I've spent a couple hundred dollars on the original Herolab and I love it so much its one of the reasons I refuse to move on to PF2. I refuse to buy into their new payment model. I will pay for a subscription OR for content but not both. Until they change it I will never subscribe to Herolab online.
*Checks Starfinder
Well, what do you know? We've been playing this spell wrong for 18 years. I guess we should have kept reading the flavor text beyond the chart. This makes confusion a lot better vs a group and much, much less effective against a single enemy.
As a DM I enjoy Pathfinder because of the fabulous Adventure Paths, not just by Paizo but there are some great 3rd party ones out there as well. Each session can be run with only a few hours of prep times which is much less than trying to run my own thing. As a player I like the options and the flexibility. I come up with a character concept and then build out multiple versions at different levels and then decide which one I like best. The flexible classes, archetypes, and feats mean that you could bend classes to be almost unrecognizable. My system mastery is pretty high and I generally build the most effective characters at my table. That's not to say I hog the spotlight, but my characters tend to focus on one or two things and I want them to be highly effective. By mid levels (8+) I expect to almost always be successful. If I'm the party face, I make my everyone love me. If I'm an offensive chaster, the enemies fail their saves. If I'm a damage dealer, I kill things super fast. If I'm a tank, I don't take much damage. I like to optimize.
Everyone knows first edition has problems although we may not agree what those are. I was hoping for an evolutionary Pathfinder 1.5. and instead got something that feels and plays VERY different. We paused our first Starfinder campaign for a round of playtesting 2nd Edition. Although there were some good ideas, overall no one liked it better than first edition and we haven't touched the playtest since. Unless there are massive changes we will likely switch over to Starfinder when we run out of first edition material.
I was never a fan of the Christmas tree effect but I think Starfinder did a much better job of solving this problem than 2E. I like the idea of Resonance but its implementation is not something that I like. Seriously, what's wrong with CLW wands? One of the things we love about 1E is that no one has to play a Healer. In our Kingmaker campaign, our cleric player got tired of his character and since he was King he decided he would retire and rule the kingdom and no longer put himself in deadly situations. No one else wanted to play a healer so the healing fell to me, a Summoner. I made a custom staff of Heal and carried around a crate of CLW wands for after battle healing and a few scrolls. Everyone got to play the class they wanted and we could still function. As it stands now this cannot be done in 2E and is another reason why I don't see my group making the transition.
I understand the new philosophy but the more exposure I have to it the more negatives I see. As a player I don't really care for low level pathfinder. You miss a lot. You get hit a lot and you fail at skills a lot. Once my character gets to around 5 or so I'm generally successful in areas I wish to be good at and by level 10 I rarely fail. We have not test played 2e at higher levels yet but it looks like 2e will always play like low level 1E. The good news is that high level play (15+) will actually be feasible but I'm not sure I'd want to play it. I like making builds that involve hunting lots of bonus to get really good at something and unless something changes drastically with 2E I don't see that happening.
Without doing a full mockup of both I would say that the pouncing barbarian will win hands down. Unless there's been some change, the vital strike line only adds base weapon damage. At 11th level a vital striking barbarian is doing about 6d10+30 (63ish) while the pouncing barbarian is going to be hitting for 2d10+30/2d10+30/2d10+30. Even if he only hits twice that's 82 damage. These are just made up numbers but you get the idea. Both Bloodrager and Barbarian are terrifying opponents. Barb's offense tends to be a bit better at offense while the Bloodrager tends to have more utility/defensive options. Displacement as a swift action is awesome.
I don't like Errata. Period. It just causes confusion at the table as we try and figure out why something is different. Then we have to figure out which version we are using. Then we have exactly the same debate a year later when no one remembers what the result of the first discussion was. If something is a problem for PFS then change it there, otherwise leave it alone. If something is a problem in a home game, let us DMs handle it.
I have an Investigator in my game that regularly makes 40s or 50s Perception checks. I pretty much assume he is going to spot anything and plan accordingly. The player built him as a skill monkey so skill checks are about the only time he really shines his combat skills are pretty meh. I toss lots of skill challenges at the party that I know he is going to pass and most of the others fail. It is his time to shine. Why not let him?
I'm not so keen on big dungeons in the last parts of an AP. Small ones are ok but high level parties have so many variables its hard to do dungeons right by that point. While going through the list of APs all of the part 6s have some serious flaws. That said, I really enjoyed playing or running: Kingmaker - a series of varied and awesome boss fights. The BBEG was annoying since we had trouble doing anything to her due to massive saves and AC but she had trouble hurting us as well since she was solo. The battle lasted forever but the rest of the module was great. Second Darkness - the BBEG guy was great! Probably the most fun final battle we've had in a PF AP. Massive battle with lots of strong enemies. Council of Thieves for the final battle coolness factor. We had fun playing this one but none of the players could follow the story line at all. I suspect the last part was modified since one of the PCs was working on becoming mayor so after we dealt with the siblings we had to secure the town before the forces of Thrune arrived. My least favorite ones:
Wrath of the Righteous. After the pure Epicness of chapters 4 and 5, the final chapter seemed to lose some steam. I don't like being rushed into the final chapter. Usually the PCs are sitting on tons of loot and having the opportunity to trade it or craft new stuff is appreciated. Having the Mercanes show up in the late chapters of Savage Tide was a nice way to get the high end gear that you need for the final parts. I find quite often by part6 the party is getting tired of the AP/Pathfinder/high level play. Looking through the list of AP we've ended the APs early in some cases, condensed the last chapter in most cases and only played it as written in a few.
Dekalinder wrote:
This is my preferred solution as well. Leave the original books alone except for typos and whatnot. Any balancing changes or clarifications should be in a separate document for PFS and anyone else interested.
We were sneaking around a castle once and the archer ranger tried to kill off a guard quickly and quietly from range. At first everyone was super pumped when he got a crit, confident the guard would not live long enough to sound the alarm, only to remember that the ranger had a Thundering bow. Ooops.
Age of Worms was the worst for players deaths. It got to the point where we just started numbering our characters instead of naming them. Pathfinder APs generally have lots of deaths in the first 2 parts and then very few in later chapters. Generally deaths in later chapters arise as the DM tries to increase the difficulty and over does it.
When I look at the Rogue, I think of the core Barbarian. The rage powers in the CRB are generally terrible and the Barb was inferior to the Fighter. Then along comes the APG which introduced a ton of awesome rage powers for the barb and some sweet archetypes and the Barbarian has never looked back. Why not just put out a bunch of Rogue powers that are actually good? I see Barbarian PCs spending feats to get more Rage Powers and you see Rogues trying to trade Rogue talents for Feats. Why? Because Rage powers are better than feats and Rogue talents are worse. Publish a bunch of Rogue talents that fix the rogues problems (and there are many) and then the Rogue Talents would actually be valuable.
We don't usually play with xp so the new PC comes back as the same level as everyone else. WBL is usually used but there may be restrictions on what can and cannot be bought depending on the campaign. We usually come up with a flimsy excuse why the new PC joins the party and just keep going. No one wants to sit out for hours until the party gets to meet up with the new PC.
First I built a twf ranger and a twf slayer to compare but I decided that I didn't really like either so I started over with Str builds of each. These are not optimized but I tried to make them as close to each each other as possible. This was done with HeroLab (and some tweaking) Str Ranger
The two seem really close. The Favored target is more flexible and the sneak attack damage is a nice bonus when it applies (in my experience not very often). The ranger has bigger bonuses and once the Instant Enemy spell becomes available the Ranger is going to win any DPR contests. The animal companion is a tough one. Most of the animal companions I've seen in play were more hindrance than help (lots of riding in the portable hole) but there are now feats available that make it as good as a druid's (minus the nice animal selection). I'd like to see better Slayer (and Rogue) Talents. More combat focused. When you look at Rage powers there are lots of awesome ones but Slayer talents are largely "meh". Put level limits on to balance them. I agree that Poison Use would be a good fit to this class (and Poison Immunity is always handy). Skill points should be 6+Int. At this point in the test, I think the Ranger is still a better slayer - at least after level 10 when the Rangers spells tip the balance in its favor.
I played a witch in Kingmaker and she was almost overpowered. The DM actually asked me to retire her and play something else. That campaign features lots of humanoids where they excel. In Carrion Crown it would have been a different story. Sleep Hex backed up by Evil Eye, Misfortune, and Cackle and most bosses go down in 3 rounds or less. Witches are the Kings (or Queens) of bebuffing which is great when followed up by a Save or Die (or Suck) spell. Against enemies that are mindless or immune to mind-affecting effects, you better hope you have some spells prepared that will work otherwise you just stand back and watch. I actually think Fireball isn't that bad. Sometimes there is tons of mooks and its great against swarms. I hate swarms. We never have enough AE to fight them and end up running away. |