs start getting joy-happy with this guy and vice versa. [Reciprocal Gyre is not core/pathfinder but Spell Turning deals with this very handily regardless.]

Fair enough, but considering you did not mention what I consider to be the pillars of a high level mage's defence, I'm not entirely sure how familiar you are with high level wizard play - please correct me if I am wrong. Those spells will basically save the mage in any fair encounter they participate in making them effectively "unkillable". Try it and you'll see what I mean. It is a very general set of circumstances, and not specific or purely case-supporting. I have both played and DM'd against this and stick to the statements I have made on this thread - read through the entire conversation with Kaiyanwang and you will hopefully see where I'm coming from. Your quote of mine above is just me reflecting on high level play and how death no longer becomes a barrier - more a story device.

Polymorph other was cute but it was Shapechange that was the real problem (and as I mentioned above, it was fixed). I don't think you missed the boat at all. None of what I mention above is abusing the spells in question, it is just using them effectively as written straight out of the pathfinder core rules.

Best Regards
Sam

I'm fairly familiar with high level play. Frankly, in my campaign, the Wizard ended up being overshadowed by the druid. And the rogue and fighter made a great tandem. The wizard was great, but his defenses were by no means invulnerable to the barbarian's critical hits, for instance.

Oftentimes, defenses would get used up against a wave of minions who might flood the PCs, before a more deadly encounter. Then, they'd be rebuffing, have an even lower selection of spells to choose from, and come across a fighter or something who'd get a good hit in on the Wizard, and the Wizard's 60 hp would be taken down to 4 in a single good hit, and now he'd be so busy trying to get distance between himself and the sword swinger that all his tactics were purely defensive. And yes, he could teleport away......which, since it was happening while he was trying to save his own skin, would mean he abandoned the rest of the party, which is effectively the same as having been killed, with respect to the effects it has on the rest of the party.

As to things like Disjunction, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. It was yet one more tactic enemies could use. I also tended to use item saving throws, so if a character failed a save and survived (or even failed a save and died, but planned on being resurrected), plan on losing some of your magic goodies.

And Wish? At 5000xp per casting, it wasn't used that often. The Wizard didn't really want to end up entire levels behind the rest of the party after casting a few spells.

I'll admit I likely haven't run as many high level campaigns. We had one that got into high levels. The rest were in mid levels.

Sounds like our games were just very different. I'm not going to say one approach is better than the other. I'm just saying, in my experience, the tactics you're talking about did not result in wizards being unkillable.

And adding 3rd party material into the game just magnified this fact. Yes, there were spells that could make wizards even more unkillable.....but there were also spells and feats that made others even better at turning wizards into fertilizer. Laced spells that could dispel a wizard's protection from fire spell, even while hitting him with a fireball, throwing an antimagic shell onto the BBEG's antipaladin henchman, and sending him after the wizard (how good are those defensive wards now?).

I tended not to rely only on single enemies against the party either. Very often I used the rules for combined CR's when building encounters, so instead of fighting one CR 15 guy, they might be fighting 2 CR 10's, 4 CR 9's, and 6 CR 7's in a single fight for instance. It is correct that none of those would be a match for a party on their own, but in a group? It was all about grinding down PC resources.

Then, after 2-3 fights like that, *then* they would hit the CR 15 baddy. But at that point, they'd already all be hurting, the cleric is burning through all his utility spells (thus lessening his ability to do anything other than heal) just channeling energy to heal the party, the fighter's at 70% of his normal hp total, the wizard is missing half his spells and he is at 60% of his hp (which might only mean he has 35 left), etc.

But, they couldn't stop to rest, because they knew that the BBEG planned to sacrifice the princess to Gozor or whatever.......so they didn't have enough time to rest and get their spells back before going into that final battle. Sometimes the PCs made it through, and sometimes half of them were dead but the rest survived, and other times they had to flee, and failed their quests. But everyone had a good time. My players tended to point out that they liked that they didn't feel like anything was getting handed to them.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

I agree that none of these are insurmountable, although Stoneskin has it's uses. An unkillable wizard would scoff at such minor magics though. You did not mention Mind Blank, Spell Turning, Moment of Prescience, Spell Resistance (a little help from the party cleric), and perhaps the most annoying of all: mirror image (quickened if necessary). [Shapechange was also in here but fortunately, it was changed and fixed].

Hmm...Shapechange....yes.....well, whether or not it was the ultimate spell of doom depended (IMO) upon which of the 30 versions of it WotC errata'd over the life of 3E. In some instances it was worse or better than others.

Personally, a simple fix I implemented was ruling that my players couldn't have a spellcaster just go shopping through the MM to pick the best form. I just ruled that they were only able to turn into creatures they had personally seen. That tended to reduce the forms selected by a fair amount.

Mirror Image I didn't mind. It didn't help against AoE attacks, and *did* give the Wizard some protection against melee attacks. Frankly with 1d4hp/lvl, and no armour, wizards were very vulnerable to fighters. If those magical defenses got taken down, or wore off or whatever, a Wizard (even high level) was one good hit away from -10 hp. Given that I didn't use the whole "go nuke, then camp" paradigm, the Wizard had to ration out his abilities over the day. If they *did* go nuke and then camp, they usually got attacked while sleeping, and oftentimes the beaten up party would end up worse off than before they started resting. I tended to enforce everything from running out of food, to sleeping without armor on in order to get a proper rest. And if they decided to camp, and didn't get interrupted, well, the NPCs weren't twiddling their thumbs either. For every statement about the party wizard being able to determine the rules of engagement and when the fight would occur.....well, the NPC villains could do the same thing. If they had Outsiders, or a Wizard themselves, they would just reverse those tactics on the PC. Or just go ahead and off the princess or something....and then the King would hear from some bystander/witness (maybe a plant, by the NPCs, disguised as an innocent), that they fled the fortress or whatever, and left the princess to die, because they seemed to want to limit their risk.

When you bring these big boys to the table, the wizard in your party becomes "unkillable". Now by unkillable, I mean of course you can knock them off but you have to program your way through these defences. And that requires specifically targetting the spell caster - something I mentioned I prefer not to do unless he's really pissed off an Archmage or powerful Lich.

The spells I mentioned above that you failed to are all core and all very very powerful. If you allow optional material then sure, the game changes further. I personally prefer to always have someone as saveable - even if it takes several wishes to divine the weird arsed way of doing it. This is the bread and butter of high level gaming.

Even ones like Moment of Prescience are limited. It's a bonus with a long duration...but it's expended as soon as you use it...once. So, it's an 8th level spell that's effectively "protection from death". How many games take place where there's only once in the adventure that the party faces death?

Spell Resistance was excellent......but it basically had to be used shortly before the big battle...otherwise it would wear off while you're getting there. Mind Blank was definitely useful. But it wouldn't do much against most damaging spells......nor would it stand up to Greater Dispel Magic or Disjunction. Spell Turning was great, as long as you were facing targeted spell effects, and not AoE effects.

Again, it sounds like we had different paradigms for our game. I tended to have a bit of a gritty feel to my games, and the feel that events were going on around the PCs, regardless of what they did....and sometimes as a consequence of what they chose to do or not do. Enemies didn't stand still and wait in their 10x10 room for someone to come kill them. They might scry on the party, and if they couldn't see the wizard, they might still see the fighter, for instance. Or, without scrying, they might have something simple.....like the opposing wizard has a crow familiar. The PCs would have to have a reason to be trying to spot a single crow out of a flock of 50 of them sitting in a group of trees (for instance). And even if they did notice the crows, do they know that one of them is a familiar? How do they tell it apart from the others? Does it have a name tag?

Interesting although I disagree. The way of "killing" a King is taking away their power and making their living being irrelevant. Anyone can be brought back but it is costly and Cleric's generally won't do it unless it suits their agenda and even then... I suppose you could eradicate all the high level clerics... interesting story device actually...
I prefer to embrace the rules as written and the various implications following on from them. Put up too many roadblocks and the players get frustrated.

I have to agree here with Mordenkainen's Disjunction. That is the ultimate "I'm going to scare you spell". Player's don't like it when the DMs start getting joy-happy with this guy and vice versa. [Reciprocal Gyre is not core/pathfinder but Spell Turning deals with this very handily regardless.]

Fair enough, but considering you did not mention what I consider to be the pillars of a high level mage's defence, I'm not entirely sure how familiar you are with high level wizard play - please correct me if I am wrong. Those spells will basically save the mage in any fair encounter they participate in making them effectively "unkillable". Try it and you'll see what I mean. It is a very general set of circumstances, and not specific or purely case-supporting. I have both played and DM'd against this and stick to the statements I have made on this thread - read through the entire conversation with Kaiyanwang and you will hopefully see where I'm coming from. Your quote of mine above is just me reflecting on high level play and how death no longer becomes a barrier - more a story device.

Polymorph other was cute but it was Shapechange that was the real problem (and as I mentioned above, it was fixed). I don't think you missed the boat at all. None of what I mention above is abusing the spells in question, it is just using them effectively as written straight out of the pathfinder core rules.

Best Regards
Sam

I'm fairly familiar with high level play. Frankly, in my campaign, the Wizard ended up being overshadowed by the druid. And the rogue and fighter made a great tandem. The wizard was great, but his defenses were by no means invulnerable to the barbarian's critical hits, for instance.

Oftentimes, defenses would get used up against a wave of minions who might flood the PCs, before a more deadly encounter. Then, they'd be rebuffing, have an even lower selection of spells to choose from, and come across a fighter or something who'd get a good hit in on the Wizard, and the Wizard's 60 hp would be taken down to 4 in a single good hit, and now he'd be so busy trying to get distance between himself and the sword swinger that all his tactics were purely defensive. And yes, he could teleport away......which, since it was happening while he was trying to save his own skin, would mean he abandoned the rest of the party, which is effectively the same as having been killed, with respect to the effects it has on the rest of the party.

As to things like Disjunction, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. It was yet one more tactic enemies could use. I also tended to use item saving throws, so if a character failed a save and survived (or even failed a save and died, but planned on being resurrected), plan on losing some of your magic goodies.

And Wish? At 5000xp per casting, it wasn't used that often. The Wizard didn't really want to end up entire levels behind the rest of the party after casting a few spells.

I'll admit I likely haven't run as many high level campaigns. We had one that got into high levels. The rest were in mid levels.

Sounds like our games were just very different. I'm not going to say one approach is better than the other. I'm just saying, in my experience, the tactics you're talking about did not result in wizards being unkillable.

And adding 3rd party material into the game just magnified this fact. Yes, there were spells that could make wizards even more unkillable.....but there were also spells and feats that made others even better at turning wizards into fertilizer. Laced spells that could dispel a wizard's protection from fire spell, even while hitting him with a fireball, having the BBEG's fighter/wizard henchman read an antimagic shell scroll and sending him after the wizard (how good are those defensive wards now?), etc. I'm not sure about Reciprocal Gyre. I don't have the book in front of me, but I thought it affected *all* defensive spells...even spell turning. I haven't looked it up recently as I haven't been playing for a few months.

I tended not to rely only on single enemies against the party either. Very often I used the rules for combined CR's when building encounters, so instead of fighting one CR 15 guy, they might be fighting 2 CR 10's, 4 CR 9's, and 6 CR 7's in a single fight for instance. It is correct that none of those would be a match for a party on their own, but in a group? It was all about grinding down PC resources.

Then, after 2-3 fights like that, *then* they would hit the CR 15 baddy. But at that point, they'd already all be hurting, the cleric is burning through all his utility spells (thus lessening his ability to do anything other than heal) just channeling energy to heal the party, the fighter's at 70% of his normal hp total, the wizard is missing half his spells and he is at 60% of his hp (which might only mean he has 35 left), etc.

But, they couldn't stop to rest, because they knew that the BBEG planned to sacrifice the princess to Gozor at sunset or whatever.......so they didn't have enough time to rest and get their spells back before going into that final battle. Sometimes the PCs made it through, and sometimes half of them were dead but the rest survived, and other times they had to flee, and failed their quests. But everyone had a good time. My players tended to point out that they liked that they didn't feel like anything was getting handed to them.

Banshee