As Cody mentioned, the concern is more to understand how high damage builds are built, whether they're legal or if misreading of rules is bumping the damage. It's also to understand what normal decent damage is. A high damage character shouldn't be required at a table. If they're there they should make the fights go significantly easier. Just as having someone who good at diplomacy makes social interactions go easier, or a knowledge buff makes having the right info easier.

Characters who invest virtually nothing in combat skills should feel pretty useless in combat. They've obviously picked other places to shine. It should all balance out.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

Those who know me know I am not a math guy. On average from a quick look at the weapon chart there seem to be an intent that the faster weapon does less damage (which works for me). So someone at my table who's doing a lot of damage every 3 ticks is gonna get the "stinkeye" from me. "So how are you doing this again?" I still think its smart to invest some points in both combat and social skills. My priest can whack with his quarterstaff (and have done so relatively effectively) and my fighter can socialize somewhat. Granted she has half the ranks of the priest in her social skills, but she still has a d8 for her attribute die so she's not a total loss. Besides in this game it's much more fun to have a well rounded character who can participate fully in the story.

I am not fully balanced. I will admit that my gnome leans towards doing damage in combat. Some combat's I was ineffective (as was shown at Arcanicon Sunday morning during an open play slot). But I do have ranks in other areas 'other' than combat ones. Empathy, Etiquette, Persuasion (Yes, a gnome with persuasion, sound wrong right?), etc. And I do often try to use them, but I'm a GNOME and the role play side means that I often have to overcome these negatives. After all, who wants to admit they were convinced to do something because of a GNOME!!!

One thing that's nice is that this game supports everything from the hyper-specialized to fully balanced. The ones who hyper-specialize have more limited opportunities to shine, but shine bright, while the ones that are fully balanced contribute more evenly through a mod. Nothing wrong with either approach. I still look at this thread as what's the top end of the damage curve and what's more within normal reach.

Interestingly I have yet to see anyone post big spells in here. Casters often deal out boatloads of damage often to multiple targets.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

Well the only two spells I routinely cast are Awe (to push the clock--no damage but seems to be quite effective in combat--I've had no complaints about it at the table ) and Castigate to clear minions off the board (and I roll a d10 for that so usually my damage averages at a 5. Not big damage as far as I can see. Oh and Diminsh Fatigue which I cast at range with adaptations (autocast given my passive) and do 2d10 healing. Again no complaints at the table. I leave the crazy damage to the fighter types.

Spells, from my understanding, just are not capable of putting out concentrated damage. Sure, they can wipe the board of minions and devestate commons, but they do a lot of damage spread out over grouped up individuals. I will Castigate or (less often) area-effect Elemental Bolt to drop the minions before I move in to do my 'real' damage.

As far as damage goes I never intended my primary character to be a major damage dealer. I build him to be a divine caster who heals, does some damage in combat with spells and his quarterstaff, and has a decent collection of social skills. As a val'Ishi I'm also specializing him a bit to deal with incoporeal enemies and to deal with those pesky wounds that pop up. And I'm happy with that.

I fully appricate that as a noble goal. But I am also mindful that one when the focus of discussion are the outliers, then psychologicallly speaking the outliers become the norm. Take for example commercial plane crashes. Statistically it is the safest form of travel. But the psychological fear of air travel is bred by media attention when a crash happens. Thus there is a disproportionate belief that air travel is unsafe and many peaple will not fly do to that belief.

In an Arcanis centric discussion, the Solidfy Water spell and the Skyward Spell was being used by one player each. But Skyward was erratted to deal with a single use of a spell by a single player in a single mod. Likewise, now Solify Water is likely to meet the same fate. Given the psychological purpensity to act against one-off outliers I felt it important to highlight that we are dealing with outliers and not the norm.

I agree that media concentrates on the infrequent air crashes. However, I strongly disagree with your assertion that "many people will not fly due to that belief". A few people may be unwilling to fly due to fear of air crashes but the vast majority have no such issues.



I have only once seen a player use Solidify Water and didn't think it was a big problem. The far bigger problem (like most spells) are when the NPC opponents use the spells - they often can make much better use due to only needing to be around one scene. This is especially true when there are multiple casters in a scene able to cast the same troublesome spell (thinking of the scene with 6 casters able to Diminish Senses and others). It is something to keep in mind but, again, I disagree with your assertion that there is a "psychological propensity to act against one-off outliers".

im a firm believer of whats good for the goose is good for the well everyone else... why should the pcs be the only ones to be able to do some bad ass stuff. the bad guys are typically bad guys for a reason, and in my mind should do everything in their power to want to beat,destroy, embarrasses...etc the pcs. if not, then it just becomes a walk in the park with no challenge to the pcs. in the case of diminish sense, pcs were given fate points for a reason if they had no way to stop the diminish sense via spell or other means, then use the fate and kill the freaking casters. i recall players getting upset when there was more then on ranged npc in a mod at a con a yr or two ago and the judge had them target one pc with all the attacks...well if that would be the best tactic for the npcs to win the day then why would they not do just that thing, i know for a fact that in most circumstances the status quo for pcs is to dog pile the rabbit, in order to take out the biggest threat first.

i too though also believe that once a pc finds a way to really "break" something and word gets out you will start seeing more and more ppl doing it, cause 1) all heros are murdering hobos 2) murdering hobos alway want to have an edge on the bad guys