Pathfinder 1E Reigning in casters

[Lanefan]

It is like baking I have made hundreds of chocolate chip cookies in my life but I have to look up the recipe every time.

This.

Brilliant analogy!

Lan-"though one could say a Fighter does much the same thing when practicing his moves during his morning calisthenics"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

I don't like how clerics are done in 3.5. I hate the fact that they become a cookie cutter class regardless of the god they worship. To me a cleric of say a warrior god should fight better then a cleric of a healing god.

Agreed, and while I'm no advocate of having a bajillion classes in the game Cleric is certainly one that is ripe for splitting into sub-classes. War Cleric is the most obvious, as you note; and this is a change we made about 32 years ago.

Turning Druids into Nature Clerics opens up the design space even more.

Lanefan

 

[N'raac]

Also, in your example, it's still pretty easy to point out who saved the day. The Fighter and Rogue are just holding the bad guys off until the Wizard and Cleric win the encounter(which he'd be smart to do over buffing the Rogue and Fighter. Even magic-immune enemies are hilariously weak to the right spells), especially when the Fighter and Rogue are doing something that could be equally accomplished by casting Summon Monster X(which are actually better because CR, terrible guide it is, isn't made to account or them, they don't require a share of EXP and loot, and they don't need to be healed if/when they die ater the fight's over).

So I can Summon one hawk at 1st level, which takes a round of casting time. It sticks around long enough to attack twice, then vanishes. Full round casting times provide lots of opportunity for spell disruption, too. You need someone between you and the enemy before you start casting that spell,

I have never understood this attitude that holding off the bad guys while another class does that actual killing is such a problem. In my opinion they are a team and they worked together to save the day.

This seems to be a significant point of contention between the two viewpoints. In my games, seeing a character manifest a significant new ability doesn't tend to lead to "He's stealing my spotlight - nerf him, nerf him" so much as "hmm...how do we leverage this to make it even better". Our first 3e game, my fighter quickly developed the role of flanking buddy for the rogue I focused feats on mobility (and things like Disarm) so the rogue could get that extra 2d6, 3d6, etc. more consistently.

The reason magic is versatile is that it allows the party to have resources it might lack hence the much maligned knock spell. The problem comes in when a player hogs the spotlight and steps all over the other players toes. When we have a rogue in the party whose specialty is opening locks I would never playing a wizard take knock spells so I can outshine him, as a DM I would not allow knock wands in my game unless it was the player playing a rogue who asked for one. But I do like knowing that it is a resource I can give a party that does not have anyone who can pick locks.

From a spotlight stealing perspective, I like that answer. From a practical one, why would I waste my limited resources on Knock spells if we have a guy who can get the lock open without using my resources?

 

[Celebrim]

Though I have always felt that wizards should never have to memorize cantrips they should just know them. The fact that a wizard can know hundreds of spells is one reason they can't remember all of them. It is like baking I have made hundreds of chocolate chip cookies in my life but I have to look up the recipe every time. St least this is how I look at it. I do understand that for a lot of gamers is something they don't like.

My understanding of D&D spellcasting (which is IMO only loosely Vancian) is that when you prepared a spell you were doing more than just memorizing it, you were actually performing the first part of the ritual of casting it. The final part, when you cast the spell in play, is only the last few seconds necessary to target and trigger the spell you earlier that morning spent minutes preparing.

The anology with chocolate chip cookies is that you look up the recipe, make the batter, grease the pans, spoon out the balls of dough, put them in the oven, bake them, and leave them in a warming oven and then when its time to eat them you take the still warm cookies out of the oven and present them. Then someone who isn't a baker goes, "That's magic. Do it again!", and you go, "What do you mean do it again? I can't just make cookies appear out of thin air.", and the critic goes, "Yes, you did, I just saw you make cookies. It took you like 3 seconds. Why can't you just look at the recipe again and pull some more out of the oven?"

*grumble grumble ungrateful little ignorant brat grumble if he knows so much about baking cookies he can just do it himself next time grumble*

It's the same thing with spellcasting. You've done all that work getting ready, and you are just making it look easy.

I don't like how clerics are done in 3.5. I hate the fact that they become a cookie cutter class regardless of the god they worship. To me a cleric of say a warrior god should fight better then a cleric of a healing god.

I'm rather happy with the 3.5 cleric. The only thing I've felt the need to change is that clerics don't automatically know all cleric spells, making their domain spell lists far more important. I wouldn't necessarily mind making the domains more important, but balance would be a very difficult question.

Though I will admit that I think fighters need more to their class to make them shine more.

Other classes keep taking the fighters stuff. Basically, you just kill every martial PrC or variant base class and give it all back to the fighter, since it should have been his stuff in the first place.

 

[Elf Witch]

My understanding of D&D spellcasting (which is IMO only loosely Vancian) is that when you prepared a spell you were doing more than just memorizing it, you were actually performing the first part of the ritual of casting it. The final part, when you cast the spell in play, is only the last few seconds necessary to target and trigger the spell you earlier that morning spent minutes preparing.

The anology with chocolate chip cookies is that you look up the recipe, make the batter, grease the pans, spoon out the balls of dough, put them in the oven, bake them, and leave them in a warming oven and then when its time to eat them you take the still warm cookies out of the oven and present them. Then someone who isn't a baker goes, "That's magic. Do it again!", and you go, "What do you mean do it again? I can't just make cookies appear out of thin air.", and the critic goes, "Yes, you did, I just saw you make cookies. It took you like 3 seconds. Why can't you just look at the recipe again and pull some more out of the oven?"

*grumble grumble ungrateful little ignorant brat grumble if he knows so much about baking cookies he can just do it himself next time grumble*

It's the same thing with spellcasting. You've done all that work getting ready, and you are just making it look easy.



I'm rather happy with the 3.5 cleric. The only thing I've felt the need to change is that clerics don't automatically know all cleric spells, making their domain spell lists far more important. I wouldn't necessarily mind making the domains more important, but balance would be a very difficult question.



Other classes keep taking the fighters stuff. Basically, you just kill every martial PrC or variant base class and give it all back to the fighter, since it should have been his stuff in the first place.

I really like your further explanation of the
cookie analogy. It has been over 30 years since I read Jack Vance's work so I don't remember exactly how it works but I do remember when I first played DnD I thought cool this is very similar to the magic in Vance's world.

Not allowing clerics to do every spell would go a long way in fixing what I see as an issue. I also would like to see weapon and armor treated like domains.

I would like to see the fighter get more abilities besides extra feats. For example give them special class abilities as they level like the ability to stay on their feet and fighting until they hit -10. They are fighters they are trained to fight through the pain and injuries that would cripple other people. Yes there is a feat that other classes can take but fighters should get it free.

Another thing is intimidate for a fighter to be good at it he has to have a decent charisma while I understand the idea is that you scare people by talking to them that should not be the only way. The Hulk does not say much but he is scary as all get out. There should be a way for fighters to do this.

 

[Celebrim]

Yes there is a feat that other classes can take but fighters should get it free.

There is no such things as free. Every class ability comes at a cost - the cost of not having a different class ability. If that class ability was replaced by a bonus feat, you could always choose to take the feat that kept you upright below 0 hit points, but you'd have the freedom to take something else - like something that helped your spring attack/swashbuckler build.

I ended up giving the fighter a couple of class abilities, but ultimately just getting a fighter bonus feat every level isn't a bad starting point for a fighter design. That and I upped them to 4 skill points and added a new Tactics and Leadership skill to their class skill list with the intention of letting them pull 'Warlord/Marshall' sort of things if you wanted to build them that way.

Another thing is intimidate for a fighter to be good at it he has to have a decent charisma while I understand the idea is that you scare people by talking to them that should not be the only way. The Hulk does not say much but he is scary as all get out. There should be a way for fighters to do this.

IMPOSING [TRAIT, EXPERT]
Sometimes, all that is necessary is to show something who is boss.
Prerequisite: Str 13
Benefit: Handle Animal, Intimidate, and Use Magical Device are treated as Strength based skills.

 

[Elf Witch]

There is no such things as free. Every class ability comes at a cost - the cost of not having a different class ability. If that class ability was replaced by a bonus feat, you could always choose to take the feat that kept you upright below 0 hit points, but you'd have the freedom to take something else - like something that helped your spring attack/swashbuckler build.

I ended up giving the fighter a couple of class abilities, but ultimately just getting a fighter bonus feat every level isn't a bad starting point for a fighter design. That and I upped them to 4 skill points and added a new Tactics and Leadership skill to their class skill list with the intention of letting them pull 'Warlord/Marshall' sort of things if you wanted to build them that way.



IMPOSING [TRAIT, EXPERT]
Sometimes, all that is necessary is to show something who is boss.
Prerequisite: Str 13
Benefit: Handle Animal, Intimidate, and Use Magical Device are treated as Strength based skills.

Other classes get abilities not linked to feats like paladins get lay on hands or smite. So I would like to see fighters get some special abilities as they level as well as well as the extra feats.

I give fighter extra skill points too plus we dd away with cross class skills. I know Pathfinder did it too.

I like imposing very much I am stealing it.

 

[Celebrim]

Other classes get abilities not linked to feats like paladins get lay on hands or smite. So I would like to see fighters get some special abilities as they level as well as well as the extra feats.

Paladin is a terribly designed class though. It's supposed to represent the champion of a deity, but what do you do when the deity isn't good? And why should every good dieites champions look basically the same? Sure, healing and smiting is righteous and all, but why should the god whose job it is to ferry souls to the afterlife have champions with the same abilities as the goddess of beauty and the arts?

3.5 tends to try to solve this, to the extent that it tries to solve this, by having a separate class for each alignment. Green Ronin's 'The Book of the Righteous' tried a more serious stab at the problem with the 'Holy Warrior' class, but it still couldn't deal with evil 'paladins' (which needed a separate 'Unholy Warrior' class) and still required the DM to create custom feature lists for each deity that needed a 'paladin'.

With a 3.5 style Paladin, you don't have a lot of freedom as a player to customize and design the class to suit the flavor you wants. It's a great class if you want to play a retro 1e style D&D paladin, but its not god for much anything else.

What's needed is more flexibility to choose your abilities.... like the Cleric has with domains or the Fighter has with feats.

The fact that the Paladin has a bunch of hard coded class abilities is a design bug we need to remove from the Paladin - not a feature we want to emmulate in other classes least of all one that is as elegant in its design as the Fighter. The only reason for a class ability is to silo something away as iconic to the class and shared by nothing else. If it can be a feat or a spell, it probably should be a feat or a spell.

My fighter ultimately has only 3 class abilities. Fighters gain a bonus on horror checks resulting to exposure from violence. Fighters gain a bonus on Leadership checks with respect to other fighters. And Fighters gain Mettle - allowing them to ignore the 'partial' or 'half' effect of a Fortitude Partial or Will Partial when they successfully save against the effect. The rest is just lots and lots of bonus feats.

My paladins, that is to say champions, have zero fixed class abilties as such except things like the ability to wear heavy armor, use martial weapons, etc. (though there is no gaurantee they'd in fact do so, and depending on the build it might not make sense to do so). They have a schedule of abilities they gain based on the selection of portfolio that they make when first obtaining the class. So one 'paladin' might have the ability to smite and lay on hands, while another 'paladin' might have the ability to teleport and use psychic blasts, another can summon shadows and provoke extreme thirst, and another can pick pockets and make sneak attacks. Each would have completely different spell lists and powers. Effectively the one class can form something like 500 different classes using about 15 pages of rules text. A portfolio write up is typically shorter than this post if I want to extend the class.

 

[Quartz]

Paladin is a terribly designed class though. It's supposed to represent the champion of a deity, but what do you do when the deity isn't good?

You could always adapt the Divine Crusader Prestige Class in 3.xE. As well as the specific deity's domain, let Good paladins get the Glory Domain and Evil paladins the Domination Domain. Add in one or two further domains as the PC progresses within the PrC.

 

[Celebrim]

You could always adapt the Divine Crusader Prestige Class in 3.xE. As well as the specific deity's domain, let Good paladins get the Glory Domain and Evil paladins the Domination Domain. Add in one or two further domains as the PC progresses within the PrC.

Well, first there are no PrC's in my rules. I detest PrC's. In fact, 12 years or so ago now it was PrCs that prompted me to start rewriting the rules.

And second, my current solution is IMO vastly superior to kludges like Divine Crusader in just about every way. You end up feeling like a paladin, and not a cut rate cleric.