Pathfinder hates Monks and Guns! Or does it?

[Libertad]

Pathfinder's latest book, Ultimate Equipment is out.  I've heard that it nerfed the Monk class with some revised errata.

It's no big secret that Pathfinder didn't bridge the gaps between Tiers, but I commonly hear the rumor that some of the game designers don't like the idea of Monks and Guns in D&D.  The idea is that nerfs are deliberately designed to discourage people from playing the classes and using the equipment.

It's not the first time of I've seen a rumor like this pop up ("Savage Species Monsters were intentionally crappy!"), but does it have any merit?  Have the Pathfinder developers responsible for the nerfs ever said that they don't like the idea of the Monk and Gunslinger classes?  Have they ever said that they intentionally nerf things to discourage play?

Is it gossip and hearsay, or simply attributing design flaws to active maliciousness?

[Halinn]

It's mostly SKR changing the rules (poorly) to fit with what he imagines to the fluff of the classes. I have not seen anything specific about anyone at Paizo claiming to dislike the classes, but an image forms when cobbling together bits and pieces of what they write on their forums as errata and such.

[Keldar]

It's mostly SKR changing the rules (poorly) to fit with what he imagines to the fluff of the classes. I have not seen anything specific about anyone at Paizo claiming to dislike the classes, but an image forms when cobbling together bits and pieces of what they write on their forums as errata and such.

Everything I've seen from him really makes him come across as a major Stop Having Fun Guy.  If he hears about players doing something he doesn't like, you can be certain the next errata or rule book will eliminate it.  An attitude that Pathfinder was steeped in from the beginning, and what made me give it a pass.

[StreamOfTheSky]

PF definitely hates monks.  They've nerfed basically every little thing could think of from 3E:

- Can't take INA
- Can't apply speed bonus to anything but land speed (ie, anything relevant)
- Flurry being tied to the anchor-like TWF effectively nerfed it, especially with the recent thing about needing to enhance unarmed twice in order to use it
- Flurry also now explicitly cannot be combined w/ 2ndary natural attacks, even though a fighter full attacking unarmed w/ TWF feats can do so.
- The massive tumble nerf mostly harmed monks and rogues and their melee survivability
- Cannot obtain Greater Trip, which is basically 3E Improved Trip
- Grapple, being one of the monk's supposed strengths, was bar none the most heavily nerfed combat maneuver, though all of them were nerfed.

Nevermind all the rules changes after the fact to nerf what nice things they've been given (brass knucks, cloud step, etc...) or things put into the game that specifically advance others at the monk's own game (brawling property, which monks cannot use w/o throwing out 1/3 their class features by wearing armor, which gives a cheap +2 untyped unarmed and grapple attack/damage bonus).  Or their continued refusal to make an "unarmed only" amulet of mighty fists priced fairly, as it would "make the amulet obsolete" somehow...  Yet then they make stuff like the brawling property and that body wrap of massive trap-age.  Kind of like how giving the monk actual full BAB would not be backwards compatible, but the changes to rage and bardic performance aren't problematic at all for backwards compatibility...

Or SKR's whole contemptious rant about people who want to play monks with a vow of poverty (3E-style, that actually gives you supernatural abilities to at least try to make up for the loss) and it being a stupid concept that deserves to suck (but druids having an allergic reaction to iron giving them god-like powers makes sense).

PF, especially SKR, hates monks with a passion.

Guns...I don't see it.  Guns are just completely unbalanced.  They cost a ton, and you kind of have to suck up to the DM to get the right "tech level", but they use that and a bs random explosion system to "balance" all the incredibly broken benefits guns get.
I'll make this simple...
Was Wraith Strike broken?  Yes?  Why?  Full attack touch attacks are broken.  Guns are built solely ON that principle!  And then they get to explicitly break the rules and benefit from Deadly Aim (ranged power attack)!  Gun ammo also breaks the craft rules w/ a special exception for the raw materials cost, being 1/5 instead of 1/3.  Then there's scatter weapons, which only miss if all the shots miss...
God, I hate the gun rules!  Why is introducing guns to D&D always for the sake of fapping over how awesome they are and better than any other weapon evar!!!!!!111111 ?
Why is it so wrong to make guns actually balanced w/ other ranged weapons mechanically, instead of some bs price tags and crit fail garbage to justify them being pwntastic?

[veekie]

Actually the guns still blow, you're spending about as much per shot as a first level wand, and as a projectile weapon user, you'd be burning quite a lot per round. The entire basis is flawed, with an expensive, slow, exotic weapon that is literally useless for anything but gimmick builds to abuse touch attacks.

Not to mention that guns don't really do the touch attack thing any more than an arrow did.

[Libertad]

Sean should just be honest and admit that he doesn't like the idea of Monk PCs.  That, or hand the reigns of designing Monk stuff to someone else.

He is responsible for all those nerfs, right?

[veekie]

Most of them can be definitively sourced to him yes. Other parts of the design team seem to disagree, what with the material(brass knuckles, Zen Archer, etc) for monks that briefly make them better before he un-patches them.

[Agita]

Sean should just be honest and admit that he doesn't like the idea of Monk PCs.  That, or hand the reigns of designing Monk stuff to someone else.

He is responsible for all those nerfs, right?

Monk design is in someone else's hands. He wouldn't touch them at all if he could help it. He just keeps hitting the "no fuck you" button on other designers' efforts.
While I don't think he has ever gone on record explicitly stating what he likes and dislikes, it isn't hard to infer a definite bias in the stuff SKR has written for D&D 3.x and Pathfinder.

[radionausea]

Sean should just be honest and admit that he doesn't like the idea of Monk PCs.  That, or hand the reigns of designing Monk stuff to someone else.

He is responsible for all those nerfs, right?

Primarily responsible as lead designer and yes, he should.
James Jacobs has stated he really, really doesn't like the Summoner class...and so he has nothing to do with it. Ideally SKR should stay away from design completely rather than just the monk but I'd settle for some honesty and him not having any input on the class.

[ImperatorK]

SKR complained that people shit on him for nerfing Monks. He said that he's just the lead designer and he's only relying the bad news (nerfs/erratas). Paizo people are saying that they see the problems and they'll "look into it", but personally I think they hate Monks and are talking out of their asses.

[RobbyPants]

The idea is that nerfs are deliberately designed to discourage people from playing the classes and using the equipment.

The worst thing about this approach is that we all know it doesn't work. I can't count the number of times I've had players play something that completely sucked because they were married to the concept and just didn't care. Once they get that idea in their head, they're going to play it, regardless of the rules put before them. They might complain later down the road when they realize they can't do anything, but that didn't stop them at char-gen!

[Prime32]

I think it's intended less as prevention and more as punishment.

[phaedrusxy]

I think it's intended less as prevention and more as punishment.

This is like the worst form of douchery ever. Any game designer who does this should be banned from the industry.

[veekie]

I think it's intended less as prevention and more as punishment.

This is like the worst form of douchery ever. Any game designer who does this should be banned from the industry.

It was there from the start actually, as a form of of elitism and intentional trap options.

SKR is just far less subtle than most, and has serious problems with the concept of "no takebacks".

[Libertad]

It was there from the start actually, as a form of of elitism and intentional trap options.

SKR is just far less subtle than most, and has serious problems with the concept of "no takebacks".

Sometimes it's enough to make me go "you want game balance between classes?  Try another RPG."

Not saying that it's a fruitless endeavor, just that there's much better options out there than 3.X

[linklord231]

I'm honestly OK with an imbalance between classes.  It makes the game playable at different power levels.  But I'm not OK with entire concepts being significantly weaker than other concepts, just because the designer doesn't like that concept and thinks it should suck. 

For example, in 3.5 the "beefy fighter" concept can be represented by an ubercharger at high power levels, a chain tripper or warblade at mid levels, or a sword'n'board dude at low power levels.  All of these are viable, as long as the DM adjusts difficulty to the power level of the party.  With the PF monk nerfs, combined with the lack of other options like Swordsage to represent that character concept, it makes it so that you can only play a monk-type character at low power levels. 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I don't expect the classes to be balanced with each other.  I do expect to try to close the gap a bit and for the weaker classes to still be relevant and have a reason to exist.

PF buffing casters and nerfing the living shit out of monks just pisses me off.  I don't care if they were wildly imbalanced already.  Why make it WORSE?!

[Libertad]

I don't expect the classes to be balanced with each other.  I do expect to try to close the gap a bit and for the weaker classes to still be relevant and have a reason to exist.

PF buffing casters and nerfing the living shit out of monks just pisses me off.  I don't care if they were wildly imbalanced already.  Why make it WORSE?!

Paizo has a careful balancing act.  Part of their publicity was that it's 3.5, but improved.  Also, it's still close enough to the 3.5 we know and love to be reverse-compatible.

If Paizo changes too much, they'll turn people off.  Change too little, and people will fill like the RPG's a waste and the Open Playtest a failure.

It appears that Paizo's trying to go with the "stay close to classic 3.5" by reinforcing caster/noncaster imbalance.

[FlaminCows]

While it is possible that it was an intentional nerfing of play styles he didn't like, I'm more inclined to apply Hanlon's razor:

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

[Unbeliever]

At Libertad:

How can that possibly be right? There are certain things PF couldn't change or get rid of without losing its constituency. Vancian casting for instance. But I cannot imagine anyone felt that having crappy mundane classes and boss casters was an important part of 3E. And that is no justification for exacerbating the problem as Stream notes.

I'll be shocked if there is anyone over on the Paizo boards who explicitly wants to make fighters and monks et al suck because they (arguably) did in 3E. It would I guess explain why they got rid of nearly all the cool things those classes could do.