Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder questions? Good as it sounds?

[DDogwood]

Where the wizard has his moments of glory it is against a larger number of critters. So when that chain lightning fires off it does have devastating effect in that he can really spread the damage about. Against single foes that are designed to be a reasonable challenge the fighter and paladin do just fine in damage output in comparison to the wizard in the group.

Your Wizard is suboptimal. PF Wizards are almost identical to 3.5 Wizards, but even more versatile in most cases. Wizards who spend their spells blasting stuff are balanced with other classes, because they are only using a fraction of their potential.

Full casters in PF still dominate by summoning monsters that make the fighters redundant, casting utility spells that make skill monkeys convenient rather than necessary, and controlling the battlefield so that everyone else defeats monsters 200% more efficiently.

On the other hand, Pathfinder adds several classes with 6 spell levels; except for the summoner, they are all much better balanced with fighters than the full casters. It's pretty reasonable to run a campaign where full casters are banned, and then the spell caster problem is much less pronounced.

 

[Mad Hamish]

Otterscrubber - you can get a pretty good overview of the mechanics of Pathfinder from the prd. It's available for browsing at the Paizo site or (organised differently and with some additional information at Pathfinder_OGC )

IMO full casters are still the most powerful and versatile characters in Pathfinder but the non-casters have (mostly) improved
Fighter's, Rangers, Barbarians, Paladins especially are improved on 3.x (Monks and Rogues are as well but less so) against that there are a lot less prestige classes around so I'm not sure that an optimised couldn't generally do better in 3.x.
(There are also some traps in Pathfinder but generally I think they're fairly apparent)

Full progression Spellcasters are still generally the most powerful and versatile characters but I don't think that a Druid or Cleric finds it as easy to be a full caster and a fighter substitute as they did in 3.x

Then you have a few classes like Alchemist, Inquisator, Summoner, Magus that have 6th level spells and additional features.

The main fighting classes will retain their ability to deal damage (although some of it depends what you're fighting, a fighter will be pretty consistant irrespective of enemy, a Paladin is far more effective against evil than neutral foes, a ranger is far effective against chosen enemies than others)
Skill based characters have problems staying relevant because there are more magical way of bypassing problems available.

There is no official Epic rules for Pathfinder yet but there are some brief suggestions in the Gamemaster's Guide (check the bottom of Gamemastering)

I've been playing Pathfinder since the start of the year and I'm enjoying it a lot but it's with a different group and different GM styles than the majority of the 3.x I played so it's fair to make a direct comparison.

 

[Mad Hamish]

Pathfinder did seek to make sure there were no dead levels for characters as they advanced which ups the power level of a lot of classes a bit. In my current campaign the fighter and paladin still shine quite frequently. Where the wizard has his moments of glory it is against a larger number of critters. So when that chain lightning fires off it does have devastating effect in that he can really spread the damage about. Against single foes that are designed to be a reasonable challenge the fighter and paladin do just fine in damage output in comparison to the wizard in the group.

Generally a spellcaster does a lot more by either buffing the party (Haste for instance) summoning (instead of a chain lightning a Celestial Dire Tiger is a very nice option) or hindering enemies performing control
Dropping a wall of force around 1/2 the opponents or catching half of them in Black Tentacles means you can wipe half of them out while not taking damage.

I'm really looking forward to level 15 when I can summon 2-4 Celestial Tyrannosaurs which can do 4d6 + 44 damage on a bite against evil creatures while smiting and I can haste them...

 

[IronWolf]

Your Wizard is suboptimal. PF Wizards are almost identical to 3.5 Wizards, but even more versatile in most cases. Wizards who spend their spells blasting stuff are balanced with other classes, because they are only using a fraction of their potential.

Yeah, okay. Make an assumption about the entire wizard based on one scenario and declare the wizard of the party suboptimal. Not quite sure how you are able to make this determination based on one described scenario that in this case *was* the most effective spell choice for the situation.

Full casters in PF still dominate by summoning monsters that make the fighters redundant, casting utility spells that make skill monkeys convenient rather than necessary, and controlling the battlefield so that everyone else defeats monsters 200% more efficiently.

Dominate? I just don't see it. Make contributions to the party's success? Definitely. The wizard simply doesn't always have the right spell available at the right time. Or the number of encounters per day don't allow them to supernova everything so they have to weigh what they cast. Other times the enemy does an effective job of making casting difficult for the wizard.

Wizards in my 3.x and Pathfinder days have always seemed to be effective contributors to the party and they do have their moments. Completely overshadow the other characters in the party? It just hasn't been true in games I have played or ran. Maybe it is how the GM handles the game or the makeup of our parties, but we don't see it and the wizard in the current party can do the very things you have accused him of not doing.

 

[IronWolf]

Generally a spellcaster does a lot more by either buffing the party (Haste for instance) summoning (instead of a chain lightning a Celestial Dire Tiger is a very nice option) or hindering enemies performing control
Dropping a wall of force around 1/2 the opponents or catching half of them in Black Tentacles means you can wipe half of them out while not taking damage.

The example I provided was just one of a multitude of encounters over the course of the campaign. We've seen many summoned critters, black tentacles, other enemy controlling maneuvers and buffs along the way. The wizard certainly contributes, oftentimes in great ways - but not to the point of constantly stealing the spotlight from the party members. We just don't see it.

 

[Epametheus]

Overall, my group's been happy with Pathfinder.

One of the things that I'm really liking about Pathfinder is that you're very much rewarded for sticking with a class all the way through, as opposed to 3.X where the goal was to figure out which prestige class you were after and go for it.

With the change to Divine Power (it doesn't stack with divine favor and no longer gives the caster full BAB) and the changes for shapeshifting magic (they give a nice but reasonable bonus to stats, instead of replacing your stat block), it's significantly harder for the casters to manage to replace the physical damage dealers at high level play.

High level magic is fantastic for support and for screwing with a battlefield. Also, monster HD and the corresponding saving throws have been scaled back so that high level save-or-suck spells actually still work, as long your enemy isn't outright immune. So the high level caster isn't dependent on hulking out and beating something to death if he needs to kill something dangerous by himself.

Also, casters get a large number of minor powers that they can use at low levels, so being a low level caster doesn't suck nearly as badly as it once did. I.e., no more "cast two spells and you're done for the day."

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Umm...you realize Divine Power got buffed compared to 3E, right?

 

[Epametheus]

Umm...you realize Divine Power got buffed compared to 3E, right?

Assuming the cleric already has a +6 Str item and no one willing to cast haste on him, sure, it's better.

Assuming he's in a party where people actually work together and cast buffs on each other? It's actually a little weaker than the older version.

Also keep in mind that divine favor got nerfed, too - it used to scale all the way to +6.

All the new divine power does is give you the temp HP (shared across all version), a self-haste (but only for the extra attack, no other bonuses) and gives you the old divine favor attack and damage bonus. Compared to how it used to synergize with other powers, it's weaker overall.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Assuming the cleric already has a +6 Str item and no one willing to cast haste on him, sure, it's better.

Assuming he's in a party where people actually work together and cast buffs on each other? It's actually a little weaker than the older version.

Str enhancing items are common, and if you're a melee cleric, there is no reason to not get them. You don't need a +6 for 3E DP to be redundant, even with a +2 item you're not getting the full benefit anymore. I'm not sure how PF's DP is less useful, luck bonuses are not that common...

Also keep in mind that divine favor got nerfed, too - it used to scale all the way to +6.

Incorrect.

All the new divine power does is give you the temp HP (shared across all version), a self-haste (but only for the extra attack, no other bonuses) and gives you the old divine favor attack and damage bonus. Compared to how it used to synergize with other powers, it's weaker overall.

Ok, how about we actually compare the spells?

Divine Power :: d20srd.org
Divine Power - Pathfinder_OGC

3E: You get full BAB (for a normal cleric, a +1 to +5 attack bonus, effectively, and possibly an extra attack at something awful like BAB -10 or -15 that'll ony hit on a 20 most likely), a +6 enhancement to str (+3 attack and +3 damage, or +4.5 if 2Hing, +3 on str-based checks and such...all of this assuming you had no enhancement bonus already for some reason), and temp hp equal to CL.

PF: You get between a +1 to +6 (by the time you can cast, it's a +2 already) luck bonus on attack, damage, and str-based checks, and extra attack at full BAB, and temp. hp equal to CL.

How can you not see that the PF version is plainly better? It's MORE stackable than 3E's, it gives HIGHER bonuses, and the bonus attack is MUCH more likely to hit! Even if you want to just assume the party's dropping haste every single combat, it's clearly at the very least not nerfed.

 

[Epametheus]

*goes to pull old player's handbook*

Okay, it was the 3.0 Divine Favor that scaled all the way to +6. They nerfed that back in 3.5. Huh. Wonder if our 3.5 CoDZilla cleric had done that wrong. Oh well!

Not quite sure what you mean by more stackable. The spell used to combo with Divine Favor (which our CoDzilla cleric would Quicken), and the increased base attack bonus mattered more for power attack than for the extra swing at the end of the sequence. The extra attack at highest base attack bonus is certainly nice, but there's enough ways to get that attack that it really isn't amazing.

The +6 str enhancement bonus was a bigger deal when a cleric just got the spell; my experience is that people didn't normally have +6 str items by level 7.

Don't get me wrong; Divine Favor is still a good spell. But it's not quite what it used to be.