Casters vs Mundanes in your experience

[Sunseeker]

I play few games with optimizers, but generally speaking an optimized caster far outclasses an optimized melee...after about level 8 or so.

When people are just building to build something effective but not superbly optimized, it becomes really subjective, but I generally find that casters are easier to make powerful than melee/mundane.

 

[Dausuul]

Even better!

Out of 126,720 people only 164 have actually bothered to take part in the poll.

I'm sure you can do the math.

I certainly can. Of the 169 who have participated as of this writing, only 42 have said that casters do not overshadow mundane types. 42 out of 126,720 is roughly 0.03%. Clearly, this is a problem for 99.97% of the ENWorld community and even worse for the gaming population at large. *eyeroll*

You do realize that when one does a survey, one does not ask literally every human being on the planet, yes? The concept of "representative sample" mean anything to you? Obviously we do not know how representative this sample is, since there is self-selection at work on multiple levels (ENWorld members who choose to participate in this thread). But like I said, in this duel of anecdotes it's the closest thing we've got to data. And the closest thing we've got to data says this is a widespread problem. If you have better data, by all means produce it.

 

[Minigiant]

[MENTION=9037]Elf Witch[/MENTION]

I understood my job as a DM running a high level game. My issue is that 90% of the massive amount of work went to nerving the caster's spells or telling their player's "No.".

If 90% of my focus was on the casters then the casters were overshadowing the noncasters on that side of the DM board.

Now some group had no problems and I once played a high level game with no issue and DMed one too. But not all groups and players are the same. Some people don't see "Waiting between full moons" as "Trying to convince the DM my wizard crafted 10 scrolls". I shouldn't have to say "No, because I said so" or "the store that sells paper burned down."

 

[Lwaxy]

The concept of "representative sample" mean anything to you? Obviously we do not know how representative this sample is, since there is self-selection at work on multiple levels

Could also be that a lot of people who do not run into magic user problems don't even look at the thread. It's often that if I am not invested much or have no trouble with something that I don't check out the threads.

 

[Dour-n-Taciturn]

Yes, casters in 3rd Ed and earlier editions do tend to dominate and overshadow non-casting/magic item using classes. I routinely played casters in 3rd edition for that reason. As a limited example of caster versatility: Clerics could cast Divine Power, a simple 4th level spell that essentially turned them into a fighter of the same level, then there was Freedom of Movement, another 4th level spell that made them immune to grapples, and also Death Ward, yet another a 4th level spell that made them immune vs. many undead effects, etc.

I would agree with the earlier comment regarding system mastery in relation to character dominance for 3.5, though mostly in regards to casters. We had a charging frenzied berzerker that could jump 50' and inflict 300 HP damage per round; Deathless Frenzy allowed the character to continue to fight at negative HP for essentially the entire combat (he went down to something like -500 HP and had to have the cleric cast 5 Heals on him).

You can read the character optimization boards in many forums to find people exploiting infinity loops and other rules flaws, even in 4th Ed. Though I must say that while I understand the need some have to make casters "special", in no way do I ever want to see casters be as dominant as they were in some older editions.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Yes, casters in 3rd Ed and earlier editions do tend to dominate and overshadow non-casting/magic item using classes. I routinely played casters in 3rd edition for that reason. As a limited example of caster versatility: Clerics could cast Divine Power, a simple 4th level spell that essentially turned them into a fighter of the same level, then there was Freedom of Movement, another 4th level spell that made them immune to grapples, and also Death Ward, yet another a 4th level spell that made them immune vs. many undead effects, etc.

I would agree with the earlier comment regarding system mastery in relation to character dominance for 3.5, though mostly in regards to casters. We had a charging frenzied berzerker that could jump 50' and inflict 300 HP damage per round; Deathless Frenzy allowed the character to continue to fight at negative HP for essentially the entire combat (he went down to something like -500 HP and had to have the cleric cast 5 Heals on him).

You can read the character optimization boards in many forums to find people exploiting infinity loops and other rules flaws, even in 4th Ed. Though I must say that while I understand the need some have to make casters "special", in no way do I ever want to see casters be as dominant as they were in some older editions.

Divine Power
Evocation
Level: Clr 4, War 4
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 round/level
Calling upon the divine power of your
patron, you imbue yourself with strength
and skill in combat. Your base attack bonus
becomes equal to your character level
(which may give you additional attacks),
you gain a +6 enhancement bonus to
Strength, and you gain 1 temporary hit
point per caster level.

It's nice but it's a far cry from making you anything remotely similar to the fighter. It doesn't give you tons of bonus feats nor does it give you the proficiency in weapons that a fighter has.

I can tell you right now that you wasted Freedom of Movement and Death Ward by casting them on yourself and not the fighter.

You thing about your frenzied berzerker, they can't voluntarily come out of their frenzied state, nor can they tell friend from foe. So while you are trying to touch him to use heal he would have been attacking you.

People have a tendency to forget that fighters have a crap ton of feats that the cleric can't even come to close to matching. Clerics are good at fighting but they aren't as good as the fighter.

 

[Dour-n-Taciturn]

I wouldn't cast Freedom on a fighter since I would use my cleric as The fighter. I stated it was a limited example; Divine Power stacks with Righteous Might and that's just the tip of the Army of Buffs iceberg. If you're in melee with a huge grappler, as a caster you'd cast Freedom of Movement on yourself first so that when you go in to heal another melee'er, the monster wouldn't grab you instead and mutter "I will hug him 'n pet him 'n call him George" whilst stroking the skin off your now helpless character...

The berzerker was a difficult character to deal with, I'm not using it as an example of the perfect situation, but as one of system mastery, not just for spell casters, but as a means of overshadowing any other damage dealing character. BTW, the beserker had a 95% chance of making a Will save to end his Frenzy.

Fighter bonus feats are nice and all, but other classes get access to them as well, even if they don't gain as many. Given the sheer number of Prestige classes, a fighter-type character could net so many features at later levels, that they gained a much greater advantage over any granted by bonus feats. Cleric casters, as an example, could exploit Reserve feats and Domain feats that eclipsed any fighter bonus feats.

 

[Elf Witch]

The poll on this thread is hardly a scientific one, but it's the closest thing we've got to real data. When 64% of poll respondents said "Yes, casters eventually overshadow mundanes"--it's not just a personal problem. Something that affects a majority of players is a system problem. Even if the poll overstates the issue by a factor of 2 or 3, I'd say 20% is still a system problem.

No what this poll shows is that on EnWorld this is seen as an issue. I doubt you would get the same results if you posted it on say the Pathfinder Forums.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Divine Power
...
It's nice but it's a far cry from making you anything remotely similar to the fighter. It doesn't give you tons of bonus feats nor does it give you the proficiency in weapons that a fighter has.

Add divine favour, righteous might, bears endurance, shield of faith, the power attack/cleave feats and martial weapon proficiency - greatsword.

That beats your fighter with a ton of feats hands down. In effect each of those spells are worth 1-3 feats in themselves.

And before you answer with the usual "it takes time to cast", we wait for our cleric ally to buff, it's to our characters advantage to do so. Add divination/teleport and the sameness lameness is hitting 11.

And then the DM finally fights fire with fire and we're scorched.

 

[Dour-n-Taciturn]

Let's face it, the cleric, with a handful of buff spells may not overwhelm the function of a straight-up fighter, but they can also use Domains (such as Travel) to gain handy spells like: Overland Flight (lasting for hours at high levels), Dimension Door, and as FreeTheSlaves said, Teleport. All this in addition to packing a wallop in melee, with an AC that matched any fighter, in addition to boosted saves and DR.

The cleric tank above is relatively weak compared to a Druid using Wild Shape to summons greater elementals, unicorns, and what-have-you, while in Ancient Dragon form with a Celestial Dire Bear animal companion (read some of the related threads for more succinct examples).

Greater Weapon Mastery and Greater Weapon Specialization are nice too, I suppose...