Is the caster supremacy thing a myth used to scare D&D players

If you play with people face-to-face the castersupremacy myth is just that, a myth.
If you're playing online then nearly everyone is going to be using some weird quad-class custom feat monstrosity that does 34d4+28 CON damage per round while sitting at a tavern 20 miles away.

>>51584121
It's very much real, but it only takes off after about level 6.

For whatever reason, most DMs start games at level 1 and they tend to die by the time the players hit 6, so you don't see it that much anymore.

Level 5 is when the shit usually starts getting stupid because that's when Wizards get access to level 3 spells.

>hope you made plans to deal with someone that can Fly and cast Fireball

>>51584121
It is most definitely an actual thing.

>>51584121
It is partially the assumption that casters will always have all of their spells and have the right spells for every occasion.

>>51584234
>hope you made plans to deal with someone that can Fly and cast Fireball
A few enemy archers can knock most wizards out of the sky.
Not having 5-minute adventuring days.
The enemies are not all bunched up in one area.
Casting interruptions.
Fort save things.

>>51584341
You're only proving the point. When you have to plan every encounter around one character's abilities, then that character is significantly more powerful than the rest of the group. Not to mention that all of the things you just mentioned will royally fuck up the rest of the party.

>>51584449
So letting the enemy have ranged options fucks over everyone else?
So not resting for 8 hours after each encounter fucks over everyone else?
So not allowing the enemy to make tactical decisions beyond "Let's run straight at them in a tight group" fucks over everyone else?
So using a mechanic meant to balance casters fucks over everyone else?
So using poisons and giving enemies certain spells fucks over everyone else?

Stop being so entitled.

>>51584518
>entitled
What did he mean by this?

Is caster supremacy true in editions before 3e? As I understand it, magic-uzsers were designed to be "OP" at high levels but extremely fragile at low levels, so it balanced out where there were very, very few Gandalfs running around, but if they made it there, they could wreck shit up.

>>51584573
Something about expecting GMs to make retarded enemies and going easy all the time.

>>51584518
Yes actually.

>>51584121
Yes, and no.

On the one hand you have theory crafting. Assuming that every caster will have access to every good spell and be able to cast them in every encounter. Having 5 minute adventuring days on flat surfaces with idiot enemies who don't do anything more than full attack the fighters. Gods giving clear and distinct answers to divination spells, etc etc. You end up with godly powers starting around 6 or 7 and a huge power gap between Batman Wizard and Dude Who Swings Sword Good.

On the other hand you have practical gameplay. Intelligent enemies with a variety of abilities. Different terrains. Long adventuring days with multiple encounters. Threats in the middle of the night, etc etc. At the table, the caster supremely still technically exists, but is heavily diminished by a halfway decent DM and the fact that you're a bunch of friendly nerds who want to play pretend and have fun.

>>51584575
Kinda.
Casters get a wide variety of options, but the gap between casters and non-casters was less pronounced because the number of available options for casters was less than in 3e+.
Arguably, the thing that really ruined 3.5 was having a bunch of settings be considered canon, and the fact that making a feat for everyone is considerably harder than making a spell for a single class.

>>51584677
>Intelligent enemies with a variety of abilities. Different terrains. Long adventuring days with multiple encounters. Threats in the middle of the night

But those will fuck over Martials even more, since they have less options to deal with them.

People always seem to misunderstand the purpose of theorycrafting.

The examples aren't there to show that things will always work that exact way. They're evidence of a systemic problem by combining elements that exist in the game and could reasonably come together in the course of a normal game, extrapolating the potential effects from this.

Some are extreme and specific, but... That's the nature of examples, and these are often cited when someone asks for evidence. There are also examples of much simpler examples it happening, like a Druid being two, then three bears, rendering a Fighter obsolete in melee and, with a single feat choice, retaining their full casting ability.

As to the whole 'A good GM works around it', that's basically just an admission of a problem. If the GM has to warp their encounter design around a single category of character, that's pretty clear evidence that those characters have a greater ability to influence the game than others. You'll never design encounter design around what the Fighter can do- If you do, those three bear druids are just going to crush it.

>>51584734
>Different terrains.
Sorry guys, this one's a forest. Sword doesn't work in here, it's made of metal.
>Long adventuring days
Sorry guys, Warrior's Union says 3 hours killin' per day, tops.
>Threats in the middle of the night
Sorry guys, I'm off the clock, g'luck though.

>>51584734
Then be a helpful wizard and help the martial members of your party like you're supposed to instead of ending every encounter with a 20d6 maximized twin quickened enervating fireball.

>>51584761
Forest with harsh undergrowth and bushed and rocks for enemies to hide and trees for aerial attacks is going to be worse for a Fighter.

Long Adventuring days seem beneficial to a fighter but it doesn't do anything to the fact a Druid is a Bear all day and summons other bears and has a bear buddy that is a better fighter than the fighters.

Threats in the middle of the night will likely catch the fighters offguard, needing to get their weapons and armor on. A Druid would just wildshape instantly, a mage is probably safe with Alarms and Rope Tricks and other things.

>>51584780
Treating players like children and babies that need help from adult supervision isn't much fun for anyone.

>>51584234

I wonder if it might be a regional thing, but most groups I've been in tend to start at level 3 or 5.

>>51584827
You're a bunch ignore adults playing organized make-believe. Isn't fun the top priority?

>>51584892
Exactly.

>>51584121
>Is the caster supremacy thing a myth used to scare D&D players into sharing the spotlight
yes
most games won't have a caster imbalance because most people are sensible team players, even nerds
but among the autistic it's important to hammer home the lesson that casters can hog the spotlight, pls do no break the game that way

>>51584809
>A Druid would just wildshape instantly, a mage is probably safe with Alarms and Rope Tricks and other things.
So the Druid never runs out of wildshape (and enemies never have dispel), the mage sleeps alone in rope trick, and the fighter has no magical equipment that might help here?

>>51584121
Caster Supremacy is only as real as your party caster player's desire to play competently.

Well, sometimes a moron player invalidates a martial or skill character's role by accident too.

>>51584809
See, your examples are the difference between theory and practical game play.

In theory , you would be correct. However, at the table everyone is there to have fun, and everyone is going to find some way for everyone else to contribute. Even if that contribution is mechanically trivial, what is important at the table is the appearances of balance. The Druid player will make decisions to not out- shine the Fighter, because at the table they're all friends, and friends don't want each other to feel bad.

Now, I'm not saying you're wrong, or that there isn't some fundamental power descrepency between classes, because there is. But actually playing with other people who all share the same goal of having a good time results in those people (usually) making decisions that result in everyone having a good time.

>>51584920
Pretty much, yes.
I mean, if you're going to have enemies waste their turns trying to dispel a wildshape and then call them smart, it's pretty silly since it's Supernatural and can't be dispelled that way.
Not to mention you're trying to bring in casters to threaten other casters, making the martials even more useless.

>>51584942
Reminds me of the time our wizard polymorphed the fighter into a Hydra. Sure he could have cast it on himself but wrecking shit in melee is a fighter thing, no matter what physical form they're in.

>>51584942
>The Druid player will make decisions to not out- shine the Fighter, because at the table they're all friends, and friends don't want each other to feel bad.

When you have class features stronger than an entire class it can actually become hard to not outshine other characters. Rogues can get this bad if you don't do weird builds with them for instance.

>>51584780
Why when the wizard can just end the encounter? Also
>evocation
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>>51584942

But the point is that if the system is actively working against your goal (everyone contributing and having a good time), then the problem does exist and it's worth discussing and commenting on.

A well designed system supports its premise. A badly designed system works against it.

>>51584780
>20d6 maximized twin quickened enervating fireball.
Shit choice. Direct damage is not what makes casters broken.

>>51584920
In order:

Yes in all practical sense.
No, he has to babysit the other characters so he lets them in his Rope Trick too.
Not as much, no.

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>>51584942
The druid being a bear and attacking things with his bear buddy is likely to outshine the fighter without even meaning to do so. And then he summons bears.

It's not even high tier or clever or anything, it's just a typical and easy strategy, on level with a fighters "I hit it with my sword".

>>51584121
The rate at which saving throws advance relative to the DC of a cast spell is terrible compared to other methods of inflicting harm on enemies. Martials have to min-max to just maintain parity unlike casters.

It is a thing, but not in the way that /tg/ typically thinks it's a problem.

/tg/ likes to assume that every wizard has every spell ready to go at all times and is winning every single encounter, which is not even the most efficient way of playing a caster. Spells that boost your party like Haste or Fly are usually better choices because they work without any natural chance of failure while save or die spells have chances to fail on decent to lucky rolls.

The insidious form of caster supremacy is so much harder to detect though, since if you're doing it right everyone in the party will love you without realizing just how much they are dependent on you. Your friend who loves his fighter will love you for making him into a combat monster, but at the end of the day his fighter is mechanically interchangeable or inferior to another melee basher.

Then you have spells that just fuck over the gameflow outside of combat. Teleport, Plane Shift, Raise Dead, almost all of the Divination school that involves reading the future, Invisibility, etc. Each one of them dramatically alters how the world runs either by allowing the players to fly off the rails, invalidate huge chunks of the standard adventure ideal, or create weird metagames like dealing with Invisibility or scry teleporting into enemy bases.

Keep in mind a lot of this falls under the 3.5/Pathfinder subset of D&D that /tg/ tends to cling to, so once you switch editions or systems things change quite a bit.

>>51585011
I agree with you, however, we've had this very thread before and discussed this shit to death. Nothing is going to change, we can't change 3.PF in any practical sense without spending years reworking the system from the ground up. It's not worth commenting on because it can't change amd nothing good ever comes from discussing it.

It's just the same tired thread with the same tired arguments that we've had a million times before.

>>51585082
Don't forget Summon spells. Nothing like being able to pick from your selection of meatshields, ones that likely have spells of their own.

Having extra combatants fucks with the action economy and encounter balance too.

When people talk about Caster Supremacy, they are generally talking about 3.PF so that's why it is being discussed here. 5E has it too but it is generally less of an issue.

It's a real thing. After about level 7 it becomes a blatant that martial characters could literally all die and the full casters would still be able to take appropriate CR encounters with only half the members.

The funny thing is that I've notice some people have a blatant disdain for full casters. I don't know why though.

>>51585156
It's because of the myth that casters are so OP that they ruin every game that makes people want to avoid playing that class in fear of becoming "That Guy".

>>51585192
>myth

You keep using that word.

>>51584121
If you're playing between the levels of 1-6 it's completely nonexistent. I fully reccomend that you start and play at lower levels to make sure the party loves working together and OOC the players have become friends. Then once you hit the magical level 7 the full casters feel obligated to be thematic and helpful with spells (Buffs, martial riding a wildshape'd Druid, handing out Fly scrolls, Etc). Thus caster supremacy doesn't exist for a few levels and by that time either the martials have learned to multiclass or the campaign ends.

>>51585238
>Myth
Casters are so OP that they ruin every game
>Fact
Casters are OP but players without autism spectrum disorder know how to dial back and let everyone have fun.

It's definitely an actual thing in third edition. Although you could say the potential is there in other editions, in practice it doesn't really work out that way. But yeah, I inadvertently broke a couple games back in the 3.5 days.

>>51584780
The irony here is that the CR system was based around how difficult it would be for a party with a blaster Wizard, not a buffer, so no, that's definitely not what you're 'supposed to' do.

Being a buffer that makes classes that suck able to contribute still makes you the most important party member, anyways.

>>51585302
It's almost as though, given this is a game of pretend, that different people focus on different aspects of the game, but from a purely mechanical perspective spellcasters are much stronger than non-casters.

>>51585302
It is very possible to inadvertently break the game or accidentally make a party member irrelevant. Well, in 3.pf anyways. It's not the domain of min maxers and autists. It's incredibly easy to stumble onto "I win" buttons without even trying.

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>>51584193
>Rules of the game are somehow different playing in person than online

>>51585387

Not that the CR system is much good anyway.

Fucking CR 1/2 creatures with Save or Dies and low CR monsters with immunity to non-magic... The whole thing is a joke.

>>51585433
>Fucking CR 1/2 creatures with Save or Dies
I'm going to need more info here.

>>51585433
Oh, CR is definitely a useless piece of shit but that doesn't change that the game was built around a blaster.

Which should really tell you about how fucking STUPID the development team and playtesters were, but that's neither here nor there.

>>51585546
Not CR 1/2, but Ghouls are CR 1 with 3 shots at paralyzing you at a DC as high as an optimized caster +1 shot of tanking your CON and DEX, which makes it even easier to paralyze you. Basically can't fight the fuckers without caster support.

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>>51585408
It's actually fairly easy to fuck up a wizard if you don't know what you're doing, possibly easier than accidentally winning. Even in that case, each individual win button has a fairly simple counter. Most players tend to stick with a couple of strong options they discover, while the god wizard is the one using all of them once so countering one does jack shit.

CoDzilla is probably worse than a god wizard because it's very difficult to fuck up when you have access to your entire spell list at all times. Those guys only don't break games because of behavior like healbotting being so common.

>>51585412
People play differently if they're physically interacting with the other players instead of just voices over the internet.

>>51584920
Can't dispel (su) features you fucking dumbass. Try knowing the rules.

>>51584121
If you're playing with friends and newbies, everyone will likely be too inexperienced to notice all the bullshit you can do unless they bother reading the book.

If you play online or with strangers however, it becomes an exercise in futility trying to find a good group because everyone will come in with either some fetish bait monstrisity, some OP shit they found on CharOps, or they'll spend the rest of their time going on WoW or LoL until the combat starts and they can nuke the field with a plethora of OP spells gleamed both from the CRB and the many supplements.

So in essence, the more people know about the game, the more likely it'll be that you run into caster supremacy.

>>51584341
>A few enemy archers can knock most wizards out of the sky.
Wind Wall
>Not having 5-minute adventuring days.
Rope Trick
>The enemies are not all bunched up in one area.
Summon Monster
>Casting interruptions.
5 foot shift
>Fort save things.
Pump DC saves to where most creatures won't save anyways.

Keep in mind, all this shit are basic rules or spells that are at least level 3 or lower.

>>51584518
>1
Making everyone ranged screws over melee builds.
>2
Not letting people rest means that martials will run out of HP long before the mage runs out of spells.
>3
Not having people bunched up will screw over melee builds that are built around cleave.
>4
You can't interrupt spells that don't take place in melee and even then, 5 ft. shift exists.
>5
Detect Poison exists and using mages to defeat mages just means that the martials will have even less of a chance of doing something worthwhile.

>>51586258

Even more different if it's just text over the internet.

However, the difference is somewhat diluted if the group played in-person before switching to the internet, but it's still different (ex. my group does more in-character actions with just text vs in person which was more "my guy says 'fuck you' to the dragon and rolls initiative.").

>>51584920
Further proof that 3.PF causes brain damage and most of its fanboys have never read the rules they taut.

>>51586518
5 minute adventuring day is a myth.

>>51584780
Pfft, look at this faggot, trying to act like he know a damn thing.

Listen mate, if it comes down to ending the encounter in potentially one turn or buffing the scrub so that he can be marginally less than useless; the optimum choice is ending the encounter in at least one turn.

>>51584853
Every group I have played in starts at level 5 because the early levels are boring as shit.

>>51586618
>"I've never played 3.PF but here's my opinion anyways
FTFY

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>>51586518
>Wind Wall
>Rope Trick actually functioning
>a useful Summon Monster
>level 3 or lower

Rope Trick doesn't function as a rest area until level 8 at least, and Summon Monster is a 1 Round casting time at a level you can't actually afford to do that. You don't get Wind Wall until level 5.

Just saying, caster supremacy isn't huge until the 3rd level spells come into play. Before that and the Wizard still has to play it safe against greater numbers.

>>51586518
>>A few enemy archers can knock most wizards out of the sky.
>Wind Wall
First you cast flying. Then wind wall. Then fireball. That's 3 of your limited 3rd level spells gone and the encounter has barely started.
>>Not having 5-minute adventuring days.
>Rope Trick
Timed missions.
>>The enemies are not all bunched up in one area.
>Summon Monster
Most summoned monsters can get one-shot at appropriate levels.
>>Casting interruptions.
>5 foot shift

>>Fort save things.
>Pump DC saves to where most creatures won't save anyways.
Which requires you to blow spells you probably didn't prepare to make the save vs poison you didn't know would happen.

>>51586646
Then why don't you just kill the scrub and take his shit?

>>51586731
>caster supremacy isn't huge until the 3rd level spells come into play
Thank you captain obvious, I don't know where we'd be without you

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>>51586825
When you're talking to a retard that thinks Wizards are gods at level 3, you can't be too subtle.

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>>51586687
Nigga please.

Solution: Don't play D&D.
Other solution: GM your own game and kill off any full-caster character whenever they start becoming an issue.

>>51586770
>First you cast flying. Then wind wall.
Yet at the same time I'm immune to arrow/bolts and I'm also immune to melee attacks. Pretty good mileage out of two spells.
>Timed missions.
Okay, what sort of mission are we talking about here? With the right loadout of spells I'd probably be able to get through it a lot more efficiently than if you sent a party of martials.
>Most summoned monsters can get one-shot at appropriate levels.
Yet at the same time, that's 1d4+2 attacks that aren't being aimed at me and my teammates.
>Which requires you to blow spells you probably didn't prepare to make the save vs poison you didn't know would happen.
To be fair, poison sucks in 3.PF and there are plenty of ways to deal with poison that don't necessarily require spells to do it.

>>51586807
Because unless you're playing online, killing another player is kind of a social faux pas unless they deserve it. Especially if you're supposed to be friends.

Why play a full caster when you're basically guaranteed to always win if even half the posts in this thread are accurate?

>>51586854
Fucking retard, we're talking about level 3 spells, not level 3 mages.

>>51586881
Yeah, I've got every NWoD book ever made on my hard drive. Doesn't mean I've ever played it.

>>51586926
There are no friends where true wizards are concerned. Only tentative allies and future spell components.

>>51586881
For the record, I own .pdf for Strike even though I've never played it. The only thing that image proves is that you have enough data to waste on a shitty system like 3.PF.

>>51586731
Wizards are not the only casters in the game and they're certainly not the strongest ones at low levels. It's kind of hard to argue that caster supremacy isn't a thing when level 1 Fighter vs Cleric is really an argument of whether 1 BAB, 2 HP, martial weapon and tower shield proficiency(they hit you with -2 to hit and the main thing they're useful for isn't reliant on proficiency) and a single combat feat is better than +2 Will save, spells, domain powers, better skills to choose from, and Turn Undead.

>>51586961
The wizard doesn't have to with someone getting pissed off and cutting you out of their life. He also doesn't have to deal with having a bad reputation when looking for groups either.

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>>51586944
Yeah I bet you made homebrew content for games you've never played either.

>>51584121
It is a thing. It's not a thing at all before level 6, and gradually gets more severe as you go up in level from there.

Basically what it comes down to is a Spectrum with Full-Casters on one end and Fighters on the other. As the game goes on, the fighter mostly just gets number scaling. Everybody else gets number scaling in combination with new abilities that unlock things they couldn't do before.

By level 20, the wizard has lots of broad tools to solve a wide variety of situations and can handle all kinds of situations, even if he doesn't have the *perfect* solution prepared that instant.

By level 20, the fighter still mostly just hits stuff for HP damage and can't do anything else.

It's about the number of scenarios you encounter for which you have useful tools to use. At low levels, nobody has any good tools. At high levels, the number of tools available can vary drastically.

Fighter players typically don't want to be given more tools though, because to do so would make them no longer mundane, and they don't seem to understand that high level D&D plays as a completely different game (which is a lot like playing a game of MtG and having a hand full of instants every turn, with full casters having a larger hand size than paladin/ranger types and fighter having no hand at all) than low level D&D (which is more like LotR).

This is still true in 5e, but less pronounced.

In 4e this is not the case at all, but 4e has many other large changes which you may or may not like.

>>51585412
>Rules of the game are somehow different playing in person than online

They are. Well, not the rules themselves, but people's application of them. Face to face it's much less likely for people to be disrespectful towards each other.

>what does that have to do with anything

Think about it for a while.

>>51587022
Well, that's just embarrassing for you.

>>51587022
Dude, most of /pfg/ makes shitty homebrew and they've also never played in an actual campaign before they got kicked out for being mentally ill furries with boundary issues.

The only thing that proves is that you enjoy theorycrafting more than actually playing the game, which admittedly would fit the profile for most people who still bother to play third edition.

There a few possible solutions to this.

1. Casters broken up into more classes, causing each to have a lower selection of abilities.

2. Make fighters more mythical/anime.

3. Make wizards weaker, riskier, or increase resource and/or time requirements.

4. Have non-casters continue to be weaker, but give them sort of versatile resource, like connections or rerolls

5. Redo the classes entirely, and have every class be varying levels of casterish

6. In a point-buy or random rolling system, make magic harder to get

>>51584121
>Is the caster supremacy thing a myth used to scare D&D players into sharing the spotlight or is it an actual thing?

Depends HARD on edition.

In first and even second edition it's not really a thing. People always point to individual broken spells but bear in mind that 1) in those days, which spells the (arcane) casters got was explicitly under DM jurisdiction - as in, he could simply never give you the broken spells since there was no practical way to research them yourself - and 2), you had very few memorization slots and very few ways to twink more of them for yourself, and finally 3) warrior classes were much stronger than they're in later editions, comparatively speaking.

In 3.X, Monte Cook made casters kings. They got huge buffs, everybody else got huge nerfs, and here is where all the horror stories come from.

In 4.0, Hasbro made everybody casters.

In 5E I actually don't know what the situation is.

>>51585142
>>Nothing is going to change, we can't change 3.PF in any practical sense without spending years reworking the system from the ground up.

>2-Tier-Spread at maximum solves this issue entirely.

>3-Tier spread at maximum makes it small enough that it's not a problem for most groups.

>And Pathfinder has so many classes you still have lots of classes in that range, particularly if you have enough sense to allow the 3 main DSP books.

Done!

That was easy now, wunnit.

Sure, it means printing out a Tier-List from the internet and bringing it to game day/chargen day.

It's not hard at all.

>>51587100
>1
Probably one of the better solutions, too bad that nobody will want to put in the time and effort.
>2
Everyone who still plays this shitty game will hate it because "martial==mundane" to these morons and they'll hate anything to the contrary (see: 4e).
>3
Won't work, it'll just be added management to achieve the same ends and it'll only bog down the GM at the end of the day anyways.
>4
But then, there's no reason for why casters can't have access to the same benefits and if they don't, it'll just piss off both sides of the fence.
>5
Again, great idea but nobody will want to put in the time and effort.
>6
But then it's not exactly D&D anymore, which means that people won't play it.

>>51587069
>maximum damage control mode activated

>>51587143
The problem with that is that most people won't want to play because their favorite class got banned and now they'll have to play something that they've never even heard of and have even less of an idea on how to play effectively.

Tiers only really work in a group where everyone is aware of 3.PF's faults and are also aware of the huge swath of supplements that the game has to offer. You can't just run into a group that has no idea how to play and say "here's psionics and PoW/ToB and also, the CRB is banned" and expect people not to ask questions or storm out in a huff.

>>51587179
Show us your shitty language learning "rule" then, faggot. I bet it's just "five ranks to learn a language"

>>51587135
>In 5E I actually don't know what the situation is.
Much less pronounced than 3.X, but still very much a thing.

>>51587179
Listen mate, short of giving us a video tape of you and your friends participating in a campaign for about 2-4 hours, nothing you've posted actually gives me an idea that you've actually played in a campaign.

At best, we can say that you're in love with the idea of playing 3.PF since you wasted so much space just to own all the supplements and to write up your shitty homebrews but that still isn't what actually playing the game is about.

Sorry.

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>>51587206
Sure.

>>51587228
>I can see contents of things purely from the filename
Wow, and I thought /pfg/ had autistic power fantasties. Can I steal your power for my anime roleplay?

>>51587069
I thought /pfg/ hated furrows with a burning passion, due to their extreme hatred of Alexander Augunas, and is one of the reasons why kit sine fags obsessively red-light kitsune as the animu ear version, and even then that's still just one one samefag OP who keeps posting early generals until he vets a 3day ban

Or does having animal ears automatically make something furry now?

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>>51587311

>>51587202
>"most people won't want to play"
Hasn't been a problem for me, but I only game with real people. And they're aware of the 3-tier spread limit before the game is going to start.

>"Tiers only really work in a group where everyone is aware of 3.PF's faults"
Okay, so if you're expecting to get players unfamiliar with 3.x, in your campaign primer (people besides me give their players campaign primers, right? if no, why the fuck not!) simply put a blurb explaining that there is a large disparity of versatility between classes in PFRPG, and this disparity results in some characters becoming one-trick ponies who sit around twiddling their thumbs because "that thing they do" isn't relevant at the moment.
Explain the Tiers as a spectrum of breadth of options in any turn by character class, and then link them to a tiers document.
That's what I do when someone who hasn't played Pathfinder joins the group.

Plus:
>Vote: "Before building your characters, we're going to vote on what the middle of the 3 tiers allowed will be. Whatever the winning result is will determine which tiers of classes you can build your character with."
OR:
>Fiat: In this campaign we'll be playing with Tiers (1-3, 2-4, 3-5) available.

>"And are also aware of the huge swath of supplements that the game has to offer."
What?
>"You can build your character from the classes on d20pfsrd, and archives of nethys, and these 3 PDFs (Path of War, Ultimate Psionics, Path of War Expanded)", so long as they're in the permitted class tiers.

>You can't just run into a group that has no idea how to play and say "here's psionics and PoW/ToB and also, the CRB is banned" and expect people not to ask questions or storm out in a huff.
Those terms would have been made clear like, a month before the campaign started (for my regular group) or in the primer document linked in the ad if I'm LFG, before anyone joined, let alone the deadline for character submissions, or before anyone shows up at my house.

>>51587311
Wanna tell us why the page and the username was deleted off the site?

>>51587100
>1. Casters broken up into more classes, causing each to have a lower selection of abilities.
>2. Make fighters more mythical/anime.
So like Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might, except without the Incanter cheese, and the Destruction sphere actually able to do decent damage?

>>51587413
>Hasn't been a problem for me, but I only game with real people. And they're aware of the 3-tier spread limit before the game is going to start.
Congrats then, not all of us are quite that lucky.

>>51584121
It's extremely prevalent, but only in 3.pf

Also 5e, but it's less extreme there
Also less noticeable, because you have to go out of your way to not play a caster or half-caster

>>51587429
Yes. His suggestions is basically SoP Casters and PoW Martials.

>>51587434
So make a public campaign primer, and in it, explain every house rule or restriction you're including and a list of what sources the players can build their characters with (and any explanations you might feel are necessary), and when you start LFG, link that document in your ad.

If someone would be a waste of time, they simply won't apply for your game in the first place.

Done and Done.

>>51587417
Simply put; I got tired of one of the bigger users who had an extremely foul attitude and was outright hostile to everyone. After I saw him dole out a negative rating on the grounds of "A martial can take this flaw and suffer no penalty" I decided to simply quit the wiki altogether since autism of that level is what has been killing traditional games since early 2000.

I have the same username on Sadpanda and Nexus if you're that worried that I'm impersonating someone.

>>51587489
It's actually a much bigger deal in 2e, where while magic users are pretty weak at low levels, they become the only class worth playing at high levels by a large margin, with SoD spells being much more powerful and a number of spells that make a spellcaster invincible except against another spellcaster.

>>51584636
Why play with people that play characters like this? If it's not fun, stop playing with them.

>>51587499
The advice you're giving is great and all but it's too late for me to get back into 3.PF, too many bad memories and shitty GMs unfortunately.

Like one guy, ruled that we all died in a black-powder explosion because one member of the party was a gunslinger who had a few kegs of gunpowder on his that he didn't turn into ammo yet.

Sadly...that's one of the better campaigns I'd been a part of.

>>51587575
>"A martial can take this flaw and suffer no penalty"
That honestly sounds more like you made a shitty homebrew and got butthurt when someone pointed out how exploitable it was.

It also doesn't actually prove that you played in a legitimate game either.

>>51587756
That wasn't one of my creations, it was someone else's.

>>51587774
Then why exactly would you care? For all you know, the other guy's homebrew really was easily exploitable. It makes no sense to cut and run just because someone else had their fee-fees hurt unless you had a personal stake in it somehow.

>>51587649
Hey, whatever floats your boat.

I'm just pointing out that the Class-Tier Imbalance problem has been long-since solved, and how I go about ensuring my Pathfinder games continue to be lots of fun after all these years.

I've been in some shitty campaigns too. You can't control how other people run their campaigns. But you can run your own campaigns with reasonable guidelines that help you build up a decent regular group.

When other people are GM, there's not much you can do.

If a GM mentions "Core Only" or "WBL Doesn't matter" I don't join the game - unless its someone in my regular group. Then I voice my concerns, and mention that under those restrictions in pathfinder, these are the only character options I'm willing to play: T1 fullcaster (Core Only) or some kind of Conjuration or Shapeshifting focused character (Druid/Summoner/Cleric) (WBL Doesn't matter).

>>51587843
We have a term for people who deliberately take detriments that have no impact on their character for free points. It's called "Banned from the table".

>>51584734
Yeah but those few options tend to get the job done.

>>51587867
I do play other games as well. The list of games I hated is longer than the list of games I liked, though, and I have some kind of gripes with everything I've played.

Here are the Gems I've tried and which I will play/run again at some point in the future:

>Pathfinder
>Shadowrun 4e
>Shadowrun 5e
>FFG Star Wars
>Unisystem
>MAID
>Everyone is John
>VELOCITY

There are of course other games I haven't tried yet but want to try, in addition to my many games I'm either not very interested in playing again, or would flat out refuse to play again.

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>>51587843
If you consider "take a flaw that doesn't inhibit you in any way" to be an exploit, then you are part of the festering cancer that is killing tabletop gaming.

That and that kind of attitude leads to pic related.

>>51587906
>>51587981
Why exactly would you ban someone from the table for exploiting a shitty rule that you okay'd for the campaign? It just sounds like you're a shitty GM with control issues more than anything.

>>51587642
Do you mean the former? Or the latter?

>>51587998
>Found the wiki tough guy

>>51588055
I'm just saying mate, introducing a rule and then banning anyone who exploits it, when the rule itself is not a part of core, pretty much makes you THAT GM.

Everyone at this point in 3.PF's history knows that it's a busted piece of shit and that exploiting it is at least most of the fun that you'll find with it. If you're going to ban people for playing the game based on the parameters you've set then you have nobody to blame but yourself.

>>51587981
>"If I, an uncoordinated nerd, can't do it on my first try, then a professional soldier with years of training can't do it AT ALL."
>"Turning sulfur and bat poop into an explosion by wiggling your fingers? Yeah, that's totally okay."

Fucking Bulmahn.

>>51585146
I like magic in old Conan d20. It's still pretty powerful but much more restricted and martials can murderize a mage if he thinks too highly of himself and gets close.

>>51584121
>Is caster supremacy a myth?

Allow me to answer that.

>Hi, I'm a 3rd level Half-Orc Fighter-type with 20 STR! I attack stuff by swinging my sword!
>That's nice, I'm a 1st level (Anything) Wizard-Type. I don't attack stuff but I do cast Reduce Person on you, now you're a halfling.
>Hey! I'm going to hit you with my sword for that!
>Hmm, That's nice, too bad I'm 25 feet away from you and as a small creature wearing heavy armor you can only move 20 feet in a round... I cast Ray of Enfeeblement on you and end my turn.
>Hah! You should have run, I've got you now! I swing my mighty axe!
>Cool, you have no strength bonus and I cast Mage Armor on myself six hours back so I just sort of laugh at you, you hit like a 1st Edition Girl.
>Whatever I have like 30 HP man! You can't deal that much damage at level 1, you'll be sorry in another... 7 or 8 rounds...
>Probably not, you've only got 3HD, I cast sleep.
>FUCK!
>I cast Summon Monster 1, a Fiendish Viper appears. I run away laughing while it bites you, have fun dying in the wilderness asshole.

tl;dr yeah, caster supremacy is a thing, especially in 3.5e

>>51587911
Not really when magical dragons can just sit on them or turn them into a mouse and then sit on them.

>>51588104
>Knows that it's a busted piece of shit
>Exploiting it is at least most of the fun that you'll find with it.

Opinions

It has some fairly easily fixed issues (>>51587143) but I'll play it over most other RPGs because it's more fun than most other RPGs I've played.
It does have a steep learning curve for newbies if they don't use a guide though. I would strongly suggest a guide as training wheels for newbies.

>If you're going to ban people for playing the game based on the parameters you've set then you have nobody to blame but yourself.
This I agree with.

>>51588211
>I like magic in old Conan d20.
I don't like it when I want to play D&D, but when I want a low magic game it's pretty great for that, I concur.

>>51588225
>What is Charge
>1st Level Wizard with 6h Mage armor
I mean, at least know the rules of the game you're complaining about.

And that's not even going into the fact that Caster supremacy has nothing to do with 1v1 arena fights (and really, neither does D&D).

>>51588104
Taking a flaw that only inhibits casters and then going full martial is willfull, deliberate, and malicious exploitation and it shows that you care more about waving your e-dick than sitting down to enjoy a game.

I mean, it's like taking an oath of vegetarianism and playing a race that's a fucking herbivore.

>>51588315
>And that's not even going into the fact that Caster supremacy has nothing to do with 1v1 arena fights (and really, neither does D&D).
This I agree with.
And hell, even though wizards are broken as fuck in 3.5e/PF, they're still not the most broken builds I've seen.

I mean shit, there's a Zen Archer Quiggong Monk and a Kensai Monk build floating around that will solo a Shoggoth, a Balor, Pit Fiend, Tarn Linnorm, Ancient Gold Dragon, Solar and a fucking Tarrasque with just one rest in Pathfinder. So yeah, wizards are broken as shit, but there's always something more broken.

>>51588342
Again, YOU'RE the one who instituted the rule that the players are exploiting, it's not something that's found in core. Ergo, any flaws in the system and any exploits that the players find in response are issues that YOU caused when YOU decided to utilize the shitty rule in the first place.

It's like having a wilderness/survival campaign and then being mad when most of the players are races that don't need to eat/sleep/drink/etc. to survive or playing casters who can just cast "create food/water" and "rope trick" to sidestep most of the bullshit.

If you're that angry that you'd actually kick someone out of game for it then you're a bitch, plain and simple. Either start learning how to run better systems or learn when and when not to delve into the optional rules section.

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>>51588342
>Player takes oath of purity
>This forbids you from eating meat and touching the dead
>He plays a joystealer
>A fucking incorporeal fey that eats emotions
>Which are inherently evil and malicious to begin with

>>51588391
Yet nothing in the rules states that you cannot do that.

>>51588383
>YOU'RE the one who instituted the rule that the players are exploiting,
Nowhere did I say that.

>>51588399
Nothing in the rules states I can't tell you to take two flaws; one of which is for your cheek and you don't get benefits for either of them.

>>51588403
It's a homebrewed optional rule. For it to be in a game you're GMing you have to have allowed it. That's how homebrew works.

>>51588424
>"Building Effective Characters With The Rules Provided Is A Crime Against the Gaming Group And Must Be Punished!"
Pathetic. 0/10.

>>51588428
Which is a privilege, and if you abuse that privilege of course your sheet is going straight in the trash.

>>51588424
Why are you singling me out though? If everyone else only has to take one flaw then I should only have to take one as well?

Or what, do I have to be punished for building my character "the wrong way?"

>>51588428
So if a core flaw says "You are not able to cast spontaenously cast healing spells" and a wizard takes it that's A-okay?

You are pants-on-head retarded.

>>51588461
See >>51588460.

If you don't want players to take an option, don't fucking offer it. If you don't want "broken combinations" write better homebrew.

That's not your players' fault, it's yours.

>>51588464
It's called a penalty. This is a common practice in games for violations of rules. You are free to walk away from the table if you can't handle it.

>>51588461
How about you learn to write better rules instead of getting mad your players did something you were too stupid to anticipate.

>>51588483
If it's an option and there's nothing stating that I cannot take it as a Wizard then yes, it's perfectly okay to choose it.

The only retard here is you for allowing such an abusable rule in the first place and getting mad when the players exploit the holes in the shitty rule's design.

Maybe that's why you got kicked out of the wiki in the first place.

>>51584636
>Instantly tripping anything humanoid
>On a dragon.

>>51588483
If a core flaw says that and has no accompanying line restricting who can take it?

A GM might say "no, that's dumb" and disallow it, as a house rule, effectively redesigning that flaw on the spot.

But if the GM adds the fucking flaw to the game and it has no accompanying line restricting who can take it? Then absolutely. It's available to anyone. If he didn't want it to be, he shouldn't have designed it that way.

My goal as a player is to design a character who is:
>Interesting/fun to play as and play with
>Useful to the party
>Good at what I want him to be good at
While minimizing his weaknesses as much as possible.

Party Balance isn't the player's job, it's the GM/Game Designer's.

Punishing the player because you're a shitty GM just shows you to be an even shittier GM.

>>51588502
Or you can not be a faggot.

>>51588499
Yet at the same time, it's entirely possible to have a "penalty" yet rework it into a strength too. All in all, this all boils down to the way that the rule is constructed and the options provided for what the players can choose from.

If there's nothing in the rules stopping me, I could take a flaw that prevents me from eating solid foods as a war-forged who doesn't need to eat anyways. In a well made system though, the designers would account for that caveat so it wouldn't be an issue in the first place.

Also, no rules were actually broken here, it's just you being butthurt.

>>51588517
Again, it wasn't something I made. Second, I left because I don't associate with powergamers who are banned on sight at any table I've ever played at in the past twenty years.

>>51588537
No no, he means 'penalty' in a:
"I'm mad at you for your character design so I'm going to punish you" kind of way. IE he's being a twat.

>>51588534
>My *JOB* as a player is to design a character who is:
>>Interesting/fun to play as and play with
>>Useful to the party
>>Good at what I want him to be good at
>While minimizing his weaknesses as much as possible.
FTFY

>>51588547
Honestly, maybe you should start playing with power gamers so that you learn what to watch out for when designing homebrews in the future.

Because goddamn, you're a shitty GM if you're not just blowing smoke up our asses for (You)s.

>>51588547
>"I don't associate with powergamers who are banned on sight at any table I've ever played at in the past twenty years"
Gotcha. Effectiveness is bad.
I'll keep that in mind and make sure to build wizards who are too dumb to cast spells above first level, and archers with dex penalties then.

Or, just not play with psychos.

>>51584575
>Is caster supremacy true in editions before 3e?
As someone who actually plays those editions: Absolutely not. In fact, fighters tend to be the OP characters just because they can actually use the best armor available making them rather untouchable.

Wizards in 2e and below had to deal with:
>Potentially getting their spell interrupted and lost for the day if they got attacked before the spell finished or on the same initiative. Sometimes the attack didn't even have to connect. You just lose it.
>Prohibitively expensive to learn new spells and it was a risky endevour as most of the old school editions had to roll a percentage chance to actually learn the spell
>Spell selection was PURELY on the DM's side. There were no magic shops. If the DM decided he didn't want you having Melf's Acid Arrow, then you will never get it, even if enemy casters throw it at you.
>Most monsters past level 5 had spell resistance that could not be overcome. You could only counter act it by throwing another high level spell at it first
>Extremely limited spell slots
>Laughably poor HP. The average HP of a 9th level wizard, which is the soft cap of the old school, is 25.

All of that, coupled with no real "saves" against it like 3e has (no concentration, no spell penetration, no increasing your save DC, etc), and playing a wizard was hard as balls.

And that's not even adding in the fact that old school actually gives a shit about your inventory management because that's half the game. So the DMs would actually expect you to find bat guano if you wanted to cast Fireball.

>>51588517
https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/User_talk:LenKagetsu

He actually requested deletion of everything despite having supporters from what I gather of this talk page.

>>51588562
Yeah that's why nobody ever gets banned in MMORPGs because it's their fault that there was an exploit in the game that was caused by poor foresight.

http://www.pcgamer.com/star-wars-the-old-republic-players-face-temporary-bans-for-ilum-exploits/

Oh wait

>>51588594
>Honestly, maybe you should start playing with power gamers so that you learn what to watch out for when designing homebrews in the future.
This is why tabletop games are written like legal documents. threeaboos are truly brain damaged.

>>51588599
If you have to cheat to be effective you're that guy.

It's real. But the bigger problem, as you can see from this thread, is that a lot of players and DMs are fucktards.

>>51588645
That's over "unlimited money" exploits and the like, that are obviously a glitch. Not "He picked character options I hadn't planned for."

And when MMO Designers do a mass ban? They're called out for being twats by massive numbers of people too.

You don't get banned from entering MTG tourneys because you realized you could combo some spells to beat your opponent stupid fast.

WotC starts banning cards if that is actually a problem.

If you consider something an "exploit" then fix it so that doesn't happen.

Get the fuck out of here with your BS.

>>51588691
It takes less time and effort to just kick that guys out than to spend hours fussing over the wording of something to prevent Iron Heart Surge bullshit blotting out the sun.

>>51588654
This has nothing to do with D&D but this has everything to do with game design. You can't introduce a rule willy-nilly and then get butthurt when people decide to exploit the rule to make themselves better, you have to account for that potential exploit and add in a rule that covers the caveat that would violate the spirit of the rule.

Of course, unless you've played with people who exploit the rules often or have gone through some rigorous play-testing sessions, you're not going to be able to catch everything. However, the proper response is to talk to the player outside of game and reach some sort of compromise that neither strengthens or weakens them while at the same time thanking them for their help and adding in a caveat to cover the exploit.

You don't, however, actually ban them from the table because YOU were too stupid to notice the exploit beforehand, at best you look incompetent and at worse, you're THAT GM to anyone who still bothers to stay at the table.

>>51588670
It's not cheating though, if the rule doesn't take the exploit into account in either the original document or in the errata then I see no reason not to utilize it during play.

>>51588654
Tabletop games should be written as explicitly as MTG Rules. Then it's clear, and you can say "not how it works, see, right here: *_RULE_*"

>>51588670
There was no cheating going on. Simply selecting legal character options and building a character within the rules, and then the GM acts like a dick about it.

>>51588733
This.

As a player, I'm not going to play a game of "let's guess the writer's intentions and hope for the best".

I'm going to read the rule, as it works RAW, assume the developer wrote what the fuck he intended, and build accordingly. If you see it and decide "That's not what I intended/What I want to happen in my campaign" then you fix your shitty game mechanics, you don't ban the players for following the rules..

>>51588719
Yet at the same time, once you get known as THAT GM, your reputation will NEVER recover unless you go out of your way to stop being a twat.

Either that or just not using the rule that's causing so much fuss in the first place since that's what this argument is about.

>>51588802
Nah you just derailed it into that, when the argument is "If you exploit the rules, don't cry like a bitch when you get smacked for it"

>>51588826
What counts as an "exploit" is subjective.

You're smacking your players for not reading your mind.

That makes you an asshole.

>>51588826
Also, I am not >>51588802.

You're arguing with multiple people, because your position is bullshit.

>>51588826
Thing is, you're punishing players for the incompetence of the game designer. If I'm sitting down at your table and you introduce a rule that allows me to make a character that is unaffected by a weakness, I'm going to go in on the assumption that the game designers intended for the rule to be exploitable in that way (I mean, it's not like there aren't exploits in the PHB).

Also, if that wasn't the case and all, I'd expect the GM to come at me like a rational person to explain why the rule doesn't work the way that it does, not get perma-banned for following a rule that the GM introduced in the first place.

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>>51584942
>you must dump down your potential in order for dead meat to have fun
You know what would be easier and not be completly retarded ?For everyone to play as a caster. Either that or it's their problem they are not having fun.

>>51588931
Or the GM can restrict tiers.

If one player is a druid, and another player is a Warpriest or Harbinger? Sure the druid might be better, but the WP/HB is still going to have lots of fun and won't be dead-weight.

>>51587022
Some of this shit looks pretty cool, anon

>>51584121

Optimally played casters are leaps and bounds better than all the martial classes in nearly every edition of DND except 4th, which erased nearly all the utility spells and was very generous in giving utility to other classes that in other editions was solely relegated to magic.

Despite that, usually those extremely powerful casters still benefit from having the party around, because it's hard to stop the level 18 Wizard from overcoming any obstacle with their busted toolkit if you have to go through the level 18 flying hasted blurred enlarged (etc.) Fighter to do that.

5th is much more imbalanced than 4th because it restored the infinite toolkit spell lists, but still took a crack at nerfing casters by making nearly all the buffs in the game require Concentration, making buffing more choice dependent rather than just ubering up the party.

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>>51585302
>asters are OP but players without autism spectrum disorder know how to dial back and let everyone have fun.
But a party of casters is having fun.It's just the "underdog" mentality martials who can't stop swallowing cactus.

>>51588873
If I have to explain to a warforged player why he's not allowed to take "Vegetarian" as a flaw, then it's easier to just tell him to get the fuck out because he's obviously taking the piss. Doing that at character creation will be indicative of future faggotry.

>>51589017
Yet at the same time, the rule should've had a caveat that prevented races who didn't need to eat from taking the flaw in the first place.

You dingus.

>>51589017
ITT: shitty GM / game designer decides kicking out players is better than implementing well designed optional rules.

>>51587100
>2. Make fighters more mythical
So play Runescape?

>>51589105
Easiest option is to simple ban tier 5, and then either play t1-3 or t2-4

>>51584121
Never run into it in a face to face group despite the many many people I have played with in various edition- oh shit. Except the one time I did it with a dread necromancer in pathfinder. I had multiple undead "parties" doing the the heavy lifting and looking for loot in tombs.

That said, the DM was new and when I thought he was vetting my character sheet and feat choices he was actually ignoring them and trusting me to self police, after he had said he would veto anything too OP.

It was an issue of expectations and communication.

Still, kelgores grave mist with rime, fell drain and fell animate is a real treat. 1d6 cold damage + fatigue + entangle + level drain + animate as a free zombie if you die from it.

DM liked throwing armies of mooks at us and I was all too happy to take advantage.

I have had seen it in action, with the party's sole martial being marginalized to the point where the only reason it was justified for him to be around was because the DM made him plot important.

It was also funny in the sense that the DM didn't let us rest (the usual toted solution to caster supremacy)... which resulted in not being able to deal with anyone you actually needed spells to deal with, even if the martial was at full strength.

>>51584234
Well, I mean, people have been shooting flying things for millennia that are much smaller than a wizard, and if he casts fly, then he has at most two fireballs to throw around, and that's at 5d6 a pop. Not really terrifying yet. Damaging sure, but with proper pacing of encounters and resource drain they aren't going to want to blow their load right away, and if they did they're considerably less useful for the rest of the day.

Besides, evocation has always been the weakest school of magic, why even use it as an example?

>>51584121
>caster supremacy

Talking from PF here but ban wizards, clerics and the spell Paragon Surge and the power gap gets a lot smaller. Also the only commonly played class that is tier one is cleric. Wizards are almost never played. Deeply over powered characters mostly make it into play via thinking " the party needs this to carry it thru combat". Most players (and some DMs) do not really understand that by putting a cleric in the party it it will have a end effect of monsters being stronger to keep combats interesting.


With those bans is caster supremacy still a thing? Yes, but it is far hardier for it to come into effect. The other very strong casters take more effort in play to end up completely overshadowing non-casters.

There are two things that mostly are what make it still the case after bans. One magic weapons and armor are over costed, which makes the gold system work against the martial class's from the start. Two the martial class that has answers to problems, the rogue, is rather weak. Both can be fixed with effort if the DM whats to do so.

>>51589029
Shit that fucking obvious shouldn't HAVE to be spelled out in the first place. If you're playing a vegetarian warforged, you are obviously being XD LOL SO RANDUM rather than a player, and nobody wants the former in their games at an age in the double digits.

Hey, next time you run a 3e game, keep acting while you're dead, because rules as written there is no penalty for being dead.

>>51589385
>Wizards never get played.
They come up often enough in my experience.

And banning T1 classes still leaves t2+t4 combinations open. The fighter looks like almost as much of a chump next to a sorcerer as he does next to a Wizard, and almost as much of a chump next to summoner as he does next to druid.

See >>51589149.

>>51589421
>Shit that fucking obvious shouldn't HAVE to be spelled out in the first place.
Yet this obvious exploit wasn't already covered by whoever designed the rule in the first place.
>Hey, next time you run a 3e game, keep acting while you're dead, because rules as written there is no penalty for being dead.
Except that you cannot take any actions since you're not conscious and the fact that dead characters are unplayable as well.

I dunno man, maybe you should take a crack at them there rules and actually learn how to play/run a game, rather than sperging out because the players exploited a poorly worded rule for their benefit.

And tbqhfam, your game was probably going to be a shitshow anyways since you're so incompetent that you'd introduce a houserule that hadn't even been properly tested yet while still being upset when someone exploited the houserule for their benefit.

>>51589466
A fighter who doesn't use like 10 splatbooks looks a chump next to a bard FFS.

>>51589421
Every character option is available to anyone who meets the prerequisites. If there are no prerequisites to meet, it's available.

If a vegetarian warforged is legally possible, then it's legally possible. If you want your players to be able to justify how unusual combos like that actually work, specify that as a house rule prior to chargen.

Otherwise, players can, will, and should assume that any character option combination not explicitly disallowed allowed.

>>51589478
Actually you're unconcious only from -1 to -9, if you die, you are no longer unconscious, you are dead.

>>51589513
If I'm going to ban anything, Ill ban fighter.

I prefer to tier-restrict. They can play a fighter in a t2-4 game if they build one of the few fighter archetypes that's tier 4.

The only way I'll allow stock fighter normally, is in a t4/5 campaign.

I very rarely run those.

>>51589525
All I'm saying is that you're not going to be up and about while you're dead like the moron was going on about.

>>51589478
Let me design a feat.

"You gain +1 to hit and damage if you wield a weapon from your country."
Restrictions; you must be proficient with the weapon, you must have actually spent at least eight years in that country, you must have actually had freedom to be familiar with that weapon in that country, you must have arms capable of wielding the weapon (or legs, tail, or head if appropriate), you must not have had any criminal records or restrictions at the time that would have prevented you from wielding the weapon of your country, the weapon must actually be associated with the country, if the weapon that the country is associated with changes at any time for whatever reason you retain this bonus, you must have lived in a civilized area, you must have been self-aware during the time you stayed in the country (except for sleeping, being knocked out, being drunk, being on drugs, suffering mild amnesia, passing out from hunger, thirst, fatigue, or magic effects), the country must actually exist, you cannot be from the country retroactively, people must actually be able to leave the country by means that would be available to your character, *deep breath*, the country must actually possess the weapon in question, the country must actually have a means of manufacturing such weapons, the country must have retained its culture around the weapon if it was taken over during the aforementioned eight-year period, the weapon cannot be unique or decorative, the weapon must actually exist, the weapon must be wieldable by someone of your race, the weapon must not kill you if equipped or carried, the weapon must be manufactured, the weapon cannot be a space ship, sailing ship, siege weapon, tank, aeroplane, fixed device, explosive device, terrain feature, weather, submarine, land rover, hydrofoil, spelljammer, helicopter, be living, undead, animate, or otherwise have a statblock.

Did I miss anything?

>>51589555
Actually you are, since being dead doesn't impose any restrictions on your actions. It doesn't say that anywhere in the book nor does it imply it. It's not an exploit, its your fault for not having the rules spell it out.

>>51589631
And this wall of text is exactly why nobody should play 3.butthurt edition, because I could legitimately see something of this length being added as errata to something very obvious and simple.

>>51589631
I see that you have discovered why such a nebulous wording as "weapon from your country" makes for a shit rule.

>>51589647
>http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#dead
"The character’s soul leaves his body."
>http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#dying
"A dying character can take no actions and is unconscious."

But, y'know, keep sperging and ignoring the rules I guess. You're only embarrassing yourself.

>>51589478
>>51589519
>If a vegetarian warforged is legally possible, then it's legally possible

>This is what rule lawyers actually believe

>>51589665
There's nothing wrong with it, the problem is the player who takes a simple, flavorful thing that adds to a character, and forces people to turn it into a massive pile of shit because they pull every excuse they can to explain why Farmer Joeseph of 300 AD Bethlemen is able to wield chinese polearms.

Why do you think "A return to plain language" was a big deal in recent games? Because of people like you who would get kicked out of games the instant they started acting the cunt. According to you, a scorpion tail whip would do 1d43 damage because that's what it says in the book.

>>51589695
OH SHIT! This means that plants, constructs, elementals, immortals, and animated undead can act beyond death! All the skeletons, golems, and demons you've killed have risen up in sudden realization and they're coming to your house right now!

>>51589695
Show me where having a soul is required to act.

>>51589701
>>51589631
If you weren't autistic and knew how to make houserules, you could just write this.

You gain +1 to hit and damage if you wield a martial weapon from your country.
Prerequisite: You must be proficient in the martial weapon that you choose.
Restriction: The GM will determine which martial weapons can be chosen before play.

There, sets a specific type of weapon, gives the GM the power to determine which weapons are plausible and which ones aren't, and you still get that nifty flavor text.

Of course, I'd never use it unless I put in several hours of play-testing but it's certainly a base to build up from if I ever really gave enough of a shit to refine it.

>>51589701
>There's nothing wrong with it,

There's everything wrong with it. It's yet another stacking minuscule bonus tied to a setting dependent, open to interpretation piece of fluff.

It's the type of feat that makes 3.x games, and their infinite clones a fucking shitshow.

>Why do you think "A return to plain language" was a big deal in recent games?

Which games? 5e? The edition that was literally written to appeal to grogs?

> According to you, a scorpion tail whip would do 1d43 damage because that's what it says in the book.

I'm not even the same guy, mate. And I can tell the difference between a misprint and a shit rule.

>>51589665
It's a perfectly fine and flavorful rule. People who aren't complete assholes or neurological aberrants will see the implicit caveats that come along with it and restrain themselves from exploiting the wording, and if they still try the DM and other players can call their bullshit. This isn't fucking MtG.

>>51589631
UH OH! It says I just have to wield the weapon! The national weapon of my country is pocket sand! I'm going to clutch a handful of dust and gain +613487569 attack and damage with my handgun and blow up the planet!

>>51589741
Oh so now DM call is allowed? You just turned the feat into "mother may I?"

>>51589746
Even in MTG a higher judge can straight up say "That's not how it works, faggot" and even say that swamps give red mana if he pleases.

>>51589741
>I was adopted when I was a month old and I've never been to Bumfuckia in my life, I'm allowed to have regional weapon speciality in the Bumfuckian Dildo

>>51589793
I think that's covered by "what weapons are available".

>>51589718
>>51589729
Now you're just being willfully obtuse.
>>51589762
It's certainly better than having a block of text that means nothing and D&D doesn't exactly have a base setting where people can go "oh yeah, I know that particular area, they fight like the Romans did."

Not to mention, such a house-rule would ultimately come down to a DM call because only the DM would know which martial weapons are available in any particular part of the setting, assuming they made one to begin with.

>>51589466
>And banning T1 classes

Not talking about banning all tier one class's, only wizard, cleric, and one spell that lets a sorcerer be tier one. Keep in mind that I am talking about fixes for PF only, not for 3.5. There is a very large power gap in between the top and the rest of the tier one class's, more so then what it was in 3.5. A 3.5 druid is just better then a PF druid for example. The spell list for that class was also better in 3.5 then it is in PF. A strong tier five can be effective in the same party as a weak tier one.
Two things are in play to make that happen. One a 20% price reduced of magic arms and armor. Two the following rules text is not in effect:A divine spellcaster selects and prepares spells ahead of time through prayer and meditation at a particular time of day. The time required to prepare spells is the same as it is for a wizard (1 hour), as is the requirement for a relatively peaceful environment. When preparing spells for the day, a divine spellcaster can leave some of her spell slots open. Later during that day, she can repeat the preparation process as often as she likes. During these extra sessions of preparation, she can fill these unused spell slots.

Why would any sane DM run with that rule in place?

Yes this is house rule cop out. However it is only three things and it greatly improves over all playability of the game.

>>51589805
Nah, that doesn't restrict the players. I am fully entitled to a bonus with the bumfuckian dildo provided I was born there.

>My mother crossed the border, popped me out, and walked straight back home to Assfuckia, as a native-born Bumfuckian I can wield the Bumfuckian Dildo

See why it's easier to just straight-up kick people out for being faggots?

>>51589812
>Now you're just being willfully obtuse.
And taking a flaw as a warforged to be a vegetarian isn't? Just yield.

>>51589718
Those monster types would fall under exceptions to the rule.

To say nothing about the fact that PCs aren't any of those races to begin with unless you allow some weird races with level adjustments.
>http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicJar.htm
"you place your soul in a gem or large crystal (known as the magic jar), leaving your body lifeless."

Now, since they mention "leaving your body lifeless," I'm just going to say that having no soul is about the same as being dead.

>>51589819
Well, I mean, I'd kick you because you are a faggot, but I also wouldn't play a game with a shit feat like that so...

>>51589819
Um, actually, you're assuming that Bumfuckia is a place and that the bumfuckian dildo is a weapon that you'd have access to.

Also, I'm pretty sure that something like that would be an exotic weapon so you wouldn't be able to choose it anyways.

>>51589829
Seriously mate, just stop. The game already has mechanics in place for death and how to avoid it and unlike your shitty house rule, it's an official rule within the game.

Nobody would honestly try arguing that they should be able to do shit even though they're dead, and if they do, they'll likely stop being a player a few moments later for trying to outright break the rules.

>>51589819
Is "I was born there" the definition of "your country"?

Anyway, I see no problem with this, unless you are trying to stack multiple country bonuses. As long as the game considers country of origin important, you'd have to pay with some sort of character building resource to be multi-cultural either way.

>>51589835
That's what Magic Jar does. Not dying from HP loss.

>>51589866
Well they're just poorly worded, and what house rule? I'm going by the actual wording of the rule. If you don't like it you are free to leave the game.

>>51589875
Great, now we have to add "Being exiled or decitizenshipped does not prevent this feat from functioning" to the wall, nice going, otherwise you could impose a penalty on someone with a piece of paper.

>>51589774
Alright, but I was thinking of how MtG isn't very granular mechanistically and doesn't care about fluff.
You can equip the +2/+4 Sword of Holiness to the Demon of Unholiness who is 50 feet tall and has wingarms and hooves in the card art and then cast an Extra Limbs instant that allows it to block several creatures (implicitly using the equipped Sword against all of them somehow.) and that's no problem because you're just equipping a creature with an artefact and casting a spell that can target any creature and nothing in the rules or the card texts says you can't do that, even if no one can explain what the fuck is even supposed to be happening in-universe (what universe?)
Roleplaying games are different.

>>51589890
You keep willfully missing the point, but that's okay.

Your homebrew is great, don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

>>51589908
Magic items resizing to suit the wielder is quite common

>>51589884
The point, my obtuse retard, is that it mentions that your body is lifeless once your soul leaves it. Ergo, since the soul leaves the body upon death, your body is lifeless, which means that you're dead, which means that you cannot take any actions.
>>51589884
The house rule that sparked this whole stupid debate, the one about the flaws? Also, the game is fairly clear on what you can and cannot do as a corpse, it's not my fault that you don't understand the game that you made houserules for in the past.

>>51589890
Or we could just go by the fact that it has to be a martial weapon that you're proficient with and call it a day.

I mean, it's just a +1 to attack/damage, it's already a shitty house rule based on returns so there isn't much reason to keep harping over something like that.

>>51589928
So if I make a spell that says "You bludgeon someone over the head with a stick, leaving them unconscious" then SUDDENLY blunt weapons are the most dangerous things in the game?

>>51589920
Yeah but it's not mentioned anywhere, also it's a flat +2/+4 bonus not a multiplier. Putting it on a 9/9 giant or something implies the creature is basically wielding a toothpick. Also wingarms and hooves.

>>51589987
Not necessarily.

If we go by RAW, it can't be used on creatures that lack a defined head, it can't be used on creatures that are immune to being unconscious, you'd be limited to a club or a staff since it specifically mentions "stick" not "bludgeoning weapon" and even then, you'd have to beat the target's AC in order for the spell to go off.

That's not to say that it's useless or anything, like I could see it being used as a Druid's version of sleep but since Druids are already the best class in the game.

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>>51584121
Yes, but the real question is: why?

Simple. Just look at history. D&D is principally inspired by the Sword and Sorcery genre. In that genre, wizards casts incredibly powerful spells at high cost for themselves. They are both extremely powerful but limited, and extremely vulnerable while casting spells, which allow barbarians and other fighters to interrupt them or kill them.

oD&D and AD&D played it straight, and even straighter for the magical resistance of high level melee characters in AD&D, which are supposed to represent a character's willpower simply shrugging a spell off. Very Sword & Sorcery. It isn't perfect, but the idea is there.

Unfortunately, 3.5 has forgotten completely the 'powerful but vulnerable' roots of D&D's magic. So a lot of bad design decisions: interrupting becoming incredibly difficult, powerful spells not needing material components anymore, feats to forego material components altogether, no spell resistance, a lot more of casters with a lot more of possibilities, some with armours, etc.

D&D's magic was always meant to represent the frail and crazy wizard in its tower casting fireballs toward Conan. Forgetting that is the root of all the issues with caster supremacy.

>>51584734
That's bullshit people who play primary casters tell themselves to justify stealing the limelight.

>>51586687
>I've only played 3.5 in vidya but here's my correction

>>51591732
It isn't. That's the problem with 3.PF. Anything a fighter could do a Druid could do better.

>>51584734
Not if done properly. Sure the caster can do anything better. But with the sufficient number of skills checks, encounters and shit the caster is gonna run out of spells.

Just try it as a DM sometime before "theory gaming", i have a DM who does that:
-Atheltic, strenght checks for figthers
-Party face/thiefly things for rogue
-Magic lore shit and purely magical encounters for wizard.

Play with the character backgrounds too, sometimes the most important things is not that the rogue character has a +14 ranks in diplomacy but that the figther was a guard in that town before adventuring and everyone knows him.

And man it plays good, you dont need to put the checks like in a linear way. Just do a mini sandbox, like in rise of the runelords when you have to assaults a fortress right?
So see the strenthgs of your party and make viable ways so the party choses how they want to proceed. Sure the wizard can fly to the top of the wall , but let the figther do it so it can use an slot for something that no else can do.

Thats the trick man.

And someone will say "but you had to bend the game so casters doesnt dominate others".No mate, the problem is that you let your players decide when is ok to fight and when is ok to sleep and recover. And the world doesnt work like that.
Sometimes you are ambushed.
Sometimes you are running out of time
Sometimes you are in an old forgotten ruins, maybe the enemies cant see your rope trick, but they can smell that you were there or see your tracks magically disapearing, and there is a nasty surprise waiting for you when you come out.
Sometimes you can use magic: in a court, in a dead magic zone or in a stealthy situation.
Sometimes you are in the middle of a fucking battlefield.

Its not that you have to be tricky, but that is difficult to know what a wizard is capable off until your are experienced, and so when you are a noob dm you are gonna overlook what a world that have grown with magic would be.

>>51592070
>But with the sufficient number of skills checks

If there is one thing a Fighter is good at, it's Skill checks.

Casters are better at all things you mentioned than nonmartials. 3.5 is an inherently broken system and I'm glad it's dying off.

>>51592070
> But with the sufficient number of skills checks, encounters and shit the caster is gonna run out of spells.

The fighter will run out of HP, and if they do continue, he won't have buffs and healing to back him up. And then they will be as useless as the fighter, except they'll still have cantrips and rituals.

The best is to just bring more casters, so you run out of spells later, or you all run out of spells at the same time.

>-Atheltic, strenght checks for figthers

The druid's bear can do it. Hell, likely the melee cleric can do it as well as the fighter, without any buffs.

>-Party face/thiefly things for rogue

The bard can do it, and do it better, and is still a full/ 2/3rds caster depending on edition.

I mean, it's a good idea, but in practice, casters have access to all the mundane tools mundane characters have, and then magic on top of that.

>And someone will say "but you had to bend the game so casters doesnt dominate others".No mate, the problem is that you let your players decide when is ok to fight and when is ok to sleep and recover. And the world doesnt work like that.
>lists examples how to bend the game so casters don't dominate
>they aren't even good examples

>>51592128
Figther have skills in which he is the best..

And you ignored the rest of the post, can you stop shitposting and have a proper discusion?

>>51591922
Druid is literally the only case where the complaint is absolutely valid before level 7-9 ish, and it's mainly because it's a pile of compounded issues (namely being the full caster skill monkey, with as many skill points as a Barb, having an animal companion, having the most powerful summons in the game as a spontaneous casting option, and wildshape, and even without wildshape they're not exactly horrible frontliners)

>>51592180
No, he doesn't. Fighters get dominated by spellcasters when it comes to physical stats, and since the only skills they can bother with are physical and they have shit skill points... That's what happens when you have spells or class features that let you replace your physical stats outright plus a ton of spells that let you boost your skill checks.

>>51592180
The skills in which fighter is the best are also on the class list for Barbarian, Rogue and Ranger, all of which are more solid skill monkeys than a 3e fighter will ever be.

>>51589908
Just like how you can get a 1/1 plan token to pilot a train and now that train can pilot a flagship.

>>51592177

>The fighter will run out of HP, and if they do continue, he won't have buffs and healing to back him up. And then they will be as useless as the fighter, except they'll still have cantrips and rituals.

>The druid's bear can do it. Hell, likely the melee cleric can do it as well as the fighter, without any buffs.

If 5e you need a figther, period.
If 3.5 a figther can mitigate a lot of dmg , by killing enemies. Sure a second battle cleric can sound nice, but if you buff the figther you end with a better warrior, also you are not MAD (that the problem of a battle cleric).

The druid have to polymorph into a bird, polymorph back into a human to tie the rope and then everyone can climb. Cool you wasted one of your resources for a thing that a figther can do without sweating.

>The bard can do it, and do it better, and is still a full/ 2/3rds caster depending on edition
Sure but can he find traps?, that was a bad example obviusly the bard is the party face.

>lists examples how to bend the game so casters don't dominate
>they aren't even good examples.

>Everyting the players cannot control is bending.
>the examples are bad cos i say so.

>>51592208
>>51592215
Read the context thanks.

>>51589017
>>51589829
Not that anon, but you can use the thing called being the god of the setting to make an appropriate disadvantage for it?

Such as not wanting to use the regular oil to oil the parts (I have no idea how Warforged actually work), instead using some more natural alternative that is harder to find.

Suddenly being a vegetarian Warforged not only has a meaning, but also is a real disadvantage.

Fuck people who say that the setting doesn't mention it, rule 0. The GM can enrich their game any way they want.

>>51592370
>also you are not MAD (that the problem of a battle cleric).
Fighter needs STR, DEX, CON, WIS.
Cleric needs... STR, DEX, CON, WIS. CHA is only necessary if you need Turn Undead for cheese reasons. If we get to the point where we're talking Shapechange, or even Polymorph if you grab the Transformation domain, they need far less than the Fighter.

>>51592408
Hell, you can make that PC an exception, made of older materials for example, that needs regular maintenance a normal Warforged wouldn't need.

>>51592449
>If we get to the point where we're talking Shapechange, or even Polymorph if you grab the Transformation domain, they need far less than the Fighter.
Is still better to buff the figther with these spells, and the cleric is still mad. Also you choose god to roleplay not "domains".

>>51591610
^This.

Also, if your group is having balance issues, you guys need to work it out for your group.

If your game is broken, fix it. Don't wait for the people at Wizards of the Paizo to do it! Look for rules in other D20 systems that help you play the game the way you feel is best. Write your own homebrew.

My group only plays 3.5 or Pathfinder with our homebrew rules because they're MORE FUN FOR US.

>>51592520
Sorry i wanted to add that if a second cleric wants to be always polymorphed he is gonna be fucked a lot in the ass. Not sensitive DM is gonna let you turn into a OP dinosaur , unless you have seen some or read about it.
Of course Polymorph is broken by its nature and cant be unbroken.

>>51592520
Shapechange is Personal, and no, it's not particularly better to buff the Fighter with Polymorph over the guy who stands to gain more physical stats out of it on top of having a dozen different ways to hit a fuckload harder than a Fighter.
>Also you choose god to roleplay not "domains".
You know you can gain powers from a concept instead of a god, right?

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>>51584121
Caster supremacy is real in 3E and 5E, not so much in 1E and 2E, and not at all in 4E. Here's my view on it:

1) Magic is an amazing problem-solver outside of combat that supersedes and often invalidates any skills or non-magic options martial characters have. Spells are not unlimited of course but they let casters do amazing, powerful things that leave martial characters in the dust. This makes casters feel far more important outside of battle.

2) Martial characters tend to have better per-round combat effectiveness (weapon attacks > cantrips) but fewer and worse resources to spend (ki / superiority dice < spell slots). Since martial characters recover these resources every 1-2 encounters, and casters recover these resources after an extended rest, martial characters 'pull ahead' of casters in terms of effectiveness if the adventuring day is -very long-. The problems with this are twofold:

2a) Everyone uses hit points as a resource, martial characters doubly so, and eventually the party will run out. Since hit dice (in 5e) and hit points (in 3e) are only regained after one or more long rests, there's a very hard cap on how long the party can keep adventuring before they run dry. Now having a Cleric can certainly help with that... but analysis has shown that healing spells are almost always less effective than just shooting more damage spells at your enemy. Thus a cleric doesn't so much prolong the adventuring day as prolong fights, since they're healing allies instead of killing enemies, and dead enemies don't deal damage so offence is very much the best defence in many situations.

>>51592574
> better to buff the Fighter with Polymorph over the guy who stands to gain more physical stats out of it on top of having a dozen different ways to hit a fuckload harder than a Fighter. Well when you are polymorphed you cant cast spells unless cheesy stuff, And a figther can hit harded cos feats ,soo maybe the polymorphed figther can hit harded than a polymorphed battle cleric.

>You know you can gain powers from a concept instead of a god, right?
And you choose the concept of optimization? Have you really played a cleric like that only to grab that juicy domain.
Listen boy im not triying to say that D&D in general is the perfect game.

Im saying that a lot of caster supremacy problems come from rules bloating, 5 min adventuring and not taking into acount that npcs live in a world with magic.

>>51584121
I won't say yes or no, but in practical usage and lacking theorycrafting omniscience, the majority of people would succeed more at the game with an optimized barbarian than with their flavor of the moment caster love.

>>51592643
>Well when you are polymorphed you cant cast spells
Literally any humanoid and most giant forms.
>And a figther can hit harded cos feats
You mean feats where your returns on damage cap out very early? Charge monkeying or hooding is the only way you're actually going to hit harder and you hit the overkill marker on that build very, very early into it, and polymorphing is not friendly to most other types of combat.

>>51592437
>still dragging out that tired forced meme

It's 2017. Let it go.

>>51588533
The Dragon Icon is just a stand-in for an encounter you fucking autist.

>>51592692
It will end when people stop playing dnd

>>51584234
>It's very much real
fucking retard detected

If you use a third of your known spells specifically for buffing then there's no issue.

>>51584121

"I have living enemies!"

"I cast Sleep."

"Uh. What's the save on that?"

"18."

"...um. Okay."

"So, uh, the rest of you do coup des graces, yeah? Yeah."

And that's every encounter with living enemies if you've got a caster.

>>51592735
In pathfinder sleep only works on up to 4 HD of creatures. Which is a few goblins or one bigger creature.

>>51592735
>they're elves
>they're undead
>show me your character sheet again just to make sure you aren't cheating
>that still leaves a quarter of the group standing

>>51592735
>*rolls a save* Okay so the thing falls asleep.
>>We gether around and simultaneously coup de grace
>It's dead. Make a perception check to see if the thing has any buddies

>>51592642
2b) Casters in 3E gain more spell slots, and more powerful spell slots, as they increase in level. Their at-will attacks via weapon (and cantrip in Pathfinder) are terrible but by the mid-levels (7-13) they have enough slots to easily last them a day's worth of encounters. Even casting a spell every other round should absolutely put them ahead of their martial counterparts in terms of raw damage. In 5E casters gain fewer spell slots, and their spells do not automatically scale as they hit higher levels, but unfortunately their cantrips are both infinite AND scale quite well with level. What they lost in pure burst potential was regained in DPS when not casting.

3) Casters get access to a lot of "I Win" buttons in 3E, and to a lesser extent in 5E. Many spells can decide an entire encounter, whether it be a Fireball roasting all the 'mooks' the GM throws at you or a Baleful Polymorph turning the T-Rex into a hamster. Many spells can instantly kill or incapacitate an enemy once you hit the mid-levels, and they only get stronger from there. Dominating a monster or summoning one to fight for you can all but replace a martial character in the party, at least for that one encounter. Such summons or turn-coats are even better than allies since you don't have to worry about healing the damage they suffer, since they rarely stick around after the battle is done. Martials in comparison almost never get problem-solving tools of this magnitude, and when they do it's usually a lacklustre version of something a caster was able to do five levels ago.

There's certainly more to the issue but I think these three points are key:
>Spells overshadow skills as problem-solving tools out of combat
>Martial characters excel during long adventuring days but those rarely happen
>Higher-level casters get access to too many "I Win" buttons

>>51592691
You cant giant.
Humanoid are not the best for physical stats unless you cheese outsider forms. Or look into the varius monsters manuals.

Im not saying that D&D isnt bloated, using bloated things to prove caster supremacy is proving my point.

I said that the problem of caster supremacy comes from 5 min adventures, bloated rules and not knowing that npc have grown in a world with magic.

>>51592642
>is real in 5e
Confirmed for not having played.

>>51592873
>You cant giant.
>The new form may be of the same type as the subject or any of the following types: aberration, animal, dragon, fey, ***giant***...
Come on dude, at least know the rules.

>>51592873
Yeah, but you're acaster so you're going to be casting spells some turns instead of attacking. Use the buff on the class that isn't going to waste turns not attacking (The Fighter).

>>51592766

4 HD is a LOT at low levels, buddy. How many encounters are you actually having with more than five or six HD at level 1 or 2? Also, uh

>they're undead
>And that's every encounter with living enemies if you've got a caster.

Not sure what you're trying to say, buddy.

>>51592810

Why would you simultaneously coup de grace? It's a single fort save with a ridiculously high DC that low level NPCs are almost certainly not going to pass.

>>51592977
>low level
Do you never get past level 3 in your games?

>>51592977
Because we are cautious. They might get lucky but most never pass 2 in a row!

>>51592875
>he thinks that casters are not at the bell end of the power curve
Anon, just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it isn't there.
Wizards still have a number of the classic Save or Suck spells to them, which still do what they did in 3e when they were truly a problem.
The problem isn't as outsized as it was, but not gone.

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Stupid solution that probably wont work.
Play FF1 style.

All spells known/per day are removed from all classes, including not!magic spells. Potions are for heals/cures only. Scrolls and other single use spells don't exist. Use magic device is only available to casters. Wands, Rods, ect. are the only way to cast magic. Item creation feats are gone.

Pay your way to arcane power.

>>51592994

Yeah, and after level 3 or 4, Sleep stops being the murderhouse that it is at low levels and other things take over. The list of things this could be is obscenely huge, so I'm not gonna even try to be exhaustive, but

>Summoning
>Just
>All summoning, all of it
>Blindness
>Oh, you've started using undead because sleep? Sweet, my ability to control undead just went online!
>Anything that causes Sickened

Just... the list goes on.

Why does all this make it sound like casters and martials hate each other?

>>51593009
>he thinks white board charop from boards that use the most autismal versions of english possible remotely represents actual play

>>51592875
It's not as pronounced as it was in 3E but it's still present. I've played in 5E games, I have friends who played and ran 5E games, and every one of them has commented on its presence at least once. In one game the GM enforced an All Casters or No Casters rule because of the power level disparity. In another the GM had to hand out unique magic items to the martial characters and give them additional ASIs just to stop them from completely falling behind.

At high levels 5E is totally broken. The Foresight spell alone is worth somewhere around 7-9 ASIs all by itself.

The game itself remarks on how magic is -necessary- for adventuring parties, and how any group without casters is pretty much doomed from the start. It doesn't do the reverse and discuss how martial characters are incredibly important, and that's because they're not important at all. When your game openly admits that casters are the difference between success and failure you cannot deny that caster supremacy exists.

>>51593233
Casters don't really mind the martial's existence since they're incidental to the game's narrative anyways.

Martials hate casters because they are eternally BTFO but they also look down on player options that would actually benefit them by giving them more options.

Really, martialfags are their own worst enemy when it comes to this crap.

>>51593233
It's not that they hate each other, it's that caster supremacy makes the martials look weak and unnecessary, or at the very least suboptimal. In 3E a 5th or 6th level caster can start summoning monsters that perform as good or better than the martial characters, or he can shapeshift or buff himself into something that performs better, or he can throw out a spell that does more damage in one turn than the martial character will dish out for the rest of the fight. In 5E they can't do this as often or reliably but in return casters deal so much more damage per round that it takes martial characters about a dozen turns to catch up to, say, one reasonably well-aimed Fireball.

In comic book terms, Martial characters are Moon Knight and casters are Batman. They're both night-time vigilantes with peak human physical abilities and cool outfits, only Batman is also an amazing detective with a trillion dollars and a near endless stream of gadgets. They're both on the same side but one clearly has more resources, connections, and -options- than the other. Moon Knight can only solve problems with good-old sleuthing and being, y'know, insane. Batman has the Bat-Computer and access to pretty much every piece of recorded human knowledge, not to mention all the hacking and surveillance tapping. When Moon Knight gets backed into a corner he gets captured and beat up. When Batman gets cornered he escapes or, y'know, the Justice League shows up.

>>51593272
You're dead wrong. Preferring to play casters or martial characters is like preferring to eat cake or pie. Imagine if a restaurant desert menu was divided between cake and pie, they both cost the same, but the cake is huge and delicious while the pie is stale and you get a tiny portion. Arguing that I should just order the cake is missing the fact that their pie is shit, and that I'm justified in complaining how it's shit. Telling me to go elsewhere for food doesn't make that pie any less shit. My preference for pie isn't the problem, their shitty pie is the problem. A good restaurant would have both good cake AND good pie. If they can't make good pie, take it off the menu (i.e. just make it a game about spellcaster, like Mage: the Awakening).

>>51584121
In 3.5 and co yes.

Because it is a murder centric game and casters are best at murder and best at helping you murder and also best at things out of combat.

Eh. Tier 2 casters like sorcerers are fine because they're a level behind when it comes to spell slot levels and have a very limited casting selection.

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>>51593494
>Food analogies

>>51592730
Why when you can use that same third for ending encounters before they even begin?

>>51593494
The issue here is less the pastries and more the people who eat them.

Casters are the guys who have enough money to afford anything in the shoppe while also having enough knowledge of cooking to bake their own cakes if need be.

Martials are the guys who can only afford one type of pastry in the shoppe and lack the proficiency to use anything that isn't a ready-bake recipe, so they get butthurt when you reference anything that isn't within their pay grade.

Of course, they could always afford more pastries if they decided to get off their ass and get a job, but fuck it, it's easier just to complain about how the rich people keep them from earning more pastries rather than earn more money for a living.

>>51593874

2/10, apply yourself.

>>51593693
Because fighting is fun and avoiding a fight is not fun.

>>51593924
But if I'm buffing, then I am not fighting and that is not fun.

>>51593961
If you're buffing the fighter for one round he is having fun and you can use the next four or five rounds of combat to do damage.

>>51594000
Why is it my job to make sure somebody else has fun? Isn't that the GM's responsibility?

>>51594023
Isn't it your responsibility to help your party members? The GM can't do everything by himself, you need to meet him halfway and do a token effort. Besides, what's more effective? An enlarged hasted bull's strength flying raging barbarian or two fireball spells.

>>51593910
It's a pretty apt description once you consider how Tomb of Battle/Path of War exists yet martialfags shit on them for "making them into anime" and shit like that.

In truth, martials are the niggers of D&D classes, they associate being useful with being a mage and being mundane with being a martial, yet they always complain about never getting to do anything besides direct damage to a single target.

>>51584121
What a fighter can do at high level: Hit things real good and eat damage pretty well

What a wizard can do at high level: Create a personal demiplanar fortress to hide in and summon a swarm of angels to kill all of his enemies while he wishes for the best sandwich ever created and rolls around on his manticore-skin rug.

>>51594136
>Isn't it your responsibility to help your party members?
No, everyone should be capable of pulling their own weight without the aid of other party members. If I have to waste my turn making your stupid ass useful then it raises the question "why did you choose a worthless class in the first place?"

It's 2017, these aren't recent issues, they've been a known issue with the system for over a decade now. It's your own fault if you end up playing a worthless martial at this point.

>>51593603
>Not refuting my argument

>>51593874
I don't think that's a fair analogy, sir. Preference does not equal proficiency. If I want to play a cool sword-fighter I shouldn't be forced to play second fiddle to the guy who chose to be a cool spell-slinger. The whole point of levels and adventurer classes is to set up a metric where you can pick a cool theme or role and be roughly equal with other players, even if they chose different classes and roles. If, for example, a level 5 Wizard is as useful as a level 9 Barbarian, then you need to either rebalance those classes or change the XP progression so that Barbarians level up faster.

The rules for character creation and classes are there to facilitate making the character you envision, within the boundaries of the game's setting and your starting power level of course. If the book's giving you character creation options those options should be fair and viable. If I want to play a barbarian, the response from rules-proficient players should not be "Nah, barbarians suck, just play a wizard instead. Oh, you still want to? Well it's your funeral kiddo, enjoy being terrible for the rest of the campaign while us casters solve everything." If that's the case then your game is badly designed.

>>51594136
>Besides, what's more effective? An enlarged hasted bull's strength flying raging barbarian or two fireball spells.
Not him, but sometimes it's the fireball spells. In the martial vs. caster debate, I'd say that the very fact that a caster can choose between fireball and buff spells is a huge boon for them. Personally I like the Bo9S / PoW approach where a martial character can grant temporary hit points with a rallying cry, cleave into a group of enemies like an area of effect spell, or enter battle stances that give buffs just like spells. Everyone should have a variety of tactical options, not just casters.

>>51594136
I am helping. The sooner an encounter ends, the less likely it will be that someone dies or we waste resources. Both of which are super unfun.

>>51594219
>If that's the case then your game is badly designed.
It's been shitty for almost a decade at this point yet morons still have arguments for why martials should be useful within a system that heavily favors martials. Even the best Martial class in the game is only T3 and nothing you say or do is going to change that.

If you want a D&D styled game where martials are useful, you can play literally any other edition of D&D and still reliably pull your own weight even if there are full casters in the party. If you're still playing 3.PF as a person who only plays martials and you complain about being useless then you've got nobody to blame but yourself.

Sorry

If you play 3

>>51594147
>martialfags shit on them
Anon, casterfags and bad DMs shit on them.
Actual martial class players love them because they allow you to do shit the game normally would never allow you to without crippling you as a warrior, it's why shit like Duelist never worked.

>>51594136
Think of it like this.

You have four dudes who are tasked to hiking up a mountain trail to complete an objective.

One dude can lift over 450 lb, is well versed in wilderness survival, knows first-aid, can run 40 meters in 4.4 seconds, and is an experienced hunter.

The rest of the group are weaklings who can only lift 100 lb, only have knowledge based on episodes of "Man vs. Wild" and only brought candy and snack foods for the trip.

Now, the one dude could carry his worthless teammates up the trail (both figuratively and literally) but wouldn't it make more sense to assemble a team of dudes who can also lift heavy shit, survive in the wilderness, runs fast, and knows how to hunt?

>>51594345
>Anon, casterfags and bad DMs shit on them.
Why would casterfags give a fuck? At least now they can do their jobs without getting bitched at for winning.

And the bad DMs that you're referring to are usually the type of martialfags who think that anything that isn't okay damage every turn is broken ass shit while not taking into account just how vast the wizard's abilities are in comparison.

>>51592735
The plural is coups de grace.

>>51594415
>Why would casterfags give a fuck?
Many of the ones I've played with liked being able to, when they wanted to, end encounters via direct means, or were jealous of the other abilities maneuvers/class abilities would grant, especially shit like temp hp or minor buffs.
> bad DMs that you're referring to are usually the type of martialfags
I guess most DMs are martialfags then, because that is the vast majority of DMs out there.
>>51594307
Not everyone has researched the ins and outs of the game anon. That is where the real issue lay, for people who actually want to play the game, rather than people who theorycraft online, and that mindset colours alot of the view of yourself and others.
I remember some times I would go on the different rpg generals on this board asking for relatively simple advice as a GM and a player, and would get either nothing at all, or the most banal responses imaginable (don't homebrew, just use an existing creature! your idea is terrible! why?! because I said due to some inscrutable mores I won't name!)

>>51594560
>That is where the real issue lay, for people who actually want to play the game,

I actually wanted to play a game.

I wanted to be a badass fencer dude, then the druids wolf attacked, tripped and damage more than I did. A fucking class feature out useful'd me!

Fuck you with your pretentious "well, not EVERYONE is an autistic gamebreaking shit like you!" narrative. 3.x is so fucking broken you can accidentally break it, and you have to be absolutely retarded or willfully ignorant to not notice it.

>>51594560
>caster ending encounters via direct means
>jealous of someone granting temp hp or minor buffs
>vast majority of DMs
Ah, you're playing with shitters, I gotcha senpai. To be serious though, they really are fucking terrible, a full caster has the means to grant temp hp and minor buffs as well so they honestly have no excuse for being salty.
>Not everyone has researched the ins and outs of the game anon. That is where the real issue lay, for people who actually want to play the game, rather than people who theorycraft online, and that mindset colours alot of the view of yourself and others.
Why would you play a game if you didn't know all the rules? Keep in mind, 3.PF being overly complicated is also a known flaw in the system as well so you can just as easily just stop playing 3.PF and start playing another game.

>>51594710
>Fuck you with your pretentious "well, not EVERYONE is an autistic gamebreaking shit like you!" narrative. 3.x is so fucking broken you can accidentally break it, and you have to be absolutely retarded or willfully ignorant to not notice it.
Anon, you managed to entirely misinterpret my post, and it's a little sad.
What I'm saying is that the people most likely to run afoul of 3.PF's problems are not people that have been researching the game for years, but new players who make something they thing is cool, only to find out it's shit in actual use.
I was refuting the line
>It's been shitty for almost a decade at this point yet morons still have arguments for why martials should be useful within a system
because no, not everyone has been watching the system since it first came out and already knows it's pitfalls.
You are trying too hard to find something to be mad about, mang.
>>51594738
>Why would you play a game if you didn't know all the rules?
Because there is a difference between knowing the rules of the game, and having system mastery. You generally don't need system mastery to play most games or risk complete failure.

>>51594884
>Because there is a difference between knowing the rules of the game, and having system mastery. You generally don't need system mastery to play most games or risk complete failure.
That's because most games don't require you to know every single rule by heart just to build a generic wizard or a martial who doesn't get replaced by a summoned monster by 5th level.

Even still, we live in an era where you can access character guides and primers so you really have no excuse in not knowing all the rules at this point.

>>51594953
Except someone who doesn't think they need to turn to the internet in order to make a character that doesn't fail at their purpose.
Like almost any other game you can name offhand.
I don't need to look shit up for WoD, or 40k rpgs, or SR, or Basic/2e/4e D&D.

>>51595039
So why aren't you playing those systems rather than a busted piece of shit that is infamous for requiring years of system mastery?

Going into 3.PF and bitching about system mastery is like going to a pool and complaining that you got your feet wet.

>>51595089
Jokes on you FUCKER, I am playing those games!
What I don't need to do is make threads about how shit a certain game is, I can just go play other, better ones because I have a irl group that is full of great players.
I'm just relaying my own experiences with 3.PF. I was that guy who jumped into a game without running to the internet first, because why do you need to look shit up online, I mean, the book is right in front of you, right?

>>51595238
>I was that guy who jumped into a game without running to the internet first, because why do you need to look shit up online, I mean, the book is right in front of you, right?
Because unless you're playing a full caster, building a martial that can pull his own weight is something that you just cannot do in core.

Of course, my group doesn't play 3.PF either, I just can't stand people who try to make 3.PF's issues seem like less of an issue than they actually are when everyone who has been playing it has already come out and said "yeah, it's broken, but we enjoy it anyways."

I don't care if you play shitty games, just acknowledge that they're shitty first.

>>51595302
>I don't care if you play shitty games, just acknowledge that they're shitty first.
Anon, how is someone who has never seen the game or played it supposed to know they need to follow a bunch of guides online in order to not make a shitty character?
My point is that the people most hurt by 3.PF's paradigm are new players.

>>51595376
>Anon, how is someone who has never seen the game or played it supposed to know they need to follow a bunch of guides online in order to not make a shitty character?
They won't, until the resident mage outshines the resident fighter and the martialfag either stops playing out of frustration, the DM creates house rules that will most likely make shit worse, or he goes online and sees just how much character options are available.

When I first started playing, I had a good DM who knew how to balance around a mixed party. Then every DM that followed slowly opened my eyes to the horrible truth of 3.PF's shittiness until nowadays I can name most of the core spells that make encounters into a joke yet I can't remember the last time I've genuinely enjoyed a D&D campaign.

If you're running for a party of newbies and you never take the game past level 5, then it's not really an issue but it certainly is only a matter of time before someone goes down the rabbit hole.

>>51595478
I went down that rabbit hole immediately, with a dex fighter/cleric multiclass.
Yes, it was as shit as it sounds.
The good part of it is that it taught me as a GM to be more proactive in what my players were trying to achieve.

>>51586618
In every group I've been in, it's been that or a ten minute one as the standard.

>>51595609
shame. theres nothing quite like carefully safeguarding your resources, being pushed to the brink of exhaustion, winning against all possible odds and surviving by the skin of your teeth to really make a good session.

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>>51591610
Solving the issue of D&D's broken magic system is simple. Go back to the root.

Vancian casters can't into armour. Never. They must prepare their spells, and they need to have one or more material components, most of them rare, difficult to found, or costly. No metamagic ever. If anything touch them while they cast, the spell goes boom at their face.

New spells should be difficult to find, and call on contracts with dangerous powers. Melee classes should be able to simply shrug them off with a willpower expenditure and a good roll, baring that they are sufficiently levelled.

Bump slightly higher the power of a magician to compensate, though not too much.

And you have your good old Sword & Sorcery magician. Useful, but not overly so.