There's been a lot of shitposting about caster supremacy

>>54372408
You can't. Not really anyway. 3.pf casters go far beyond Greek gods with their skills. A martial matching a Greek Demigod still wouldn't be up to snuff.

You have to tone down or limit casters in some way. Then you can focus on giving martials some more tome of battle style options that are more tactical and fantastic.

Just look at tier 3 for an idea.

>>54372408
It's a problem that's already been solved, at least partially. Look at Tome of Battle.

>inb4 anime

Ability to disrupt casting.

The problem with casting is that there's no way to interrupt it so a wizard can constantly spam out spells with no risk.

>>54372454
Even ToB martials are tier 3 at best.

>>54372503
I think that's what he meant by partially. To avoid any complaints of anime, ypu can also get similar results with a gestalt of every mundane core class, but even that still only gets you to tier 3.

>>54372408
>What sort of abilities would you give martials
Well-

>in 3.X/PF
Lost cause

>>54372408

Mostly they need a way to reliably access abilities that have a very high degree of working, but one that cannot be spammed.

>>54372408
>What sort of abilities would you give martials in 3.X/PF to balance them to casters?
This is the wrong way to go about it, and ultimately the biggest problem with 3.X, even moreso than caster supremacy.

DnD 3.x Core is not balanced. To fix this, they tried to add supplement after supplement, giving abilities all around in order to try to elevate weaker classes to be on par with the stronger classes.

But the more you add in, the more complexity and overhead the system has, and the more the GM has to keep track of in order to craft effective encounters, let alone a coherent world. If you want to balance martials and casters, you should start with core, and take away stuff (spells, most simply), instead of adding more and more stuff. Simpler is generally better than more complicated.

>a level 9 spell takes 9 years to learn and so on.

>>54372503
there are a lot of casters at tier 3 too

if you allow ToB and ban tier 1/2 you get a kind of janky balance.

>>54372666
Woah, calm down there, Satan.

>>54372747
>casterfag gets worried.

Sweet, now I know what to implement the next time I have to run 3.PF

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>>54372408
I'd play Mythras instead. Classic Fantasy Supplement if I'm going for a Heroic Fantasy setting similar to anything in Pathfinder. Martials have a strong presence in the game from the start, with various maneuvers and attacks being open to all characters from the start as various combat actions.

Of course, transferring this to Pathfinder would take quite some work. You'd have to consider something like ToB maneuvers as combat actions available to everyone, and it really doesn't translate well to a system that lacks locational damage, though I believe there are options in Mythras that doesn't standard hit points.

Still, that would probably only bump some martials up to tier 4.

>>54372789
>party casters lock themselves in a tower, self-lich, tell the martials they're welcome to roll up Fighter IV and Rogue Rogueson to continue the campaign in a few decades

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Break the idea that non-casters HAVE to obey the laws of physics that wizards get to spit on by stretching the limit of what is possible. Give them abilities at mid-high levels that would only be possible for someone with their talents, strength, mind, and skill at arms could pull off.

>A rogue with 13 ranks in Stealth tip-toeing around guards by staying out of their line of sight, even though there's no cover.

>Barbarians should be able to slam their hammer down and trip anyone within 10 or 15 feet with the shock wave.

>A charging cavalier with a magic lance should be able to charge through the castle gate like a wrecking ball.

>Cunning duelist is surrounded by guards and manages to not only dodge their blows, but drive their halberds into each other.

>Fighter with a whole toolkit of weapons shoots a vrock from the sky with his longbow, leaps at the cyclops to bash it to the ground with their flail, then running a spear through the cyclops's eye all in the same round.

>Paladin smiting evil with a holy blade that swings at every demon around them simultaneously.

>Monk meditating to travel to another world by attuning his ki to that world's essence (monks especially should be able to do a lot of quasi-magic stuff with ki)

>>54372446
go to the point of greek gods then

have an epic level martial be literally able to hold the planet together. have a mundane tinker guy (i don't play 3.X or PF) be able to construct a giant robot able to defend an entire continent, have an epic rogue be able to literally steal the entire concept of progress

>>54373156
this

there's this really, dare I say, toxic concept that not paying attention to what our reality's laws of physics are like means that magic is involved in some way

just let a barbarian crack open a mountain with his axe. he's not magic, he's just much more pissed than the mountain is

>>54373156
So Exalted.

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>>54373217
Exactly, its not (necessarily) magic, its mythic.

>>54373269
Yeah, basically. I much prefer buffing the fighter instead of nerfing the wizard (unless you want to play a low-magic game, of course).

>>54372454
The real issue with ToB is that while it provides in-combat parity it utterly drops the ball out of combat.
The T3 caster can still shit on the T3 martial outside combat, because magic is utility is non-combat power.

I'm working on a homebrew plugin that should help with this, but it'll be months before its postready.

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>>54372408
Just move on and play Mutants and Masterminds or even the dozens of other better options ya dummy.

>>54372408
fuck dipshit fighters

everyone of you

HURR I SWANG SWURD AT U LUL

fucking grow up

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>>54373349

This is my favorite game. thank you for mentioning it.

>>54372408
You don't because balancing around classes with the power to break the game 500 different ways is an extremely shitty idea.

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>>54373388

>>54373375
>Implying it's just fighters
>Implying half-casters, barbs and rogues don't also need some serious balancing up to be on par with the /tg/ theorycraft gods
>Implying mages shouldn't be forced to be specialists and discount all but one or two schools
>Implying casting times shouldn't be longer
>Implying ivory tower design OR ivory tower play is in any way fun

Congratulations, wank-anon, I guess you "won" D&D, I hope you have fun by yourself.

>>54372408
>mythic strength feat
>when subjected to an imposed effect from a spell or ability of any kind*, a character with this feat can attack the concept of that effect, counting the effect as having health equal to twenty times its spell level, or twenty times the level or CR of the ability/spell's user, whichever is higher, and an AC of 0. When the effect is "killed", it no longer applies.
>There is no concievable force in the universe which can prevent a character with this feat from attacking the effect limiting them. They can even attack whilst unconscious, paralysed, or otherwise inhibited
>Characters that are subjected to the same spell or ability again after having "killed" the effect are not in any way affected by it until they complete a long rest.
>*this ability only applies to spells or abilities found on a monster or character's profile. It does not work on death or damage of any kind.

My DM did something like this. It was a laugh.

>>54373375
fuck dipshit casters

everyone of you

HURR I SWANG WAND AT U LUL

fucking grow up

>>54373497
WOW good one

you really got me!

>>54373450
Mages with access to everything like that shouldn't exist. They should be broken down into sub-classes like Dread Necro and Warmage to actually attempt to balance the spell schools against each other and give them actual structure.

>>54372408
They could start by having a Magic Resistance that actually works for shit.
None of that "it gets easier for high-level wizards to bypass" bullshit, bring back percentage based Magic Resistance.

>>54373597
The real issue isn't "mages with access to everything", it's how a wizzy can go from 1 to 16 without touching conjuration or transmutation (admittedly he's a 'tard if he does so, but for sake of argument) then upon reaching 17 just grab Gate and Shapechange with no fanfare.
The ability to grab spells willy nilly with no sense of progression is the issue. Well, that and godawful balancing.

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>>54373597

Gradual specialization. Level 1 and 2 spells no worries. Level 3, choose a school of magic. Cant learn lvl 3 spells of that school. Level 4, 1 fewer, so by lvl 9 spells you only have 1 school to choose from. Assuming there are 8.

>>54372446
>tome of battle
>>54372454
>Tome of Battle.
source?

>>54373770
Badly said but I hope it makes sense.

the problem is that wizards are fundamentally deities and swordsmen are just mortals.

a wizard fundamentally alters reality and a barbarian, no matter how skilled doesn't.

so just change that. granted you might as well just discard the system because it's a lot of work.

>>54373770
And then you have Conjuration and Transmutation specialists fucking the game in the ass just like they used to while Evokers and Enchanters cry themselves to sleep

>>54373156
>Break the idea that non-casters HAVE to obey the laws of physics
Not playing an anime character, fuck off

>>54372408
Dunno, I play Anima, I don't have these problems

>>54373450
>>Implying mages shouldn't be forced to be specialists and discount all but one or two schools
WINNER
I
N
N
E
R

>>54373850
Let's fix conjuration then.

>>54373450
>>Implying mages shouldn't be forced to be specialists and discount all but one or two schools
What do you mean by specialist?
Because I played a focused specialist (all schools banned but 3) and was even more broken, I basically had 3 extra spells of my fav school (conjuration) per day per level (3 of level 1, 3 of level 2, and so on) plus class features like Int+3 teleports as immediate action per day, +2 Str+2 Con to all summons and double their time, etc. Add feats like cloudy conjuration and I was breaking the game at 4th level with only 15 on Int.

hk

h

>>54373970
That's not going to make Evokers and Enchanters not suck. Warmage is T4 despite getting all the blasting spells you could ever want and having their whole spell list castable spontaneously.

>>54373894
Then play a Greek character you pleb.

>>54373978
>>54373978
Obviously a without the boons of a focused specialist, you dense turdburglar.

>>54374009
I do, I'm Achilles.

Rolled 6 (1d100)

jhkh

>>54374023
>Forced to be a specialist! but not a specialist, you mong
Be more specific next time

>>54373970
>>54373978
>>54374003
This. It's not the Wizard itself that is broken, it's its spells that are broken.
Some of them are completely fucking useless and others are jus a "I WIN" button.

>>54374044
I thought it was pretty obvious that he meant "limited to one school".
Not that that'd *fix* anything, mind, like people here are pointing out, some schools are shite on a stick and some just roflstomp challenges.

>>54374044
Nigger we obviously mean that the lore behind being a wizard should change, and magic should be structured in a way that wizards don't have access to all schools or to all spells like the other anon said where he can ignore all conjuration spells up to level 17 and then pick the highest one with no repercussion to skipping literally the entire school.

The castercuck should be resigned along with his spells.

>>54373156

This is how you fix it. You make everyone else just as insanely powerful.

>>54374098
t. Wizard Player

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>>54373156
So, what if you tie your left arm to the arrow you are shooting? poorfag's fast travel method?

>>54374075
At which point you're better off banning Wizard and making Dread Necro/Beguiler/Warmage-esque subclasses complete with class features to represent every spell school that isn't already covered. Even then, you've got shit like Diviners and Abjurers that are extremely difficult to make useful in the heat of combat.

>>54373349
got a link to the pdf senpai?

>>54373166
My point is morr that casters go past that.

Say you make a high level Fighter into Ares. He can singlehandedly win any fight. He can win any war with just a few men under his command. He can convince people to fight him with a short speech. He's skilled with every weapon, combat manuever, and feat of Athleticism.

And even with all that he's still probably not as strong as a 3.5 Wizard.

>>54374239
http://www.d20herosrd.com/

I think in the MnM topic that's up also has a link to the pdfs but here is the SRD with all the base rules and other stuff.

>>54374141
Yes, that's exactly what is being suggested.

>>54374293
Not him but I got the 3 edition and character sheet. What other pdfs am I missing? Modules, guides, I don't know you tell me.

>>54374315
It's not, though, there's a world of difference between locking Wizards to a single spell school and making up new classes for them.

>>54372408

Very easily done. Add in a mechanic called Spell Sundering.

Have it work like this: as a standard action, you can make an attack with your weapon to disrupt the delicate energy flow of an ongoing spell. The requirements are thus:

You can only sunder spells that have a spell level equal to half your BAB or lower. So only full BAB classes are going to be sundering the highest level spells, and wizards (as if they could hold a weapon) wont be spell sundering shit.

You can only sunder a spell that you can attack into the area of effect of. So if a wizard lays down an aoe, being in that area lets you sunder the spell. But if a wizard directly casts a spell on a person (yourself included) or himself, you have to be within striking distance of that person. This makes position matter.

The AC of the spell is equal to 10 + half the caster level, and the health of the spell is the casting modifier of the caster + the spells level. If your damage rolled exceeds this threshold, the spell ends immediately. Damage against a spell evaporates at the end of your turn, its an all or nothing attempt.

And then introduce a feat that lets you prepare an action that allows you to attempt to sunder a spell as it is being cast at a -2 penalty, again having to meet the same level and range requirements.

This gives martial characters a way to interrupt casters in much the same way that casters have a boatload of ways to screw over martials. Indeed, against a Fighter that is intent on locking you down your best bet is to avoid casting spells at them until you have taken out their friends first. Sticking near the fighter so he can break you out of enemy spells is a valid defensive tactic, and against a group of martials a lot of save or die effects lose their teeth unless you can get all of them locked down fast. If martials get into melee with you, they can just attack your buffs and contingencies directly, stripping you of your preparations.

>>54374646
Doesn't do shit.

>>54372408
4e character sheets.

>>54372408
I wouldn't change anything.

Martial/Caster disparity is a myth spread by white box , forum posters who don't bother playing real games, fail to realise D&D is a co-op game and happen to ignore all the mechanics that make casters difficult to play.

>>54374724
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shapechange.htm

>>54374689

Why not? I can dedicate one guy to undoing everything your wizard does the turn after he does it. Most 'save or die' effects are not literally death, they just take people out of the fight so you can effortlessly mop them up. With one feat I can even NOPE your Baleful Polymorph out of the air before it hits me.

It punishes area effects even worse, and it lets you strip the buffs of of wizards that they are using to augment their spellcasting It doesn't invalidate every spell, but it reshuffles the value of every spell in the game because now the wizards best bet for winning the fight might actually be going the damage route, because save or dies can't be trusted to stick.

>>54374646
>spend your whole round to undo one action from one enemy
>or ready an action, therefore giving up your entire round, to counter a single enemy action IF it's aimed at you
>in a game where combat is usually over in 2 rounds
I thought we already established that in combat healing is shit for these exact reasons.

>>54374741

>Spell you can only cast at level 17
>Can only cast it once per day at that level
>Costs 1500 a pop
>Well built fighter at that level is more powerful than whatever the druid turns into
>I.E perfectly fine and balanced

>>54374865
This is also the reason grappling is shit on top of that, so I really don't know why you thought this was a good idea.

>>54374867
One out of four right. Nice job making it obvious you don't know what you're talking about.

>>54374887
Grappling is retarded because it's game-breakingly good if and only if you have monster-only abilities (or polymorph, thanks mister wizzy).

>>54373156
That's pretty much nailing the biggest issue with martials
A mighty barbarian should easily be able to kick a knight down along with his horse and wrestle a giant, a monk should be capable bullshiting through everything jackie chan and punching through walls, a fighter is a goddamn battle expert, he should be more than capable of moving and multiple attacking. In fact, every martial should be capable of multiple attacks and movement in the same round, especially the monk, who is supposed to be a acrobatic battle sage

While we're on the topic of balance changes, what kind of effect does Spheres Of Power have on the power of casters in PF?

>>54374724
>tfw at 12th level I can be 12 headed cryohydra which has CR 13, which means is equal to a group of four 13th level chars

Yeah, druids balanced

>>54374070
It'd be a nice equivalence, like making the wizard take a feat to learn from another school, just like the martial has to burn a feat to not get slapped by the wizard if he wants to do some shit like tackle the wizard

>>54375341
Raw umph is mostly unchanged, but they're forced to specialize if they want that umph to keep scaling to the really fancy stuff.
It's not quite the silver bullet PF needed, but it's quite close. I doubt we'll ever see better.

>>54372408

If you want to talk about caster supremacy, you need to pin down the exact problem that makes martials so second-rate first.

The main problem with full casters is twofold.
Firstly, they have options (i.e. spells) that non-casters simply cannot counter or deal with. You can be as strong as you like, as sneaky as you like or as tough as you like, it does not protect you from an enemy caster turning you into a duck (baleful polymorph), mind controlling you (dominate person, geas), or simply taking all those advantages away from you by taking you down a few levels (enervation)
Secondly, non-casters don't bring a lot to the table that casters cannot do by themselves with their spells. Sure, the fighter and barbarian are pretty tough and good at combat, keeping the men with pointy metal things away from the casters, but casters can make melee fighters by themselves. The druid is the obvious example here, but wizards and sorceres can always spend a few slots on summon monster or planar ally and throw some meatshields into the fray. As for rogues, what point is there to being good at sneaking if the caster can just make himself invisible, teleport where he wants to go and use illusions to distract trublesome guards- while still able to do all the other stuff here.

The counterpoint to all of this is that casters use a finite resource to cast spells (spell slots, and sometimes material components), while martials can do their thing all day long. And that is true in concept, but in practice the resources are not that limited, and especially at higher levels (where the spells themselves get REALLY broken) casters have enough slots to cast all day every day, especially when you get to feats like versatile spellcaster. Also, people will mention by now that casters only have access to so many spells, but for everyone but the sorcerer (and the favourite soul), and very specialised casters (warmages, beguilers), that is simply not true.

>>54375309
>medium BaB and on top of that -2 due FoB
>shit AC
>battle sage
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Monk sucks at battle

>>54375394
You could do that at level 8 if you had a Bead of Karma.

>>54375467
>versatile spellcaster
I prefer the reverse, don't remember the name, in which you could spend 1 spell slot and get 2 of lower level.

>>54375478
Yeah, and even at 12th level that's absurd, imagine at 8th.

>>54375475
Hence 'supposed to be'

Limit arcane casters to a few basic spells and ONE school. No generalist period

Apply domain tags to all cleric/druid spells. Clerics and Druids can only cast spells with their domain tag.

This still won't fix the problem but it will cramp down on casters being OP, which is a start

>>54375475
That's the very point
The monk archetype is along the lines of a mystic weaboo warrior, just like if you merged jackie chan and the monkey king into a single character.
And then we have dnd monks to resemble that

>>54375592
Not really, you'll just see more transmuter gods and conjurer gods.
Or shadow evocation/conjuration illusionist gods. Those are fun to play too.

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Using magic drains their physical vitality, and diving into the realm of magic separates them from the physical realm.

Mages don't see the world around them the same way we do, so have difficulty doing even simple things like finding their way in a crowd. They can't do much in the real world, they're the equivalent of a really really old person.

Meanwhile, a normal person who doesn't get involved with magic is perfectly capable of normal things. So the mages rely on normal people do to stuff like guide them and be the talkers and all those sorts of things.

>>54374852
>I can dedicate one guy to undoing everything your wizard does the turn after he does it.
>after he does it
There's your problem. Can't sunder a spell if you're unable to attack. Even if you could, you'd have to go immediately after the Wizard to make him not win that trade because otherwise someone else is also getting nailed by spells.

>>54372408
Allow more feats of strength. That's all you need. Just rolls to do insane shit.

That and equal power levels between stats. Apparently a dragon with 32 strength is stronger than a barbarian with 32 strength.

>>54375467

So basically, if you want to "fix" casters, you need to either give the martial classes ways to deal with their bullshit, make spells in general less potent (especially on higher levels), give martials things to do that the casters can't (or take options away from the casters so that martials have a chance to shine) or limit the caster's resources further, by limiting how many spells they can cast per day.

The last option just by itself would make playing a caster really boring, and giving martials ways to deal with a wide variety of spells would be impractical. Just being able to stop spells from being cast does not do much against ambushes from invisable wizards, for instance. Limiting what casters can do, or giving the martials something unique that can not be replicated by spells is a cool idea, but putting it in practice is going to be hard. Overall, the best idea is probably going to revolve around reworking the spell themselves, and seriously toning a few of them down. Doing this would also mean that limiting a caster's options of spells known would actually mean something, as you can no longer break the system with one or two spells alone.

We ban Tier1, 5, 6 classes. Our group found that Tier 2-3 is the sweet spot.

>>54372408
Spells are
>expensive as shit in components
>might not work as intended
>are disrupted if an opponent so much as breaths on you
>harmful, aging the caster and decreasing his CON

>all these faggots saying that giving martials superpowers is REEEE ANIME

Sir Kay, Arthur's brother is attributed with a number of further superhuman abilities, including the ability to go nine days and nine nights without the need to breathe or to sleep, the ability to grow as "tall as the tallest tree in the forest if he pleased" and the ability to radiate supernatural heat from his hands.

Chu Chulainn turns into a literal cyclops monster when he gets mad and had to be dunked into 3 barrels of water (the first exploaded, the second boiled, the 3rd heats to bath water) to calm him down

>>54375757
Nobody cares about your houserules.

>>54375757
I always found that "fixes" like this only makes that PCs skip casters and that dispensable enemies become casters and ruin the game by making it impossible to win encounters. What cares the GM that his dispensable minions might die at 30 years old? they're dispensable and they're most probably die against the PCs. What cares the GM that the dispensable minions can only cast 3 spells per day due cost? they are only for this encounter

A PC has to deal with that shit through the entire campaign, an NPC only exists for 1 encounter so that long lasting shit is fucking meaningless

>>54375758
Sorry, I never watched Fate State Knight

>>54375775
>enters a thread about balancing casters and martials
>WAAAAH NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR MADE UP RULES
Are you merely pretending to be retarded?

>>54375626
Gonna be extremely annoying to play.

>>54375458

So by extension, if you use Spheres of Power for mages, and Path of War for martial characters, how bad is caster supremacy problem then? I assume less bad but still very much there.

>>54372408
The ability to play 4e instead

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>>54375758
>the ability to grow as "tall as the tallest tree in the forest if he pleased" and the ability to radiate supernatural heat from his hands.

>>54375758
Gilgamesh carried a 400 pound axe and went around raping all the people in Uruk till they prayed for the Gods to do something. So they created a green hairy man to wrestle him. When he couldn't beat the green hairy man, he hires a prostitute.

The green man, Enkidu, spends 6 days and 7 nights fucking her.

>>54375797
Your GM would have a problem balancing the party against the outside world no matter what it was composed of.
>>54375824
Or 2E.

>>54375863
>Or 2E.
No, just 4e.

>>54374027
A nigh unkillable monster who once slaughtered so many people that their blood flooded a river, so the river god tried getting him to stop, so said nigh unkillable berserker started beating him to death, until multiple greater gods intervened because a mortal killing a god would make them look bad?

Awesome.

>>54375818
In combat, it's nonexistent. PoW+SoP solves that totally and makes combat wonderful. Barring the issues with OP PoW stance + boost + full attack maneuver builds, that is. But that's supposedly getting errata soon.

Out of combat, little's changed and caster supremacy is still in force. PoW classes are a bit better off than Johnny Fighting Man because they all get 4+int or better for skill points, have not-crap skill lists, and are encouraged to have a mental stat high.
That said, they still have fuckall for out-of-combat class features so the SoP casters can still effortlessly style on them unless the SoP caster goes full-retard all-in on combat magic.

>>54375873
But why.

>>54375863
>Your GM
Try GMs, many. Your "fixes" aren't as unique as you think, I saw them by the hundreds. Though to be honest lately they take the form of wheel of time sanity, how original.

>>54375913
Because 2e just isn't good.

>>54374865
Make Sunder Spell a free action, once per round.

>>54375935
I don't understand your point, I didn't say the idea was unique.

>>54376006
My point is that those fixes tend to lend to enemies abusing them over the fact that enemies are dispensable. Is not a one time only, I saw that happen a lot with many many GMs because that "fix" is quite frecuent.

>>54373894
Check out the Mahabharata

>>54375996
Still have to put up with getting screwed out of stopping spells by initiative, but it's a start.

>>54373156

IDK the issue with people; just give martials cool magic items! Like I dont understand the problem with a pair of boots that lets you TP up to 20 ft X times per day.

This is more of a GM's don't know what the fuck they are doing scenario.

>>54372499
This. I don't really know too much about 3.5 but are concentration checks a thing?

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>>54373894

>>54376031
disposable*
Fuck my dyslexia

>>54372499
>>54376187
Plenty of disruption methods exist, right down to "shank him when he casts".
The problem with casting is that it lets you become immune to all the disruption methods short of counterspelling and/or dispel magic which are, you know, caster things.

>>54373946
>we could have avoided all this bullshit if we just fucking listened to Gary Gygax.

He hated caster fucks and I'm starting to see why.

>>54376187
There're, you basically have to roll concentration and beat 15+spell level to cast it defensively.

Well done mage hunters don't allow to defensive cast, but that's not a problem because well done casters don't provoke at the level mage hunters nulify defensive cast

Also distance

>>54376246
>>54376238
Well I never played 3.5 but it seems the problems with disparity are deeply ingrained and can't be pinpointed to just one thing.

I say fucking scrap it honestly. 4e is better anyways. It's "videogamey" for sure and maybe it would be a good idea to tone back all the encounters/dailies but I'm starting to think it's just blatantly superior.

My friends and I are gonna run a 4e session and implement a few things from 5e we like (extra attacks at lvl 5, action economy, etc)
FINALLY I get some scaling on my fucking saves...bounded horseshit

>>54376105
I thought free actions ignored turn order?

>>54376699
You can only take actions on your turn unless they're immediate actions or something that specifies that you can use it off turn.

>>54372967
>tier 1-2 casters effectively become NPCs and plot devices

Sweet.

>>54373894
You're fucking retarded mate. Go read some myths.

>>54373531
fuck dipshit posters

everyone of you

HURR I SHUTPIST AT U LUL

fucking grow up

>>54376786
I don't read anything that foes from right to left, thanks.

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>>54376870
>I don't read anything that foes from right to left
just attack the opposite way, then

>>54376870
>mythology is only asian
(you)fucking nigger

>>54375890

Thanks. I'd never actually run that (my go-to fantasy system is Mythras), but it's fascinating to look into this. Any idea what Dreamscarred's psionics would do to this SoPoW environment?

>>54376870
You're beyond retarded. You're super retarded.

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>>54372612
Thread should have ended here. The entire problem is that the core isn't balanced. You can't fix the system by just adding class features, you have to restructure the entire thing.

The Feat System is broken and requires far too many prerequisites, and are still far weaker then equal level spells.

The Skill System is broken and requires far too many ranks to break the laws of physics, when that is allowed at all. Moreover Martials don't get enough points in it because Skills are keyed off Intelligence.

The Magic System is way too open-ended, being based around limited resources yet giving the players endless options for circumventing it.

In order to balance 3.X you need to completely scrap the entire system, and start from scratch with a given power level in mind.

The options that try and close the divide by simple tweaks usually either create a ton of bookkeeping, or require you to severely limit the content permitted [EG: Ban wizards and clerics, Tier 3-Only, Psionics+ToB, etc]

>>54372408
>Lately

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>>54372408
We already fixed this

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>>54373375

>>54378460
Pretty much.
To be fair, with big enough numbers, anything is possible. Theoretically if you throw enough bonuses and basically say "fuck it! all feats are given to fighters off the bat, and the feats are way more powerful now too", it could balance them in line with spellcasters or even push them over the edge. But I agree. It's too much work.
A lot like it's too much work for me to wrap my head around the conundrum that is 5e and its glaring issues at mid/high levels....We just sometimes gotta scrap the bad and pick up the broken pieces of "good". See if you can salvage it for use in a better system

>>54379110
I genuinely think that WotC knows this and intentionally fucked the system back up to appease caster fags.

>>54376962
Depends on which class. Anything with 6th or 9th level manifesting is on par with a 6th or 9th level caster, so that'd fuck the balance right back to core.
Anything without 6th+ manifesting would get along just fine. I mean, nobody bitches about how the ranger's casting is breaking shit.

>>54372967
>casters actually expect the other players to wait around for them

I honestly hate these threads because the one, the only one fucking answer that matters is so obvious and the core of the problem.

Weaken the spells. Limit the scope of what they can do.

Playing around with the number of spell slots, giving martials special power moves, having concentration checks, all that shit is honestly irrelevant.

No character, in any game beyond the absolute most high fantasy God-tier universe hopping adventure should have access to the shit Wizards do in 3.PF. Shit like dimension door, baleful polymorph, instant death spells? These things should be campaign specific story elements, never just an ability a character can just have.

its simple.

All you have to do is make magic not work. make everything immune to magic and all of sudden wizards just look like insane people waving their arms about and chanting.

>>54379933
3.pf wizards can trivially murder magic immune enemies, though.
You need to try smarter.

>>54372408
You don't need to boost the martial really, just reintroduce different level progression (like ad&d), based on the tier categories, by Level Adjusting the shit out of them

>>54382140
A level 10 3.5 wizard is, played decently, capable of beating a 3.5 fighter of any arbitrary level who is armed with a +infinity sword.
To-hit and saves, IE martial shit, simply doesn't matter compared to the bullcrap a wizard can pull. Levels won't fix that.

>>54382190
Very well, then reintroduce also the prolonged casting time and the spell drawbacks of ad&d: if i remeber correctly casting a spell would make the caster step down in the intiative order, also lots of spells have interesting disadvantages, like time stop the atnsta-age you or the dust component from the energy drain spell wich would risk to backfire onto the caster face even with a small breeze...

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>>54372408

Do like in the 40k RPG family- add a 'Perils of the Warp' style table with shitty consequences for rolling badly.

Make them roll every time they cast a spell, and on a 20 they have to roll on the chart and apply the negative effect. For each spell level add +1 to this roll. For example, a Cantrip adds +0, a level 1 spell adds +1 and so on. Higher level spells are balanced by having a chance to bring some serious negative consequences- they can be from simple 'you take some damage' to 'your spell fizzles and you are stunned'. Get creative with some of the effects. One could even determine that environmental factors make this 'crit fail' of spellcasting happen more often. Maybe an area where the weave of magic is damaged and raw arcane energy is leaking everywhere.

Make sure these negative effects are unavoidable, but unlike the 40k roleplaying games, try to avoid letting these crit-spellcasting fails cause a TPK or adversely effect other party members.

Alternatively, make spells require a 'Casting' skill roll. This roll provokes attacks of opportunity from everyone within melee range and any damage taken during the casting forces a concentration check or the caster risks losing the spell.

As a final way, one might add corruption/Insanity points and make it so that spellcasters accrue them through their magic. Either by casting spells (maybe have a gain of those points as a consequence of a spellcasting roll) or when they learn spells.

>>54382340
Still in no way fixes casters being gods out of combat.
Still in no way fixes casters ending fights on round one while martials that aren't charge-pouncers need two or three.

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>>54374133
You got the right idea

>>54376371
How the hell would you put "extra attacks at lvl 5" into 4e?

>>54379928
Dimension door clearly isn't that broken by itself, considering that monks get it and still totally suck

>>54382376
That's why on ad&d spontaneous casting didn't exists, clerics/druids max spell level was 7, and spell slots were few (high stats didn't gives extra slot).

I think that way conflicts balance out themself: with limitated resources casters have difficult time thinking ahead about future conflicts so they have to rely more on their companions

>>54382503
3.PF's spontaneous casters are worse than the prepared casters.
Max spell level being 7 means jackshit when you can snap the game over you knee like a twig well before then.
Fewer spell slots just means a shorter adventuring day.

Learn the causes of the issues before you run your idiot mouth.

>>54382548
No need to be rude pal

Yes spontaneous casters are underpowered per se but introducing spontaneous heal for the cleric was a mistake: more versatility on preparation.
Wizards on the other hand have also to build up their spell list and that gives gm more agency on wich spell they find in course of adventure (remove also that bad idea of 2 free spell for each level).

Also why fewer slot equates few adventure time, who ever said that party will have a chance to rest every time they want?

>>54373946
So with the upper left corner and the bottom right corner in mind, are there any stories of 3.5e DMs actively playing against the weaknesses of prepared casters to make the others shine? (e.g. multiple encounters/non-combat situations to make them run out of spells, encounters for which they are poorly prepared for (like, due to an enemy diviner spying on them), attacks while they're resting and the aforementioned spellbook stealing)?

The closest thing I can remember myself is that one chad who played a fighter and mocked the local wizard for having to resort to puny dagger attacks once he ran out of spells.

How would you rebalance it for 5e? Is 5e better balanced when it comes to caster vs martial?

>>54372408
Make it so casters have a limited source of energy that a single cast of a maximum level spell will empty their mana and make martials capable of fantasy combat, like swinging a sword so fast in sends a blade of air or some shit. Now fighters have ranged attacks that still use their main weapon and wizards can be amazing for a short period of time or average for the same amount of time as a fighter of their level.

>>54382616
>Also why fewer slot equates few adventure time
Because no (smart) party is going to continue with the adventure when their mages are low on spells and what ends up happening is that the martials will end up losing more HP in the long run then the mages will run out of spells because, well, math.

A Martial could lose 5-15% of their total HP in one round of combat but the mage could choose to be frugal with their spells and end up spending nothing for the entirety of combat or just cast cantrips until they deem the situation perilous enough to spend a spell slot.

>>54382800
>Is 5e better balanced when it comes to caster vs martial?
Not really.

Martials are still stuck to dealing straight damage in a system where HP bloat is a major issue in the later levels and mages can still stack certain spells on top of one another due to the fact that not all spells with a duration have "concentration" as a limiting factor for some reason.

Granted, it isn't as obvious as it was for 3.PF, but it's still there if you take the time to read through each spell.

>>54384279
Wouldn't this just be solved by giving the party a wand with endless charges of a non-temporary version of Virtue? (1 hp/round) Or would that have other drastic consequences?

>>54384279
>Because no (smart) party is going to continue
My point is "who said the they have a choice to pull back". D&D has ever been heavly about resource management and said 'mechanic' implicate the possibility of a miscalculation, thus a risk

>>54384405
By giving the party access to a limitless supply of healing, it takes away all the inherent risks that would normally come about from being stuck inside a dungeon while stuck behind enemy lines.

Now, the martials can keep going for as long as they want without fear of losing excess HP from unnecessary combat and the mages in the group have even less incentive to waste their spells since they know that the only damage worth worrying about is the one that takes away the last HP from their walls.

I mean, why would I waste a spell slot to buff the Fighter when I know for a fact that he can heal 10HP/minute thanks to the wand? I'd do better just saving my spells for when shit hits the fan and the situation is moments away from turning into a TPK anyways to GTFO.

>>54384423
Earlier editions of D&D were built around the concept of resource management because part of the challenge was not only finding treasure but carrying it back to town.

Nowadays though, nobody is going to want to go through the tedium of calculating their resources because the game has shifted from treasure hunting in dank caves with dangerous monsters everywhere to everyone being a team of badasses who can clear a dungeon in a day and still have time to rest for the night.

So when you try to institute limits and tell them that they cannot just rest in the middle of the dungeon unmolested, you end up being called a shit DM who hates fun and people kowtow to these people, so as time goes on, people just stop asking people to manage their resources and just focuses on either the combat or the narrative.

>>54372408
The answer isn't to bring martials up to a level closer to casters, but to bring casters down to a level closer to martials. The best way to do this is to avoid giving casters free access huge swaths of spells and instead limit them to much smaller, far more focused spell lists. 3.5 did this really well with the fixed list casters like the beguiler, dread necro and warmage. In pathfinder there's an excellent fan-made conversion of the beguiler (google: ertw's beguiler) that does this spectacularly, I only wish I could find something like that for the other two classes.

>>54385384
>The answer isn't to let everyone be useful, but to bring everyone down to the same level of uselessness.
FTFY

I hate this idea that we have to nerf everything that makes us feel bad for not picking the right option.

At first level, and every four levels thereafter, martials gain a new ability as follows:

1st: The character automatically disrupts a spellcaster's spell if they hit them with an AoO in melee combat; no concentration check is permitted.

4th: Character cannot suffer more than 50% of their maximum HP in damage from a single non-physical, non-poison attack. Spells which inflict direct damage or poison damage are subject to this restriction.

8th: Characters are immune to all save or die effects from non-deific creatures (i.e. you're immune to Finger of Death, but not the Wand of Orcus). In the case of spells or magical effects which inflict permanent effects, such as flesh to stone, the character is entitled to a new save every 24 hours, and a natural 20 is treated as an automatic success.

12th: Character is immune to all mind-affecting magic.

16th: Character may ignore any magical protections while making attacks, e.g. Shield spells, Stoneskin, Ghost Form, Mirror Image, and so on. The character may also ignore all non-divine magical bonuses from armour and equipment (e.g. +5 plate armour of thorns is treated as regular plate by the character when attacking against it, but Excalabur's special abilities still work).

20th: Character cannot suffer more than 10% of their maximum HP in damage from a single non-physical, non-poison attack. Spells which inflict direct damage or poison damage are subject to this restriction.

*****

There you go. Spellcasters still have far more destructive potential and a well-prepared one can still avoid/escape most confrontations, but now high-level fighter-types can pose a serious threat to magic-users. A mage's best bet against these kinds of characters is to load up on summoning spells and have a teleport contingency ready, but if the melee character can get into melee range with them (which is now very possible), things go south quickly.

>>54385384
>beguiler, dread necro and warmage
Those are still Tier2-3 while Core martials are Tier 4-6

>>54372408
Parry ray attacks. Reflect with sufficiently good rolls.
Interrupt casting even if you don't have a ranged weapon or melee- intimidate or challenges that force casters to stop shit.
Attacks that can pierce resistances.

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>>54385684
>1st
Okay, seems alright so far.
>4th
Worthless, because any mage worth their salt isn't going to waste a spell slot on damage when they have effects that are "I win" buttons.
>8th
Worthless, because now mages will focus on SoL spells instead and just kill you once they have you in a position where you're effectively immobilized.
>12th
Worthless, because it comes way too late to save them from level 1-5 mind-altering spells.
>16th
This one's actually pretty good but you get it way too late to be an equalizer since any mage you fight will have enough spells to where protection spells are no longer a factor. Also, it ends up hurting the martials more since they depend on magical armor/equipment the most.
>20th
Worthless for the same reasons as the 4th level ability.

Overall: 1.5/6, yet another "I just fixed D&D" house rule that doesn't do shit besides make shit worse.

>>54384642
Personally i think not. D&d is still prevalent in resource mangement, it's mechanically built that way, so ignoring this could lead only to problems. I's the same thing of ignoring alignements: lots of system mechanics stop working that way.

If your players like more a style of gameplay not related to resource management there are dozen of rulesystem better suited for this purpose than d&d

Play another game

>>54385853

Shame you're not in my group, then. It's balanced my campaign marvelously, but who knows? Maybe I just have dumb players.

>>54385992
>Maybe I just have dumb players.
That's pretty much a given.

>>54385684
>and a natural 20 is treated as an automatic success.
Wasn't that already?

>>54385868
>D&d is still prevalent in resource mangement
Not really.

There's a reason why every single edition past 2e has either removed resource mechanics or gave players a means of bypassing it.

>>54386069
>gave players a means of bypassing it.
In wich way? A slot is still a slot spontaneous or prepared, there are still 'powers' per day uses (or encounter, or 'condition', etc...), lots of equipment as 'charges', and so on... thats implicate pretty much 'resource management'

>>54385557
There's a difference between not being able to carte blanche bend the game over you knee and break it and being useless, anon. Fixed list casters are far from useless (well, except for the warmage of course).

>>54385717
That's what ToB/PoW are for.

>>54386172
ToB doesn't have a rogue or a ranger

>>54372408
You could try to reduce the amont of spells a caster could have ready.
Like, he could only prepare spells summing up to his caster level.
Ex:
A level 20 Wizard could prepare 20 level 1 spells;
Or 4 level 5 spells;
Or 2 level 9 spells and 1 level 2 spell.
You could make cantrips free or count for 1/2 spelllevel.

Then it's just a matter of nerfing or banning shit like polymorph and gate.

>>54386366
At this point wouldn't it just be more efficient to implement a MP system?

>>54386366
I feel like this would help a lot, why didn't WOTC ever try this?

>>54387969
Think about it, as early as level 9, you gain access to 9th level spells like wish, and anything that's CR9 or greater gains access to wish as well.

Also, it will just make the caster focus more heavily on level 1-3 spells, which are already some of the best spells in the game, so it doesn't actually address the base problem with the system.

>>54386198
Rogue is already T4.
TWF ranger can be done with swordsage or warblade, archery ranger is unsupported since ToB doesn't do ranged.

>>54388058
>Think about it, as early as level 9
Nope, access to spell levels would be as it is now. Your caster level would give you spell slots.

>>54388058
Are you literally retarded?
>>54389073 has the right of it

>>54382628
It works up to around level 6 at best. After that most wizards will have some way of having a couple of their "get out of jail" spells to be available at any moment one way or the other even without spellbook.

>>54386198
The fuck? Swordsage has Rogue written all over it. The only thing it doesn't have are a couple of skills and innate Trapfinding, which barely matters when every single ToB class loves multiclassing to death.

>>54382628
It really doesn't work unless the player does not take any precautions against chicanery on top of being very naive.
It's like saying that because you stole the fighter's weapon, now he is entirely defenseless and ripe for rapine.
Dian Wei had his weapons AND armor stolen after he was plied with a few casks of wine by traitors, and beat motherfuckers with motherfuckers to the point where they chose to bring him down with archers, rather than engage him with blades.

>>54382628
I only had this happen (sort of) once. The players, in a burst of terminal stupidity, stowed a bunch of their best gear in an inn that they KNEW had a shitty reputation and often drugged and robbed strangers, and didn't even take as simple a precaution as locking the door of their room where they stowed their stuff.

Naturally, most of it was stolen while they met with their contact. This produced a ragequit.

>>54372408
>What sort of abilities would you give martials in 3.X/PF to balance them to casters?
E6, or abandon 3.5/pf completely.

>>54382800
>Is 5e better balanced when it comes to caster vs martial?
Yes, but by virtue that it isn't that HARD to make it better.
Casters can't invalidate other classes from the word go and will never put out the raw, and actually necessary, damage output to match even a casually optimized martial. Unlike 3.PF, you can't win the game on SoL spells, you need a hard hitter, preferably more than one because things rarely travel alone by design intent.
Casters can still perform outsized duty, yes, but it is far harder, requires more blatant minmaxing for at most half of the power you would have in say 3e, and I'd say even a little less power than you'd have in 2e.

>>54385717
They are all tier 3, anon, with people who argue warmage is high tier 4 alongside duskblade.
That said, what martial class is actually tier 3 at base, without relying on specific multiclassing/acfs to get their outside ToB?
I wouldn't count classes like psywar for this, I think.

>>54385853
Anon, the changes are not made for pvp play, but for pve.
In the course of a campaign, those changes would eliminate the need to supplement with magic equipment to stay alive, and aid in dealing with the majority of high level creatures that necessitate expensive magic gear to even begin to combat.
Why is your comparison directly based on a human wizard pc, versus a number of npc foes that are common, such as vampires, lycanthropes, evil outsiders?

>>54372408
Some way of reflecting, negating, or powering through spells.
Their own abilities that can let then perform stupidly impossible feats.
Better saves
These would all be a good start.

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>>54372408

>>54373894
>Caster
>Not a glorified Naruto character with even less martial arts.

>>54391273
more of this

>>54382484
Easy.
Say that "Either you can use one of your special waifu encounter powers, or you can swap that for two basic attacks with no bonuses to them"

>>54389073
>>54389451
Read >>54388058
>Also, it will just make the caster focus more heavily on level 1-3 spells, which are already some of the best spells in the game, so it doesn't actually address the base problem with the system.
Also, what exactly do you think is going to be more likely? The Wizard using their vastly limited spells to buff the martial who is likely going to die anyways or save their vastly limited spells to make it so they themselves are less likely to die?

It's not like the martials suddenly become better just because you limit the caster.

>>54391095
>Anon, the changes are not made for pvp play, but for pve.
Which isn't an argument when you have creatures in the MM with access to caster levels.
>In the course of a campaign, those changes would eliminate the need to supplement with magic equipment to stay alive, and aid in dealing with the majority of high level creatures that necessitate expensive magic gear to even begin to combat.
It really wouldn't for the reasons I mentioned earlier.
>Why is your comparison directly based on a human wizard pc, versus a number of npc foes that are common, such as vampires, lycanthropes, evil outsiders?
Because against such creatures, the Fighter is already playing against a stacked deck with nothing but a 6 high. Most of those creatures don't even need spells to be dangerous and/or have defenses that would already fuck them over unless they're carrying specialized gear such as silvered weapons.

If you want 3.5 to be "balanced" your best bet is to just keep all the players around the same tier. Tier 3 would be a good choice. Trying to buff up a 3.5 Fighter to the level of a Wizard is not a good idea, they're worlds apart.

>>54393026
This is why you make the spells have other spells of the same school as prerequesites, so Wizard dude needs to specialize.
A Wizard who can't do everything needs to become a team player and use his magic as a force multiplier.

And that doesn't mean buffing the Fighter.
Dedicate buffers and healbots are boring as fuck.

>>54393327
But a conjurer wizard can already do everything without bothering to step out of school.
A transmuter can do most anything.
An evoker can barely do anything.

The real first step down the road you propose would be to fix the balance between schools.

>>54393327
>A Wizard who can't do everything needs to become a team player and use his magic as a force multiplier.
Okay, but then he just focuses on schools like conjuration or transmutation and break the campaign over his knee anyways.

>>54372408
the problem with casters is they have access to too many spells, covering too wide an area of skills and applications, too efficiently.

let classes have their niches. fighters get fighty magic refluffed as a regular fantastical ability. rogues get sneaky magic handled the same way. mages get to fill the niches the other characters don't, and when it's necessary, to do what any other class can do but not as well.

>>54393416
Together with >>54386366 he wouldn't have enough spells to do everything at once.

>>54393382
Indeed

>>54373531
WOW good one

you really got him

>>54393619
He doesn't need to do everything at once, he just needs to have options that drastically shifts the tide in his favor.

Doesn't matter if you can only fire one round when one round is all you need.

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>>54379110
>>54379477
I think it has more to do with the fact that 4e is quite possibly the single worst RPG of all time, when you count it as an RPG at all given its about half RPG and half tabletop war game/board game.

>>54394395
I've literally played crunchier systems than 4e, hell, I remember playing my first few games of 3.PF with a battle grid and minis.

I still don't see where this "4e is board game lol" meme came from.

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>>54395020
Some people don't let minor details such as facts get in the way of shittalking something they dislike. Just ask the GOP.

>>54395429
>Just ask politicians
FTFY

>>54373375
This. Martial fags are literally retarded. They're people who's mothers got tired of watching them run headfirst into walls wearing their 'viking' helmets (bike helmet with horns hot-glued to it) so she found a group of nerds to pawn them off of. They show up bearing character sheets made by scribbling on a Manowar album cover with crayons, proceed to spaz the place up with their idiocy, and then cry when they realize picking the class without superpowers has left them without superpowers.

Fucking martialfags, they're subhuman scub.

>>54391273
That's giving me an idea
What if the monk was the anti magic character?
Not just getting to the wizard and melting him down, but using ki to bypass magic fields, ki slap a possesed ally to make him come back to his senses, throat punch, ki barrier that soaks fireballs and the likes, and all sorts of fuck magic shit?

>>54391273
>He broke my balls
I hope his name is Anakin

>>54389016
Ranger is an outdoorsy dude who exceels in non urban terrains and has an animal companion. Is not "twf dude" or "archer dude". You can't do that with ToB.

Also yeah, Rogue is T4, but ToB is T3, ideally you want a Rogueish char that is also T3
>b-but swordsage
Rogue is much more than finesse dude with stealth powers

>>54379914
Of course not. I'll be adventuring with their grandchildren.

>>54396324
That seems like a long time to wait for your character to reenter the game. You gonna roll up a rogue or something for the adventures the other characters go on in the intervening period?

>>54396289
Take levels of Warblade. Use any of the many ways to get Survival as a class skill, put ranks in it. Take Track. You are now a "ranger", except you don't suck.

If you're really hardcore about T3 or the highway, Factotum or Beguiler to replace the rogue.

>>54372408
One thing you could do is massively buff magical equipment. Don't just slap an electricity enhancement on a magic sword and called it good, give its wielder the power to call down lightning or something.

>>54372408
>There's been a lot of shitposting about caster supremacy lately
never noticed.

>>54397400
>to fix martials, make magic items turn you into a caster!
Great idea there, bro.

Sarcasm aside, that actually does work to fix balance if you give items of good spells. The martials get to break face and cast, the casters get more flexibility and more casting. The casters still win, but not nearly as hard.

>>54372408
Samurai Kung Fu magic

>>54400838
>animeshit
out

>>54372408
Make concentration checks harder, make higher level spells take multiple turns to cast, and finally make spells deal nonlethal damage to spellcasters. So a 8th-level spell deals 8d4 nonlethal damage, for example.