So alot of people have been debating about how much better casters are in comparison to martials and I think I finally...

Also a good option, but sadly one a lot of people won't give the time of day.

Summons do that, and usually they do it better than the fighter.

There's no real point in arguing it. If people are playing 3.PF, either they're aware of the caster/martial disparity, or they've gotten so used to running the game their own way that it's basically a new system at its point.

Something that does need to be acknowledged is that a GM can make martials relevant, despite the attempts of the core rules to make them worthless. And while it might take effort and learning at the start, there are people who do it so naturally now that, playing with them, you'd think the disparity didn't exist. But, of course, 'The GM can fix it' doesn't stop it being an issue and a clear flaw in the games mechanics.

In 3.5 they're short-lived, take a while to prepare and are instakilled by dispels. They also tend to be weaker than martials unless you dedicate time and or gold to buffing them, at which point you could have just spent the time doing something more useful and let the martial do what he's made for. At least that's how it looked in the game where I had a conjuration heavy druid.

In 5e conjuration lasts longer, but you need to prepare it ahead of time, and power disparity between summons and PCs is even bigger. Again, summons are prone to dispel (but not as much because area dispel is gone), but since they're now weaker, they suffer more from AoE.

Or maybe they just don't know.

>finlly found out
How are the things in the early 2000 user??

Then take pen and paper and spend around 3 months rewriting the system.

Go through a month of playtests with at least 3 different groups. One with experienced players, one middle ground and one full of noobs. Spend around a month more tweaking it. Another batch of playtests. Final tweaks. Done.

So around half a year. Good luck. That of course assumes that you can into math and are as retarded as previous designers.

Sorry, "aren't as retarded"

Which is why summoning is the actual problem. Remove combat summoning, make it a lengthy ritual spell only that can only be cast with special preparations, not something that can be done in a snap in the middle of a fight. Suddenly, martials serving as defense becomes much more important.

That doesn't fix anything though.
>"Hey man, can you cast fly on me?"
>"I could, but it'd make more sense to use fly on myself since most of my spells go off from a distance."
Not to mention, what can the Fighter do to help the wizard that's equal to a third level spell?

...

Does it have an option that allows them to fly at 5th level?

Play 5e where the caster has to decide between flying or being immune to arrows

Vancian casting is the sacred cow that is source of all problems

More like 16th level.

Then what's the fucking point?

This is why the magic-mundane dichotomy needs to fucking die. We want magic to be powerful, yet we also want our fighters to just be guys with swords. We can't have both: either magic is so useless you're better off picking up a bow, or everyone has magic.

Everyone having magic means there's no more difference between casters and mundanes, merely between different kinds of casters. You can get warriors who use some kind of blade dance magic, monks who use chi, and your regular priests and wizards. To be competitive, all of them need some kind of magic.

Pretty much this, but you DO need "weeaboo fightan magic". In 3.5e core, a level 20 monk is just a guy who is really shit at punching things and who can mimic feather fall but only when he's next to a wall. By level 20, the level where you're only a step removed from being god slayers, a monk should at least be on par with Super Saiyan Goku. Yes, he SHOULD be beamspamming and flying and kicking hard enough to destroy continents. Because the wizard can do much worse than that by level 20.

Let's be fair here, how would you do a non-vancian casting TTRPG? Something like a mana system works much better on computers and would be tedious around the table. Or would you simply remove limits on casting altogether, much like how a barbarian has no limits on how many times he can swing his axe?

Nah, you don't need to make martials magic. You just need to abandon the idea that, unless magic is directly involved, everything is otherwise 100% realistic.

Martials being capable of supernally awesome shit through pure skill and physical capability makes perfect sense in a high fantasy setting, and is a good place to start for closing the gap.

As a focused specialist convoker I can tell you, KEK

>You just need to abandon the idea that, unless magic is directly involved, everything is otherwise 100% realistic.
That's also an option, though some grognards would also consider that weeaboo fightan magic. Also, toning down magic a lot would help too. I'm not for total and complete balance, but it should at the very least be possible to make a mage slayer character who doesn't just use spells to fight spells.

Mana wouldn't be that tedious. Just keep a d-whatever on hand to represent total mana. Spells cost X mana depending on what you're doing, and you get Y back for resting or not casting for a while. If you're worried about players cheating and not managing the d-whatever, you need to find a new group.

Do you want to know what the secret is? More high level feats, with base attack bonus as a requirement. Meaning casters can't take them. That, and this.

>More feat trees
Fucking NO!

That won't help a damn thing. It's not about adding new feats, it's about completely rewriting the mundane side of the game to not suck.

That's the annoying thing in D&D. Basically everything you can do sucks, and class features/feats only make it suck less, save for just hitting them. So hitting them is basically always the right thing to do.

Meanwhile, magic gets to do whatever it fucking likes.

I like the Bo9S, but that shouldn't be a replacement for an enjoyable and interesting core combat system, it should be an addition to it.

>Or would you simply remove limits on casting altogether, much like how a barbarian has no limits on how many times he can swing his axe?
Not that poster but I think this would be a decent solution. You could build casters around using at most a handful of cantrip equivalent spells and then the bigger ones are just class features with an easy "once/twice per X" limit that you have on most class features.

It doesn't need to be rewritten. Imagine if TWF was turned into a single feat that gained power as you level, based on your BAB, and in the end it was stronger than taking all the previous TWF feats together could have been. Imagine if Power Attack and Cleave were a single, scaling feat. Weapon Focus/Specialization/Supremacy, Improved Critical, you don't need new feats, just scaling ones. That way even Fighter doesn't need to be changed, because it's defining feature, having lots of feats, is suddenly worthwhile.

Not more trees, just more useful ones.

In the Pathfinder equivalent, two different disciplines have a 6th level stance (available at character level 11) that grants flight with unlimited duration, and one class (the Harbinger) gets it at 7th level as a class feature. (They could choose a swim, burrow, or climb speed instead, but why?)

>You could build casters around using at most a handful of cantrip equivalent spells and then the bigger ones are just class features with an easy "once/twice per X" limit that you have on most class features.
The cantrips are alright, but the "X times per Y" class feature spells would require a total overhaul of the system. It would first of all require heavy slimming down of all the spells in the game, and especially the number of spells a specific class has access to. It would also mean the end of the wizard class, and probably the birth of multiple unique classes that all fit into the wizard category (evokers, enchanters, necromancers, summoners et cetera) as well as multiple classes that fit into the priest category (some kind of holy blaster, some kind of healer, a druid, maybe the oriental monk would fit here too).

Those are all good things by the way, they streamline the classes and prevent oversaturation of spells.

Nope. You need to completely rewrite the core combat system.

The problem is that the only action that exists by default is attacking. All the others, bull rushes, disarms, sunders, they're not worth it unless you specifically build for them, and even then they aren't very good.

My gold standard for a combat system is that two completely generic, boring people with no special abilities can still make meaningful choices in how to engage one another. D&D essentially fails this, but it shows that they attempted it by including those actions, they just made them all cripplingly disadvantageous to use to the point of them being essentially, well, pointless.

Typed this up in 5 minutes, the wording isn't perfect but it gets the point across.

Weapon Focus
Prerequisites: Proficiency with selected weapon group, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: You gain a +1 attack bonus on all attack rolls made with this weapon.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times, it's effects do not stack. The base attack bonus requirement increases by +4 with each additional purchase.
Scaling:
BAB....Benefit
+4......+2 Damage with weapon group
+8......Additional +1 to attack bonus
+12....Additional +2 to damage. You must use a feat slot to advance past this point.
+15....Additional +2 to attack and damage, add two weapons to weapon group
+18....+1 dodge AC while using weapon, cannot be disarmed, can use during a grapple regardless of size.

This combines the entire Weapon Focus feat tree into one scaling effect, and the BAB requirements for additional purchases means the final Weapon Supremacy effect will still only be available to the original weapon group. And, that only barbarians, paladins, rangers and fighters will get the final benefit but the rest of the feat's scaling effects are still worth using for another class.

>We need to rewrite the way martials work!
>But we shouldn't rewrite the way martials work!

You'd have to pay me to pick that shit, is pure garbage, did you ever play D&D? Hitting was never ever a problem, even if you gave me a feat that basically gives me + infinite to hit, I wound't pick it.

There's an interesting thought experiment that floated around for a while, asking how long a martial would stay relevant if he had plus infinite to hit and damage, effectively meaning if he got to make an attack roll, he would win a fight.

From what people could figure out, they'd still be essentially irrelevant around level 10.

>Let's be fair here, how would you do a non-vancian casting TTRPG?
Easily? I mean, lots of games have fatigue systems, even if you don't want to do anything else, you just tie each spell cast, or even each spellcasting attempt (We don't need to make spells automatically work unless saved against) cost you a bit of energy.

It's two feat slots for +4 to hit, +4 damage, +1 AC, can't be disarmed, and the weapon can be used in a grapple. Only the first weapon group you take it for gets the final effect so you can still play a specialist, and only full BAB classes can get the most out of it, so casters can't horn in on your thing. It's literally perfect. I have more for TWF, Improved Critical, and Combat Expertise.

Allow martials to do things that were restricted to Epic levels.

I think to do something like literally slip between bars to small for you is like an 80+ Skill check or something? Allow martials to do those sorts of things at lower levels and if the nipples of your autism arn't unduely tweeked by it maybe spells wouldn't completely trump literally everything by virtue of no one outside of boss monsters being able to do anything about it.

Yeah I'm aware it would need a total rewrite and require breaking up existing classes but as you said I think that's a good thing. I'd even go as far as saying get rid of the big spell list and just stick all the spells you can get in the class descriptions and compensate for the loss of a big spell list with a few more interesting class features that aren't necessarily spells.

>It's two feat slots for +4 to hit, +4 damage, +1 AC
That's shit.
With two feat slots you can get waaaay better to hit an damage, you clearly never played 3.PF.

Attack and Damage was never an issue for martials and certain spells can outright shit on you even if you gained an infinite amount of attack and damage.

The problem that martials have always faced is that there aren't enough meaningful decisions being made when it's their turn, it's either (full) attacking the enemy until one side is defeated or potentially waste your turn and give the enemy a free swipe at you.
They'd be irrelevant much sooner if the DM includes mages who use shit like fly, wind wall, displacement, mirror image, or any of the other spells that are effectively "you can't hit me" or "you miss instead."

>tfw with two feats my barb has +10 to hit and +20 to damage
And they're still shit and doesn't make me shine at all with the fucking wizard in the team around

>twf wings of cover
At 7th level I was tanking what even the barb couldn't tank

The easiest way to fix the disparity is to double the level of any spell which isn't direct damage. So magic missile is still level 1, but sleep is level 2.

Yeah, that and a general list of cantrips that all wizard-category classes get (and another set for all priest-category classes) that scale with level. This adds some versatility (summoners still get very minor buffs and damage dealing spells) without bloating the list too much.

Fucking hell, this would fix everything wrong with casters. Why hasn't WotC done this yet?

>Like let's take this in for a moment, usually characters who can fly are also fairly powerful beings in their own right or flight is one of the last things they learn before the end of the series.
This makes it clear the only media you consume is anime.

So we lower the level of spells that merely deal hp, but double the level of spells that can instantly end or trivialize an encounter?

>can't be disarmed, and the weapon can be used in a grapple
Quote the whole thing, friendo. And what two feats would that be?

I never said it fixed casters, I said it fixed martials. And the idea was to revamp all combat feats, not just the Weapon Focus tree. Here's Improved critical.

Improved Critical
Prerequisites: None
BAB....Benefit
+4......Crit range increases by 1 (20 becomes 19-20, 19-20 becomes 18-20, etc)
+8......Crit multiplier increases by 1.
+12....Crit range increases by 1 (19-20 to 18-20, 18-20 to 17-20, etc)
+15....Crit multiplier increases by 1. You ust use a feat slot to progress past this point.
+18....Choose one of the following: Stun, Stagger, Nauseate, Sicken, Trip, Bull Rush. One of these effects is automatically caused whenever you make a critical hit. The target gets no rolls to resist.

Ok, from now on I'm going to assume you're SKR because you have no idea what feats already exist that utterly blow up the ones you're posting and act like yours are crazy powerful

You have no idea what problems martials face and just assume "muh damage muh hit" is the solution

So, you DON'T know what two feats? Did you just make it up?

>+18....Choose one of the following: Stun, Stagger, Nauseate, Sicken, Trip, Bull Rush. One of these effects is automatically caused whenever you make a critical hit. The target gets no rolls to resist.
There're way earlier feats that give you that
Srly, 5 feats for that shit? you're crazy stupid, I just need 2 and I get that like at 11th level

Oh yeah, because it's not like Clark Kent didn't take a while to learn how to fly and shit when he was first coming to grips with his powers.

It was two feats. The BAB scaling takes effect on it's own, you just pay one additional feat slot to get the final effect. It also increases your weapon's threat range and multiplier by 2, increasing your odds of critting and the damage you deal.

It's always funny to see a moron claim to have "fixed" 3.PF, only to post shit that not only shows that he knows nothing about the game but is weaker than shit that already exists within the game.

Seriously, go home, you're making an ass out of yourself.

Critical focus and Staggering crit, stunning crit, whatever crit for example, whatever I want. 2 feats, compared to 5 of yours, and I do it way earlier than 18th level

See

I just wanted to post this picture OP. I like it.

I still, for the same number of feats do that at way earlier level

Power attack and Reckless attack is a crazy drug

I would just make magic a skill, or a selection of skills, that anyone can attempt to perform if they have the relevant spell written down. Spellcasters would have a bonus to it in the same way fighters get a bonus to using swords and rogues get a bonus to sneaking or whatever else, but anyone can attempt to perform magic in the same way anyone attempt to use a sword, sneak or whatever. I'm sure it's been done. It makes sense as long as magic is just a skill anyone can learn.

Also, no "free" spells except at character creation, you have to find them or buy them the same way you find magic weapons and armor.

Critical Focus and Stunning Critical are PF, not 3.5. Staggering Crit slows for 1 round. Stunning Crit allows a save, Critical Focus gives +4 to confirm crits.

My feat increases threat range, making crits more likely. It increases the multiplier, which means more damage. It gives you the option of 6 different effects with NO SAVES allowed, they simply happen. An yours take 3 feat slots, mine just 2. And this you say is better?

>Stunning Crit allows a save
If you save you're still staggered for 1d4 turns

Yours come into play at a level nobody plays, mines come way earlier.
I with money can get weapons to crit on 13+ and auto confirm, no need to waste feats on that.

>People still thinks damage and hit are martial's problems
I'm playing a monk, a motherfuckign monk king of miss and missing isn't my problem (because I hit pretty fucking often and deal pretty good damage), my problem is the 1001 ways monsters and casters at high level can negate my actions rendering my attacks useless.

Nah, you can't make them better without some sort of magic included.
It doesn't matter how good you are at sneaking around, you would never be able to top a guy who can remove all nearby sound and become invisble, for example.
The thing about magic is that since it doesn't exist, it has two roles in games: replicate something possible through mundane means or do something impossible.
If you use it for the former, it would naturally be better than the mundane alternative, otherwise it wouldn't even exist. If firing a magic spell isn't better than using a bow in some way, then it would never have been developed.
The other half would consist of impossible things, which can be granted in non magical ways to non magical characters as well, but when magic characters usually are based around variety since spells include dozens of utility choices, to the point even someone who focuses on a very narrow field can still trump non magical characters sometimes.
I see three ways to solve this:
>make a combat focused game
Because only combat is pretty easy to balance against magical characters. This is probably the worst option since I want to roleplay, explore and talk, not focus only on fighting.
>make everyone magical
Doesn't matter what excuse you find to call it something else, this is what you'll want if you want a high power game where everyone is doing shit to contribute.
>add great costs or risks to magic
The way magic can make sense as a thing that has some downsides to mundane choices but still is frequently used, is if they're more powerful but require you to give up many other resources or are enough of a double edged sword you want to save them for the right time.

D&D has a couple of keywords beyond magic, it has supernatural and extraordinary. You can negate sound and still not be magic.

And with mine I can swing a heavy pick and crit on a 17 and deal x6 damage (or use a scimitar and crit on a 16 and deal x4 damage, critting every 5th hit sounds pretty nice), and bull rush the target into environmental hazards and/or away from allies, and to maximum distance no less because they get no opposed roll, auto-stun to make them drop items, apply three different debuffs depending on what would benefit the group most, or just keep tripping them, because no opposed roll means no size bonus.

>It doesn't matter how good you are at sneaking around, you would never be able to top a guy who can remove all nearby sound and become invisble, for example.

Only if you assume that everything is realistic unless magic is explicitly at play. I'm a fan of the idea of supernaturally skilled people just being able to do that stuff. A Rogue with a nigh enough sneak check should be significantly stealthier than a mage casting invisibility, because they are just that damn good.

You're not clever by addressing this you know.
You're not even being original.
You are so fucking late to these discussions you might as well have never showed up OP.

Are the you the shill from the other 3.PF thread?

>or just keep tripping them
You can't trip creatures two size categories than you, or that are immune to being prone.
You can't auto stun creatures immune to stun
And a long etc

You can do all you posted with money and 2 feats at lower level, but will still face the same problems

No, you don't lower the level of spells that merely deal HP, you just double the level of spells that can instantly end or trivialize an encounter.

>critting every 5th hit sounds pretty nice
It actually sounds unimpressive as fuck, I can already do that with keen mercurial scimitar (15-20 x4), what's all fuss about this? No feats wasted btw.

Yeah, immunity to some conditions/effects is a thing for every class, it's not like it's something that only bothers martials. An it doesn't change the fact that turning feat trees into scaling effects is a great way to improve the system.

PS, "and two feats" is a lie, the THREE feats someone actually botherd to post don't even do half of what my fix does.

Does a keen mercurial scimitar give you 6 no-save status effect options? Nope.

It only bothers martials because if a martial wastes a feat on stun, he's fucked forever.
If a caster wastes a spell on stun, he just needs to cast another spell, or sleep 8 hours and change his stun one.

There're tons of problems like this, damage and to hit aren't among them.

>By default, supernatural abilities are magical and go away in an antimagic field
1 minute of searching what they mean. So only extraordinary skills are non magical. From the looks of it very few characters only use that but I only skimmed through them. This by default makes most of the cast magical already.

You can eventually assume he gets the ability to become one with shadows or something like that, but that starts bordering magical stuff, which is an okay way to balance things, but let's not pretend it's not magic.

You're putting a band aid over a gaping wound.

Scaling feats could be cool, sure. They're also completely irrelevant to the actual problem.

>Again with the 18th level effect and two feats wasted
No, a keen mercurial scmitar gives me that at 4-5th level, 13 levels earlier than your shit.

Give is a +1 with nauseating, stunning or whatever for extra 8000 gp and I already do what you do at 18th level but at 5-6th

But it isn't magic. Unless you define magic as 'literally anything that functions outside the laws of reality', in which case everything in the setting is magic, making 'magic' a meaningless term.

The idea of supernal mundane skill creating results beyond what is possible in reality doesn't necessitate magic, it just necessitates embracing the idea that it's a fantasy world with a different set of rules, where that kind of thing can just happen.

AF negates psionic powers and psionic powers aren't magic. Just because Anti magic field has magic on it doesn't mean that anything that negates is magic.

No.
I'm just tired of supposedly intelligent people think that THEY are gonna be the super-special ones that totally matter and fix everything about a system, as if somehow they're the first person ever to think that.

It's not just stupid, it's fucking pathetic.
Do people have so few friends on this board that hey have to start arguments and discussions on a subject talked about more times and has had more in the past two months then the number of years they've been alive on this planet?

Why are you so angry?

Why even come into this thread if you knew you'd get this upset?

Are you a masochist?

That's why I also said removing combat summing is also part of it, if casters needed martials to do what they're intended to do, defend, then martials can't be so easily replaced.

here's a trick: make every class magical in some respect. Warriors should get magical jumping capabilities, magical sword swings that can reach 20 feet, etc. Mundane will always lose to magic, it can't be a contest and be realistic.

What game are you playing in where you have that kind of money at 6th level?

Or, martials get these things and they're not magical, they're physical. The fighter can jump over a castle wall because he's just that strong. Also, why in the ever loving FUCK do you want it to be realistic? Why do only martials have to labor under this delusion?

>So alot of people have been debating about how much better casters are in comparison to martials
No, this was years ago

In a game in where at 6th level you have around 13,000 gp. More if your friends lend you some.

I mean, no normal human can jump say straight up 10 feet. That's what I mean by saying that even martials have to be magical. It shouldn't be in the same way that spells are done for wizards, but you can't have a level 20 fighter just be someone really good at swinging a sword. They have to have some sort of magical power to be anything more than that. call it something else if you like but it really is magic.

Because people treat non-magical as being mundane, and mundane characters are shackled to the conventions of reality while fantastical figures like wizards are not.