|
Oh dear God. I brought it on myself, but I'm going to be running my first Pathfinder game this Saturday and I have prepared nothing. I happen to have the Carrion Crown adventure path lying around, so I guess I'm just going to run that.
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 01:49
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 13:17 |
|
|
Klungar posted:Would you mind giving me a little more insight to this? We need to have someone to actually kill the unconscious/blind/stunned goblins! For coup-de-gracer, build what GLLB suggested, if you want a fighter that doesn't need to Coup-de-grace to kill things with a full round action, build a human fighter 1/rogue 1, take Two-weapon fighting and weapon finesse, crank your DEX up to 20, enjoy having an AC of 19 while attacking twice a round at +5 to hit for 1d8+1d6+str and 1d6+1d6+str respectively. More than enough to gib most targets you'll have at level 2 in a round, and you can spread the attacks around as long as there are multiple enemies, you can also 5-foot step between attacks if you need to. You do need a flanker for this build to not be useless.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 06:41
|
|
|
So my group is on the last module of the Rise of the Runelords campaign, and our DM has said that since he's run our game for the last 5 years it's my turn again. Looking at the published stuff, I saw the Kingmaker campaign, and this seems to be exactly the campaign I've wanted to run for years now. Anyone have any experience with it? Was it awesome/lovely/really boring/etc? Anything to look out for?
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 06:45
|
|
|
I'm into the second module of kingmaker with my group(pathfinder is on hold though, unfortunate because everyone was loving kingmaker but one of our players has to miss a couple months so we're "stuck playing black crusade(which is also awesome)". Kingmaker is a lot of fun, there's stuff in the book for everything, different ways the players might handle the encounters, and thus ally themselves with different factions in the campaign setting, which can lead to awesome stuff, like my group's capital city which is policed by kobolds.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 07:24
|
|
|
GaryLeeLoveBuckets posted:For coup de grace'ing you would probably want a 2 handed fighter using Power Attack and Furious Focus to increase the chances of insta-gibbing or causing a really high death save DC (it's a Fort save DC=10+damage dealt or die). You could also be an elf instead of a human for the option of ignoring the magical sleep if you're in the area. For a sleep-immune front-liner I'd generally take a half-elf over a pure elf. You retain the sleep immunity and, in place of the elf's generally arcane traits, you can trade in your free Skill Focus (if you want) for some other goodies, probably most notably a +2 to Will saves (I think). The ability adjustment is generally better as well. That TWF build has a 60% chance to hit a typical CR 2 monster (AC 14) with each of its attacks. Those do, respectively, 8+STR and 7+STR damage; since you've invested a lot into dexterity, your strength is likely not very high. I'll assume 14-15 (+2). That's an expected damage output of about 6 with each hand*, which is not particularly impressive (two full rounds on average to kill a CR 2 monster). For comparison, a bog standard warrior (the NPC class) with 18 strength and Power Attack is looking at +5 to hit for 2d6+9 with a greatsword, an expected value of about 9.6. That's worse, to be sure, but it's also an NPC class with a lower stat investment. Not much of a victory. If we make that a fighter with 20 strength, Power Attack, and Weapon Focus (again, extraordinarily vanilla), that attack rises to +7 to hit for 2d6+10, an expected value of about 11.9. Note also that neither of these sacrifices much, if any, AC, depending on what armor is available. Splint mail (200 gp) and a mere 12 dexterity bring him straight to AC 18. They're also able to move and attack at full power, or even more if charging is possible, and not reliant on a flanking buddy. * I've deliberately ignored criticals, but they'll both be a minor factor and weigh against a Sneak Attack build. I am having a good time with Kingmaker right now as a player (I think we are in book 3), but I know my DM is adding a lot of extra content to it, for which I believe he is relying on Paizo's boards.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 07:26
|
|
|
Evil Sagan posted:Oh dear God. I brought it on myself, but I'm going to be running my first Pathfinder game this Saturday and I have prepared nothing. I happen to have the Carrion Crown adventure path lying around, so I guess I'm just going to run that. Good luck then? Are you asking for advice or just sharing? I've never tried running the pre-made adventure packs but when I played in one we ended up sleep-bombing through basically every single encounter for several levels and I've always enjoyed custom brewed adventures much more. In unrelated news I accidentally TPK'ed my 14th level party today. They've generally been pretty good about fighting as a party and dealing with almost any challenge I threw at them, regardless of CR, but this time the dice went ugly and their main caster ate a lot of negative levels in a hurry. It broke their discipline and they stopped focus firing and stopped working together and basically ended up bringing all 5 of the enemies in the encounter to within 20hp of death, but failed to actually down a single one. I've never seen a group of players just lose discipline quite that badly. I think that game is over and we'll start fresh, but the DM for the next game needs a week or two to prep, so does anyone have any tips for fun one-shots in PF? They'd have to be low level so that character creation isn't a huge pain but past that I'm open to anything interestintg.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 08:08
|
|
|
OpenlyEvilJello posted:
I find that in practice with a big 2H build that you nearly kill the enemy in turn 1, and in turn 2 you finish it off with a ton of extra damage that is wasted. using a TWF build there tends to be less "overkill," particularly if there are multiple enemies around that allow you to split up your attacks. The level of rogue also really opens up some skill utility if your group is lacking in that department. In the end, if you ignore the flanker requirement(because you either have one or don't, and if you don't, make a 2h fighter), then their damage per round comes out "close enough" to even that at level 2 it boils down to preference and party composition. Disclaimer: this may all be terrible advice based on the fact that my next pathfinder character is going to be a dual class bard/ranger. Tactical Bonnet fucked around with this message at 12:36 on Dec 1, 2011 |
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 12:34
|
|
about pathfinder which are pretty well 100% accurate
|
Tactical Bonnet posted:dual class bard/ranger. This hurts my feelings. Also wanted to say that with Furious Focus you don't take the minuses to hit on the first Power Attack of the round, which is the only attack you'll be making. I think it ends up outperforming the TWF in fights with a lot of movement where you won't get your offhand attack much and it pulls up even with it in fights with one big bad, but your results may vary. They're both strong DPS builds to be sure, just depends on your style of play. On the subject of Kingmaker, we played it for a bit and got into the first parts of the second module before quitting. Not sure if I need to spoiler campaign details, but I will anyway. I liked a lot of the people you could meet and befriend, and we actually ended up allying with the kobolds and the bandit sub leader Kressel. The kobolds live in a silver mine, but they were overcrowded so we told them about a gold mine nearby. So they're carving out warrens there and because they don't like gold, they were bringing it to our fortress in exchange for silver pieces. One thing I would say about the campaign is that you probably want a ranger/druid who can spot things in the wilderness, as the exploration sections can get really boring or tedious if you don't spot something you're supposed to. Survival, Knowledge: Nature, Spot and Search are all pretty important in the opening stages. It's a fun campaign, but I would recommend heroicly motivated characters to make it really pop.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 15:55
|
|
|
I was wondering if anyone here has messed around with the 'chase' mechanic Paizo put out in the Crimson Throne adventure path (and has now release some cards that support it)? I've poked around with it a bit after picking up the deck at a FLGS, so my own experience is once through as a player (for said adventure path) and so far three times 'running' it. I like the concept overall, and I dig the notion of it being used as something markedly different mechanically in the course of regular play--but I've encountered a lot of hiccups in execution and was curious how others might have addressed such. To preface, the way it's seemingly supposed to work is you array the cards in a sequence face down to surprise folks rolling through it and set your 'chase target' at some point along the 'track' depending on how much of, if any, a head start they have. Players haul through the track and choose one of the two roll options in an attempt to overcome each obstacle--attempts which are executed as move actions; as a full-round action a player may attempt to blow past two cards instead of one in a turn, but if they fail either roll they don't move at all--and if they fail both rolls they're 'mired' and lose a turn. Straightforward enough, but things quickly get a little skewed. The questions that have come up all four times I've played around with the chase mechanic are generally the same--everyone wants to start dropping spells, ranged attacks, etc. in an attempt to gently caress with the chase target and nobody can really figure out how to actually handle that. The rules included with the cards, at least, suggest that for every ten feet of movement you've got beyond thirty, you get +2 to whatever rolls you're attempting during the chase; but what about characters who can fly? What about if you're in a forest chase and you've got a druid with woodland stride? Similarly, can they toss an entangle onto the chase target and just end the chase immediately, etc? I've generally been extrapolating line of sight and the like off of the obstacles--if the dude you're chasing is past a 'thick forest' obstacle, you probably can't see him from the other side, etc. Ostensibly how it's supposed to pan out is once you 'catch up' to the target, you then need to bust out standard actions to try and tackle them (CMB, etc.), attack them or otherwise halt the chase--but it's also left unclear how the NPC participants in a chase interact with the cards. Are they also attempting either of the two rolls presented on each obstacle? Do they just get to advance one or two obstacles each round? You're supposed to bust out initiative for the chase, so they are coming around with a turn of their own and whatnot. From my experience with players involved in a chase, the reactions have been very mixed--with some people really loving the idea and getting into the whole concept while you've also got some players who may get grumpy or try to do everything they can to end the mechanic as quickly as possible (it's been a few different groups of players testing things out). It's not clear on how the obstacles interact with spells and other effects, but if you can overcome each with a move action, are they supposed to be sets of thirty feet or so? Apart from the abstract things, there are some mechanical pitfalls just in the challenges presented on the obstacles themselves; each of the four times I've played with one of these chases there has invariably been a character who just plain cannot hope to succeed on -either- of the rolls presented at some point during the obstacle track, effectively getting shut out on the chase. There are obstacle cards which present two options which are both 'trained only' skills--and if a character has neither, technically they can't even attempt the rolls. You've still got the rest of the table trucking along and this sort of thing works in the image of chases, but it's not terribly fun for whoever ends up unable to participate anymore--at least as provided in the rules. My inclination is that someone stuck as such can take a full round to overcome the single obstacle, or otherwise make one of the checks even if they're untrained. On the flip side, spells which circumvent obstacles are still a question--there's really nothing stopping a caster from dimension dooring ahead, etc, which really just seems to suggest that these are only meant to be run at lower levels. Overall, I think the concept is reasonably novel and could see it being fun if it came up once or twice in a campaign--I just wish it was a bit more clear on how to work it all out. I'd like to hear how other groups have handled it, if there are anecdotes.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 16:18
|
|
|
grah posted:Good luck then? Are you asking for advice or just sharing? I've never tried running the pre-made adventure packs but when I played in one we ended up sleep-bombing through basically every single encounter for several levels and I've always enjoyed custom brewed adventures much more. Haha Sorry. I was in panic mode and wasn't posting clearly. That was pretty stupid. What I should have said is I could use some advice on quickly prepping a game. I could theoretically just throw some encounters together, but my experience with other RPGs tells me that a barely-prepared smattering of combat for the first session is a lovely way to go. I'm trying to figure out what the bare minimum of effort would be that would still produce an engaging introduction to the game. After all, most players (and I) do enjoy custom brewed adventures much more, and while Carrion Crown looks incredible, I'd hate to commit to an AP just because I was in a hurry before the very first session.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 17:30
|
|
|
The chase deck is a neat concept and I'm happy to have bought it, but D&D, especially 3.pf, is the worst rpg for it short of maybe Nobilis. Maybe at 2nd level it might still work.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 18:45
|
|
|
GaistHeidegger posted:I was wondering if anyone here has messed around with the 'chase' mechanic Paizo put out in the Crimson Throne adventure path (and has now release some cards that support it)? I've poked around with it a bit after picking up the deck at a FLGS, so my own experience is once through as a player (for said adventure path) and so far three times 'running' it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 18:58
|
|
|
chrisoya posted:The chase deck is a neat concept and I'm happy to have bought it, but D&D, especially 3.pf, is the worst rpg for it short of maybe Nobilis. Maybe at 2nd level it might still work. Yeah, I actually forgot and omitted it entirely in the prior post but the other huge failing I've found with it in the three times I've run it is that there is typically someone in the party who can coast past two obstacles every round, often without even having to roll the die. Frequently acrobatics is an option (for obvious thematic reasons) but the DC is also often quite low for that option. I'd like to make it work, but it would definitely not be something I ran in a Pathfinder game beyond third level, fourth absolute tops. I'd certainly eyeball using it for 4th if the opportunity arose.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 19:02
|
|
|
Tactical Bonnet posted:I find that in practice with a big 2H build that you nearly kill the enemy in turn 1, and in turn 2 you finish it off with a ton of extra damage that is wasted. using a TWF build there tends to be less "overkill," particularly if there are multiple enemies around that allow you to split up your attacks. The level of rogue also really opens up some skill utility if your group is lacking in that department. Oh, I don't mean to imply that the concept you posted is terrible or unplayable. I was just concerned you were overselling what is a fairly average combat build. I think the extra skills are what it really brings to the table; at level two, spells haven't obsoleted them yet. If you're stuck in low levels, Cleave with a two-hander is probably a better choice for clearing out clumps of enemies from a pure numbers perspective (they're not too hard to crunch if someone wants them). To anyone unfamiliar with the debate: The thing to remember about TWF builds is that they require large static damage modifiers to be effective, particularly in relation to the feat and ability score expenditures required to get them. Sneak Attack is probably the most common such damage. Other builds focus on reducing the costs of TWF, such as using ranger bonus feats to avoid the high requirements and thereby afford a high strength. To Tactical Bonnet in particular: How are you building your bard/ranger? Any archetypes? It's a neat concept and I'd like to see how it shakes out. On Kingmaker: To build on what GaryLeeLoveBuckets said, the two foci of Kingmaker are exploration and politics (I don't think this statement merits spoiler tags, as the player supplement more or less says this outright). Thus, it's extremely helpful to have at least one character capable of the former and for all of the characters to have some motivations on a large, perhaps international scale.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2011 23:59
|
|
|
Mostly it would be a bog standard bard, and a skirmisher archetype ranger, focused pretty much entirely on being a support caster, sword and shield ranger combat style, built around spreading around as many bonuses to the rest of the party as possible while using feats and equipment to have a moderately capable melee character, so I can be close enough to heal the front liners with just a 5-foot step. In an ideal world it's a character that makes a career out of making sure everyone makes it home alive. For my part it is a mental exercise in making a character that is both capable of standing on his own, but brings out the rest of the party as well, mostly because I'm way better at building optimized characters(not even on purpose) than the rest of my group and I hate being that guy at the table.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2011 08:24
|
|
|
Have you taken a look at the bard archetypes? Fairly few of them interfere with spellcasting. Arcane duelist could give you some useful combat-oriented abilities at the expense of knowledge and some social abilities; savage skald sacrifices a little charming ability for a few added group-oriented combat performances. Most of the others appear to mess with bardic performance on a larger scale, which may be more problematic.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2011 08:47
|
|
|
I looked at arcane duelist very closely, I don't actually have a campaign for this character at the moment so I'm hesitant to go any deeper than I have because so many of the variables depend on party makeup and things like that, at the core this is a character designed to make the party as a whole better, so going beyond the most basic ideas without a group composition to work within is a bit pointless, in my mind.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2011 09:18
|
|
|
How does the PF community compare to D&D in size? I've only ever once seen a recruitment for PF in our PbP sub forum (We Be Goblins) and that never panned out. Is the PF community really small, or do the alternatives lend themselves better to the PbP format?
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 01:44
|
|
|
drat. I should have looked in the Advanced Player's Guide when my player said he was going to make a Dragoon. It's a Fighter archetype that pretty much completely relies on horses. Without reasonable access to a horse in combat, it's just a gimped Fighter. I guess I could change the entire adventure (which is very dungeon-crawly) and give everyone horses. EDIT: Or I could tell him to make a different character, but he already wasted hours on this one.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 04:06
|
|
|
Evil Sagan posted:I guess I could change the entire adventure (which is very dungeon-crawly) and give everyone horses.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 04:38
|
|
|
Hey, what's everyone's opinion on Polearm Master fighters? I'm thinking about making one for a campaign my buddy's going to be running, and my plan is to turn him into a cleaving machine, and with the polearm's reach, able to hit targets in a larger radius around me.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 04:44
|
|
|
DaMangoSentinel posted:Hey, what's everyone's opinion on Polearm Master fighters? I'm thinking about making one for a campaign my buddy's going to be running, and my plan is to turn him into a cleaving machine, and with the polearm's reach, able to hit targets in a larger radius around me. 1. Wear spiked gauntlets to threaten adjacent squares as well as the reach squares. 2. Pushing Assault + Combat Reflexes.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 04:59
|
|
|
Evil Sagan posted:drat. I should have looked in the Advanced Player's Guide when my player said he was going to make a Dragoon. It's a Fighter archetype that pretty much completely relies on horses. Without reasonable access to a horse in combat, it's just a gimped Fighter. Tell him to play a halfling or a gnome and ride a dog.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 04:59
|
|
|
DaMangoSentinel posted:Hey, what's everyone's opinion on Polearm Master fighters? I'm thinking about making one for a campaign my buddy's going to be running, and my plan is to turn him into a cleaving machine, and with the polearm's reach, able to hit targets in a larger radius around me. Great Cleave and Stand Still, two feats that should be perfect for this, are worded stupidly and so they techinically don't work as well. Great cleave requires the enemies you cleave to be adjacent to each other, which you may find 'balancing' but I really think it ought to be any enemies within your threat range. Similarly Stand Still only lets you use it on adjacent foes, instead of 'foes you threaten' or something, meaning basically instead of being a nice big obstacle (Permanent Enlarge Person + Reach Weapon at low-mid levels) you basically are only effective in a 10 or at best 20 foot corridor.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 05:08
|
|
|
grah posted:Great Cleave and Stand Still, two feats that should be perfect for this, are worded stupidly and so they techinically don't work as well. Great cleave requires the enemies you cleave to be adjacent to each other, which you may find 'balancing' but I really think it ought to be any enemies within your threat range. In this case then, would Whirlwind Attack better suit my needs?
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 05:15
|
|
|
At level 4, what's going to be doing more damage? A greatsword and a secondary bite or 4 Girallon Arms at 1d4+Str, half strength on the last 3 attacks? Putting together a barbarian/totemist. I'm not sure if the Lion Totem barbarian thing from Complete Champion is allowed. This is 3.5, so I hope I'm asking the right thread.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 06:11
|
|
|
Porkness posted:How does the PF community compare to D&D in size? I've only ever once seen a recruitment for PF in our PbP sub forum (We Be Goblins) and that never panned out. Is the PF community really small, or do the alternatives lend themselves better to the PbP format? It's basically impossible to tell, the more so if you want to include all versions of D&D. SA isn't a particularly Pathfinder-friendly forum, though, so I would take anecdotal evidence from here with a grain of salt. What numerical evidence is available (and it is really, really bad) suggests that Pathfinder is probably more popular than pretty much anything that isn't D&D. Beyond that, and that's deliberately hedged, no one can say. Anyone who does is probably an idiot. Strontosaurus posted:At level 4, what's going to be doing more damage? A greatsword and a secondary bite or 4 Girallon Arms at 1d4+Str, half strength on the last 3 attacks? Putting together a barbarian/totemist. I'm not sure if the Lion Totem barbarian thing from Complete Champion is allowed. This is 3.5, so I hope I'm asking the right thread. It depends. Give me numbers (attack bonus and damage expression) and I'll crunch them if you want. If you want advice on how to build, well, feel free to ask, but I don't feel like doing much research. We also have a 3.5e thread here.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 08:02
|
|
|
My DM has ruled that I can use Two-Weapon Fighting with touch spells. Get the charge in both hands (with 2 casts), and then you can full attack with it. I'm playing a Druid, and I'm thinking of Produce Flame, Frostbite, and Chill Touch, Flame Blade, and Frigid Touch. All of those are touch attacks. With a 14 STR / 16 DEX, I'm going to have some decent hit chances. Produce Flame, Frostbite, and Flame Blade are awesome because they last multiple rounds. Produce Flame and Frostbite are effectively 1 use per level, and Flame Blade is a minute per level. Frigid Touch is one-use only, but it's a doozy. Produce Flame: 1d6+Level damage (up to 5); 120' range Frostbite: 1d6+Level damage (no max), fatigues target; touch Flame Blade: 1d8+.5 * Level damage (+10 max); touch, crits like a scimitar Frigid Touch: 4d6 damage; staggers target for 1 round (1 minute on a crit) Running in, shooting 2 fireballs a round from 120' out seems pretty neat. Getting up close and switching to two flaming scimitars is pretty badass too. Frostbite's lack of a cap on the +damage is pretty loving intense, especially since it's a level 1 spell. If I took Empower Spell at 5th level, I could slot it as a third level and it would be dealing (1d6+5)*1.5 damage (min 9, max 16). Frigid Touch is a pretty heavy hitter for a second level spell. Since it's single-use only, there's not a huge opportunity to Two-Weapon Fight with it, but if I did it would end up dealing 8d6 damage. What other spells would be useful with this sort of setup? What other feats would compliment it? Extend Spell would double the duration of Produce Flame and Flame Blade. Empower Spell helps damage scale, but 2 levels costs a lot. Inverse Icarus fucked around with this message at 08:42 on Dec 6, 2011 |
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 08:39
|
|
|
I don't know offhand if it works in pathfinder but the thing to do in 3.5 was to take monk levels so you could flurry with touch spells.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 08:54
|
|
|
OpenlyEvilJello posted:It depends. Give me numbers (attack bonus and damage expression) and I'll crunch them if you want. If you want advice on how to build, well, feel free to ask, but I don't feel like doing much research. We also have a 3.5e thread here. Oops! I'll go post it there. I could run the numbers but I have no idea what sort of defenses to expect. Right now I'm rocking +3 BAB, 18 Strength, Weapon Focus (Claw), Multiattack, and 2 essentia invested in the Girallon Arms, giving them an enhancement bonus of +2, so my hypothetical full-attack is +10/+8/+8/+8 for 1d4+6/+4/+4/+4. Strontosaurus fucked around with this message at 09:10 on Dec 6, 2011 |
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 09:05
|
|
|
Porkness posted:How does the PF community compare to D&D in size? I've only ever once seen a recruitment for PF in our PbP sub forum (We Be Goblins) and that never panned out. Is the PF community really small, or do the alternatives lend themselves better to the PbP format? From what I can tell the PF community is pretty large, although not so much on these forums. The problem is that while the community may be large, a sizable portion of it is really pretty awful and bogged down by smug, pointless edition warring (4E is a stupid boardgame for stupid babbies  ) and general grognardery. It's a shame, really, because PF is a pretty good system with some great supplements.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 10:12
|
|
|
Comrade Koba posted:From what I can tell the PF community is pretty large, although not so much on these forums. The problem is that while the community may be large, a sizable portion of it is really pretty awful and bogged down by smug, pointless edition warring (4E is a stupid boardgame for stupid babbies I've never been to internet forums for 3.5 or 4E, but the Paizo forums are loving dredging the bottom of latrines with some of the posts there. There was recently a discussion about how the rules don't explicitly say that characters have to sleep, so they don't. There were many people arguing that they do not have to sleep.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 19:57
|
|
|
FORTRANsvestite posted:I've never been to internet forums for 3.5 or 4E, but the Paizo forums are loving dredging the bottom of latrines with some of the posts there. Finally, a blow against caster supremacy. Boring, tired casters. We'll see who's laughing when I adventure for 8 more hours a day than you.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 20:08
|
|
|
I'm having a really hard time describing to my friends what the underlying problems with Fighters are. I keep trying to draw analogues to Paladins, Rogues and Barbarians as Fighters who Fighter Better. But every time I try they keep falling back on things like "Fighters get a feat every level" and "nobody expects Fighters to do anything but deal damage". I'm at my wit's end here, and they refuse to see. Their excuses are literally "Barbarian Rages end after 20 rounds" and "Special abilties have daily limits".
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 22:20
|
|
|
Magic Rabbit Hat posted:I'm having a really hard time describing to my friends what the underlying problems with Fighters are. I keep trying to draw analogues to Paladins, Rogues and Barbarians as Fighters who Fighter Better. But every time I try they keep falling back on things like "Fighters get a feat every level" and "nobody expects Fighters to do anything but deal damage". Well, as straight melee damage dealers, fighters really aren't bad. The number of feats they get allows them to do certain things that really aren't viable with any other class. I'm not saying they're 'balanced', for as much as that word means. Barbarians are almost always better damage dealers, Paladins have actual magic, amazing saves, and probably the most staying power of any class. Rogues can situationally do more damage but a Fighter is certainly a better straight melee character than most Rogues, but maybe not Ninja. What I am saying is that the issues with Fighter as a class are not quite as damning as some folks like to insist. Fighters are plenty capable of being useful party members at all levels. A Half-Elf Weapon Master Fighter / Barbarian Multiclass can end up truly dangerous. And Fighters are really the only class that can make things that are normally interesting but terrible and feat intensive a little bit viable, like Net and Trident fighting. They have their advantages, even if they are ultimately less powerful and, with a given build, sometimes less versatile than other melee classes.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 22:26
|
|
|
Magic Rabbit Hat posted:I'm having a really hard time describing to my friends what the underlying problems with Fighters are. I keep trying to draw analogues to Paladins, Rogues and Barbarians as Fighters who Fighter Better. But every time I try they keep falling back on things like "Fighters get a feat every level" and "nobody expects Fighters to do anything but deal damage".
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 22:30
|
|
|
Magic Rabbit Hat posted:I'm having a really hard time describing to my friends what the underlying problems with Fighters are. I keep trying to draw analogues to Paladins, Rogues and Barbarians as Fighters who Fighter Better. But every time I try they keep falling back on things like "Fighters get a feat every level" and "nobody expects Fighters to do anything but deal damage". Fighters are amazing in Pathfinder and people seriously underrate them on the boards.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 22:43
|
|
|
FORTRANsvestite posted:Fighters are amazing in Pathfinder and people seriously underrate them on the boards. AB, AC, and damage were never the problem Fighters had in 3.x. Upping them was not the way to improve the class.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 22:45
|
|
|
LogicNinja posted:The only real difference between PF and 3.5 fighters is that they have higher AB/AC/damage values, and that Pathfinder has some shiny new feats (but doesn't have shiny 3.x feats like Shock Trooper). Those three stats are exactly what I think of when I hear the word "Fighter", so I'm not sure what you mean.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 22:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 13:17 |
|
|
I really see fighters as having more a problem of scope than of power. With careful feat selection, the right equipment, and not choosing a terrible archteype, a fighter can really dominate portions of the battlefield in a way that is impressive at any level. The problem ends up being that they just can't do a whole lot else. They'll probably be dumping charisma, which makes Leadership less useful for them and detracts from their out-of-combat role. It also nukes their UMD, which cuts off another avenue to versatility. Even if you do your feats very neatly and master 2 or 3 different flavors of combat with a fighter, they can end up a little boring and lackluster over the course of a lot of game sessions. But make no mistake, fighters can be very potent party members that punch pretty far above their weight class at times. And at the upper reaches of play, around level 18+, you start to see that monster saves are scaling faster than spell DCs, but (with some exceptions) monster AC never does get to the point where a fighter's first attack is likely to miss. He still needs the casters in his party sure, but there comes a point in PF where the casters can't really do it alone anymore, if they want to actually win the encounter, and they'll need Barbarians or Fighters or other supposedly weaker melee builds.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2011 22:54
|
|