Kaiyanwang
Adventurer
+1.
I can see that, depending on personal tastes, one could consider PF changes not too much.. but discrepancy has been lowered.
The classes at "high level" (14th)
- Thread starter Stormonu
- Start date
+1.
I can see that, depending on personal tastes, one could consider PF changes not too much.. but discrepancy has been lowered.
Stormtower
First Post
Watch your game balance vanish if you allow the Spell Compendium and Magic Item Compendium as "all-in" books for PFRPG. The occasional balanced item or spell from these books can be allowed IF and ONLY IF the DM personally approves it. To allow unrestricted access to these books in a high- or mid-level campaign will blow up your balance quicker than a hiccup.
The_Gneech
Explorer
Currently running an 11th level game here, and the cleric is still pound for pound the most "powerful" character in the party, with the ranger/rogue archer being the least due to problems punching through DR. The wizard (actually a blast-happy sorcerer) and the fighter (a tricked-out crit machine) are roughly on par with each other.
-The Gneech
-The Gneech
Interesting. It may be just that the cleric player knows most of the tricks.
In my games there is a single cleric in a party of six, so she needs to reserve a healthy bite of her repertoire to keep others alive.
Regards,
Ruemere
Two caveats: First, I haven't looked at the rules in depth in a little while. Second, fate conspired to rob me of any time I might have had this evening to look at my book, so I have to go by memory.
That said, the first problem is that the perceived boost to fighter types is somewhat illusory. While characters have ~50% more feats (from 1/3 levels to 1/2 levels), for many things they need to spend twice as many feats for the same benefit they would get in 3.5 with one feat. Improved Trip and similar combat maneuvers are thus more expensive. Furthermore, some of the bread and butter feats like Power Attack and (Cleave? memory foggy) are actually weaker. So while fighter types may feel they have more power, in reality they are more straightjacketed than before.
Second, the problem with casters is that they largely use "I win" spells, from as early as 1st level Sleep. While some of the "I win" spells were removed, others were not, and some new ones were introduced. At the same time, casters were given more HP and additional abilities that either made their "I win" spells more effective or allowed them to focus more on the "I win" spells.
So while the fighter "may" (but probably not) be a little better at dealing HP damage and mitigating HP damage, it is still just as irrelevant as it ever was because the casters are even stronger.
All of this, of course, is IMHO
re
Depends on what you mean by power.
Damage dealing the melees are ahead of the casters. They do immense damage per hit.
Aggregate damage with Aoe Spells still favors casters. Single target damage favors the melee classes, most especially the barbarian, fighter, and paladin. Perhaps a well-statted and equipped monk and ranger against favored enemy, perhaps a rogue that gets into position quickly.
But the damage kinds are Two-handed weapon users still. They bash the heck out of stuff. And one crit from them does more damage than any single target spells. In a one on one fight, I would still lay my money on a high level arcane caster because of spell versatility.
But in a supported group, the melee-fighters do the most damage and get to shine killing stuff, especially the two-hander fighters and dedicated fighter archers. Serious butcher machines.
Depends on what you mean by power.
Damage dealing the melees are ahead of the casters. They do immense damage per hit.
Aggregate damage with Aoe Spells still favors casters. Single target damage favors the melee classes, most especially the barbarian, fighter, and paladin. Perhaps a well-statted and equipped monk and ranger against favored enemy, perhaps a rogue that gets into position quickly.
But the damage kinds are Two-handed weapon users still. They bash the heck out of stuff. And one crit from them does more damage than any single target spells. In a one on one fight, I would still lay my money on a high level arcane caster because of spell versatility.
But in a supported group, the melee-fighters do the most damage and get to shine killing stuff, especially the two-hander fighters and dedicated fighter archers. Serious butcher machines.
Two caveats: First, I haven't looked at the rules in depth in a little while. Second, fate conspired to rob me of any time I might have had this evening to look at my book, so I have to go by memory.
That said, the first problem is that the perceived boost to fighter types is somewhat illusory. While characters have ~50% more feats (from 1/3 levels to 1/2 levels), for many things they need to spend twice as many feats for the same benefit they would get in 3.5 with one feat. Improved Trip and similar combat maneuvers are thus more expensive. Furthermore, some of the bread and butter feats like Power Attack and (Cleave? memory foggy) are actually weaker. So while fighter types may feel they have more power, in reality they are more straightjacketed than before.
Second, the problem with casters is that they largely use "I win" spells, from as early as 1st level Sleep. While some of the "I win" spells were removed, others were not, and some new ones were introduced. At the same time, casters were given more HP and additional abilities that either made their "I win" spells more effective or allowed them to focus more on the "I win" spells.
So while the fighter "may" (but probably not) be a little better at dealing HP damage and mitigating HP damage, it is still just as irrelevant as it ever was because the casters are even stronger.
All of this, of course, is IMHO
Cleave was changed to trigger when attacking, instead of when killing. It has to be adjacent though.
So it can be used to make two attacks a round at 1st level every single round as long as you have two adjacent foes... instead of only triggering when you dropped something.
Personally... Pathfinder's cleave has come up far more often in my experience.
Trip was dumb in 3.5e. It was abusable (straight Str check), and free attacks made it the defacto maneuver to pick.
Now, you have your pick of Trip, Bull Rush or Overrun, and they all make your victim provoke an AoO... meaning it's not a tactical option, because it gives all your allies a free attack, not just you (note that Bull Rush only gives your allies the extra attack).
The APG adds Drag and Reposition maneuvers too (that also provoke AoO), so you really do have a wide variety of choices, instead of "take Trip, it's miles better than everything else".
Besides... needing 1 extra feat for that one particular combat build, vs the 4 extra feats you get over 20 levels... I'm thinking that martial classes still come out ahead.
.
Regarding Casters...
The hitpoint bonus was virtually unnoticeable, and was really done as part of streamlining the rules. Casters in my games typically get killed very quickly regardless if they have that extra 1-2 hitpoints at the lower levels, and dying from things other than hitpoint damage at higher levels.
Note, the Ranger was boosted to d10, and the Rogue and Bard got bumped up to d8 too, so that's really three non-full casters that got bumped up along with the two full casters (wizard and sorcerer were the only changes for full casters).
"I Win" spells are using a limited resources to work, and are typically all or nothing, and the casters using them don't always have the right one available for all situations (spell targets wrong save).
A first level wizard casts 2 Sleep spells a day, maybe 3 (if it's an enchanter wizard). If you are facing a high Will save target, (or if they roll well), it's either not used or potentially wasted.
In my experience, the Wizard needs the "unlimited resource" martial character to take care of general things, so that he can pull out the "I Win" ability against the one or two major targets (using a big ability on a big target). Without the martial character there, the Wizard would be wasting his limited resources on dealing with everything up to the important target.
I'm confused about the line "additional abilities that either made their "I win" spells more effective or allowed them to focus more on the "I win" spells".
The only abilities that the full casters got that I have seen are fairly generic and don't really boost any of their spells (they are typically minor side benefits that don't always fit a full caster... like claws, or reach, with the exception of maybe the Universalist's limited metamagic boost). More flavour than power.
I'd be interested to hear of any combinations that you've found that make the Pathfinder wizard "focus more on I Win spells".
That's what made it effective, though. Moving to the CMB significantly watered down its power. As the question is "Has Pathfinder narrowed the gap between casters and melee," this is a point to the contrary.
Not when compared to casters. Casters don't have to spend twice as many feats for something they used to only spend 1 feat on, so the casters come out 5 feats ahead while melees come out only 4 feats ahead. Again, it favors the casters.
If we're talking about relative boosts to classes, the casters were buffed more than the melees. Casters went from 1d4 to 1d6, whereas melees either went from 1d8 to 1d10 (a smaller percentage buff) or weren't buffed at all. Again, Pathfinder buffed casters more than it buffed melees.
The two most obvious that come to mind are the sorcerer bloodlines and wizard Arcane Bond. The Arcane Bond allows a wizard to cast one extra spell every day, chosen from any spell he knows in his spell book. Basically, if you have THE perfect spell anywhere in your spell book but didn't have the foresight to prepare it, no need to worry, Arcane Bond lets you pull it out when needed. It encourages loading up on the most effective spells and saving the oddball spell to be accessed with Arcane Bond if it should come up.
The Arcane Bond is only a minor boost, though. The bloodlines are huge boosts. Not only do they add 9 extra spells known (a 25% increase), they also provide 3 additional feats and a possible +2 stacking bonus to spell DCs, often on the "I win" spells. That's not even counting the various special abilities you can get from the bloodline like immunities, wings, incorporeality, etc.
The point, though, is that the extra spells known make it more likely that a sorcerer will have access to the appropriate "I win" spell, and the boosted DCs make the "I win" spells more likely to land.
At any rate, this is an active debate that has spawned pages and pages of discussion on other forums. I'm not trying to convince anyone that "melee sucks" or "casters rock" or how they should play the game. But for someone who feels that there is an imbalance between classes and is concerned about that imbalance, I think they should be aware that Pathfinder did little to nothing to correct those imbalances, and may in fact have made them worse.
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Friend of the Dork
First Post
Just to point something out: Sleep has been cited as the low-level "I win" spell. Yeah it is, but have you noticed the 1 round casting time? It mean in most cases enemy archers can easily disrupt the spell before it is cast, thus far from "I win."
The Sorc in my game still uses it, but unless he has Protection from Arrows up he can be disrupted fairly easily as Concentration checks are really hard in PF. This, combined with the Step Up feat is IMO the most serious caster debuff in the game, and it goes all the way to high level.
A 14th level caster has only + 18-20 Concentration, with DC being around 30s for their highest level spells (and concievable more if damaged during casting). That's a seriously large "spell failure" chance.
The Sorc in my game still uses it, but unless he has Protection from Arrows up he can be disrupted fairly easily as Concentration checks are really hard in PF. This, combined with the Step Up feat is IMO the most serious caster debuff in the game, and it goes all the way to high level.
A 14th level caster has only + 18-20 Concentration, with DC being around 30s for their highest level spells (and concievable more if damaged during casting). That's a seriously large "spell failure" chance.
Kaiyanwang
Adventurer
Schmoe,
remember that every bonus to the attacks goes to CMB as well. Bards, Cavaliers, buffs, rage, weapon trainings, smart uses of flanks and tactics raises dramatically the change to deliver the maneuver.
Moreover, on the "second feat needed": you need just Improved Trip to trip. Greater trip gives not only an AOO to you, but to every ally nearby. Used properly is devastating.
Are you only considering feats in your evaluation? Every melee gained class features. Fighter to-hit can be disturbing, and high level critical feats are very strong. And this is core ony. With the APG, we can have a fighter able to auto-crit or full attack as a standard action (vital for tactics, since you can move before or prepare an action). Well chosen rage powers or rogue talents can be devastating. Paladins now are great.
I can see that HP raised more for arcane casters (remember, divine didn't get the HD dice buff) in PF, and they got nice class features, but a lot of spell has been nerfed. Caster main thing are spells, so, IMHO, one should judge the "nerfd or not" thing from that. A lot of "I win" spells.. well, are not longer so uber.
Now, if you ask me, they could have done more (say, shift the casting time of some spell to 1 full round, and nerf more concentration at high levels) but the difference between classes has been narrowed without destroying how the game plays and feels.
Of course, if someone consider it not enough, it's a very legitimate opinion depending from gamestyle... but be sure to evaluate every aspect before drawing such conclusion
remember that every bonus to the attacks goes to CMB as well. Bards, Cavaliers, buffs, rage, weapon trainings, smart uses of flanks and tactics raises dramatically the change to deliver the maneuver.
Moreover, on the "second feat needed": you need just Improved Trip to trip. Greater trip gives not only an AOO to you, but to every ally nearby. Used properly is devastating.
Are you only considering feats in your evaluation? Every melee gained class features. Fighter to-hit can be disturbing, and high level critical feats are very strong. And this is core ony. With the APG, we can have a fighter able to auto-crit or full attack as a standard action (vital for tactics, since you can move before or prepare an action). Well chosen rage powers or rogue talents can be devastating. Paladins now are great.
I can see that HP raised more for arcane casters (remember, divine didn't get the HD dice buff) in PF, and they got nice class features, but a lot of spell has been nerfed. Caster main thing are spells, so, IMHO, one should judge the "nerfd or not" thing from that. A lot of "I win" spells.. well, are not longer so uber.
Now, if you ask me, they could have done more (say, shift the casting time of some spell to 1 full round, and nerf more concentration at high levels) but the difference between classes has been narrowed without destroying how the game plays and feels.
Of course, if someone consider it not enough, it's a very legitimate opinion depending from gamestyle... but be sure to evaluate every aspect before drawing such conclusion
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