Author Topic: I just received an email titled "A Radical Proposal" from my DnD group...  (Read 9687 times)

Offline Unbeliever

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To say that, by dint of simply not including them, they got rid of a few of the most powerful, either TO or nearly TO tricks is not a huge change for most people's games, practically-speaking.

I have been on these boards for a long time.  And, to date I have never seen a Cheater of Mystra build at a table.  Not at a convention, not online, not in real life, not in a pickup game.  If that's all Pathfinder brings to the table, then it's ultimately not very much at all.  Certainly not worth the price of admission.  For the record, I think it does bring more to the table, I just think these arguments are poor ones. 
...
Also, I searched for 5 seconds and found a Incantrix build for a campaign from one of the very posters on this thread right away!

You have eyes but you refuse to see.
I know my eyes suck.  I didn't even notice that they renamed "Cheater of Mystra" "Incantatrix" while I wasn't paying attention.  Sneaky internet gnomes.  You see, if I meant to say "I've never once seen someone play an Incantatrix," I probably could have included the word "Incantatrix" in my post.  Even I, the stubborn denies of the One True Way, could have probably managed that. 

And, really, your example of a borked build is an Unseen Seer with a splash of Spellthief? 

"Players will seek to abuse PF as much as possible, but ignore the even more broken crap in 3.5" is a much poorer argument.
That would, I admit, be a pretty bad argument.  But, again, I think I have just enough, barely, mastery over my fingers to manage to type something that might vaguely resemble that statement.

First off, my comment was in response to your (Oslecamo's) original comment bringing in the baroque things of charopp/debatedly TO beauty.  So, it's bad form, and frankly childishly churlish, to then ignore the context in that case. 

Second, what I was actually saying, and I'll spell it out here to avoid some more blatant straw manning (although I think it's pretty clear from my earlier post anyway) is that most games take place not in the rarefied expanses of theoretical optimization or nearly so.  We do not, typically, play at those heights and aeries where Cheaters of Mystra and Omnificers roam.  Rarely do actual games played by actual people (I make no claims w/r/t Protoss gaming groups) end up with characters along those lines. 

Instead, most games take place in the hearty, if pedestrian realms of practical optimization.  Indeed, that's why the very term was coined.  And, in real live games played by real live humans, the few corner cases you listed do not come up.  So, fixing them is of little practical import. 

Now, if you want to make some argument that, in practice, meaning somewhere along the spectrum of practical optimization, Pathfinder games are more balanced, that might be another matter.  But, the contention I was responding to was that Pathfinder had finally delivered us from our long, terrible  night at the hands of the "Incantrix/IoT7FV/Cheater of Mystra/Planar Shepherd/Red Wizard of Thay." 

Of course, one might be concerned that Pathfinder has simply consigned us to a different night, one plagued by Arcane Bonded Wizards and the like.  But, that's an issue for another post.

It seems to me that you wanted me to be making some other argument, the one you were interested in.  Something along the lines of "the most broken things in Pathfinder are just as broken as the ones in 3E D&D."  Sadly, I cannot oblige.  I'm not sure that's true one way or another, and, for reasons alluded to above, I don't think it's particularly relevant. 

Offline muktidata

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Gamers,

I have had the chance to talk with most of you about the switch to PF. The responses have been mostly positive. The only exceptions were some very real rules problems that Woodrow brought up. Fortunately, as I said, one of the nice things about PF is that it is a living game. And some of his concerns have already been addressed in a noncore PF book called Unchained. There are 4 character updates in it, for the barbarian, monk, rogue, and summoner. These are considered official changes so the new character versions are available on the SRD. You can use either version but I highly recommend the Unchained versions if you want to play those characters.

There are a number of other optional rules that are in the Unchained book. These are listed on the SRD but you can't link directly to them. I suppose that is because those rules are not official changes. But I am going to get the book and I will likely implement some of the optional rules. I plan to avoid house rules whenever possible. So far I have only thought of one (see below). But I will make liberal use of published variants if they seem appropriate.

My main concern is the same as Woodrow's: the excessive power of spell casters over mundane characters. Much of this doesn't really show up until you go up a few levels. But even at first level, casters get a big bonus from the new cantrip/orison rules. These refer to '0' level spells, that should be very weak. But the new rules allow a caster to use them at will, with no limits on how many times that they may be used each day. This takes a very minor spell effect and changes it into a near godlike ability to change things on a whim, all day every day. This is too much. I am not yet sure about how '0' level spells will be limited, but they will be.

Another thing is not a rules change but a refocus on some neglected rules. One of things that has made casters so powerful is the ease with which they can change their spells to fit the situation. As a DM, I have been lax about enforcing the limitations that are already in the rules. So I am giving everyone notice now that I am going to be much more strict about spell preparation. Required rest times and prep times will be a real problem if you are in a hostile environment. Wizards will need to guard their spell books very carefully, because they could be lost, stolen, or damaged. Wizards will need to be very specific with me about where their books are kept and how they are stored. Plus they are not light, so physically weak wizards may have trouble carrying them and all of the other equipment that they might need. Especially if you have 2 copies, which I highly recommend.

A different set of problems will show up for users of divine magic. The deities lists all describe the rituals that each god requires for their clerics to receive their spells. Many of them require prayers at a certain time of day. I am going to hold you to that. Of course, the gods will make exceptions for extreme circumstances, or if you are underground and can't tell the time of day. But don't just assume that you can recharge your spells every time that you rest.

[Name]
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Offline Power

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Couple of things to note in this thread: There are a shitload of PF prestige classes that are better than advancing as your class, but only for spellcasters really.

Spellcasters also have a bunch of retarded spells (for instance, Create Pit line = reflex save crowd control and BFC), Paragon Surge, and that absurdly broken Dazing Spell metamagic. Oracle in particular has some dumb shit between the Lunar mystery (which gives Wall of Force at level 1 as vertical Moonlight Bridge, animal companion, Cha to Reflex and AC) and Heavens mystery (get Awesome Display revelation, cast Color Spray to kill all encounters until level 11?). Summoners were designed to use max-level Summon Monster for every encounter in the game (and they also have 3/4 BAB and light armor for no explicable reason) and then Master Summoner went the extra mile to let them chain-spam in single encounters. Wizards were also buffed a few times over (1d6 hitdice, favored class bonus for even more hp, specialization only impeding instead of banning other schools and with an Opposition Research discovery 1 of those schools has no more penalty).

Rogues took a massive savage beating behind the scenes. Ring of Blinking no longer provides guaranteed sneak attack to rogues, Quick Draw was nerfed to break the flask rogue (for extra measure sneak attack no longer works with alchemical weapons) along with general utility purposes like throwing Tanglefoot Bags or drawing scrolls, Tumbling was ruined so that Rogues can no longer reliably tumble into flanks (they considered reliable sneak attack to be too good), balance checks were removed from a lot of spells/items (grease/bag of marbles) so that Rogues cannot obtain flat-footed enemies that way, and skills are consolidated without cross-rank penalties which means there's no point in the Rogue as a skill monkey when the Wizard can grab all the same skills. What this all boils down to is that the rogue cannot really sneak attack reliably and is wholly unneeded for his skills which effectively obsoletes the entire class. You can basically still play a Flask Rogue though if you build a Crypt Breaker Alchemist with the Fast Bomb discovery instead. In fact, the Fast Bomb alchemist does way the fuck more damage while picking up a lot more perks, but that's fine for paizo because the alchemist is a spellcaster.

Fighters also took a beating in Pathfinder. Part of the beating overlaps with the PF Rogue: There is no reliable method of pouncing as melee unless you are an 11th level Barbarian or a Druid. Another part comes from PF's drastically inferior combat feats and annoying habit of excessively long feat chains for martials and their terribly lop-sided combat maneuver system which favors size/str/dex modifiers and drastically favors monsters over players. Plus combat maneuver feats got split up into regular+greater versions now so that you can invest twice the feats for the same effect. Also they nerfed exotic weapons like Spiked Chain and Whips so that they don't threaten properly. PF Whips can be made to threaten just 10 feet with Improved Whip Mastery though (feat chain in order: Exotic Proficiency (Whip), Weapon Focus (Whip), Whip Mastery, Improved Whip Mastery, and also BAB requirements because why not) which means that even though the PF Fighter looks better, the 3.5 Fighter performs much better. And if you have 3.5, you would actually play a Warblade, which is drastically superior to the PF Fighter.

I really want to ask how Pathfinder solved the gulf between the Sorc and the Wizard.  Like, I want to hear some specifics. 

Since, y'know, they did virtually nothing in point of fact.

Honestly, he's just banging on this drum of balance, and I'm getting annoyed by proxy.  He clearly has no idea what he's talking about.
Actually, they pumped Sorcerers a lot. Human favored class bonus gives the Sorcerer a shitload of bonus spells known. Also Half-Elf Sorcerers can Paragon Surge for Expanded Arcana which gives them access to any spell on their class list when needed. Mnemonic Vestment (5k GP) basically lets you carry a spellbook as a sorcerer and spontaneously cast from it 1/day. Get more vestments if you want more daily uses. Page of Spell Knowledge can also be used to effectively add a spell to a Sorcerer's spells known. You can also just play a Blood Arcanist instead unless you're going Wild-blooded (in which case you are probably going Sylvan bloodline for the animal companion) or Razmiran Priest (which can burn spell slots to use divine scrolls without expending them).

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My main concern is the same as Woodrow's: the excessive power of spell casters over mundane characters. Much of this doesn't really show up until you go up a few levels. But even at first level, casters get a big bonus from the new cantrip/orison rules. These refer to '0' level spells, that should be very weak. But the new rules allow a caster to use them at will, with no limits on how many times that they may be used each day. This takes a very minor spell effect and changes it into a near godlike ability to change things on a whim, all day every day. This is too much. I am not yet sure about how '0' level spells will be limited, but they will be.
He's right. At-will cantrips gets pretty retarded as it means getting to Detect Magic the entire dungeon among other things.

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Another thing is not a rules change but a refocus on some neglected rules. One of things that has made casters so powerful is the ease with which they can change their spells to fit the situation. As a DM, I have been lax about enforcing the limitations that are already in the rules. So I am giving everyone notice now that I am going to be much more strict about spell preparation. Required rest times and prep times will be a real problem if you are in a hostile environment. Wizards will need to guard their spell books very carefully, because they could be lost, stolen, or damaged. Wizards will need to be very specific with me about where their books are kept and how they are stored. Plus they are not light, so physically weak wizards may have trouble carrying them and all of the other equipment that they might need. Especially if you have 2 copies, which I highly recommend.
I can think of some ways around that. A Sorcerer or Blood Arcanist with the Verdant bloodline only needs 2 hours of sleep per night once he reaches level 3. A Sorcerer with the Wildblooded Visionary bloodline only needs 1 hour of sleep to recover spell slots (but 8 to avoid fatigue), so if you go Human and take the Heart of the Fields alternate racial trait (1/day: ignore fatigue, also bonus to a single craft/profession skill), he only needs 1 hour of sleep per night starting at level 1. Normally I'd say Arcanist is better but the Sorcerer won't have to worry about someone fucking with his spellbook. Go Half-Elf for Paragon Surge and you can cast your whole spell list. With either of these bloodlines you may want to take the Tattooed Sorcerer archetype for some better powers.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2015, 10:49:25 AM by Power »

Offline linklord231

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I laughed when he said a wizard might be to physically weak to carry his spellbook.  Even a standard spellbook only weighs 3lbs, and there are lighter versions available.  Spellbooks are only 100 pages long - less than half as thick as an average Pathfinder hardcover.  They're not some monstrous tome like the DM seems to think  :lol
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Offline Unbeliever

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That Pathfinder book is pretty heavy, though ...

@Power re:  Sorc v. Wizard
I'm not sure how much those really speak to the power gap between the Sorcerer and the Wizard.  Those are some of the powerful options that a Sorc can take, and then we'd have to compare those to the options that Wizards have, and Pathfinder has never been shy about lavishing the Wiz with options.  Also, I'm pretty sure those weren't the things that the email writer was referring to. 

That being said, your points are well-taken, as some of those options are solid, especially for a Sorc.  My general thinking is that there's the fundamental problem, being a spell level behind, that looms very large, in part b/c I tend to presume "spells uber alles." 

You also articulated my issues with PF melee and the combat maneuver system better than I did above.

Offline muktidata

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Now it sounds like they're going to allow 3.5 feats.
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Offline PlzBreakMyCampaign

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Re: I just received an email titled "A Radical Proposal" from my DnD group...
« Reply #46 on: November 27, 2015, 01:14:33 PM »
How goes it? Are you punishing your DM for drinking the cool-aid? Did you roll up a full caster and make the fighter and rogue (who can't play warblade or swordsage) feel obsolete?

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Offline muktidata

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Only one DM converted their game to Pathfinder. After actually playing, the other two DM's did not follow.  :clap :clap :clap :clap

I made a Magus for our Rise of the Runelords game. Things were going well, my character was never going to steal the show mechanically, but he was really having a good time in the Roleplay department. I drank some special drink at a bar (trying to be vague) and won a contest and was inscribing Arcane Runes everywhere. It was fun... until... I failed a saw vs. insanity at level 1... Wtf??

New character is a TWF Goblin Rogue making use of Roll With It and Ring of Ferocious Action - my own find (tm).

Playing PF in 1/3 campaigns ain't so bad. The constant errata on PF's SRD vs the books is annoying though. You can have your character concept get destroyed by them nerfing some perfectly fine ability.
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Offline phaedrusxy

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Playing PF in 1/3 campaigns ain't so bad. The constant errata on PF's SRD vs the books is annoying though. You can have your character concept get destroyed by them nerfing some perfectly fine ability.
Yes... like that "harmful" word they slipped into the Hex Vulnerability spell... I had built a Witch healer based around using a wand of that...
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