Pathfinder RPG: sqrt(13)th Edition

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Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Cpt_Obvious posted:

The fact that everyone is simply claiming that casters are amazing at everything and not backing up such claims is ridiculous. Yes, casters can do some things better than anyone else, but they are limited as to how many times they can do such things. Don't forget that they have tremendous withdrawals such as hit points, or the fact that disabling a caster is easier than any other class: grappling, anti-magic zones, sneezing at them really hard, there are tons of ways.

It's hard to grapple something that is flying or invisible. Also casters can summon monsters that can grapple far better than any noncaster can. And longevity of caster abilities doesn't really matter except in very limited circumstances, since after 8th level a party can rest at basically any time. If a party doesn't rest when the higher level caster spells are gone, then they are operation at a major disadvantage for any future fights, which is bad for casters AND noncasters.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2010 17:39

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# ¿ Apr 30, 2024 04:12

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Chernori posted:

I keep thinking that fighter is toppling over backwards, taking out the wizard on the way down.

Yeah, that seems right. Hell, none of the monsters are even attacking, they are trying to pull the fighter and wizard back from the ledge before they fall!

# ¿ Mar 8, 2010 14:55

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Cpt_Obvious posted:

wtf is wrong with the fighter and wizard classes? They nerfed wizards by squeezing their spell tree, making it REALLY hard to cast if a monster so much as stands near them (concentration check = 15 + double the spell level), altering save or lose spells like finger of death, altering school restriction rules, and giving them nifty but not overpowered abilities.

Five foot steps still exists, so nobody ever makes a concentration check anyway. They nerfed save or DIE effects, but almost all of the save or lose spells like Sleep, Stinking Cloud, and the others are all unaffected and just as powerful as ever. The school restriction rules actually made wizards stronger, since they can actually cast spells from banned schools by using 2 slots. A number of the specialization abilities (Divination's Forewarned especially) are quite powerful.

quote:

They buffed fighters by making changes/additions to feats, giving them free weapon specialization groups (that can be swapped at a later level like sorc spells so you don't get hosed), and giving them more utility with abilities that remove the speed reduction and vastly reduce the armor check penalty.

They changed feats, but not always for the better - Power attack is arguably weaker, and Cleave sucks now. Weapon specialization groups don't really matter - it's rare that you are required to use a different weapon for too long unless you DM is an rear end in a top hat. The armor bonuses are nice but not that great: at 20th level they are -4 ACP and +4 max dex bonus, but it is unlikely you are going to get much worth out of the dex increase, so basically you just get less ACP. Medium armor is basically worthless, so the move increase isn't too helpful there, though the moving in heavy armor is decent. Still, these are only incremental improvements - minor bonuses that don't come close to bringing up a fighter to the level of a caster.

quote:

As for skills, you can take ANY skill you want without penalty, you just get a +3 bonus on class skills. Not only that, they consolidated redundant skills like spot/listen, hide/move silently, tumble/jump etc. Concentration checks are no longer a skill at all, but are based entirely off caster level.

Casters get an additional skill to pick, since they don't have to take concentration. They combined the skills in a stupid fashion - spot/listen/hide/move silently/tumble were already some of the best skills in the game, and combining them just made them far BETTER than pretty much anything else. Meanwhile worthless skills like appraise are still around. Fighters still only have 2 skill points.

quote:

Pathfinder is an update of 3.5, not a brand new system. It's not suppose to change the ENTIRE game or be too innovative. It's made for those who like 3.5 but want it to be balanced, which I think they did pretty well.

Pathfinder is not any more balanced than 3.5, and is actually less balanced in several ways.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2010 16:06

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Cpt_Obvious posted:

All large monsters (and nearly everything past 13th level is large) have 10 foot reach. Thats right, a horse will ruin your spell casting powers. School spec changes are better, I'll admit that; they aren't overpowered though, just useful. And you better drat get good divination powers because the school isn't terribly good for anything other than locating, scouting, or the occasional illusion.

Horses don't have reach. Plus a good wizard never lets a enemy get close to him, through fly, invisibility, summons, noncasters as speedbumps, etc. If you are going to bring up "but what if he loses initative", a level 20 diviner is never going to lose initiative.

quote:

Power attack may not deal as much pure damage as it did, but it is far more cost efficient: at BAB 4 have -2 to hit and +6 damage with a two handed weapon. Cleave got nerfed, it's true. As for weapon spec groups, my warrior always had multiple weapons for different situations (+1 ghost touch, adamantine etc), so it's great to get through damage types with different weapons including bash/pierce/slash. Medium armor is FAR from worthless for those early 6 levels as heavy armor is expensive; the game includes low levels too. Late game, you need at least a +3 dex bonus to be a sword/board fighter if you intend on using stand still to defend teammates and full plate has a +1, that means an additional +2 to your AC and CMB/CMD. And the movement in heavy armor is absolutely crucial. How are you going to fight if you can't reach the battle?

Multiple weapons are fine, but there isn't any reason you can't have multiples of the same weapon. In fact, getting different weapons is a good way to gently caress yourself over - Weapon-specific feats like improved critical don't transfer to weapon groups, so being a general is worse in every way than specializing in a weapon. As to the point about dex bonuses, each point of Dexterity you have is a point you could have in Strength or Constitution or something. There are builds that can use the increased max dex bonus, but for most it isn't going to matter. I forgot that pathfinder made medium armor better, so I will concede that it isn't worthless. On the heavy armor front, if you want speed, you get someone to cast Haste on you.

quote:

Wizards getting tons of skill points is built into the game mechanics. They have 10 different knowledges that are all class skills. If something happens, the wizard better know what it is and what to do about it. Yes, appraise, swim, and, to a lesser degree, climb are pretty crappy; no argument. But they added fly as a skill, so that makes up for it.

But you claimed that class skills didn't matter? Thus wizards get even better than in 3.5.

quote:

WTF do fighters need more than 2 skill points for? All they need is acrobatics and a little ride.

They need more than 2 skill points if they want to do something other than "stand around and hit people in combat." Wizards have a vast number of skills that allow them to be useful out of combat, as do some noncasters, and this doesn't even get into all the poo poo spells let you do out of combat. But fighters can't do anything out of combat since they have no useful skills or class abilities, and they aren't as good in combat either.

quote:

Again, the wizard skill points are built into the mechanics so he can work on his 10 separate knowledges. I didn't notice they removed the maximum skill placement of 3 ranks per level. Even so, if the 4e wizard takes craft at 15, he is pretty much the greatest craftsman ever. In PF, at least it takes several levels to build up.

4E doesn't have a craft skill because almost no one gives a poo poo about crafting. Mundane crafting in 3.5 and Pathfinder is incredibly terrible. Even if you added a Craft skill to 4E, it makes sense - he is a great crafter because he is a badass hero.

quote:

A bucket of paint and a net: congratulations, you have just been hosed by kobolds. I did that once with my goblin rogue to PK the wizard who was being an rear end. gently caress that wizard.

So the goblin magically knew where the wizard was and was able to both get close and hit him? Sounds like DM fiat.

quote:

Also, you need to be level 11 to cast greater invisibility. At that point, there are plenty of monsters who are immune to illusions including undead, stronger deamons/devils, constructs, elementals, not to mention the ones who have blind sight (or tremor sense if indoors/underground). Don't forget breath weapons and AOE attacks don't have to be exact.

There is no such thing as "immune to illusions", and if there were, it would apply to illusions cast on them. Invisible creatures can't be seen without something like see invisibility or blind sight, undead and constructs and such cannot see them unless they have one of those abilities.

quote:

All the wizard ridiculousness assumes you have the advantage. Because they have so few hps and are easily disrupted, they may be completely hosed in the surprise round. Save or lose spells aren't very useful when you never get to cast them. Yes, there are great scouting spells and sacrificial summons, but an intelligent opponent won't reveal himself until the real units show up.

Basically, the wizards are overpowered if your DM is a retard who just shoves encounters in front of you without any thought or strategy.

This is funny, because not only do diviners get massive initiative boosts, they always get to act in the surprise round. Woops, your point is worthless! Also I like how your monsters can automatically tell the difference between a real foe and a scout or summon. And how they manage to perfectly conceal themselves until the wizard gets close, and get to him easily, and kill him in one round. This assume the wizard is not: A) a diviner, who is always going to go first, B)not good at perception, and no one in the party is good at perception either, and C)doesn't have any defensive spells up.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2010 23:01

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Swags posted:

I agree. 3.5 casters are more powerful than non-casters (druids in particular are ridiculous), but you're making it sound like every non-caster is just a dope with a sword and that's just not true. Because they're underpowered doesn't make them retards who stumble around and smack trees with sticks. Any fight typically comes down to initiative and tactics. If wizards are so much better than fighters by 20th level, then a 20th level fighter should know that and have his poo poo ready in case he encounters a wizard. It's not hard to have a periapt of proof vs. death, or a ring with immunity to mind affecting spells, or 10 ranks of UMD and a scroll of anti-magic shell and a non-magical way to fly, just like it's not hard for a wizard to have Finger of Death or Dominate Monster or Fly ready to cast.

Round 1: Wizard teleports away.
Round 2: Wizard waits until the spell duration runs out.
He then summons/gates demons/devils who have teleport. He keeps summoning until the fighter is dead.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2010 18:47

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Also laffo at "10 ranks of UMD and a scroll of anti-magic shell", you need to hit a 31 UMD check to use that scroll. Hope your fighter has 30 charisma to have a 50/50 shot of making that check, buddy.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2010 20:08

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Nah it's DC 31 (11th caster level for Antimagic Field + 20 base DC for a scroll). Also an Amulet of Mind Blank (which gives +8 to saves against mind affecting spells) would cost 240,000 gp. An Amulet of Deathward, which gives +4 to saves against death spells, would cost 56,000. Also apparently Swags gets all his D&D information from Baldur's Gate, neither of those items he mentioned are in Pathfinder at all.

Edit: Also this requires the fighter to be completely focused against fighting casters in Swag's cases. If he ever has to fight anything else, he is hosed! Meanwhile casters can fight anything without much trouble.

Piell fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Mar 22, 2010

# ¿ Mar 22, 2010 20:14

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Anonymous Zebra posted:

I like playing 3.5, and I'll admit that the fighter and rogue are two classes that are not built for higher level play. Eventually a caster will be able to do (or can summon something that does) everything either of those classes can do. I've hosed with the "calling" spells (summon planar ally, bind outsider, etc.) a bit so that they are no longer standard spells on a spell list but are rituals that take a lot of time and sacrifice to cast...but that's neither here nor there.

Fighters and rogues shine in the low levels when the other classes can't do the same things they can. But eventually casters will gain the power to replace most of those abilities. I think the same argument can be made for barbarians, but I've had players use barbarians for 20 levels and still do crazy poo poo like supplexing dragons and poo poo, so I can't speak from experience about that class doing poorly at higher levels.

I have to say, without a hint of doubt, that the warblade from Book of Nine Swords basically represents what a D&D fighter should be. It can full attack and hit like a fighter, and has saves like a fighter, but it also has tumble as a class skill (Jesus Christ, this might seem small but it's really cool), and also gains martial powers that can: hit for fuckloads of damage, cause status effects or insta-death on enemies, allow them to ignore will saves, lets them dispel negative status effects, and the list goes on....The martial powers also scale like a caster's spells, so they are gaining new abilities at the same rate as their magic slinging buddies.

Seriously, if you want to play a longterm game past level 10 then replace fighters with warblades.

Warblades own. Not only do they manage to stay closer to casters in power, they let you do lots more interesting things than just full attack over and over, plus they get a better skill list (diplomacy, tumble, a couple knowledges), and with 4 skill points a level and Int as a secondary ability, it's possible to get a few useful skills!

# ¿ Mar 22, 2010 21:00

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Etherwind posted:

So someone asked me about Pathfinder's Summoner ( http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/advanced-player-s-guide-playtest/summoner and http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/olderProducts/advancedPlayersGuidePlaytest/round2/uPDATESummoner ) for the ~3.5 game I'm going to be running.

My acid test for custom classes is to compare them to the Wizard class and the Warlock class, to see where between the two they fall, with my instinct being to favour classes that tend toward the Warlock end of the scale. To me, this looks as good as a Wizard (especially given the tremendous number of utility and buff spells), and definitely way better than a Warlock.

My first impression and instinct is that this is overpowered. What do you guys think?

Well, let's look at it. It gets the summon monster spells at the same rate a wizard would, and gets Gate as well, so that special ability is basically equal to a fighter of his level. The eidelon is also about equal to a fighter of his level. Merge Form is pretty sweet as well. Overall, I'd say it is probably too powerful.

Edit: Looking over the list of evolutions possible, some are pretty hilarious and I would say the Eidelon is way more powerful than a fighter. For example, it is possible to get 26 attacks with martial weapons a round. You can then take multiweapon fighting and improved multiweapon fighting, and all your attacks are only at -2! Get improved critical and use a 18-20/x2 or 20/x4 weapon for extra fun.

Piell fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Mar 28, 2010

# ¿ Mar 28, 2010 15:44

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Danhenge posted:

Friends of mine who are pretty solid powergamers said that the thing isn't particularly overpowered. It gets lots of actions, but Wizard summoning isn't particularly impressive and the Eidolon's attack bonus is terrible.

EDIT: Woah hey looks like the buffed that sucker.

EDIT2: Actually I'm back to unimpressed. Your 26 tentacle monster is hitting at a +18 at level 20. I dunno. It's probably mid-powerful because it never gets super high level spells, other than Gate.

EDIT3: Ugh nevermind look at that spell list. I doubt he's any more powerful than a wizard, but unless it's a really good player who spends a lot of out of game prep time he'll probably drag the game.

Actually it would be +24 base if you put all the points in strength, gave it +1 weapons, and had it take weapon focus. Plus you can buff it or give it more items as well. Considering that a CR 20 ancient gold dragon has 39 AC, that would hit on a 15 or higher, which is a little over 7 hits a round on average before any strength buffing items or spells. Heroism would last 200 minutes and gives +2 to hit, add a belt of giant strength +4 or bull's strength and you're hitting 12 times a round on average. If you're willing to take 4 fewer attacks, you can make it large, which would still give it 22 attacks and would add +3 to hit and damage. You can drop another 4 attacks and make it huge, which would give it 18 attacks a round at +30 base. When buffed with heroism and the belt/bull's strength, that brings it to +34, you're hitting the dragon 14 times a round. With +1 short swords, that 2d6+16 each, for a total average of 322 damage a round. Improved critical and criticals probably give 2 crits on average with that, bringing the total average to 368 damage, leaving the dragon at 9 HP, meaning on average it takes just over one round to kill a ancient gold dragon. Against a balor, you're getting 12.96 regular hits and 3.24 crits, for an average of 204 damage, AFTER DR. Thus the balor lasts 2 rounds. Except the summoner can become the same thing huge monster himself.

Edit: Woops, forgot the +8 to strength that the Eidelon gets at 20th level, but gently caress if I'm gonna calculate everything again. The dragon would die in one round, the balor would still probably take 2 rounds though. Also for 2 less attacks, you could make it quadripedal, and give it pounce.

Piell fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Mar 28, 2010

# ¿ Mar 28, 2010 19:03

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Tactical Bonnet posted:

Wasn't the whole idea behind pathfinder to allow you to use the 3.5 suppliments with a better basic ruleset? Foer example, taking Wiz7/Swashbuckler 3/Eldritch Knight 10? I think that would be a pretty potent combination, casting as a 16th level wizard and dealing damage based on your intellect modifier, which by that time would be 6 or 8 or more, if stupid crazy things happen.

Then a wizard who can cast 9th level spells timestops and wins the fight. Or if for some dumb reason he wants to fight it out himself he just cast Form of the Dragon III.

NOTHING a gish can do can compare to what an equal level full caster can do, it's just not possible with 3.5/Pathfinder.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2010 18:41

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Tactical Bonnet posted:

If I wanted to be the best wizard I wouldn't have specialized in conjuration. I just want to play something I think will be fun and want opinions on whether or not I will be crippled because of it, not whether or not I will be able to explode the planet.

What the hell? Conjuration is literally the best wizard school. Anyway, as a character with a decent number of caster levels, you are by definition better than a noncaster, so you're fine.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2010 18:47

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Tactical Bonnet posted:

wait what? Seriously? I only picked it because I thought it would be awesome to summon celestial eagles all over everything all the time..

Don't summon things, it's not really worth it most of the time. Get all the save or suck spells like grease and glitterdust and stinking cloud and all that poo poo, it's what wins fights.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2010 18:51

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Tactical Bonnet posted:

trip report:

Even playing an intentionally un-optimized summoner is hilarious.

Making six attack rolls(for the eidolon, bite(d6+4) claw(d+d6 fire+4) twice and a summoned gorilla(slam x2(d6+3) plus a melee for the character himself(d8+3)) in a round for three creatures is comical at best and tragic at worst.

I think I may spend more time standing back and buffing my group though. A little more bulls strength and giant growth would go a long ways.

Man I knew that poo poo was broken.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2010 17:13

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Yeah, summoners are basically an arcane version of Druids, in terms of power and flexibility.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2010 16:37

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Sole.Sushi posted:

The hell are the "big six" items? The stat increasing ones?

The "big six" items come from here, and are

* Magic weapon
* Magic armor & shield
* Ring of protection
* Cloak of resistance
* Amulet of natural armor
* Ability-score boosters

Basically, stuff that almost everyone gets but is boring.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2010 16:05

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

angrylinuxgeek posted:

I am humoring some friends by playing in a PF game tomorrow. What's the most broken level 1 character I can make? Is it Summoner? I also need details about it if possible.

edit: VVVV that doesn't really answer my question.

It's the same thing its always been in 3.5 - a wizard. Memorize Sleep or Color Spray, and win all fights by yourself with a single spell.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2010 17:02

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Tactical Bonnet posted:

Wands are cool and all but you have to either spend a move action drawing them(then a standard or wait for next round to make a full), or spend the feat slot on quickdraw to maximize their usefulness.

Someone has never heard of a wand bracer!

# ¿ Dec 8, 2010 16:39

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Kestral posted:

I'm in a strange place in our Pathfinder game and I could use some advice.

We're playing a Pathfinderized version of World's Largest Dungeon with a party of four, two of which recently died and are remaking their characters, including me. Not counting my character we've got a Guide-variant Ranger specialized for archery, a Wizard/Cleric going for Mystic Theurge, and an Elemental bloodline Sorcerer. Up until now we had my recently-deceased Paladin to play tank, and my first inclination was to roll up another defense-oriented melee, but I'm starting to question whether "tank" is a valid concept for this group in a dungeon crawl.

Our experience with the dungeon so far suggests that "stand in a door while the archer and mages kill everything" may not be a situation to plan around. Thanks to random encounters, our most difficult encounters have consistently occurred in corridors which are too wide for a single character to control now that Pathfinder has made Stand Still and Trip builds awful. Without the ability to block a hallway or defend characters backed into a corner, I'm not sure what the point in a defense-oriented character even is. The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether I should put together some kind of balls-out melee DPS build that tries to kill everything before it can drop a mage.

With all that in mind, my questions are:

1. Given the dungeon setting and our party makeup, is there a use for a tank that I'm overlooking?

2. Between the core Pathfinder materials and the DM-approved Tome of Battle, is there a viable way to play lockdown like you could in 3.5E or otherwise allow one character to defend three?

3. Any suggestions for amusing Pathfinder-compatible Tome of Battle builds, either for a tank or for sheer damage output?

Spiked Chain + Thicket of Blades (Devoted Spirit Stance). 10' reach, plus all movement (including 5' steps) provokes an AoO. For bonus fun, you can actually pick up this combo through 3 feats - EWP: Spiked Chain, Martial Study, and Martial Stance (assuming you pick up Martial Stance at 10th level or higher if you aren't a maneuver-based class.)

# ¿ Apr 5, 2011 04:56

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

pawsplay posted:

A wizard who does this at least partially is also acting optimally. Also, I think it's a mistake to think of the fighter primarily as a beater. A 12th level fighter has seven bonus feats; that's what you're really buffing.

Why would I buff a fighter when I could summon something that's better than him at fighting?

# ¿ Sep 16, 2011 08:27

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

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.

There aren't any styles or builds or gear that let you move and flurry in the same round, are there? Losing my fighting style when villains are more than five feet away seems wasteful. Unless I want to darken the sky with all the 1d2 shuriken I can miss with I suppose. That said, is there a way to throw crap with STR in this system?

_{_{_{(Death To Ability Scores)}}}

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

# ¿ Oct 11, 2011 04:26

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

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 ~~I hope that doesn't~~ I don't think that turns off their enhancement bonuses or other effects.

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.

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.

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.

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

# ¿ Oct 11, 2011 10:31

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

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.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2011 11:44

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

chrisoya posted:

Oh. Well, it's not official errata, right?

Not yet.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2011 12:17

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

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.

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

You are really bad at evaluating things.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2011 16:02

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

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.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2011 17:24

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

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.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2011 18:11

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

pawsplay posted:

I think there are situations where class-based systems can clash with thematics. That is basically the whole reason you have stuff like archetypes and variant class features and variant classes and so forth. For instance, in 3.0, rangers were two-weapon fighting experts, but a lot of people were unimpressed with that. I mean, rangers being woodsy and all, how about archery? So 3.5 basically said, "You know, you're right. That's thematically limiting. Here, have some archery as an option, too."

My self-published Pathfinder product has a lot of material intended to deal with this issue, enabling character concepts that ordinarily run into a conflict between class features and thematics. So there's the Martial Artist, who can be configured as a non-magical Monk, or as an unarmored Fighter, or as a Kensai/Weapon Master type done as a base class.

I like class-based games. However, I think one of the best things in gaming in the 21st century is that class-based games have started including a lot of modularity, while modular games (especially point-based ones) are making more use of templates and implicit roles.

So, marking. To me it fits better as a specific configuration for a character with a specific rationale. I know a lot of people encountered marking and were like, "Aha! This is what I've been missing," but for me, it's definitely a case of something that is tasty as a spice getting used to cook everything.Given marking as a core design assumption, I think 4e did an excellent job of marrying this concept to those specific rationales for each class. And, as I said before, I think the Pathfinder Cavalier works well, too.

Gamerprinter?

# ¿ Oct 15, 2011 23:29

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

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.
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?

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.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2011 00:32

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

pawsplay posted:

Go toe to toe with a hydra, maybe tie the world long jump record in mail armor, kill an ogre in one hit, jump a horse across a chasm, rout a squad of mercenaries by killing one of them with disdain, shake off a paralyzing spell through sheer grit, pull a knife from their belt and spike an enemy guardsman while charging the evil Vizier with a longsword... that's a pretty good start.

So a 20th level fighter should be equivalent to a 7th level wizard or so, good to know.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2011 16:14

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

pawsplay posted:

There are entire swaths of the fantasy genre where "guy who uses a sword and has no magic powers" is not a viable heroic type. If I were writing a Harry Potter game, and someone said, "I want to be a muggle," I'd be like, "That could be tricky to pull off."

Honestly a muggle could do a pretty good job against a Harry Potter style wizard.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2011 05:41

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Jack the Lad posted:

Fighters are muggles.

A deliberate trap option that nobody with any degree of system mastery picks

No really, "guy with a sword" is an extremely dangerous threat in Harry Potter land. Magic is short ranged and can be dodged, and most wizards stance in place and try to blast. Also Harry Potter wizards don't really have a ton of protective spells, fight with easily breakable wands, and need their brooms to fly, so they could be taken down quite easily by a sword (not even getting into how much damage someone with a gun could do!)

# ¿ Oct 18, 2011 13:50

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Jack the Lad posted:

A Harry Potter wizard can just hover out of reach on a broom and kill any number of swordsmen without risk. Avada Kedavra is an at-will in the Harry Potter universe.

Add an invisibility cloak and erratic movement between casts for extra fun.

(I cannot believe I am having this conversation.)

A broom is great and all, but the swordsman could just go inside and then the broom guy has no advantage. Avada Kedavra is an inaccurate short slow rate of fire gun that doesn't instantly kill you. A wizard in an ambush situation might get one or two in a surprise attack, but he would be quickly cut down by a small number of regular soldiers. On the other hand, a swordsman who ambushes wizards would similarly be able to take down several of them, and they might even take some of themselves out with friendly fire if he gets among them.

If we are talking about modern weaponry, an invisibility cloak doesn't stop a grenade, and may even not work against infrared. Spells require speaking at a reasonable tone (unless one is quite skilled), so they could be heard as well. You would also have to have your wand arm outside the invisibility cloak to shoot, and Avadra Kedavra is easy to spot, so a burst of full auto from the squad machine gun would take someone in an invisibility cloak down easily. Also invisibility cloaks are incredible rare and wizards are also rare and take years to train, whereas anyone can be a soldier in a matter of months. Also this isn't even getting into the advantage modern weaponry has in terms of long range and area affect weaponry, and C3 technology.

Edit: I suppose wizards might have the advantage of mobility in terms of the Floo network, but it relies on having gates at both ends and can only transport smaller objects - though possibly the fireplace could be made bigger. And wizards have an advantage in terms of disguises, since they can turn into other people or animals, so security would need to be at very high levels.

Piell fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Oct 18, 2011

# ¿ Oct 18, 2011 16:17

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Idran posted:

With all the fighter discussion going on here, I'd like to ask the opinions of people that have better skill with mechanics than I do: What about FrankTrollman's fighter revamp? I know he can be extremely grognardy, but his mechanical stuff seems solid to me, though I've never been a great judge of that. I've been using what's basically just a merger of the PF fighter and his custom fighter since if nothing else, it at least feels like a vast improvement. But I'd love a second opinion.

For reference, it's the fighter class found here. And when I say merger I mean just giving the fighter this set of mechanics with the PF class abilities on top of it.

Foil action lets a fighter perma-lockdown a single enemy with basically no chance of failure, and greater combat focus means he can kick out of one effect per round. Everything else is "he attacks better", which is alright but making attacks is one of the less useful thing you can do in combat. It's more useful than a regular fighter for sure, but it doesn't really get to do anything interesting.

Piell fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Oct 18, 2011

# ¿ Oct 18, 2011 18:39

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Mojo Jojo posted:

Could somebody explain the Crusader mechanic? I feel like I've missed something interesting.

You know, say, 6 maneuvers. At the start of each combat deal out 3 random ones, and each round after that you get a new one. If you expend a maneuver, it goes in back into the deck.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2011 10:47

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

It's really easy to do online actually. Set up a spreadsheet with the maneuver in the first column and random numbers in the second, and generate a new random number set at the start of each battle and sort by that column. Takes a minute to set up, and seconds to use at the start of each combat.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2011 21:33

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

50 Foot Ant posted:

OK, you guys are the go to guys when it comes to finding out eventual problems.

My party's pretty much made things work, no matter how torn up the system (3 year Rifts game? No problem. Involved Shadowrun 2E game? gently caress yeah!), and we've got two player types in the game.

We've got the "power" optimizers, who go for max power, max damage, max AC, you get the drill.

The "concept" optimizers, who goes for tailoring the character to being the best for the concept.

We're got all all the books (but the Bestiary 3), the little Fate cards, the Crit & Fumble Decks, and a loooong standing campaign setting.

Everyone is at 3rd level right now, and things are moving pretty smoothly. This is our first Pathfinder campaign, so I want to know what kind of dangers I'm going to be running into.

What we've got is:

A monk, human.
A fighter, human.
A witch/gunslinger elf (2/1)
A rogue, halfling

What kind of problems might I be looking at?

One little thing: The group is in a time period after a cataclysmic war, so the Gods are a bit of a problem. The only clerics are with the major churches, and they're trying to seize control of governments since the Gods avatars are pretty much all destroyed so the Gods can't make their displeasure with the churchmen violating commandments known. The Martial Orders of the churches are holding tight being not part of the government, the churches are demanding that the Martial Orders do what they want (act like occupying armies), so the churches don't provide healing to anyone who isn't powerful or high ranking.

This means that the characters don't have access to healing magic.

Recently they saw prices for cure light wounds potions in an alchemist's store: 1200 sp

The price of a used magic sword at a pawnshop? 125 sp. (+1 longsword)

Oh, the campaign is silverpiece based rather than goldpiece, and the prices vary from the PF book depending on the well... you know what, it doesn't matter.

So, what kind of problems will I be looking at regarding those character classes?

Your party is already dead. No divine or arcane full caster means you are incredibly behind in ability to deal with challenges, multiple encounters, as well as any combat other than "stand there and hit them." Are you the DM? If so, you'll need to limit the encounters per day to one or two at most. Think about handing out some Healing Belts from the 3.5 MIC, or at least dropping healing potions like rain. Use enemy spellcasters very sparingly, or limit them to mostly blasting types.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2011 06:49

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

smashthedean posted:

I don't really know a ton about the inner workings of these things, but wouldn't it cost less to maintain servers for 4500 players on launch than a million or whatever? Seems like it's probably just planned as a way to limit their initial costs while they see if their small publishing company's first foray into online gaming will work out or not. I can't really say at this point whether it's a good strategy or a bad one, but Paizo seems to have a pretty decent business head on their shoulders so I'm hopeful.

Limiting the number of players limits the number of people that can pay them. Every MMO needs to make more per person than it costs to run servers (otherwise they can never make any money), so this plan is just stupid in every fashion. Not to mention the stupidity of planning an MMO based almost entirely around player interaction, and then not allowing anyone to play it.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2011 18:22

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

smashthedean posted:

...and full BAB, more HP, Weapon Specialization feats, Weapon Training, full movement speed in armor... Fighters really aren't that bad.

Yes they are.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2011 07:58

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# ¿ Apr 30, 2024 04:12

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

J. Alfred Prufrock posted:

It is weird that the definition of "power gamer" has changed from "gamer who is powerful" to "gamer who takes many steps to be powerful".

The big implied shift in meaning, of course, is from unskilled to skilled, where in earlier games a "power gamer" was actually poo poo at the game because he just: got lucky; got a terrible DM; or lied about one or both of the first two. Nowadays when someone says "power gamer" what they really mean is "dude who makes powerful characters following the exact same rules as everyone else" or, if you prefer, "dude who doesn't make lovely characters on purpose because roleplaying."

Back in death-trap-dungeon-fantasy-Vietnam-edition, if you intentionally made a useless character you were laughed off the table until you rerolled because goddammit we have a half-dozen worthless NPCs we don't need another one. On the other hand, if you were good at setting up and playing your PC then everyone else wanted to party with you since clearly you knew what you were doing and would actually benefit any team that brought you along.

Now, I've never actually IRL seen somebody create a totally gimped and worthless PC that just drags the party down, despite how important the internet seems to think that the ability to do so is ("If I can't build a crippled old man with no skills and no talents then your system prevent roleplaying!)

But thanks to the wonders of the internet, I know that these people exist and have to spend valuable brain-space pondering just what sort of illness/disorder it takes to want your 'friends' to constantly play out care-taker fantasies to the exclusion of all others. Do you also RP out changing their Depends? Mashing up their peas and carrots? The liberal application of baby powder?

You know, I don't actually want to know. Just, if you do, you're awful. That's far enough into it for me, thanks.

A guy in my IRL party's most recent 3.5 character was a 5th level swashbuckler with 10 strength, 16 dexterity, and 10 intelligence. Also he complained that the half-orc barbarian someone else was playing was overpowered because he was doing 1d12+10 (plus varying amounts of power attack) and that was more than damage than a 12th level paladin he had played in a different group.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2012 16:03

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