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A lot of what people consider to be "Naruto fanfiction" in Book of Nine Swords is really wuxia stuff. Wuxia is pretty great, wuxia fighting technique names are fun, and D&D is a game with Owlbears. I don't think Desert Wind was Wuxia though.
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Oct 16, 2011 17:46
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MadRhetoric posted:
MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Oct 16, 2011 |
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Oct 16, 2011 18:47
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pawsplay posted:Exactly. And I don't hate the Book of Nine Swords because it's overpowered, I just don't like it because it's full of stuff I don't like, like characters who can literally cut walls of adamantite in half with ordinary weapons, ostensibly through non-magical means. Bo9S is probably great for campaigns based more on Exalted, but I'm more of a quasi-medieval fairy tale person. It really doesn't matter how good Bo9S is, because it's not something I would use in a D&D campaign. But as a matter of fact, it wasn't good. Pre-errata, White Raven Tactics was mind-shatteringly broken. Crusader refresh was terrible, for which someone should be punished. The title refers to nine legendary weapons, which use the Weapons of Legacy rules, probably the worst thing ever published for 3e. Ever. It was good Pre-errata. It had one messed up path, and tried to continue legacy weapons which were an idea for weapons that retained some utility as you leveled instead of just being replaced, but mechanically wasn't ever really that good. If you think, in any way, shape, or form though that martial characters cutting through walls of adamantite with non-magic weapons isn't in the source material of original D&D, though, go read Conan. All the original short stories have been republished recently, and that's what playing a fighter should be like. He leaps and jumps and roars and shrugs off spells of doom like they were never even there all while cutting demons in half and stabs people through walls all with out the use (or trust) of magic. You could also try reading some Norse sagas. Magic is for pussies, drink ale and smash in mountains some jerk frost giant has covered in illusions to look like his forehead every day. There are a ton of literal (as in, from literature) versions of martial characters where they do amazing feats of strength and achieve what would be possible for normal men. The unbalanced fighter design in 3.x stems from two things: first, the tradition of the fighter as the guy who stands in the way. It comes from the origins of D&D as wargame, and it always stayed. It gets worse in third because they tried to balance out some of the core class progressions for everything but casters - BAB leading to multiple attacks a round for everyone, most classes getting one good save and two bad ones. These stripped all the benefits from the fighters as a class, a didn't replace them with anything new or worthwhile. On top of that, the only wizard handicap - low hit points and bad attack bonus - overshadowed by rarely having to attack (and when he has to hit with spells, it's via touch attack, a much harder armor class to improve) and having several spells designed to keep the wizard from ever taking damage.
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Oct 16, 2011 19:12
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MadScientistWorking posted:Yeah if they are anything like 4th edition melee dudes you are still effectively screwing them over. Someone help me out of this but isn't it the case that unless you build for it your melee characters are going to be atrocious at ranged attacks. And yeah my anecdote is to prove that there is no penalty for trying to attack. Whopee a monster takes some damage. It doesn't decentivize anyone from attacking. If you honestly thinks that is the extent of defender mechanics then no wonder you think a wizard can do it. Atrocious is probably too strong a term, at least for full-bab classes. "Mediocre" would be more accurate. Since everything is in the form of "basic attacks," the difference comes down to (1) the difference between Str and Dex, (2) feats, and (3) magic weapons. (1) is less important than in 4e because the system's numbers are less tightly controlled and base attack bonus is relatively more important (compared with half-level). (2) is going to be the major problem with non-replicable abilities. Losing out on ranged feats like Manyshot greatly reduces full-attack effectiveness. (3) is just a matter money (or caster support) and difficult to objectively quantify, since it is custom-dependent. So even a non-ranged specialist won't be completely boned. Still, if you built a melee dude, you probably want him to be in melee. Better hope the casters are cooperative.
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Oct 16, 2011 20:26
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pawsplay posted:
This is a terrible feat, since you give up your entire turn in hopes that you might make others reconsider doing something on their own turns. And you're still limited by not only your own heavily armored move speed (which means at level 20, your 20 extra feet of threatened radius is going to be utterly worthless after you poke someone on the edge of it and are thus completely out of position to threaten anyone else) as well as your dexterity modifier (you're looking at maybe six AoOs with Combat Reflexes over a huge ground at 20th level, assuming +6 gloves of Dexterity, since you're likely bolstering your Strength at every opportunity so your AoOs don't just tickle). Your AoOs aren't exactly hot poo poo to begin with after PF nerfed many sources of damage and control that you could put on those AoOs, plus you gave up several additional attacks (admittedly at your ever-decreasing full attack bonus). Anyone who can dodge AoOs is still free to laugh in your face since you gave up your entire turn to do this, and Wizards still eat your lunch by floating twenty feet off the ground and mooning you. In comparison, if you just grab a spiked chain or whatever and get up against someone, you're covering about the same number of targets and can actually attack during your turn. You're still a fighter though  . Except they removed the reach of the chain and the ability to threaten spaces both near and far at-will because fighters cannot have anything of value ever.MadRhetoric posted:MadScientistWorking: Your melee dudes don't have to run into the bad effects, you know. They have these wonderful things called ranged weapons. Or you can just wait for the enemies to stumble their way out of the horror and into your melee dudes' readied charges. I'm not sure what your DM anecdote is supposed to give me outside of confirmation bias, though? Ranged weapons are bad, and become incredibly bad at higher levels. Their attack is bad if you're not specifically built as a ranged specialist, since anyone boosting Strength (or Charisma, or Wisdom, or Intelligence) with their items and one ability point every four levels is going to have marginal skill with a bow, and you're probably not going to benefit from Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot, which means your accuracy drops further (feat taxes, woo-oo!). Their damage is bad, since all you've got is the enhancement bonus (which won't be that high if you're not a primary archer- bolstering your back-up weapon is expensive) and any stuff like weapon specialization or favored enemy, which is something you have to build for specifically (and tends to be kind of marginal to begin with). You don't even get to add any ability score modifiers unless you're using a composite bow (or a thrown weapon, and thrown weapons are utterly terrible in this game, since they don't even come back to you unless you pay extra, and only then at the start of your next turn. Hope you weren't planning on a full attack!), and then you have to pay an ever-increasing amount for the privilege of acquiring a new source of Multiple Ability Dependency (in addition to having an ammunition tax just to be a part of the party). So you're throwing down arrow after arrow and the guy with DR 10/NotYou is yawning as you plink away (hope you enjoy either being useless or pissing away your funds on special ammunition!). And that's before you get into magic that just says "gently caress your ranged weapon users" such as Wind Wall. Even if you don't, you get the distinct pleasure of playing a 3rd edition archer, perhaps the class with the fewest options in the game, all of which can be rendered utterly ineffective with shocking ease. LightWarden fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Oct 16, 2011 |
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Oct 16, 2011 20:31
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I dunno a Ranger with favored enemy in Undead, Humanoid (Human) and Outsider(evil) with a Holy Sacred Bane(Evil Outsider) bow is going to rock high levels pretty decently.
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Oct 16, 2011 21:11
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As long as the ranger doesn't run into any dragons, sure. Or oozes, or constructs, or nonhuman humanoids, or animals, or nonevil magical beasts, or things with DR/Bludgeoning, Slashing, Silver, Cold Iron or Adamantine, or things with Total Concealment, or Incorporeal creatures, or any form of wind or wall, or creatures who go around corners. You're effective against some opponents, perhaps many depending on campaign, but it's conditional and can still be thwarted by many high level abilities (plus I don't think Sacred exists in PF anymore, and you might as well be using a Splitting bow if you're playing an archer with access to earlier rules). You can be easily pushed out of your zone of effectiveness, and unlike a wizard you can't really change your abilities on a day to day basis to counter enemies who counter you.
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Oct 16, 2011 21:30
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LightWarden posted:As long as the ranger doesn't run into any dragons, sure. Or oozes, or constructs, or nonhuman humanoids, or animals, or nonevil magical beasts, or things with DR/Bludgeoning, Slashing, Silver, Cold Iron or Adamantine, or things with Total Concealment, or Incorporeal creatures, or any form of wind or wall, or creatures who go around corners. It's not like the Ranger is totally ineffective against non-favored enemies, and will probably be on one of its many favored terrains more often than not. Past that, if we are really talking about 'later' levels, a +4 sword is piercing DR/Adamantine and quite a few others, and Holy should take care of DR/Good, which puts him in pretty good shape against DR. Rangers aren't the strongest class in terms of raw power, certainly, but a well built ranger can bring a tremendous amount of pain down on a wide array of enemies. And as much as spellcasting becomes more emphasized in later levels, stabbing a dude never really stops being viable. And if it becomes totally unnecessary, I think that comes down largely to a lack of creativity on the DMs part, if he can't find or build encounters that aren't totally trivialized by a single wizard spell or whatever.
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Oct 16, 2011 21:46
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pawsplay posted:Nothing to do with caster supremacy. I don't like the idea that to be a heroic dragon slayer, you have to be able to jump thirty feet or cut metal walls in half. quote:Being a heroic knight should be sufficient, and if it's not, that's a reason to be critical of the system. Bo9S is fair enough of for what it is, but as a fix for the core martial classes, to me that's just throwing up your hands and saying, "Nevermind, we don't think this is going to work." Uh... huh. quote:I can think of one. The one that gives you monk unarmed damage. Apart from that, Bo9S doesn't offer much that is new, and what it does offer, I don't care for. It uses a "deck" of refreshing powers, and from my experience with Star Wars Saga, I have decided I hate that mechanic. quote:Monte Cook helped take us from AD&D to 3e. Arcana Unearthed remains one of the touchstones of d20 design. He's a good designer. "Oh noes, someone might take Toughness," is a problem I can live with. If you want to chastise him for designing a bad feat, you should be calling for the 4e designers' heads to be put on spikes. quote:Pathfinder simplified and improved the skill system, consolidated most of the PHB II style feats into the main book, addeded some math fixes for some of the classes, and gave sorcerers a reason to get up in the morning. Oh, and they upgraded Toughness. That is entirely sufficient as an upgrade if I was already happily running a 3.5 campaign previously. I get so tired of the idea that Pathfinder was paraded out in order to change nothing. I already had 3.5 books in good condition I could have continued to use, and I don't buy or use Paizo adventure paths. quote:If I had been in charge of 4e, I also would have addressed caster supremacy, just not in the same way. I like proportionately scaled attacks and defenses, that was a good idea, too. I am not resistant to new approaches. I am just not in agreement with people who actually liked Bo9S. You know who's stuck in the past? People who still give a crap about Bo9S. That ship sailed. People who didn't like Bo9S look at it and whine about the funny names for things. (God forbid they realize what kind of florid names Spanish sword schools gave poo poo at one point.)
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Oct 16, 2011 22:07
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grah posted:It's not like the Ranger is totally ineffective against non-favored enemies, and will probably be on one of its many favored terrains more often than not. Past that, if we are really talking about 'later' levels, a +4 sword is piercing DR/Adamantine and quite a few others, and Holy should take care of DR/Good, which puts him in pretty good shape against DR. I'm not really sure how the problem of "archers have difficulty with certain DR" is solved by "don't be an archer." Double-checked the PFSRD, and Favored Enemy isn't even that good, since even if you go all in, you're getting +10 to attacks and damage against one enemy group (which is nice), but only have a +2 to attacks and damage against four others (which is eh at level 20). Or you can have +2 to one and +4 to four, while even a fighter can have +4 to everything with a few feats. Thus against non-favored foes the ranger is bog-standard at range, in a game where ranged attacks are mostly substandard to melee, better only in that you might be able to spam more of them and from further away. The Guide gets a sort of low-rent 4e quarry ability, but like all things Paizo saw that it might be useful and limited it to X/day. Favored Terrain will help you win initiative and hide better, but it doesn't seem to really help you kill better. And you're right, it is a lack of creativity on the DM's part if the DM can't come up with an encounter the wizard can't trivialize. This is because in order to come up with an encounter the wizard can't trivialize, you have to be a better wizard player than the player playing the wizard and know every single spell in the wizard's spellbook inside and out. This is something of a tall order for most DMs if the wizard player has access to the internet, and is probably not a good sign of a cooperative game. LightWarden fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Oct 16, 2011 |
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Oct 16, 2011 22:44
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If you need to be a creative DM just to ensure one class doesn't dominate - if you need to be a creative DM just to challenge that one class - then the problem doesn't lie with the DM.
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Oct 16, 2011 23:26
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LogicNinja posted:In other words, you want to somehow make heroic knights competitve with Godlike Wizards, but you don't even want them to do anything like cut through something super hard, or jump kinda far. If you read some of the stuff pawsplay has written for PF, it's pretty obvious that he doesn't actually want the knights to be competitive with the wizards, or at least is smart enough to know that the PF fanbase doesn't want that, anyway.
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Oct 16, 2011 23:43
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I feel like people think that you have to yell out your maneuver's name every time you attack and that's why they think that you can't make a traditional-fantasy-flavored character with Bo9S. Seriously, a warblade with Iron Heart and Stone Dragon will feel just like a fighter narratively except for the part where he can win fights. The "deck" thing goes back to crusader being the first class presented. Warblades and swordsages honestly fit pretty close to classic D&D Vancian casting (memorize X number of spells, use them and they discharge, then you have to recharge them) with the main difference being that the abilities are less magicky and they recharge in five minutes instead of eight hours.
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Oct 17, 2011 00:07
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Also, people rag on the Crusader's recovery mechanic a lot, but it's both more tied to the fluff (they go off of divine inspiration) and, frankly, more powerful than the other two.
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Oct 17, 2011 00:17
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You know, people always say "wizard supremacy," but when I play a wizard, I usually up having exactly the wrong tools for the job (and the right ones sitting unprepared in my spellbook). Even in the best cases, about half my spells end up being useful. With my last one (level 7ish), I ended up relying on dispel magic and my wand of fireball, and buffing the two very well optimized melee fighters. Can someone explain what the general strategy is? It seems like you can get set up to do one thing very well, but it only lasts as long as those spells do and then what do you do the rest of the day?
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Oct 17, 2011 00:24
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LightWarden posted:I'm not really sure how the problem of "archers have difficulty with certain DR" is solved by "don't be an archer." Sorry, admittedly I skimmed and didn't realize you were talking specifically about archery, though, the same enchantments on a bow should pierce DR the same way, though I can see certain DMs insisting it does not. quote:And you're right, it is a lack of creativity on the DM's part if the DM can't come up with an encounter the wizard can't trivialize. This is because in order to come up with an encounter the wizard can't trivialize, you have to be a better wizard player than the player playing the wizard and know every single spell in the wizard's spellbook inside and out. This is something of a tall order for most DMs if the wizard player has access to the internet, and is probably not a good sign of a cooperative game. The smaller (but growing, rapidly) spell list of Pathfinder had actually done a tremendous amount to mitigate this problem, though Ultimate Magic has brought a lot of things back in and starting to make it more of an issue. But all the same tricks the party uses, or should be using, to avoid getting one-hit-killed by a caster of their level, enemy parties need to start employing at later levels. You don't need to know every wizard spell in existence to have a prepared counterspell or spell turning show up now and again. Or to use larger numbers of enemies spaced out from each other a bit to avoid AoE save or sucks ending the whole thing in one go, or just to have a larger number of encounters in the day. I'm not saying PF doesn't have serious balance problems, or that wizards aren't far and away the most versatile full casters, and that full casters in general have the most raw power in the game. Those things are true. Those problems with the game don't make it an unserviceable or unfun system. The severity of caster supremacy is not so bad in PF that melee classes ever become totally worthless or that casters just make every single encounter eat a bag of dicks all day.
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Oct 17, 2011 00:27
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grah posted:I'm not saying PF doesn't have serious balance problems, or that wizards aren't far and away the most versatile full casters, and that full casters in general have the most raw power in the game. Those things are true. Those problems with the game don't make it an unserviceable or unfun system. quote:The severity of caster supremacy is not so bad in PF that melee classes ever become totally worthless or that casters just make every single encounter eat a bag of dicks all day. Anyway, it all depends on what level you are, how you're running your wizard, how your DM is running enemies, and how the other PCs are built.
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Oct 17, 2011 00:32
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zachol posted:You know, people always say "wizard supremacy," but when I play a wizard, I usually up having exactly the wrong tools for the job (and the right ones sitting unprepared in my spellbook). Even in the best cases, about half my spells end up being useful. Be a conjurer (the best spells are conjuration). For a level 7, a memorized list might be something like 1st) Mage Armor, Silent Image, Grease, Obscuring Mist, Enlarge Person, Charm Person 2nd) Glitterdust, Web, Scorching Ray, OPEN SLOT 3rd) Haste, Hold Person, Stinking Cloud, Dispel Magic 4th) Black Tentacles, Summon Monster IV Then get a couple wands for if you actually need to do damage, and a bunch of scrolls. The key is efficient use of your spells - Glitterdust/Web/Hold Person/Stinking Cloud/Black Tentacles are all capable of singlehandedly winning a combat, or at least making it much easier, and you can toss off one or two of them and then use your wands/scrolls. Low level scrolls (level 1 and 2) are extremely cheap to make in terms of XP and gold, so you should be making lots of them.
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Oct 17, 2011 00:32
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Oh yeah, all the spells I hate when the DM uses. Why I ended up preparing dispel magic all the time, actually. Has anyone tried to tone those sorts of spells down? A lot of the time people seem to raise the fighter up or gimp the wizard in some other way, but what about softening all the "save or die" spells? Maybe knock the DC down a bunch, but give a partial effect on a save, or have two saves or something?
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Oct 17, 2011 00:43
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grah posted:Sorry, admittedly I skimmed and didn't realize you were talking specifically about archery, though, the same enchantments on a bow should pierce DR the same way, though I can see certain DMs insisting it does not. Bows don't benefit from Adamantine, Cold Iron, or Silver properties, only arrows do, and arrows are something you tend to use up, so if you're faced with an enemy that has DR 10/adamantine, you either are throwing 60 gp at the enemy per shot or you're going to have to eat a 10 point penalty to your already low damage (1d8 + up to 5 from your enhancement + a few points from composite + that's it unless you scare up a source of luck or morale bonus to damage), and each special shot you use is one you won't be using again if you encounter another enemy, whereas someone with a spare weapon and Greater Magic Weapon is back in the game in no time flat no matter how many enemies with that resistance are encountered. Admittedly, I've since discovered that it seems like Pathfinder does something unusual by allowing +3/+4/+5 weapons to ignore cold iron & silver/adamantine/alignment damage reduction respectively, presumably to avoid the problem of a +1 weapon with Greater Magic Weapon and nine lower enhancements on it being objectively superior to a +5 weapon with five enhancements. So there is that to look forward to, I suppose. Bows also only do piercing damage, so they're eating a damage penalty against skeletons, zombies, or liches, for instance. And since the strength of a bow is the death-of-a-thousand-cuts arrow spam, any penalty to damage (including stuff like miss chances from total concealment or incorporeal foes) gets multiplied something like six times when compared to single-shot damage dealers like cavalry chargers.
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Oct 17, 2011 00:51
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LightWarden posted:Bows don't benefit from Adamantine, Cold Iron, or Silver properties, only arrows do, and arrows are something you tend to use up, so if you're faced with an enemy that has DR 10/adamantine, you either are throwing 60 gp at the enemy per shot or you're going to have to eat a 10 point penalty to your already low damage (1d8 + up to 5 from your enhancement + a few points from composite + that's it unless you scare up a source of luck or morale bonus to damage), and each special shot you use is one you won't be using again if you encounter another enemy, whereas someone with a spare weapon and Greater Magic Weapon is back in the game in no time flat no matter how many enemies with that resistance are encountered. Admittedly, I've since discovered that it seems like Pathfinder does something unusual by allowing +3/+4/+5 weapons to ignore cold iron & silver/adamantine/alignment damage reduction respectively, presumably to avoid the problem of a +1 weapon with Greater Magic Weapon and nine lower enhancements on it being objectively superior to a +5 weapon with five enhancements. So there is that to look forward to, I suppose. Clustered Shot in UC allows you to add up all of your arrow damage before applying DR. Also there are blunt arrows. OdinsBeard fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Oct 17, 2011 |
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Oct 17, 2011 01:06
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LightWarden posted:Bows also only do piercing damage, so they're eating a damage penalty against skeletons, zombies, or liches, for instance. And since the strength of a bow is the death-of-a-thousand-cuts arrow spam, any penalty to damage (including stuff like miss chances from total concealment or incorporeal foes) gets multiplied something like six times when compared to single-shot damage dealers like cavalry chargers. I am sure you will be entirely surprised to learn that the answer to this problem is magic. Also, to Piell, crafting stuff in Pathfinder no longer costs experience, only gold, so it's even better for you. And, while conjuration still (afaik) has the best spell selection, some of the other schools have powers that can merit a specialization (divination's "always win initiative all the time" ability, for instance).
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Oct 17, 2011 01:24
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zachol posted:Oh yeah, all the spells I hate when the DM uses. Why I ended up preparing dispel magic all the time, actually. Pathfinder got a few of the worst offenders (Glitterdust, for example, offers a save every round in PF--still brutally effective against brute warrior types). But if you're looking for a D&D that toned combat spells down, uh, that's 4E for you.
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Oct 17, 2011 02:21
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LightWarden posted:Bows don't benefit from Adamantine, Cold Iron, or Silver properties, only arrows do, and arrows are something you tend to use up, so if you're faced with an enemy that has DR 10/adamantine, you either are throwing 60 gp at the enemy per shot or you're going to have to eat a 10 point penalty to your already low damage (1d8 + up to 5 from your enhancement + a few points from composite + that's it unless you scare up a source of luck or morale bonus to damage), and each special shot you use is one you won't be using again if you encounter another enemy, whereas someone with a spare weapon and Greater Magic Weapon is back in the game in no time flat no matter how many enemies with that resistance are encountered. Admittedly, I've since discovered that it seems like Pathfinder does something unusual by allowing +3/+4/+5 weapons to ignore cold iron & silver/adamantine/alignment damage reduction respectively, presumably to avoid the problem of a +1 weapon with Greater Magic Weapon and nine lower enhancements on it being objectively superior to a +5 weapon with five enhancements. So there is that to look forward to, I suppose. Aside from magical bows and specialty arrows, you can blast through DR in a variety of ways. Vital Strike and Improved Vital Strike handily solve the problem of facing DR multiple times. Pinpoint targeting plus Deadly Aim isn't a ton of damage, but it's consistent and doesn't waste arrows. Cold iron arrows cost twice what regular ones do. Above a certain level (say, level 2), you should just always use cold iron arrows for your normal arrows.
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Oct 17, 2011 02:28
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LogicNinja posted:People who liked Bo9S look at what you could do with it. I'm sure you're just trying to be helpful, but it would really be nice if you would actually try reading the discussion before you start delivering your sermons. The Bo9S naming scheme is not really generating a lot of discussion, in fact, I like a lot of the names, and I am sure I am not the only one.
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Oct 17, 2011 02:31
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pawsplay posted:Aside from magical bows and specialty arrows, you can blast through DR in a variety of ways. Vital Strike and Improved Vital Strike handily solve the problem of facing DR multiple times. pawsplay posted:I'm sure you're just trying to be helpful, but it would really be nice if you would actually try reading the discussion before you start delivering your sermons. The Bo9S naming scheme is not really generating a lot of discussion, in fact, I like a lot of the names, and I am sure I am not the only one. Yeah, you're a special case who likes the names but doesn't think warriors should be able to jump or cut through things, I get it. LogicNinja fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Oct 17, 2011 |
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Oct 17, 2011 02:31
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pawsplay posted:Aside from magical bows and specialty arrows, you can blast through DR in a variety of ways. Vital Strike and Improved Vital Strike handily solve the problem of facing DR multiple times. Pinpoint targeting plus Deadly Aim isn't a ton of damage, but it's consistent and doesn't waste arrows. But vital strike isn't very good. As far as I can tell, it's three feats to exchange all of your attacks in a full round for one that, in 4e terms, does a few extra [W] worth of damage. And even in 4e, the [W] isn't as important as the bonuses afterwards (which is why getting a huge flat bonus on the end of your weapon is key for high damage builds using any form of damage multiplication such as crit-fishing, attack spamming or charging). Assuming you were 20th level with a +5 bow doing 1d8+10 or so against DR 10/Adamantine, then you're making 4d8+10 against the DR instead of 1d8+10 against the DR four to six times, which is about equal at four times (save for reduced chance to score a critical hit for triple damage), but falls behind with six attacks, or with a higher bonus to damage (which you probably can do). Clustered Shot does this job much better, since you can still full attack with all the fun that has. Still seems kind of feat-tax-y since it's the sort of investment only a dedicated archer would have room for.
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Oct 17, 2011 02:45
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LogicNinja posted:Yeah, you're a special case who likes the names but doesn't think warriors should be able to jump or cut through things, I get it. I don't even object to some kinds of warriors doing those things, I just don't think that's a fit for Fighters. I object to cloud-leaping, wall-shredding Fighters for the same reason I would object to Fighters turning the undead or smiting demons. I'm glad you liked the Bo9S, everything should be loved by someone.
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Oct 17, 2011 02:54
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LightWarden posted:But vital strike isn't very good. As far as I can tell, it's three feats to exchange all of your attacks in a full round for one that, in 4e terms, does a few extra [W] worth of damage. And even in 4e, the [W] isn't as important as the bonuses afterwards (which is why getting a huge flat bonus on the end of your weapon is key for high damage builds using any form of damage multiplication such as crit-fishing, attack spamming or charging). Assuming you were 20th level with a +5 bow doing 1d8+10 or so against DR 10/Adamantine, then you're making 4d8+10 against the DR instead of 1d8+10 against the DR four to six times, which is about equal at four times (save for reduced chance to score a critical hit for triple damage), but falls behind with six attacks, or with a higher bonus to damage (which you probably can do). Presumably you would invest in only one tactic or the other. Full attack with clustered shot or Penetrating Strike is okay. Vital Strike does not score quite as much damage, but is a more versatile feat chain (move + Vital Strike is better than an unimproved charge, for instance). As I said, there several options.
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Oct 17, 2011 02:59
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pawsplay posted:I don't even object to some kinds of warriors doing those things, I just don't think that's a fit for Fighters. quote:I object to cloud-leaping, wall-shredding Fighters for the same reason I would object to Fighters turning the undead or smiting demons. I'm glad you liked the Bo9S, everything should be loved by someone. So I guess your objections are now that these things are baked into some of the maneuvers (which you can take or avoid, to taste), rather than baked into basic game mechanics (like the near-mandatory Power Attack) or side effects of other things (don't want to jump higher? Too bad, your haste boots make you do it). LogicNinja fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Oct 17, 2011 |
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Oct 17, 2011 03:12
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Vital Strike was meant to be the answer to non-casters loosing too much in not getting their full attack. Which in turn is evidence for my "Paizo doesn't even understand the problems they were trying to fix" statement. Also Pawsplay thinks fighters are literally an NPC class so
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Oct 17, 2011 04:06
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LogicNinja posted:So I guess your objections are now that these things are baked into some of the maneuvers (which you can take or avoid, to taste), rather than baked into basic game mechanics (like the near-mandatory Power Attack) or side effects of other things (don't want to jump higher? Too bad, your haste boots make you do it). No, that really has nothing to do with any of the things I said. Can you point to some place I indicated that fighters shouldn't wear magical boots? Do you even understand how Power Attack works in Pathfinder? You say "objections" like I'm making a court case, which I am not. I am simply trying to explain why the Bo9S is unappealing to me, not why it's wrong. I don't like the Bo9S. Lots of other people don't like it. It has nothing to with "because caster supremacy" or wuxia-inspired names or liking or not like anime. It didn't appeal to me because I wasn't looking for ways to include thematically over-the-top martial powers in my games. Nevertheless, that kind of book could still earn a place on my bookshelf if it facilitated those kinds of things for people who wanted them. I mean, sure, I can accept a quasi-supernatural swordsman in my campaign. However, B09S failed to deliver mechanically. The crusader refresh mechanic is really the worse thing, and as I said, my experience with Star Wars Saga has thoroughly convinced me that I do not like any way of balancing encounter powers that uses a similar approach. I feel about Bo9S about the same way I do about the origional Psionics Handbook; if it were the only game in town, sure, but I'm glad that developmental path dead-ended.
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Oct 17, 2011 07:10
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If you think fighters can't be extraordinary but wizards can cast magic, you believe in caster superiority. Like that's almost the literal definition. You think spellcasters are literally superior to non-spellcasters.
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Oct 17, 2011 08:11
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ProfessorCirno posted:If you think fighters can't be extraordinary but wizards can cast magic, you believe in caster superiority. I don't think non-spellcasters cast spells. Fighters should be extraordinary. But they shouldn't be forced to be magical in order to be extraordinary. Call it what you like, but jumping thirty feet through the air and cutting a metal wall in half is magical. If I'm running a superhero game, I don't balance Superman with Batman by giving Batman heat vision. EDIT: Do you actually have anything useful to say about balancing Pathfinder, or are you just here to castigate people for the sin of enjoying it? pawsplay fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Oct 17, 2011 |
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Oct 17, 2011 08:17
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pawsplay posted:I don't think non-spellcasters cast spells. Fighters should be extraordinary. But they shouldn't be forced to be magical in order to be extraordinary. Call it what you like, but jumping thirty feet through the air and cutting a metal wall in half is magical. If I'm running a superhero game, I don't balance Superman with Batman by giving Batman heat vision. So out of curiosity what is within the scope of an extraordinary (that is, high-level) fighter if battering through a metal wall isn't?
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Oct 17, 2011 08:24
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pawsplay posted:I don't think non-spellcasters cast spells. Fighters should be extraordinary. But they shouldn't be forced to be magical in order to be extraordinary. Call it what you like, but jumping thirty feet through the air and cutting a metal wall in half is magical. If I'm running a superhero game, I don't balance Superman with Batman by giving Batman heat vision. Batman HAS heat vision though, though his gear, that only Batman can use. Batman also has "heat vision" in that he already knows where badguys are because he can hear them through the walls, or because he has an elaborate plan that they're unwittingly following. Here's the catch - everything I just described belongs to wizards. The problem is that in 3.x, wizards are Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman and the Green Lantern. Fighters are the NYPD that get beaten and call the superheros to save the day. This is why I say Paizo doesn't understand their own problems. The problem with the fighter was never that he didn't do enough damage. You stacked on enough charge modifiers and your charge would more or less insta-gib enemies. The fighter's problem is that all he could do was make a really big number attack the enemy's HP damage if he had a full attack, and nothing more. Paizo's fix to this was to make their really big number attack a bit bigger if he has a full attack. So here's the thing: it's pointless to discuss Pathfinder balance with someone who both a) believes in the magic/nonmagic divide rather then a natural/supernatural divide, and then b) believes some classes have access to magic and others do not. Because 3.x pushes for a magic/nonmagic divide rather then a natural/supernatural one, and you've just stated you don't want fighters doing supernatural things. To put it another way: spellcasters are already magical. If magic is defined as a source of narrative and mechanical power, then spellcasters already have this. Perhaps I should ask you how to balance this out?
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Oct 17, 2011 08:27
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I mean poo poo, look though the 2e High Level Guide sometime. High level fighters can get the ability to simply ignore DR entirely. They can literally beat a balor to death with a chair. Or they can flip the bird at medusas and ignore their stone gaze. Or they can become a paragon of their kind to the point that every member of their race knows them instinctively and admires them. And more! High level fighters in 3e get +1 to their attack rolls.
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Oct 17, 2011 08:31
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Pawsplay, out of curiosity, what should a high level fighter be able to do? Fighter is basically built out of feats, and you've expressed a strong distaste for quite a few potential things that could be turned into feats (marking, maneuvers, SAGA Edition powers, etc). So I'm curious what a Fighter should be able to actually accomplish as he nears 20th level. Not looking for a recommended feat list. What should he be able to do? A quick glance over the cleric and wizard spell lists says that at this point in their career these guys can cross planes of existence, resurrect the dead, summon powerful monsters to fight for them, blast their enemies with massive firestorms, create absolute defenses to block out all effects, kill with a word, stop time, transform their bodies into war machines, trap the souls of dead foes, and wish for other effects beside. It's not a leading question. I'm just trying to establish a baseline. Should any of these be cut from the expected abilities of spellcasters? Whether that's the case or not, what is a fighter supposed to be able to do himself that matches these guys and merits being the same level as them? Just... be tough? Have a couple of tricks that can stop enemies from quickly closing with the casters? This seems like such a wide disparity that I feel I must be missing something. e: sorta beaten by a more succinct Benly.
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Oct 17, 2011 08:32
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ZeeToo posted:Pawsplay, out of curiosity, what should a high level fighter be able to do? Fighter is basically built out of feats, and you've expressed a strong distaste for quite a few potential things that could be turned into feats (marking, maneuvers, SAGA Edition powers, etc). First, let me say there's not a simple answer to any of that. Different games are built from different assumptions. Second, Pathfinder does not solve these problems completely, even within its own paradigm. Partly that's just because it's a fairly conservative evolution of 3.5. So let's talk about balance. I identify three basic areas of balance. The first is conceptual balance. In other words, fighters fight, wizards cast spells. This problem is not friendly to a class-based game. To explain the problem fully, I'm going to sidestep and use an analogy, because I think it will be clearer, and then return to Pathfinder. In Mutants & Masterminds, you can buy a Ranged Damage power and define it as a "Fiery Blast." Based on this description, you can potentially stunt other effects that are in line with your descriptors. So, for instance, Character A is a mutant with the ability to hurl blasts of fire with his hands. Some possible alternate effects he could stunt might be an exploding fire blast, a flamethrower like area effect, or even manifesting a shield of destructive energy. Character B is a pyrokinetic psychic who can manipulate heat. Possible alternate effects for her include everything A can do, plus igniting things, causing people to pass out by raising their body temperature, absorbing hot or cold attacks, infrared invisibility, and rocket-like flight. Character C is a sorcerer who summons mystical hellfire. His possible stunts include everything B can do, plus dimensionally traveling to the hellfire dimension, teleporting, reading minds, and powerful telekinesis. Character C is conceptually stronger. There is no way for A or B to compete in this area. Either they need another resource besides their main power, or they need some other compensation such as greater strength. Note that in M&M, like most games, characters get no cost for being conceptually weaker. Coming back to Pathfinder, if you choose to use a longspear as a weapon, for stylistic reasons, you will be weaker than someone who chooses the glaive. If you play a wizard, you can cast spells, and if you are a fighter, you cannot. A fighter will never be able to teleport except through a magical device, or by becoming a wizard. The second area of balance is parity. Two characters that do the same thing to the same degree should do it about as well. For instance, a character who uses a greatsword in Pathfinder is equivalent to one who uses a greataxe. Ninjas and rogues have similar Stealth abilities. Wizards and sorcerers cast the same fireball. Barbarians and fighters play a little differently, but you want to see them perform similarly in similar contexts. RPGs are very complex, so this can be a difficult issue to look at. One example of where this might break down would be a melee cleric or druid outperforming a fighter or barbarian in melee. Another would be psions having superior nova capabilities to evoker wizards. The third area is role balance. Each character should have some things that others cannot do as well. This can be because of raw power, or because of characteristics of the characters such as ethical behaviors or personalities, or because of differences in style. An example of a problem would be a game where uses of the invisibility spell took away the Rogue's stealth job. One way to rectify it would be to make sure that an invisibility spell would be more useful when added to the Rogue than to other characters. Looking at fighters v. wizards in Pathfinder, this is what I see. In terms of conceptual balance, fighters flatly lose. They have access to magic items, which is helpful. However, they have to invest in feats like Improved Iron Will just to bring a currency to the table the wizard doesn't have. In terms of parity, fighters have come a long way since 3e, early 3.5. Pathfinder fighters are pretty strong, yet still lag even in areas like direct damage dealing. Their primary advantage is their depth of feats. Lastly, in terms of role balance, fighters are pretty good. Mind you, casters can summon some powerful allies, but most of them don't have the fighter's versality, or more importantly, depth of feats. Also, if the caster summons something, the fighter can team up with it, which makes the fighter even better than they were before. Although fighters hate getting trapped in force cages, failing vital saves, and so forth, they still excel when you need someone to walk through a mass of black tentacles while blind and disarm the lich's staff. If It Had Been Up to Me I'm not going to go too far with this discussion, because it's a sideline of the thread topic, but let me lay out what I might have done differently. First of all, spellcasters get new spells every level, so fighters should get a new feat every level. That's only fair. Second, high Will, or at least devise a medium Will progression and give them that. Third, built in currencies that help them go toe to toe with the worst opponents, things like save rerolls or abilities that allow them to shake off conditions more easily. That part would be very much like some of the stuff in 4e and Fantasy Craft. Fourth, numerical parity. In melee combat, nothing should be doing more damage against a Medium-sized opponent in one round than a melee combatant like the Fighter or Barbarian. Fifth, greater flexibility in concept. In particular, Fighters deserve skills. How Things Are Now Fighters are not a beginner class. They are conceptually weaker than wizards. Even within their speciality, they are not as good at that as wizards are at theirs. But they are still playable. To do this requires a forward looking built, at least as carefully considered as a wizard's spell list, that mixes melee, ranged attacks, and defenses. They also need to have gear and be familiar with its capabilities, especially Wonderous Items. They also need to be thoroughly familiar with the combat rules, and understand when they are likely to be successful, for instance, at pulling off a combat maneuver in which they are not specialized. There is still a very good reason to play a Fighter, even with these issues in mind: there are few other options for purely non-magical warriors. They aren't "NPC classes" but they need to be understand as a "fifth" class, a force multiplier, which is a big change from the AD&D stereotype of the "meat shield." Meat shield is not the fighter's main job, it is a tactic which they can resort to. The fighter needs to be understand as a controller, an interceptor, and as a mathematical exploiter. They need to provide cover, interrupt actions, and block movement. They need to rely on the mathematical disparities of the system that work to their favor, rather than against them. That's my take on the fighter. It's a shame the system is so stingy to them, but at the same time, they are not, as is sometimes implied, itnerchangeable with a druid's animal companion.
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Oct 17, 2011 09:15
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All of this doesn't get into the part that bugs me, which is that you say it's out of concept for a high-level fighter to be able to break through a metal wall. That's really the part I can't wrap my head around. What should a high level fighter be able to do? You don't really address that. Edit: Food for thought: the Lernaean hydra was one of the twelve labors of Hercules. In PF, a hydra that starts at twelve heads is CR 11. Above level 10, literally Herculean feats are considered an even match for PCs, fighters included. Benly fucked around with this message at 10:42 on Oct 17, 2011 |
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Oct 17, 2011 10:34
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