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ThaGhettoJew posted:In theory, yes. As long as they stand still for long enough to let me full-attack and I don't accidentally choke on most of my rolls in my magic-item-poor game. Also I have to be using my unarmed attacks and not waling on him with camping gear or a rock I found or a piece of the table, because I think that's fun too. I guess I'll have to get them bleeding first and then switch to the hitting them with Jackie Chan's improvised weapon poo poo damage later. The inability to move and full attack, combined with being even more reliant than everyone else on full attacks, is sort of the central failure of PF monks. I'm afraid the only good solution is "get your GM to apply a houserule fix". Tiger Pounce lets you move half your speed as a swift action, so you can move and flurry - but only when chasing someone you've already hit with an unarmed attack, so it doesn't help when closing in. The reason I gave you a style suggestion that has the "can't-move-and-flurry" weakness is because there aren't any good fixes to that problem - at least in 3.5 there were some ways to get pounce, even if they were kind of dumb (oh boy barbarian dip ahoy) but PF took them out. On the bright side, you're more likely to hit with your flurry than a 3.5 monk was, because of the "flurry acts like you had full BAB" thing. That said, for reasons unknown to me they didn't give monks actual full BAB, so this means you're even more dependent on flurry than before.
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Oct 11, 2011 00:05
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ThaGhettoJew posted:In theory, yes. As long as they stand still for long enough to let me full-attack and I don't accidentally choke on most of my rolls in my magic-item-poor game. Also I have to be using my unarmed attacks and not waling on him with camping gear or a rock I found or a piece of the table, because I think that's fun too. I guess I'll have to get them bleeding first and then switch to the hitting them with Jackie Chan's improvised weapon poo poo damage later. The clear solution is to drown your monk and make a wizard instead. Piell fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Oct 11, 2011 |
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Oct 11, 2011 04:26
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Piell posted:The clear solution is to drown yours monk and make a wizard instead. 3point5.txt Does Pathfinder have a Savage Species equivalent or anything like that at all for playing wacky monster races?
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Oct 11, 2011 04:37
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ThaGhettoJew posted:For those unfamiliar, it's basically Jackie Chan unarmed strikes and improvised weapons. Have I fallen into a system mastery trap or am I still good? ThaGhettoJew posted:I guess I'll have to get them bleeding first and then switch to the hitting them with Jackie Chan's improvised weapon poo poo damage later. You've fallen into a trap. Jackie Chan improvised weapons will always be a loving awful move. Your big problem is ki points. Namely, you are going to be hemorrhaging them ina most horrific manner. Monks are already really pushed into spending them constantly for extra attacks - you're going to be spending even more on top of that to give your improvised weapons the much needed enhancement bonuses and enchantments. And I mean spending them hard - it'll cost you three points every round to hit someone with most forms of DR. On top of this, as awful as this is, you NEED it...but you don't get it until level 11. Every level until then, and especially bad at level 10, your improvised weapons are going to be rank poo poo. Utter, utter garbage. So that's 3-4 ki points spent every single round of combat. You have 1/2level + wisdom modifier in ki points. At level eleven? That'll last you one fight. Maybe.
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Oct 11, 2011 06:09
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ProfessorCirno posted:You've fallen into a trap. I hadn't commented on Empty Hand specifically because I'm not familiar with Empty Hand and I just looked it over. Holy crap, that is spectacularly terrible. You get to pay a ki point and your swift action every round to get the exact same stats you would use if you put down the improvised weapon and didn't do anything special at all. Seriously ask the GM if you can ditch Empty Hand, or at least get it tweaked to something less amazingly awful.
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Oct 11, 2011 06:59
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Karandras posted:3point5.txt Not yet. It's in the works, although the "playtest release" race design rules aren't very good at all. That said, the way it works with playing stronger races is nicer, you just raise the ECL for a bit and then eventually it stops applying. So a brief xp penalty / boost in relative encounter strength.
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Oct 11, 2011 08:49
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ProfessorCirno posted:You've fallen into a trap. Benly posted:Seriously ask the GM if you can ditch Empty Hand, or at least get it tweaked to something less amazingly awful. It's bad, but it's not as bad as all that. I can use every weapon I find as an "improvised weapon" with the stats of a light hammer, club, or quarterstaff (depending on size) and still flurry with it. With the one feat investment of Catch Off Guard I have no penalties with any object at all but thrown weapons (plus an attack bonus in the unlikely event that they're unarmed). The description says I use the weapon's overlaid statistics, but The swift action damage-type switch is just if we come across skeletons or other -type resistant enemies. And the ki-hemorrhaging enchantment power would just let me add whatever effect seemed most important for a particular baddie. For example I could use somebody's recently found +4 bastard sword like a flurrying +4 vorpal quarterstaff with piercing damage for a round with a small but notable investment by level 15. And if I had the ki for it I could at the extra attack too. To add to the plaintive list of game wishes I was assuming when I grabbed the school that there would be some unarmed-enchantment equivalent to weapons, like brass knuckles or magic kickboxing shoes or something, that I would have access to by the time everyone else in the party had theirs. The base damages of the found weapons will start to pale beside my bonus unarmed damage after a while, but by then I expect I will completely be overshadowed by our casters and better armed thugs and what I do won't matter outside of the occasional intimidate or perception check. I could still be completely screwed over by item availability or perverse GM rulings, but I could end up mostly okay yet. And as far as the low-magic-item world thing goes, Cirno, it's because my game's being run by a moderate grog who avoids breaking the fantasy narrative for mere statistical reliability via Christmas-tree-like ornamentation. He's a good guy, but he'd rather we ran away from or maneuvered around the dragon (or whatever) than count on having the CharOp-recommended gear available to face it when it shows up. We'll assuredly have some, just not until it's obvious to him that we're poorly outfitted and he can find a reason for us to be granted our various belts of giant stat and crowns of casting well. On a completely unrelated note I seem to be turning into a disgusting edition warrior, but my system whines are probably not entirely appropriate for this thread.
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Oct 11, 2011 09:56
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ThaGhettoJew posted:It's bad, but it's not as bad as all that. I can use every weapon I find as an "improvised weapon" with the stats of a light hammer, club, or quarterstaff (depending on size) and still flurry with it. With the one feat investment of Catch Off Guard I have no penalties with any object at all but thrown weapons (plus an attack bonus in the unlikely event that they're unarmed). The description says I use the weapon's overlaid statistics, but Pathfinder does have brass knuckles. However, because Pathfinder devs are retarded, if a monk puts on brass knuckles he forgets how to punch well and uses the base brass knuckles damage instead of his regular unarmed damage. quote:And as far as the low-magic-item world thing goes, Cirno, it's because my game's being run by a moderate grog who avoids breaking the fantasy narrative for mere statistical reliability via Christmas-tree-like ornamentation. He's a good guy, but he'd rather we ran away from or maneuvered around the dragon (or whatever) than count on having the CharOp-recommended gear available to face it when it shows up. We'll assuredly have some, just not until it's obvious to him that we're poorly outfitted and he can find a reason for us to be granted our various belts of giant stat and crowns of casting well. The problem with "low magic" in 3.5/Pathfinder is that the only people who really get the shaft are the noncasters, since they need shitloads of gear just to keep up with the casters. Anything a magic item can do a wizard or cleric can do, but fighters and monks NEED their magic sword/armor/amulet of mighty fists if they want to stay relevant. Piell fucked around with this message at 10:36 on Oct 11, 2011 |
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Oct 11, 2011 10:31
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If you are doing low-magic then you really need to apply some kind of limit to casters too, possibly an xp penalty or forcing them to only have class level - 1 levels at most in a caster class. It's a horrible cludge though. Really, if you want low-magic, just play Iron Heroes (With all the various revisions and reams of errata that make it playable).
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Oct 11, 2011 10:34
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If your DM is "old school" then remind him that in older editions, magic items were basically a fighters only thing that they got to equal out to spellcasters, and that spellcasters had far, far more restrictions. I mean I get that he wants you to "outmaneuver" the dragon but that doesn't work if you have wizards. It honestly sounds like he doesn't want to play D&D. And that's cool! Not every game has to be D&D! But if you want a low magic, high player skill in combat, little outright full narrative mechanical power game, then you do not want to play D&D. This doesn't just go for Pathfinder, either. quote:The swift action damage-type switch is just if we come across skeletons or other -type resistant enemies. And the ki-hemorrhaging enchantment power would just let me add whatever effect seemed most important for a particular baddie. For example I could use somebody's recently found +4 bastard sword like a flurrying +4 vorpal quarterstaff with piercing damage for a round with a small but notable investment by level 15. And if I had the ki for it I could at the extra attack too. The problem with that is that ki doesn't come back without resting, like wizard spells but laughably weaker. The general problem you're going to face is that non-casters get the lion's share of their damage from enhancement bonuses and feat bonuses and weapon enchantments and etc, etc, in the 3e engine. Bonuses to damage is a million times more important then pure weapon damage. I mean basically you could grab that +4 bastard sword and use it like all that but you need the greatsword. You were expliticly talking about Jackie Chan tactics. I'm not trying to go "hurrr Paizo sucks," I'm telling you as honestly as I can "This system punishes you very harshly for playing this way." Look. Monk is a poo poo class to begin with. Monk of the Empty Hand that focuses on using improvised weapons is a player trap. It is bad class with bad mechanics. It is literally worse then the monk. If you want to keep truckin' at it, then go for it. But there's no advice I can give you that isn't "don't do it." I, at least, cannot see a means to optimize this, or even make it not lovely. Unless your DM regularly has +3 cold iron ladders and +2 Holy buckets lying around for you to Jackie Chan with.
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Oct 11, 2011 10:58
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ProfessorCirno posted:The problem with that is that ki doesn't come back without resting, like wizard spells but laughably weaker. If every melee character has a +x attack or AC item, I'll likely find something equivalent. I'm not pretending ki-points will necessarily balance me with a cavalier or whatever, I just want it so I have enough flexibility to fight an ooze or a ghoul without sitting the fight out. I'll probably be Monk until this guy dies, but I believe I'll just be roughly as bad as a normal non-caster and not preternaturally bad. Piell posted:Pathfinder does have brass knuckles. However, because Pathfinder devs are retarded, if a monk puts on brass knuckles he forgets how to punch well and uses the base brass knuckles damage instead of his regular unarmed damage. You scared me for a second there, but the text at that link says, "Note: Monks are proficient with brass knuckles and can use their Monk unarmed damage when fighting with them." I can just get them crafted with whatever the normal enchantment package is. Of course that loving Open Hand thing says the only weapon I'm normally proficient with is the shuriken, so I'll need still need the 'enchantments and properties carry over' rule variance to use them. I hate system mastery.
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Oct 11, 2011 11:35
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ThaGhettoJew posted:You scared me for a second there, but the text at that link says, "Note: Monks are proficient with brass knuckles and can use their Monk unarmed damage when fighting with them." I can just get them crafted with whatever the normal enchantment package is. Of course that loving Open Hand thing says the only weapon I'm normally proficient with is the shuriken, so I'll need still need the 'enchantments and properties carry over' rule variance to use them. No, you can't use your monk unarmed damage, according to the pathfinder devs - read the sidebar thing below that.
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Oct 11, 2011 11:44
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Piell posted:No, you can't use your monk unarmed damage, according to the pathfinder devs - read the sidebar thing below that. But that makes no sense, why would quote:Paizo developer Sean K. Reynolds explicitly stated in a Paizo messageboard post that monks DO NOT use their unarmed damage when fighting with brass knuckles even though the latest errata did not change or remove the sentence stating they do. Oh. Well, it's not official errata, right?
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Oct 11, 2011 11:53
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chrisoya posted:Oh. Well, it's not official errata, right? Not yet.
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Oct 11, 2011 12:17
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ThaGhettoJew posted:I believe I'll just be roughly as bad as a normal non-caster and not preternaturally bad. I guess what I'm saying is "You are incorrect about this." Monk is literally one of the worst classes in Pathfinder. It's basically running with the rogue, except the rogue has actual class abilities. And the Open Palm monk is a bad archtype of one of the worst classes. As for ki points? Like I said, your ki points are severely, severely limited. 1/2 level + wisdom mod, and only clerics (of loving course) get wisdom to attack rolls. That means you're going to have substantially less then you'll need basically ever.
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Oct 11, 2011 12:27
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Well, gently caress me sideways. Why in hell would he... You know what? Don't care anymore. Thank you, Sean Kick-in-the-balls Reynolds. Sean K. Reynolds posted:Treating brass knuckles, gauntlets, spiked gauntlets, cesti, and rope gauntlets as "unarmed attacks" doesn't make a lot of sense (because you're not unarmed, you have metal/leather/rope/etc. there). ProfessorCirno posted:I guess what I'm saying is "You are incorrect about this."
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Oct 11, 2011 12:50
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You know what is a 4e thing that you should ask your DM about? The Ki Focus. Because the Pathfinder monk is basically a weapon user who can't buy regular weapon enhancements. Cost for Rogue to get a +1 enhancement bonus: 2000 gp. Cost for Monk to get a +1 enhancement bonus: 5000 gp. Just, ya know, in case things weren't 'gently caress you' enough. "Here, that dirt I just threw in your eye? Let me rub it in...with my bootheel!"
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Oct 11, 2011 13:11
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Man, that is nonsense. It's fine to have enchanted brass knuckles / leg wraps / whatever the gently caress as a method of giving monks a routes to those abilities. And SKR's issues are all trivially solved. It also brings up weird questions like * If I have +5 flaming brass knuckles/gauntlets/spiked gauntlets, am I doing unarmed strike damage, the listed weapon damage, or both? Simple, apply the magic bonuses to the unarmed attack: Unarmed +5 +Flaming * How do the magical properties on those weapons interact with my monk unarmed damage? Does this make the ki focus properly useless on these types of weapons? As above! And yes, yes it does. That's no bad thing. * Am I doing monk unarmed damage plus enhancement bonus plus 1d6 fire? Yes! * How does this interact with an amulet of mighty fists? It's an item over priced because it's in the wrong slot. It shouldn't have been transferred to Pathfinder at all. * How does this interact with properties like brilliant energy? Any weirdness here comes from visualising how brilliant energy would apply to brass knuckles at all. * What about creatures that harm attackers who hit them, am I considered armed and safe or unarmed and not safe? Unarmed and not safe. The same as any DM would rule when somebody was actually using brass knuckles in that kind of situation.
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Oct 11, 2011 13:27
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ProfessorCirno posted:Unless your DM regularly has +3 cold iron ladders and +2 Holy buckets lying around for you to Jackie Chan with. Ask your DM if you can borrow a page from 4e and gain a generic bonus to hit and damage with all attacks similar to 4e's inherent bonuses or ki focus (if you're in a magic item campaign. If you're not, then don't play a non-caster). For example, if you want to Jackie Chan it up in 4e, you take a Belt of the Brawler (lets you use improvised weapons as clubs), an Iron Soul Monk (gains bonuses when wielding weapons, clubs and staffs are the more defensive options with its powers) and either a ki focus (doesn't quite work RAW since you're making an implement attack through the club, while the focus only applies to weapon attacks) or inherent bonuses (which does work) to boost your attacks. You can even take Fast Hands as a utility power so you can always pick up nearby poo poo. Then you take Five Storms as an at-will so you can dive into a crowd and swing your ladder for all it's worth, and Lion's Den so you can wander into a crowd of 100 minions and end anyone who approaches you. Plus you have some seriously strong defenses. Converting back to Pathfinder, if your DM lets you just forgo spending the ki points for your enhancement and lets you just pound away with the help of an item's enchantment bonus for unarmed damage, only spending ki to really ramp up your weapons, then it might be serviceable (though it would still be a PF Monk). Your DM will probably say no because this is Pathfinder, where terrible decisions are lavishly rewarded. It's like the soulknife all over again (no, you don't understand- your soulknife doesn't get a good weapon until eight levels after the fighter because it can never be lost or stolen! Fighters lose their +5 keen falchions all the time! And then just have the Wizard cast Keen Edge and chained Greater Magic Weapon on their spares!).
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Oct 11, 2011 15:40
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If your DM is nice but a narrative grognard, you might be able to get away with asking for changes that make the monk work a little better without affecting the narrative. What I would ask for that isn't a major obvious change to the monk's basic function: (1) Ki strike applying to improvised weapons and granting improvised weapons your unarmed damage for free if it's better than the improvised weapon's own damage, which it seems like the empty hand monk really should've had all along (since otherwise you're generally best off not using your improvised weapon special ability which is supposed to be the core of the variant). (2) Ki strike adding a level-scaling enhancement bonus (maybe equivalent to Magic Fang?) to your unarmed and improvised weapon attacks. Point out that even in a no-magic-mart game, the fighters will be finding better swords eventually and you won't be finding better fists. Those should at least keep your character from being worse off than a monk normally would be.
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Oct 11, 2011 16:16
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J. Alfred Prufrock posted:You know what is a 4e thing that you should ask your DM about? The Ki Focus. Because the Pathfinder monk is basically a weapon user who can't buy regular weapon enhancements. There's an easy fix to that too that I'm surprised was never implemented even just to throw monks a bone, just say that a monk's unarmed attack is masterwork. Let them literally get themselves enchanted up. Of course with this solution they'd still have to pay for bonuses and couldn't find any, so it still leaves a lot to be desired. Maybe just say outright that a monk's unarmed attack is masterwork at level 2, +1 at level 5, etc., and let the monk decide how to assign the bonuses? Or just give them something like the paladin weapon boon for their unarmed attack? (I know this wouldn't fix monks, it just seems like such an easy and obvious boost, at least, that I'm surprised Paizo's never even thought to include it.)
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Oct 11, 2011 18:16
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Idran posted:There's an easy fix to that too that I'm surprised was never implemented even just to throw monks a bone, just say that a monk's unarmed attack is masterwork. Let them literally get themselves enchanted up. Since it does state in a few places that a monk's unarmed attack is a weapon you could argue that it can be subject to the spell Masterwork Transformation. At which point it should be possible for a crafter to enhance. This comes off a little silly maybe but it is still less silly than gimping monks so badly. No one has ever played a monk in the PF games I run, and we've covered every other main class (outside of gunslinger and samurai, which are relatively recent additions) and quite a few PrCs. When a player even thinks about playing a monk, the rest of the players quickly and vehemently talk them out of it. It is possible to make a Zen Archer or possibly a Master of Many Styles monk work, but it will probably still lag a bit and it requires a fair bit of systems mastery, and most people with that much familiarity with Pathfinder know the best option is just to stay away from monks most of the time.
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Oct 11, 2011 21:49
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Idran posted:There's an easy fix to that too that I'm surprised was never implemented even just to throw monks a bone, just say that a monk's unarmed attack is masterwork. Let them literally get themselves enchanted up. It's not like there's no kind of precedent seeing as Monks can already have weapon enchantment spells cast on their hands in addition to the normal Magic Fang sort of crap. Maybe I can be the first to invent the Transfer Enchantment spell and break Pathfinder.
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Oct 11, 2011 21:54
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grah posted:It is possible to make a Zen Archer or possibly a Master of Many Styles monk work, but it will probably still lag a bit and it requires a fair bit of systems mastery, and most people with that much familiarity with Pathfinder know the best option is just to stay away from monks most of the time. My biggest problem with Master of Many Styles is that without Flurry it's hard to figure out how you're going to get any real offense going on a monk. The best I came up with is "something with dragon, panther, snake and maybe crane, charge in and maul them on counterattacks", but I couldn't make it gel.
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Oct 11, 2011 22:25
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ProfessorCirno posted:If your DM is "old school" then remind him that in older editions, magic items were basically a fighters only thing that they got to equal out to spellcasters, and that spellcasters had far, far more restrictions. Sorry to be pedantic for one second, but that's not strictly true. Wands used to be a big deal for magic-users. One wand of cold could take you from being "the guy who can cast lightning bolt" to "the guy who kills everything that isn't immune to cold." Scrolls used to be high level to create, also, so bandolier mages were less common in most campaigns until higher levels. However, it is certainly true that in Pathfinder, if you go "low magic" and don't modify casters, and don't adjust the Bestiary accordingly, you end up with a situation where fighters and barbarians get mathematically screwed, and clerics and wizards become more necessary and useful for utility effects. I could recommend all sorts of house rules that can quickly and efficiently deal with many of these issues, but that's really something that would be more useful to aim at your GM. Monks in Pathfinder got the shaft. They got full BAB everything except full BAB. They're mobile skirmishers who lose their strength when they move. They're strikers who don't do much damage. They are defensive experts with poor AC and hit points. The only thing they are really good at is taking down classed NPCs who aren't fighters. Although Pathfinder had, as a goal, maximum compatibility with 3.5, I think this is one issue where a stronger approach was needed. Monks needed either full BAB, or a much stronger potential for damage and status effects. Just for comparison, monks in AD&D used to get a chance to stun on every hit.
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Oct 13, 2011 03:18
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ThaGhettoJew posted:Well, gently caress me sideways. Why in hell would he... You know what? Don't care anymore. I don't get it. What's inelegant and unsatisfying about simply putting an asterisk next to the 1d6 or whatever damage, and putting "Fist weapons use your Unarmed Strike for weapon damage calculations, and you are considered unarmed for the purposes of spells and abilities". I mean there have been longer explanations to how a weapon does/does not do what it should/shouldn't. It solves every problem. But I don't play Pathfinder, so I probably have no right to talk.
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Oct 13, 2011 04:24
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ThaGhettoJew posted:Well, gently caress me sideways. Why in hell would he... You know what? Don't care anymore. Monks were pretty godawful in Vanilla 3.5, and you had to do some silly PrC/multiclass poo poo in 3.0 to make 'em work, so this isn't a new thing. Hell, in 4e they're lackluster Strikers, the awesomeness of Ki Focus gunkata with Hand Crossbows notwithstanding. With Pathfinder, it's best to just assume that every ACF is a trap option, and that most melee classes are traps. There's probably a handful of ACFs that actually are power-ups (Scout for Rogue/Ninja, the Wizard ones that give you free crafting feats and allow you to make an Outsider your bottom bitch, Qigong Monk, maybe Theologian if you find a killer app in your domain spells). The only melee classes I'd tell people to play who don't have spells are Ninjas, Cavaliers and Barbarians after they get Pounce. An Oracle with Battle Mystery can do most anything the other melee classes can do that doesn't involve needing full BAB (which mostly excludes feats you don't care about).
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Oct 13, 2011 05:50
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MadRhetoric posted:Monks were pretty godawful in Vanilla 3.5, and you had to do some silly PrC/multiclass poo poo in 3.0 to make 'em work, so this isn't a new thing. Hell, in 4e they're lackluster Strikers, the awesomeness of Ki Focus gunkata with Hand Crossbows notwithstanding. So the thing with 3.5 monks vs. PF monks: The PF monk is stronger than the 3.5 monk using core material only. However, a monk using PF expanded material is weaker than a monk using 3.5 expanded material. PF removes (or does not translate) a lot of stuff that helped the monk; the ability to get pounce or pouncelike abilities is an important one but definitely not the only one. So, yeah. Even though PF improved the monk class, they didn't improve it enough to make up for all the expanded material PF doesn't have.
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Oct 14, 2011 08:25
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Benly posted:So the thing with 3.5 monks vs. PF monks: The PF monk is stronger than the 3.5 monk using core material only. However, a monk using PF expanded material is weaker than a monk using 3.5 expanded material. PF removes (or does not translate) a lot of stuff that helped the monk; the ability to get pounce or pouncelike abilities is an important one but definitely not the only one. Also, fighters, barbarians, and paladins all got numeric fixes in Pathfinder. Monks got only full BAB on flurry and full BAB for maneuvers, which is not a real correction unless they can combine full BAB with movement.
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Oct 14, 2011 08:47
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Has anyone done a concise, tiered analysis of the PF classes yet? Something like dividing them into their hypothetical roles and judged how well they're able to do them? I realize one of the PF ideals is not having combat roles defined (particularly with the lego-block multiclass system) and to distance classes from having directly comparable mechanics. The class descriptions in the books are riddled with setting fluff and storymanship, so it's a little difficult figuring out if say, an oracle means we'll be defended against ambushes or if a druid's in our party we'll likely have lots of muscle available. Having seen a small measure of the low end of the no-spell-havers and some odd casters in my game's unoptimized party, what does the high end look like? Basically, do I just have to dredge through Paizo's bizarre forums software and hand-compare every class's CharOp page or has somebody already done the work? I remember some talk back in my 3.x days of tiers of effectiveness and was hoping the same sort of information was already common knowledge in Pathfinder world.
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Oct 14, 2011 09:48
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pawsplay posted:Also, fighters, barbarians, and paladins all got numeric fixes in Pathfinder. Monks got only full BAB on flurry and full BAB for maneuvers, which is not a real correction unless they can combine full BAB with movement. Well, it's a numeric fix, it's just that the monk's problems went beyond the numeric. My current lineup of monk fixes is shaped something like "full BAB and d10 HD to go with every other melee-focused class, something similar to 4E ki focus is available, ki has a recovery mechanic similar to grit, a ki point can be expended to pounce". This is of course subject to tweaking. ThaGhettoJew posted:Has anyone done a concise, tiered analysis of the PF classes yet? Something like dividing them into their hypothetical roles and judged how well they're able to do them? I realize one of the PF ideals is not having combat roles defined (particularly with the lego-block multiclass system) and to distance classes from having directly comparable mechanics. Unfortunately, every attempt I've seen at tiering PF has run aground on the highly polarized feelings people have about PF (or had at the time, don't know how many people still give a crap.)
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Oct 14, 2011 09:57
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Benly posted:Unfortunately, every attempt I've seen at tiering PF has run aground on the highly polarized feelings people have about PF (or had at the time, don't know how many people still give a crap.) This is true. Most people rely on anecdotal evidence or their experiences in their own games that may be far from normal. Someone who played in a game with an evoker wizard would think that wizards were on par with the other classes, but because their fighter was ridiculously optimized, fighters are just OP and should be nerfed. I was hanging around after a game last night with a new group and they started talking about monks. When I mentioned that they were pretty terrible, every one of them had a story about an awesome monk they or someone in their group played that blew everyone else out of the water. I guess they're either bad at optimizing 3.5/PF or evaluating effectiveness.
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Oct 14, 2011 14:30
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ThaGhettoJew posted:Has anyone done a concise, tiered analysis of the PF classes yet? Something like dividing them into their hypothetical roles and judged how well they're able to do them? I realize one of the PF ideals is not having combat roles defined (particularly with the lego-block multiclass system) and to distance classes from having directly comparable mechanics. I'll take a stab at grading them. 1 is bad, 5 is good, 3 is average-ish for a class that is vaguely intended to fill a role. Barbarian - Striker 4, defender 3, skill monkey 3 Bard - Controller 2, leader 3, skill monkey 4, defender 3, do someone else's job +1 Cleric - Controller 3, leader 5, defender 2, pokemon trainer 3, do someone else's job +2 Druid - Controller 4, leader 4, defender 4, pokemon trainer 4, do someone else's job +1 Fighter - Striker 4, defender 4, melee controller 3 Monk - Striker 3, defender 2, skill monkey 1, melee controller 1 Paladin - Striker 3, defender 3, leader 2 Ranger - Striker 3, skill monkey 4, defender 2 Rogue - Striker 4, skill monkey 5 Sorcerer - Controller 4, striker 2, do someone else's job +1 Wizard - Controller 5, pokemon trainer 5, do someone else's job +2
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Oct 14, 2011 15:53
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pawsplay posted:I'll take a stab at grading them. 1 is bad, 5 is good, 3 is average-ish for a class that is vaguely intended to fill a role. You are really bad at evaluating things.
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Oct 14, 2011 16:02
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Piell posted:You are really bad at evaluating things. Well, you are bad at evaluationg people's evaluations of things. So there.
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Oct 14, 2011 16:29
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pawsplay posted:Well, you are bad at evaluationg people's evaluations of things. So there. Well aside from rating the fighter as above average at being a defender and average at being a controller when it has no class abilities that allow it to do so, you somehow determined that every single class is average or above-average at their role, which is totally nonsensical.
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Oct 14, 2011 17:24
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Piell posted:Well aside from rating the fighter as above average at being a defender and average at being a controller when it has no class abilities that allow it to do so, you somehow determined that every single class is average or above-average at their role, which is totally nonsensical. Pathfinder has defenders at all?
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Oct 14, 2011 18:02
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GaryLeeLoveBuckets posted:Pathfinder has defenders at all? A grapple focused character is kind of defenderish, except he can only go against one enemy and most monsters that he would actually want to be a defender against are better at it that he is.
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Oct 14, 2011 18:11
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A lot of games are willing to have monsters engage the front-liners that charge in rather than taking crazy loopy paths to the back row unless the monsters are explicitly supposed to be the sneaky or zippy sort. It sort of dates back to the old mindset of marching order and graph-paper maps instead of battlemats. The fighter is in front, so he gets the brunt of the incoming attacks. The wizard is in back, so he's not getting meleed unless someone sneaks around to the back. If you play with that kind of assumption, or to a degree just with the assumption that game characters have neither out-of-character knowledge or a third-person omniscient view of the battlefield, you can be a defender by being able to solidly take hits and presenting enough of a visible threat that enemies don't want to ignore you. Fighters are okay at that. Taunt and mark mechanics don't become mandatory until you're playing with a Battlemat Tactical Combat mindset.
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Oct 14, 2011 21:06
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| # ? May 17, 2024 17:41 |
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Benly posted:A lot of games are willing to have monsters engage the front-liners that charge in rather than taking crazy loopy paths to the back row unless the monsters are explicitly supposed to be the sneaky or zippy sort. It sort of dates back to the old mindset of marching order and graph-paper maps instead of battlemats. The fighter is in front, so he gets the brunt of the incoming attacks. The wizard is in back, so he's not getting meleed unless someone sneaks around to the back. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Oct 14, 2011 |
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Oct 14, 2011 21:14
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