Forbidden banished exiles. Especially in MMORPGs, I've found that the most common overall in-setting guild theme is "we don't belong in the society that this setting established." It's not just in MMORPGs, of course. It's often a crutch (or training wheels, if I'm being generous) for some roleplayers to participate by not participating. I'm not saying that a character (or a player for that matter) has to bend the knee to Lord So-And-So, but it's kind of hard to find plot excuses for the the forbidden banished exile to even be in the same picture, let alone get the quest to do the thing.
Plot armor dependents. Yes, it's quite likely that if I'm running the game and telling the story that I won't have the guards kill a player character on sight even if they do something exceptionally stupid just to see what happens, like stabbing a random citizen. Those kind of players don't tend to last long if their only contribution is "try to knock down the props just to see what happens on set."
People that directly lift an established character in well known fiction, often just changing the spelling, and often not even trying to resemble or act like that character. In an older MUD, I recall a "Frrodoh Bhaginz" that was a Half-Ogre hunter. Again, it didn't ruin the game, but it was annoying. I admit it can sometimes be a red flag warning, and a helpful one, if the lifted name is from chud fiction, like if they have "Rahl" in their name. It can show me what to expect, either in a tabletop group or in a MMORPG guild.
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sorry that youre playing a shit system that isnt balanced, maybe try pathfinder 2e made by unionized paizo (the union is led by socialists) which doesnt have this problem at all? 🧐
Isn't Pathfinder really bad about caster supremacy? I always heard that there's no point in trying to play a martial character at higher levels because "cast save-or-die targeting enemy's weakest save" is basically an "I win" button.
pf2e is probably the only system in the genre where martials like fighters are unmistakably strong and perhaps even purposefully slightly overtuned. people complain about spellcasters not being able to solo encounters all the time on the forums lol. but pf2e has extremely tight math and even a spellcaster will be useful but they wont solo the whole encounter like in pf1e, dnd 3.5, or dnd 5e.
in general, the paradigm is:
martials: strong versus single targets, higher leveled enemies, have a little utility
spellcasters: strong versus many targets (3+ enemies hit by a single spell usually to be considered strong) but has a lot of utility. generally doesnt do good damage if you arent hitting enemies with big aoes or layered persistent damage (re: catching a dude on fire, breaking his brain, conjuring a swarm of mosquitoes, and chucking boiling acid on him as quickly as possible). not the best if some super leveled big bad is fighting you solo, thats when you gotta lean into utility and buffing hard
martials have a way better progression on being able to hit things. so if you wanna be a badass that kills a dragon with your fists, pf2e actually makes it viable rather than making you feel like shit in comparison to a spellcaster. martials also are able to do a lot more things than 'i swing my sword'. you can swing your sword, suplex a bitch, and hit them more with increased chances to crit for example
should be noted that im an extreme munchkin and minmaxer and havent found a way to definitively break the system yet despite being obsessed with finding a way to break it. even my most 'OP' builds are well within the math set out by the system and require a lot of teamwork to function. its very well designed
unions get the goods
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Pathfinder 1e, 100%. Build to be compatible with 3.5, it has the same 'linear fighter, quadric wizard' stuff, though its base martials are probably a little stronger than 3.5's, though that's not saying much.
Pf2e, in my experience, is the best dnd-like system I've played for caster-vs-martial balance, improving on 5e, where casters and martials were almost balanced in combat, but caster had a bit boost out of combat. In PF2e, all else being equal, a martial will usually be better in combat than a caster. Does mean that 5e players coming into the game will probably have some feelsbad about how 'little' damage their blaster is doing, but IMO casters do way to much damage in 5e for how much other shit they can pull on top of that. Though they make up for it their lower damage by giving good buffs and debuffs, and by dealing more AOE and diverse energy types, to take advantage of the more common damage weaknesses and resistances.
They also, of course, have more out of combat utility, though even there, martials have a big leg up compared to 5e. Rituals can be performed by anyone with the right skills, and some important stuff, like raise dead, are rituals, so anyone with training in religion can do it, magic or no. Similarly, skills are far more powerful. Out of combat, the medicine skill heals people right up (with the right skill feats), making healing magic only useful in combat, or to break curses and stuff.
I also in general really like their 'save or suck' spells. The real suck effects only happen on enemies crit failing their save, which is rolling 10 below the DC, and rarely happens. But there's still good debuffs applied on fail, and small or 1 round only debuffs that get applied on a successful save (similar to 5e's 'half damage on successful save' effects). It makes save-or-suck spells way less binary, as unless the enemy critically succeeds, they'll still get some damage or debuff on them, but also to really just negate an enemy the way 5e's 'hold monster' can, they usually need to roll like a 1.
Wow, I hadn't played Pathfinder since 1e. Had no idea so much had changed.
pf2e is pretty revolutionary for the whole genre. very balanced and very tight math
Yeah, PF2e is closer to a blend of DnD 4e and 5e, mechanically, than PF1e.
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idk the biggest abuse is just playing a fighter with true strike or something which means youll crit a lot. thats it
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ive played a gunslinger out of playtest and it is basically just ranged fighter. i didnt consider it op, especially when you throw 3-4 monsters at a party a spellcaster will shine more.
i think the math is honestly absurdly tight. sure, gunslinger and fighter will crit 10% more on average, ramped up if you true strike, but there are other things other people can do that are just as useful even without crits
and i havent had issues with the game falling apart at high levels at all. it isnt 5e. maybe you arent scaling encounters right?
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i think your dm just doesnt know how to use the monsters or read the stat blocks or maybe isnt playing rules as written. our paladin with huge shield focus gets hit regularly and has to keep pulling out shields as she gets swarmed by enemies who go for flanks and trips and knockdowns on her. if your dm is playing it like 5e where you walk up and you say 'swing sword' theyre doing it wrong. almost all of our fights we barely get out alive despite knowing the system well and i feel like it adds to the experience. like we're actually nervous to fight so we dont go murderhobo everything and selectively choose our quests.
like on average, a paladin might have 2-4 ac over what your average fighter will have. that shouldnt equate to 'unhittable'. that should equate to 10-20% less hittable
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a lot of creatures have a precise sense other than sight which negates hidden from sight. you can also drop hidden to concealed or observed for a lot of things with a single action seek check. true strike negates it completely as a single action. these are things that are accessible at the first level and the dm should absolutely be using them against invisible players
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which one?
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yeah shes definitely running it wrong if invisibility is trivializing encounters, like half the monsters have true sight blood sense and life sense or can just move through walls and fly off to plan how to fight you
and yeah i personally wasnt a fan of AoA's plot I preferred strength of thousands
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strongly disagree but ok
I mean, the other side of the coin is a character who is totally sub-optimized and can't hit the broad side of a barn with a nat-20 / blows through all their resources in the first encounter / doesn't understand any of the mechanics of the game so they just kinda sit there doing nothing.
I tend to find entry level players do better at low-levels of the game, where the mechanics are simpler and there's less room to go ham. But I also find that Dave 2-rounding the Final Boss clears time to do things other than attack rolls and saving throws. When you inject puzzles and social encounters and other story-based events into the game, min-maxing matters less and player cohesion matters more.
I also like to crib from the JRPG trope of "This Isn't Even My Final Form" when I'm at a truly dramatic encounter, as it gives interludes for PC/NPC banter and other non-murder based story interactions.
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I'm often forgiving about that unless the player tries to min-max everyone else. "Be (optimal race)" for that class" as unsolicited advice, for example.
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I do have a house rule that works well to catch many powergamers before they really start. If someone has a "template" or a "leveling plan" in D&D or something like it elsewhere, I ask them "how would a character in the setting I put before you describe your character and what they do, in their own words?" If all I hear is game functionality and power tripping, that character "template" is a no-go.
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Oh, if the powergamer is forcing me to scale up battles just to catch up with them, I do find that insufferable. I did say "often" not "always." Sometimes the invisible flying munchkin mage needs to be talked to, and often they don't like that talk, and in that case the group may be better off without them.
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