Fixing mundane classes - a disciplined approach?

[Celebrim]

If you were to limit yourself to "no magic/psionics" and also "no 'blade magic'" (or whatever; lol), how would you go about bringing up to speed any mundane classes that might (in your opinion) need a boost, in as few steps as possible?

The secret is noting that spells are the real power of the spellcasting classes, and they are only as good as the spells that they have. The reason that martial classes are weak is that what they are good at - feats and skills - are weak.

Skills need meaningful active uses in combat and otherwise. Skills are far too weak. They feel like they are envisioned solely as means obtain passage through a DM selected obstacle. You can use Open Locks if there is a locked door. You can use Knowledge if there is some McGuffin that can yield clues. You can use Balance if there is some ice on the floor, or Decipher Script to get clues from the ancient runes. But very little of it feels like something you can plan for and depend on, which is very much not like a spell.

Tumble is an example of an existing skill with meaningful active uses. Use Magical Device is another. There needs to be more skills that have an impact on combat either by expanding the uses of existing skills or creating new skills. As level increases, these skills need to have an increasing chance of impacting combat without requiring an action, either by 'dispelling' debuffs or by inflicting debuffs. It wouldn't hurt if Heal could be used to do some minimal but useful real healing. Expanding the skill system would require expanding the number of skill points available to non-casters, as skills have to be seen as something of a class ability and access to skills is like getting access to spells.

Martial classes need to go increasingly non-linear at high levels. If 2 bonus feats every 3 levels is good at low levels, then by the upper levels they need to be gaining at least 1 feat or class ability per level. And feats that are 3 or more feats deep into a chain and/or available at high levels have to just rock and have to address not just increasing damage but the ability to deal with statuses and obstacles. I disliked most of the existing 'Tactical' feats, but the core idea of, 'This feat makes you better not at 1 thing, but at 3 different things', is ideal for higher level feats and is generally better design than make a 3 feat tree where each feat gives you a small separate bonus. Push the whole tree down into a single feat unless the bonuses gained are pretty huge.

If you have the feats, expanded combat options, and skills in place, there is really only relatively small changes to the classes themselves that are needed. Under my rules the big changes aren't necessarily to the classes themselves.

1) Fighter = gains 5 more bonus feats, a couple more skill points, better skill selection and a few minor class abilities.
2) Rogue = gains resistance to ranged touch attacks, gains essentially 2 more bonus feats and a couple more skill points.
3) Barbarian = gains some flexibility in creating its class skill list, loses the alignment restriction, gains literacy, gains some selectable resistances.

Frankly, that's piddly, and it points out the big problem you usually see with people trying to fix the martial classes. It's not the martial classes that are really the problem.

Also, extra question: Has anyone here gone the other way, and nerfed full casters? Assuming for a moment here and above that conventional wisdom is indeed wise, and spellcaster pwn anyone and everyone else.

Yes. Without making martial classes explicitly magical, there is only so much you can do to buff them up. Your martial superhero might can leap small buildings, run faster than a horse, crash through brick walls, survive collosiions with freight trains, and cleave things left right and forewards but he's still going to be limited compared to someone who can outright fly, teleport, raise walls of force, summon aid of every sort, divine hidden secrets, and raise the dead. You probably never can fully close that gap, but there is quite a bit you can do to turn down the power of a caster while still leaving them very very useful. Once you do that, the general durability and damage dealing power of the martial classes can shine a bit more.

One example of what I do is nerf 'save or lose' by no longer adding the spell level to the DC of the save, and being careful about how much I allow DC to be bumped up. Similarly, I avoid adding 1/2 HD to the DC of saving versus as monsters attack. This returns things to the 1e standard where at higher levels, most foes only failed saves on 1's or maybe 2's and somewhat elimenates the dependency for absolute immunities like Mind Blank, Death Ward, Freedom of Action, and Hero's Feast without which a martial class is normally helpless at higher levels.

It's also important to give the spell list a quick run through and make sure that you don't use broken versions of things like Haste or Heal from 3e or broken versions of things like (among other things) Blasphemy, Alter Self, Evard's Black Tentacles and Ray of Enfeeblement from 3.5e. And Polymorph from both (see 1e for a better example of how to do Polymorph well). Alot of spells were bumped up in power in 3.5 for no good reason. Similarly, you have to watch out for absolutes like Wall of Force and Forcecage. Anything that grants immunity is suspect.

 

[slwoyach]

It can't be done, the way to do it is to weaken spellcasters. In earlier editions wizards had to spend 10 minutes per spell level memorizing spells, so one 9th level spell took an hour and a half to get back. This made casters more conservative with their spellcasting. There also used to be casting times, so if your initiative was a 3 but your casting time was a five that means any attack that hits you from 3 to 8 disrupts your spell.

This biggest mistake 3e made was they gave spellcasters (who were already measurably stronger than non-casters but still needed their protection) a huge power boost. It's major design flaw and the main reason I've gone back to 2e.

 

[kitcik]

There also used to be casting times, so if your initiative was a 3 but your casting time was a five that means any attack that hits you from 3 to 8 disrupts your spell.

This is the shnizzle. Take this, nerf Concentration, and you are there. Nothing else necessary. Hard to implement though - would take a LOT of work to get this right. Would have to assign casting times to every spell, that are fair. 1E rounds were 10 segments. 3E rounds have a wide range of potential initiatives (-2 to 40 without getting into obscene boosts). A caster could ignore casting time with a high enough initiative modifier unless you play with this too. As I said - hard to implement.

Now, I like [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] 's way to boost fighters as a way to make a totally crappy class better as well.

 

[kitcik]

sorry double post

 

[Celebrim]

This is the shnizzle. Take this, nerf Concentration, and you are there. Nothing else necessary.

Yeah, you absolutely have to elimenate the combat casting exploit. If the caster is in range, then he's going to draw an AoO. No passing a trivial concentration check to avoid an AoO.

I've considered implementing casting time in 3e, and probably will if casters prove not to be reined in despite all the changes. I'd probably have a spell take effect 4-10 initiative counts after it was started.

I honestly feel though that played straight, I'd never have a problem with casters simply because if the only way to obtain a high level wizard was to play it from 1st level, almost no one would ever manage it. Personally, with my 1e background, I'm perfectly happy spending most of my campaign at 1st-10th level and considering 12th-15th level as the end game. In that case, I think that - with the tweaks I've outlined - spellcasters won't be overpowering.

On the fireball subject, in 1e fireballs and the like rocked. This was because the damage from a fireball wasn't level capped and monsters on average had 4.5 hit points per HD. Your fireball on average did 3.5 hit points per level, so if it didn't take down the foe then it nearly did. But in 3.X, its not unusual at all to see monsters with 7.5 or 8.5 or more hit points per hit die, so at best your fireball is going to do half damage. Plus many things are going to have more Hit Dice than you do (recall that Balor's used to have 8HD in 1e, and huge red dragons had only 11HD). So your fireball just isn't nearly the threat it used to be except for cleaning up mooks much below your level, and that's possibly a waste of a spell anyway. A fireball in 3e has to be empowered to represent a reasonable threat, and there are usually better things to do with a 5th level spell.

 

[Empirate]

Despite my general agreement that battlefield control and buffing is the most powerful style of playing a caster, I have to say that damage casters do, in fact, work. Not as well as God Wizards, maybe, but you won't feel left in the dust by the rest of the party if you play a damage caster and know what you're doing. This might sound contradictory with what I said earlier, but it really isn't. Just goes to show how powerful casters are - even a subpar style of playing them will still yield results that are just good enough.

The reasons are the following:

1. Doing damage stacks with what the rest of the party is doing. Maybe you're not focusing on excluding half the opposition from the fight, but at least the opposition is going to go down a bit earlier with the damage you can deal added in.

2. You will be fighting bunches of mooks that your Barbarian or Paladin or whatever would take a few rounds to kill, and would take some annoying damage from. Some published modules are especially prone to throwing lots and lots of low to mid level opponents at the PCs (like Red Hand of Doom for instance).
3. There'll come a time when damage, any kind of damage, just a few d6s of damage, will finally take out that big nasty foe that's been battering your party into the ground for round after round. Giving your teammates another +2? Not the best option right now.

4. Whether a damage caster can shine or not really depends on the level range you're playing at. Damaging spells rely a lot on caster level, so if you can boost that, you'll be doing just fine until you're hitting the level cap on your spell. For example, if you can fire two Scorching Rays with one casting at 4th level like my Evoker will be able to (CL 7th due to Spellcasting Thematics and Bloodline of Fire feats), that's a lot of damage, even for a bossfight. So for the lower levels at least, damage is nice.

5. There are methods of applying rider effects to damaging spells, so the enemy isn't only damaged but also debuffed. I like me some double threat. Born of the Three Thunders is quickly becoming one of my favorite feats!

6. While you don't have to optimize much to do good battlefield control, you will also not be able to improve much on your battlefield control with any given degree of optimization. Sculpt Spell, that's basically all you can do. Damage, on the other hand, can be pumped pretty high with the right feat/class combo. So high, in fact, that it will be viable in most combats. Say you're 7th level. Your non-metamagicked Solid Fog may still be a superior option in many scenarios. But your Arcane Thesis'd, Energy Subb'ed, Split, Maximized Scorching Ray is also a 4th level spell, and will deal a hundred points of damage (well, almost), which can be split between up to 4 opponents if you need to. That's a nice damage spike for 7th level.

 

[Dandu]

The game is actually balanced around a caster throwing out d6s worth of damage each round from what I know of 3E playtesting. And unlike with, say, fighters, you can't horribly screw yourself over by making feat choices like "Two Weapon Fighting + Weapon Finesse + Dogdge + Mobility" since your caster level will go up automatically.

Then again, there's always the possibility of you multiclassing...

 

[Celebrim]

But your Arcane Thesis'd, Energy Subb'ed, Split, Maximized Scorching Ray is also a 4th level spell, and will deal a hundred points of damage (well, almost), which can be split between up to 4 opponents if you need to. That's a nice damage spike for 7th level.

Errr.. Dandu would be the expert on this, but isn't a Arcane Thesis'd, Energy Subb'ed, Split, Maximized Scorching Ray a 6th level spell?

2 + -1 + 0 + 2 + 3 = 6

I think you are trying to take the Arcane Thesis adjustment once for each metamagic feat. While I can see why you might think that, it's not how it works.

And isn't the maximum damage of that spell 72 (3 rays doing 24 damage each), assuming that you hit with all three ranged touch attacks despite your +3 BAB and likely +7 or so total 'to hit' bonus?

If the touch AC of the target is a 12, and you have a +7 'to hit', then your expected damage with said 6th level spell is about 58. That's about 1/2 of 100, and is not significantly more damage than you'd expect a 13th level martial class to produce, although granted I'm sure neither the arcane build nor the martial build in these examples is remotely optimal.

 

[Empirate]

Arcane Thesis does indeed lower the cost of each metamagic feat applied by 1, so Energy Sub becomes -1, Split becomes +1, and Maximized becomes +2.

And you'd be firing four rays, not three, as Split Ray affects the spell, not a single ray out of the spell. So assuming a hit with all four rays, 96 damage.

Good point about a Sorc's or Wizard's low BAB, though. Let's just assume you cast Seeking Ray first...


Well, you do have a point there, I'm just about demonstrating that straight up damage can be increased enough to be worthwhile.

 

[Dandu]

Arcane Thesis gives you a -1 for each metamagic feat you tack on. It also has a restriction that the end adjustment must be no lower than the original level of the spell.

As you can imagine, I had a field day with that one.