Is having balanced mages a meme?

So, wait, you want there to be a class for new players that doesn't actually teach them how to play the game? What's the point?

And even then, that argument only really works if there's a single, designated class for it. It in no way necessitates that all martials are similarly simple/underpowered.

Aside from the point that giving new players boring, underpowered characters sounds like the absolute best way to turn new players away from the system.

When it comes to tabletop RPGs, popularity is a factor if you're unable to play with friends (assuming you have any in the first place) and your only means of gaining a group is hunting on game finder or roll20.

If a system is obscure and nobody has heard of it, it doesn't matter how much the system does "right" because finding groups that actually run it is about as rare as trying to find a Snipe in the woods somewhere.

It sucks, but that's the name of the game.

3aboos aren't used to logic, dude.

This kind of thinking is cancer and a large part of what keeps (non-4e) D&D behind other games in quality.

Don't bother responding to it. It's obvious the avatarfagging weeb doesn't accept popularity as an argument because it never gets invited to games in the first place.

Has access to guns is much different than always being able to punch something to death. You just have to sneak up on him, or trick him. JMB is a powerful wizard, you can't just expect to walk up and win.

>So, wait, you want there to be a class for new players that doesn't actually teach them how to play the game? What's the point?
It does teach them how to play. It teaches them how to roll for stats, how to roll for attacks, how to keep track of HP, positioning, and how to calculate damage.
>Aside from the point that giving new players boring, underpowered characters sounds like the absolute best way to turn new players away from the system.
Newbies aren't going to know the difference until they leave their bubble and explore other classes within the game, such as the Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Bard, Sorcerer, or Paladin.
>This kind of thinking is cancer and a large part of what keeps (non-4e) D&D behind other games in quality.
Yet which game is much easier to find groups for?

There's a solution to this- Not being a lazy shit.

If you find a system you like, learn to run it yourself. GMs are always in demand, and with online services for finding groups and games being larger and more active than ever you've got plenty of options for finding interesting players.

You might need to do some filtering to find a decent group, sure, but if you're not prepared to put in the effort you shouldn't bitch about it.

But you directly contradicted what you just said

>so playing a martial is perfect for them until they get bored mashing the A button and wish to learn how to actually play the game.

So all the things you claim it teaches them isn't actually playing the game? So what's the point?

Also, newbies aren't blind idiots. It's very easy to tell that someone else can do way more than you can, and it's a shitty fucking experience.

Man, I love that in my city there're way many more games of absolutely anything than 3.PF. 5e isn't even the most played either. So the majority of players in my city aren't brain rot zombies who adhere to the "Casters>Martials" mentality.

I bet you think Hercules is an anime character.

>i'm not creative enough to think of how martials could be interesting so i'm going to play a class that has a deus ex machina bullshit solution to every problem i encounter.

Here's the thing though, even if I decided to run a game of [insert fantasy heartbreaker here], I could be spending weeks, months, maybe even years trying to find a group of players to run for since most players wouldn't have heard of it.

Then you add in the additional time that you'd have to spend filtering out the undesireables and it basically turns into a crapshoot either way. I'd rather just run D&D since I know what it is and it'll be much easier to find people for it.

Some games just take more work in finding than others.

>Yet which game is much easier to find groups for?
In my personal experience over the last 6 months? GURPS.

Some game systems just require more work to find games in than others. If you're lazy you can't complain with being stuck with bottom of the barrel stuff.

Or you could not, you know, lie.

Days, weeks, maybe months at the utmost if you're running something ridiculously niche and obscure. And that includes filtering. You really have no idea how gamefinder sites work outside of D&D games, do you?

I didn't contradict myself, you just misunderstood the premise of my argument. Learning how to track HP or roll attacks or keep track of positioning is basic shit that everyone should be aware of before they get into the nitty-gritty of the system itself.

Then once they've had enough time to understand what's going on, you start introducing them to classes that have access to magic in some capacity and BAM, a whole new world to explore and an entire section of the game that opens up for them to explore.

>I bet you think Hercules is an anime character.
Ahem

You explicitly contradicted yourself. Backpedalling doesn't change that.

Also, you're making it sound like a bait and switch. Introduce players to a boring class which doesn't do anything that matter, force them to suffer that for a while before introducing a class which doesn't care about any of that and just wins with magic.

What's the fucking point?

>mages were supposed to be for experienced players anyways while martials were easy mode classes
Easier =/= weaker.
You have Battlemaster in 5e which is easier to play and understand than Eldritch Knight, and Battlemaster is actually stronger.

You don't even have an argument to begin with, so go back to the drawing board and come with a better one.

>it's clearly not what the average person wants?
But it's, everybody wants to be competent and bring useful stuff to the table, you'll never find a majority of players in a system wanting to be useless and completely irrelevant, you'll find surprising that when asked most people want to be as powerful or even more than other players in the table.

...

I know the basementdwelling neckbeard is kind of a meme here, but if you don't have the social graces to get two/three other people to play with, you should probably choose a hobby that is not 90% social interaction.

You can find games on roll20 right now for WFRP 2e, and it remains one of the more popular systems in Europe and especially Poland (where it was basically their DnD). All of this from a game by a smaller company that has been out of print for years and years. Of course player numbers will be lower than the flagship franchise in pnp and its shameless ripoff. That doesn't make it some botique game no one had heard of, and it still had no relevance to the fact that it solved your problem years ago. I'm sorry, dude, your "argument" isn't.

>shit, his points are objectively correct, better complain about anime images!

Have another smug Aqua, user, just for you.

How to fix mages-
-Enemies target the mage and his spellbook
-The Mage must keep track of spell components, and is given means to hold onto them, from mundane items such as moss and algae to things found in certain locations
-Good old 1e rules with mages using other people's spellbook and the stuff with calculating the worth of a mage's spellbook
-Mages level up the slowest
-Spells have versatility, you can cast the flurry of a magic missiles missiles in relation to caster level, or just cast one missile out of the barrage or something similar
-Mage is just on the ride of the adventure seeking to further study and personal power, is a liability if not supported and an asset when he can do the same for his party
-Adaptable tactics targetting ranged and magic users respectively
-Spell failure consequences, use of counterspell, and means to disput spellcasting.

But user, punishing players for choices is always a good idea! They should have the time an energy to sort through and research all the options!

>Or you could not, you know, lie.
I'm not lying though, you even confirmed it yourself.
>Days, weeks, maybe months at the utmost if you're running something ridiculously niche and obscure.

>What's the fucking point?
To not overload the players with too many options before they even understand how the dice rolling mechanics work.

It's not rocket science, it's the same reason most GM's don't start off their games around Level 10 when running games for newbies.

But by your own logic, starting people off with limited casters like Rangers, Bards or Paladins would make significantly more sense and fulfil the role better. And, again, that's only the case if you accept the rather stupid notion that a 'tutorial class' is necessary.

Hercules is a pretty cool guy.

Eh protects little girls and doesn't afraid of anything.

Only one class uses spellbooks and there're feats and class features that get rid of material components completely and this just ignoring there're still tons of powerful spells that DON'T use material components at all.

And on top of that looking for material components makes the game tedious for everybody and just makes the game focus on casters even more

I said something completely different to what you falsely asserted, yes.

This.

Level 0 does the whole tutorial thing better anyway, if you think you need it.

>But it's, everybody wants to be competent and bring useful stuff to the table, you'll never find a majority of players in a system wanting to be useless and completely irrelevant, you'll find surprising that when asked most people want to be as powerful or even more than other players in the table.
You're assuming that people will know as much about the system as you do though. I mean, my first character was a Rogue and I didn't feel useless throughout the campaign because we were in a crypt where my expertise came in handy.

In an unoptimized party, everyone's useless but they have fun anyways.

Honestly, the only time I've ever played a game with mages where they weren't explicitly just better than everyone else was GURPS with ritual path magic.
Mages can do more than D&D but the players have to figure out the spells themselves and the GM gets a lot of leeway to balance things out by making the spell expensive enough that there is a real risk with trying to cast it.
D&D isn't going to change and there's no real desire for it to. The closest anyone came was 4E but they had to change how every other class operated and people refused to accept that.
The fanbase is very rigid and nostalgic in their ways. Wizards will always be more effective, wizards will always be able to completely break the game with a flick of the wrist. This is what D&D is, love it or hate it.

>The Mage must keep track of spell components, and is given means to hold onto them, from mundane items such as moss and algae to things found in certain locations
Ah yes, we shall make the game less about the mage by having there be sessions where everyone lackeys with him into a cave to scrape up guano. Not even magic guano, just regular ol' bat shit.

>it remains one of the more popular systems in Europe and especially Poland

>What is hyperbole
You exposed yourself user. Nobody wants to wait months just to play some obscure indie shit when they already have systems like D&D that you can find people for in less than a week.

Not that user, but I'd rather wait half a year than to resort to playing 3.pf.

>EVERYTHING ELSE THAN D&D IS INDIE SHIT

Facts would disagree with you.

Games aren't 'dead' just because they're not the most popular. With the current state of roleplaying, how connected everything is becoming, it's never been a better time for finding a group for pretty much anything. You blinkering yourself and only sticking to entry level systems doesn't mean that isn't true.

It's your fault for living in a shit-tier continent.

>martial character can come up with something creative and risky to solve our problem
>or we can just let the character with deus ex machina bullshit perform maybe one roll with his highest stat to solve everything
>or we can just cut out caster classes entirely and run a game that isn't d&d.

Correlation is not causation. Spellcaster edition survives not because its good, but because of the OGL essentially babykilling any edition of DnD to come after it.

This. The spell component feature is bad in concept and execution.
At best you get a little bonding moment with the wizard and the ranger walking out in the woods looking for moss but consistently dedicating time to the wizard collecting supplies so he can do his thing is just bad because it gives more focus to a singular character.

If my goal is to create a campaign to run with rando's within a week or two, my best bet will always be the system with the most popularity.

But why would your goal be to get the worst roleplaying experience you can?

>So what I'm wondering is, is it even worth trying to balance mages with martials when it's clearly not what the average person wants?

You're assuming that the average 3.PF player is aware of the issue. The group I used to play with absolutely refused to believe it when I told them, even after going over some pretty blatant examples. The people who are still playing those games are either unaware, or they've realized the tier list and are still playing and balancing their games around it. In either case, it's going to be a very narroe subset of people who play the game, know about the problem, and choose to not do anything about it.

3.5 is not popular because of this. It's popular in spite of it

Speak for yourself.

I don't want martials and casters to be balanced. Casters should always be more powerful. Just my opinion though.

>Popularity doesn't mean a thing, it still sucks.
>You should play this obscure game that only 50 people worldwide have actually heard of, it's great because nobody knows about it.
All you're missing is the baret and heavy eye liner and you'd fit in on /mu/

Here, have a (you).

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that it's the worst system ever.

Martials are just easier to play for new players since they don't have hundreds of spells to chose from. Just roll to full attack.

I've just had a revelation. D&D is the fast food of roleplaying games.

Sure, it's not the best quality meal you can get, but you can get it basically anywhere, any time, and with basically the same experience. And sometimes you really do want a greasy burger or a bucket of chicken wings.

But it's still not a replacement for actually going to a restaurant. Restaurants have their disadvantages, of course. The quality can be a bit unreliable, you need to do some more research given the variety of what's on offer to find something to your tastes, and if you're only used to fast food a lot of how it works, being seated at a table and waiting ages for the meal to come might seem strange and inconvenient.

But for people who actually go to restaurants, you know there's a quality of experience you can enjoy there which those who just stick to fast food would never be able to enjoy.

>You should just swallow the shit I present to you, like the other little goyim.
All you need is the little hat and you'd fit in on /pol/

Just because you like it doesn't mean it isn't.

If that's what you want, then it'd be trivial to take a system where they were balanced and then just give casters double XP or cap martials at a certain level.

It's far easier to unbalance a game than to fix one.

this

How is that bait? I'm just stating my opinion.

It's not like I'm the only person who likes it though.

Concession accepted.

It's not like I'm the only person who doesn't like it though.

Except that sometimes a dnd campaign is so exceptionel that it will surpass any other campaign in your life.

I doubt the same could be said for a type of fast food.

>Food Analogy

>He likes something I don't
>Must be a /pol/ack

Outside of Veeky Forums most people enjoy 3.PF or at least have a neutral opinion on it. The only reason you think it's a bad system is the same reason why most feminists think that men are rapists in the making.

Echo chambers are a hell of a drug.

Mages are perfectly balanced in 5E which is also the most popular edition of D&D , and most played RPG at the moment.

I don't see your point.

I'm pretty sure if you got lost in a desert with nothing to eat for days and found a burger , it would be the best-tasting food you ever ate.

Also the same can be said for other systems.

Being able to enjoy something doesn't stop it being a bad system. I've enjoyed 3.PF games in the past, but I'm aware enough of how it works to know that a significant part of it is despite the mechanics, rather than because of them. These days I'll only ever play 3.PF with a GM I really trust to be able to wrangle the clusterfuck into something worth playing, and most of the time people with those skills have already moved on to better systems.

>perfectly balanced
Good goy. Now go have 8 combat encounters between long rests.

Please, mages are still more powerful than martials, it's just that it's all balanced out since everyone has the option to become a mage.

I don't know if I'd say perfectly, but it's fairly clear from the changes between it and 3.5 that most players wouldn't notice a drop in power as long as their wizard still has spell slots.

>Maybe if I ignore the point of his post everyone will think my post has one.

Right, those 4Element monks are really overshadowing the pure martial Open hand ones.

I'd also much rather have a Ranger over a Battlemaster fighter. Spells are just so good in 5e

>Spells are just so good in 5e
They really are. Since each spell can now be buffed by spending a spell slot of a higher, your spells never really stop being useful.

>mages are for experienced roleplayers, which is why it's okay for them to be more powerful.

This has never been, is not, and will never be true. Casters aren't even mechanically complex. The appropriate applications of their spells is obvious, and the classes of D&D and PF have no meaningful or actual depth.

Besides, most grognards play white male human/dwarf fighters, Paladins, Rangers, or barbarians.

Except in 3.5 spells scaled automatically without having to use a higher level slot.

The ranger's _spells_ are actually really good.

Which is why it's a pretty nice steal for the bard, who is actually a real caster, not a shitty half one.

4 Elements monk is not a caster in any way.

>But the rangers spells are good!

And that just proves my point. Having good spells isn't enough to salvage the class.

>4elements mon isn't a caster

You said yourself that every class had the option to become a mage, and that's the monk subclass that gets the most access to spells by expending Ki

It's objectively the most caster subclass of monk, but apparently it doesnt count because it proves how stupid your argument is.

Not really, a lot of spells in D&D lose their niche once you get access to better spells.

Like can you give me a reason why anyone would prepare Cure Light Wounds when they have access to Mass Cure Light Wounds?

>Having good spells isn't enough to salvage the class.

Only if it's a half caster.

>You said yourself
I did not, I'm a third party that felt that I should interject.

>Like can you give me a reason why anyone would prepare Cure Light Wounds when they have access to Mass Cure Light Wounds?

Exactly because it takes a lower level slot.

That said, I'm not sure why you'd prepare CLW anyway, except for low level absolute emergencies.

Even edited the applefaggotry in that is excruciating

Holy shit a Diablo player

Monk gets spells way too late and way too overcosted.
When you're a 17th level char and you get a light cantrip in exchange for other feature you aren't better than a 17th level martial char.

Not even in 3.5 just having "spells" made you better.

Also the problem of ranger is that outlander fighter is pretty much stepping on your turf. Beastmaster is shit because you get useless features (anything related to beastmaster), Hunter is pretty good actually, as damage dealer and as a caster, but people still feel outlander fighter is better, which doesn't really.

>Exactly because it takes a lower level slot.
But even then, CLW is inferior to MCLW because it only cures one person while the Mass version can cure multiple people.

>Casters are OP
>But not these casters, they don't count because theyre weak

As opposed to 3.5 where even being a half caster was enough to put you above any pure martial

Well, mostly because pure martials fucking suuuuucked so hard in 3.5 it's amazing, although I'm not sure if I'd put 3.5 Paladin above Fighter DESU.

I had three completely new players in a oneshot recently who had to be specifically told to roll a d20 each time they made a new attack or skill check. Even though I flat out told them several times that they would always be rolling a d20 unless I specifically called for something else they still kept asking before each roll if it was the d20 they were meant to roll.
And these aren't complete idiots either, two have Masters Degrees in STEM fields.

Paladin and Ranger weren't half casters in 3.5, they were 1/3rd or 1/4th casters. Half casters are the Bard, the Favoured Soul, etc those who reach 6th level spell slot. Paladin and Ranger (shit in 3.5) only got till 4th level spell slot. They couldn't cast shit till 4th level, a Barb was already better than those too.

So I dunno why you say we said "spells make you better", no, being full caster o half caster makes you better. I can have spells and be a full martial Barb if I pick a race like gnome and that doesn't make me better than an ork Barbarian at all

IIRC the categories of caster in 3.PF are one third, two thirds and full, for the most part.

He has been strawmaning the whole thread, he's twisting facts about 3.5, applying a false logic to those twisted facts and then argument against them.

>one third
I always thought that was the case, but many people, even devs call them from time to time 1/4th casters, dunno why, so I used it both (1/3rd or 1/4th casters) just in case I was forgetting something.