I have to disagree about 3.5e "hating" casters. What it was is that in 2e casters were super-powerful and by comparison fighters, especially melee warriors, were extremely weak. The ridiculous extent to which wizards dominate in BG2 is an excellent example of this. Therefore, in 3.5e, there was a conscious effort to bring things more into balance between wizards and fighters, so wizards dropped in power and fighters became stronger. So without this comparative context, it is not fair to judge "weakened" wizards in 3.5e in some absolute sense.
I for one am extremely happy they did this, because I love playing melee classes and hate playing casters. So I always hated 2e for this reason that it heavily favored wizards over warriors, and love that in 3.5e fighters (and melee classes generally) have more to contribute.
Nothing against you here, but if you really "hate playing casters", then it makes sense that you'd be fine with the way 3.5e treats casters. Me on the other hand, I don't dislike martial classes, but I think the way 3.5e dumbed down magic in general is over the top. I understand the idea of "rebalancing the scale somewhat", but imo they way overdid it. I've already talked about this before, so I'll try to keep this from being a whiny rant.
Best things about casters now is either 1) support spells for the brute force fighters, or 2) a few shenanigan spells like Hellfire Ray, Disintegrate, Mass Icy Prison, or 3) a few specific spells for special situations, like True Seeing against Mirror Image/Greater Invis, elemental resistances (early game, at least) and so on (although a Cleric is all you need for these purposes, not sorcerers or wizards). That's really about it.
Playing Kingmaker, and even now in WotR, there were times I spent 15-20 minutes looking at the spell selection screen when leveling up, because the spells were so bad I didn't even want to pick any, and sometimes I even fell asleep on that screen, ngl. This goes for level 5-6 spells to level 9 ones. Like, how can they possibly be this bad? These spell systems couldn't be any less creative or fun. In my 2nd run of Kingmaker I played a pure socr and she was somewhat useful in the early levels with the pit spells (again, it was relying on a very narrow set of spells), and the further I was in the game, the more my sorc just sat out and watched fights while the fighters beat everything up (cause I wasn't even a buffer/support, so all support spells came from other chars). My rogue in the 1st run was actually more fun to play.
On the other hand, why bother playing casters when you can do 60-70 dmg per hit with martial fighters, crit for anywhere from 200-300+, 5-8 attacks per round, crit on 15-18? And let's not forget about the dozen attacks of opportunity that would be triggered within 1-2 seconds. Also, I may be in the minority here, but I HATE the idea behind "attack of opportunity" in these games (like, if someone being engaged in melee by 4 fighters can still manage to make an AOO against the fifth guy running past, then shouldn't that AOO trigger an AOO from each of the 4 melee dudes? Nope, even though the rule book says something along the lines of "everyone in combat is always looking for a chance to attack someone who is not paying attention". Somehow it's the guy being pressured by 4 other guys who is able to make an AOO, but not any of the 4 guys doing the pressuring.)
If there's one thing I can say I hope for in BG3 atm, then it's this: for the love of god I really hope playing a pure spellcaster in BG3 will be more fun than in these Pathfinder games.
Last edited by Try2Handing; 25/09/2103:59 PM.
"We make our choices and take what comes and the rest is void."
