So all in all, I think Suppress Charms and Compulsions is a much less disruptive spell than the Protection from Evil line.
I don't want to do a whole side conversation about this, but Suppress Charms and Compulsions is better than Protection from X in that it's not limited by the alignment of the caster (neutral casters don't care about Protection From X) and it also suppresses ALL compulsions, whereas Protection from X doesn't effect something like Confusion or Ill Omen that doesn't directly control someone.
The biggest glaring imbalance, however, is comparing Suppress Charms and Compulsions to Dispel Magic. It just auto wins, no caster check or saving throw necessary, and it effects all existing compulsions, no matter how many. Got a 20th level Enchanter who has some ultra powerful bodyguard subject to Dominate Monster and stacked Geases? Any third level Wizard can turn it all off at any time, making it way to dangerous to ever do this.
It's a bad spell and reprinting it unchanged (if that's what they did) is a bad decision.
He's not referring to suppress charms and compulsions, but I believe to haunting reminder.*grumbling*
Second level spell to shut down psychic spell casters for anywhere from twelve hours to a day per level. I like psychic spellcasting, but it'd be nice to have spells keep it in mind for balance purposes.
...wait. "Shut down"? "Twelve hours to a day per level"? Did the spell just get a massive upgrade?!
(The old Suppress Charms and Compulsions spell worked like Remove Fear, but against charms and compulsions instead of fear. So it had a flat non-scaling 10 minute duration, offered a +4 morale bonus against charms and compulsions, and suppressed currently active charms and compulsions for the duration of the spell.)
...oohhhhh. Got it. Thanks!
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Suppress Charms and Compulsions (the old one, anyway) offered a Will save to negate. Even if it was reprinted unchanged, I hope they clarified whether (for instance) a dominated Fighter would forgo their save against a spell cast by those he's currently stabbing. Because there's some massive table variation possible there.
It's will negates (harmless), so it's intended to give you a shot of keeping, say, Heroism up, not to make it harder to save yourself from a negative compulsion. In any case, giving the (weak minded) subject of the compulsion a save doesn't strike me as a good balance compared to Dispel Magic which compares against the caster and is only 50/50 at parity.
The "the f@$#?" was me voicing my confusion and incredulous at them asking to future proof against an entirely different system
And it was a reasonable reaction!
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The discussion about the Lore Warden and Clear Ioun Stones is really dampening my initial enthusiasm to purchase this product.
...can the rivethune save the sale?
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Personally, I think the new lore warden is better. Not only does it no longer have some obviously garrulous trades, but it actually gives you choices in when you get the lore warden's abilities. It's like a built-in archetype-unique advanced armor training option.I like most of the book (finally got the pdfs this evening), but the nerfs to a couple PFS mainstays are kinda jarring to me.
** spoiler omitted **
So given my name, I am a fan of the fighter, and as you have maybe seen on the paizo forums, there are many who believe the Fighter gets the short end of the stick. The Lore Warden had its ups and downs before, and it's sounding like it got pretty screwed. Many took the archetype so they could get combat expertise, because they hate the feat, and all the awful pre-reqs to do certain combat maneuvers. So all I'm getting is it got nerfed, and I find this to be upsetting, but you think it's better. Can you give me some details on why you think this, especially since I don't have access to the reprint.
Also, I've been excited over this book for awhile, and I have been a subscriber of companions in the past, but I have been disappointed. Hearing a hardcover has reprints, and especially a Lore Warden nerf as one of the archetypes really upsets me. Alone that I was excited for some fighter love and instead am hearing that it's kinda the opposite saddens me deeply.
I'd be happy to answer this for you, but I feel like I also need to talk about what made the old LW problematic from a design standpoint.
1) It was not future-proofed well. The old archetype gave all INT skills as class skills shortly before we started seeing a bunch of X to INT traits (like the ones in Ultimate Campaign). As written, LW would let you take traits like that and instantly give you more class skills.
2) It broke a lot of design conventions. For example, it replaced armor training, a relatively weak utility ability, for a...
Yes, and how much is the Fighter getting out of it? a +3 to either Diplomacy or Bluff (Clever Wordplay)(This also means not taking Perception as class skill) and maybe UMD (Which has a fixed DC for most uses)? Around an archetype that still had very limited ranks per level?
Design conventions don't matter when Fighter was horrendously underpowered, and plenty of archetypes did the same thing (Mutation Warrior being the biggest example for Armor Training), and with AMH the feature's now about worth it for the trade.
Oh, the combat maneuver bonus was unbalanced? Do I need to bring up the issues with CMD on enemies snowballing out of control, which means that the Lore Warden's CMB bonus was NECESSARY to make combat maneuver builds VIABLE on the late game? (Not even mentioning the increasing amount of enemies that become immune to certain combat maneuvers for all practical purposes as the levels go higher, hello flying and many-legged, or huge+ enemies)
Ah, yes, a bonus to Combat Expertise's scaling. You mean making the feat what it should have been in the first place to make it worth taking on its own rather than the biggest feat tax in the game? And given that offense>>defense, it might still remain unused?
And even with the newer books, the Fighter isn't at the top of his tier, nor does Lore Warden push him over it. These words do look angry from me, but this is because I don't see this nerf as reasonable.
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The discussion about the Lore Warden and Clear Ioun Stones is really dampening my initial enthusiasm to purchase this product.
...can the rivethune save the sale?
Your purchasing it or not is irrelevant. Campaign Clarifications will retroactively change the old versions.
That said, the Rivethun content is pretty amazing. There's a Barbarian archetype that trades the bashiness for more endurance and the ability to swap out totem rage powers on the fly. There's a spiritualist archetype that swaps out emotional focuses for shaman spirits and hexes. The prestige class is an awesome familiar/spirit animal centered shaman type. There's a Psychic discipline that lets you shapeshift (in a limited sense) perpetually, and eventually get Shaman powers.
Suppress Charms and Compulsions is better than Protection from X in that it's not limited by the alignment of the caster (neutral casters don't care about Protection From X) and it also suppresses ALL compulsions, whereas Protection from X doesn't effect something like Confusion or Ill Omen that doesn't directly control someone.
Fair enough; those are advantages Suppress has over the Protection line.
The biggest glaring imbalance, however, is comparing Suppress Charms and Compulsions to Dispel Magic. It just auto wins, no caster check or saving throw necessary, and it effects all existing compulsions, no matter how many.
Well, Dispel Magic can be used to counter a magical effect of any kind, so I think the caster level check was intended to counter the extremely versatile nature of the spell.
But by and large I'm sympathetic to what you're saying. For each kind of condition someone might have -- frightened, nauseated, charmed, poisoned -- there's a question as to whether to treat the condition as something whose severity scales with the power of the thing inflicting it, or whether to treat the condition as just a feature of the person inflicted. As is, while the game treats some things (like poisons and diseases) in the first way, and so requires opposed checks to remove those, it treats most conditions (like frightened, nauseated, and charmed) in the second way, and so something a low level spell can remove/suppress, even if the source of the condition is a 20th level wizard or a demigod.
Now, I'm with you in feeling that this is kind of silly in most cases -- charm effects from Nocticula shouldn't be as easy to remove/suppress as charm effects from a 1st level enchanter, the fear aura of an Ancient Red Dragon dragon shouldn't be as easy to remove/suppress as the effect of being intimidated by a 1st level fighter, and nausea effects from Jubilex shouldn't be as easy to remove/suppress as the ones you get from finding a worm in your sandwich.
But given the choices the designers have made about how to treat each of these effects, these are all treated on a par regardless of source. And they're all something that can be removed/suppressed by a low level spell. I share your preference for wishing they'd gone another way in this case. But given that they didn't, Suppress doesn't seem to be any more overpowered than Remove Fear or Remove Sickness.
I don't want to do a whole side conversation about this...
Fair enough! I'll stop!
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Your purchasing it or not is irrelevant. Campaign Clarifications will retroactively change the old versions.
However, I can show my concern by not purchasing a product that does these things, which is the right of any consumer.
Will have to see. Definitely has taken it from 'must buy' to 'maybe if finances permit' so far.
for a massive scaling +2 bonus on all combat maneuvers that stacked with the fighter's weapon training, for a total bonus of +11 at high levels. Effectively, it traded a weak defense for the best maneuver-based offense in the game.
A mere +11 to combat maneuvers is still on the weak side, given that just in Bestiary 1, median CMD by CR gets to over 70 by CR 30, while median AC only gets into the 40s.
So if I have a 1st level lorewarden right now in PFS will I need to change him when this book becomes PFS approved?
So if I have a 1st level lorewarden right now in PFS will I need to change him when this book becomes PFS approved?
Unless you were using trait shenanigans level one on the Lore Warden is the same post-errata.
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I'd be happy to answer this for you, but I feel like I also need to talk about what made the old LW problematic from a design standpoint.
Okay, I have to ask...
Why in god's name did you all think it was acceptable to change (or, more specifically, make *larger*) the footprint of the archetype? Nerf it all you want, bring it in line with other archetypes, but seriously... why?
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for a massive scaling +2 bonus on all combat maneuvers that stacked with the fighter's weapon training, for a total bonus of +11 at high levels. Effectively, it traded a weak defense for the best maneuver-based offense in the game.A mere +11 to combat maneuvers is still on the weak side, given that just in Bestiary 1, median CMD by CR gets to over 70 by level 20, while median AC only gets into the 40s.
It gets to 70 at CR 30, not by level 20 for the PCs, the Median you listed still has it in the 50s.
It gets to 70 at CR 30, not by level 20 for the PCs, the Median you listed still has it in the 50s.
Whoops, thank you.
My point still stands, more or less: CMD ends up drastically higher than AC at basically anything past CR 10, and once you get into "end campaign boss" territory of CR 20+, it scales up so high that it's completely useless to consider using combat maneuvers unless you can get double-digit extra bonuses on top of your CMD.
Even that is assuming that you've got full BAB and can focus exclusively on a single attack stat (e.g. Strength). If you're a rogue, well, there's a reason that the Filcher archetype is the only 1PP rogue that can actually successfully use Steal at pretty much any time past 5th level.
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It gets to 70 at CR 30, not by level 20 for the PCs, the Median you listed still has it in the 50s.Whoops, thank you.
My point still stands, more or less: CMD ends up drastically higher than AC at basically anything past CR 10, and once you get into "end campaign boss" territory of CR 20+, it scales up so high that it's completely useless to consider using combat maneuvers unless you can get double-digit extra bonuses on top of your CMD.
For monsters not on a humanoid frame or equivalent yes, others though still have a manageable CMD to hit from what I've seen.
So if I have a 1st level lorewarden right now in PFS will I need to change him when this book becomes PFS approved?Unless you were using trait shenanigans level one on the Lore Warden is the same post-errata.
Depending on when it is PFS approved he might either rebuild or something else. I need to re-read the new archetype,
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I'd be happy to answer this for you, but I feel like I also need to talk about what made the old LW problematic from a design standpoint.
1) It was not future-proofed well. The old archetype gave all INT skills as class skills shortly before we started seeing a bunch of X to INT traits (like the ones in Ultimate Campaign). As written, LW would let you take traits like that and instantly give you more class skills.
2) It broke a lot of design conventions. For example, it replaced armor training, a relatively weak utility ability, for a...
Very happy to hear that Know Thy Enemy is getting some love. I always thought that was a cool idea, but it came online far too late for most games to make use of it. Assuming I'm interpreting your comments right, you'll be able to get swift lore at lvl 7 (before that the action economy isn't worth it, unless the base ability has been changed from a standard action).
The CMB bonus being halved and restricted in scaling to match the brawler's maneuver training (I'm interpreting it as @2 and every 4 levels thereafter, so at level 10 it should be +3 to one maneuver, +2 to a second, and +1 to a third maneuver) is a real disappointment, as one of the boons of Lore Warden was the blanket +2/4/6... CMB meant you would generally be fairly competent with a whole group of maneuvers, as long as you invested one feat (improved maneuver) for each maneuver.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
CMB meant you would generally be fairly competent with a whole group of maneuvers, as long as you invested one feat (improved maneuver) for each maneuver.
Or just Dirty Fighting and good positioning.
I'll mention that early access to Swift Lore is as a move action, automatically upgrading to a swift action later.
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** spoiler omitted **Do the cypher Mages get anything else, asides for the wizard archetype ?
HOLY CRAP !
Is the Cypher mage just a reprint of the original PrC ? or have they changed/updated it ??
And what's the Sigilus Magus archetype like ???
(I think I just peed myself a little)......
EDIT:....Just saw the post about going to bed....I'll wait....sleep tight ;) and thanks...
Cyphermage looks to be a reprint.
** spoiler omitted **
Unfortunately, the magus archetype looks like a straight downgrade. An effective +1 to hit when using 1 school of magic with spell combat and a -2 when using any other school (except the 2 opposed Thassilonian schools, which can't be used at all) compared to standard spell combat seems like a pretty poor trade for spellstrike. This trades out one of the most powerful magus abilities to kill your flexibility in favor of the equivalent of Weapon Focus when you are using your specialized school.
The armor change isn't as bad, but it's basically trading armor proficiencies for some minor energy resistance that's very likely to be overwritten by resist energy any time it would matter.
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It gets to 70 at CR 30, not by level 20 for the PCs, the Median you listed still has it in the 50s.for a massive scaling +2 bonus on all combat maneuvers that stacked with the fighter's weapon training, for a total bonus of +11 at high levels. Effectively, it traded a weak defense for the best maneuver-based offense in the game.A mere +11 to combat maneuvers is still on the weak side, given that just in Bestiary 1, median CMD by CR gets to over 70 by level 20, while median AC only gets into the 40s.At level 20, median AC hits 38 (max is only 42). At that same level, median CMD is 54 - a difference of 16. The +8 CMB the old Lore Warden gets (that doesn't apply to hit-for-damage rolls) doesn't grow fast enough. That means that even the "too-powerful" version isn't strong enough to make combat maneuvers nearly as consistent as just hit-with-stick. And when some of the more useful combat maneuvers have penalties for failing by too much, a 1-in-4 chance of success also means a 1-in-4 chance of tripping yourself.
If average AC rises by 1/level, and average CMD rises by 2/level, you need a CMB boost of at least 0.5/level to even bother trying. Maneuver training (as the Brawler ability) boosts by 0.25/level for one or two maneuvers. That's maybe half of what should be the bare minimum for someone trying to use maneuvers on arbitrary monsters.
If you can guarantee that you'll mostly be fighting humanoids, maybe one point per four levels is passable. Maybe. As long as you only focus on one or two maneuver types. If you want to use multiple types of combat maneuvers, or if you end up fighting non-humanoids (or really big ones), it's not.
Isn't "using multiple types of maneuvers" similar to "using multiple types of weapons" though?
That and I'm not really all that interested in trying to trip an Elder Wyrm.
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So if I have a 1st level lorewarden right now in PFS will I need to change him when this book becomes PFS approved?Unless you were using trait shenanigans level one on the Lore Warden is the same post-errata.
Trait shenanigans have already been FAQ'd to not exist for the lore warden.
The difference is that they might make the old source no longer a legal source for the archetype.
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The difference is that they might make the old source no longer a legal source for the archetype.
This would not surprise me. Compared to Butterfly Sting (the most comaprable situation that springs to mind):
-It's a bit too complex to fix with clarification, like they did with the Jade Regent jingasa, and
-A $10 PDF is a much lower barrier to (re)entry than the $31 PDF of Inner Sea Gods.
** spoiler omitted **Do the cypher Mages get anything else, asides for the wizard archetype ?
HOLY CRAP !
Is the Cypher mage just a reprint of the original PrC ? or have they changed/updated it ??
And what's the Sigilus Magus archetype like ???
(I think I just peed myself a little)......
EDIT:....Just saw the post about going to bed....I'll wait....sleep tight ;) and thanks...
Cyphermage looks to be a reprint.
** spoiler omitted **
Unfortunately, the magus archetype looks like a straight downgrade. An effective +1 to hit when using 1 school of magic with spell combat and a -2 when using any other school (except the 2 opposed Thassilonian schools, which can't be used at all) compared to standard spell combat seems like a pretty poor trade for spellstrike. This trades out one of the most powerful magus abilities to kill your flexibility in favor of the equivalent of Weapon Focus when you are using your specialized school.
The armor change isn't as bad, but it's basically trading armor proficiencies for some minor energy resistance that's very likely to be overwritten by resist energy any time it would matter.
Well that's unfortunate :(
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The Westcrown Devil is one interesting PrC! It has a pool of points it can use to further thieving supernaturally! Quite cool.
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I feel some people don't have an appreciation for how weak the fighter is compared to other classes...
Exactly. Even with the advanced training options, the fighter's just plain underpowered compared to the well-designed martial classes. So, the question to ask when it comes to fighter archetypes isn't: "Is this archetype balanced compared to the vanilla fighter?" It's: "Does this archetype make you as good as a slayer or barbarian?"
Only a few fighter archetypes pass this test or come close: the mutation warrior, probably the original lore warden, maybe a couple others at most. When you look at it this way, it should be pretty clear why the lore warden really didn't need a nerf.
And not unrelatedly to the fighter handwringing, is at least any of the Aldori or swashbuckler stuff any good?
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Can anyone give info on the combat styles, especially the Diva style feats?
Agile Maiden, Falling Water Gambit, and Unbreakable details?
Any of the combat feats work with Charisma at all?
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Isn't "using multiple types of maneuvers" similar to "using multiple types of weapons" though?Not really. Take a vanilla fighter. They have options to for backup weapons in their main weapon training group. They won't be magic, and they won't have stuff like Weapon Focus/Specialization, but they can still have a decent to-hit and damage to break unusual DRs. Even if they decide not to (focusing SOLELY on one weapon), they can still stab the vast majority of monsters to death - it just might take a while longer.
With combat maneuvers, some monsters simply have the equivalent of DR100/-. This one can't be tripped, because the stat block says so. This one can't be disarmed, because it uses natural weapons. This one has freedom of movement or gaseous form. This one isn't in a room with a pool of lava to shove him in. You CAN'T use your main "weapon" on them, no matter how hard you try. The world is full of swarms, and there's not a single swarmbane clasp in sight.
Even vs. monsters that aren't immune to your chosen maneuver... maneuvers are generally debuffs. They don't end the fight by themselves in most cases (barring Rapid Grapple or bull-rush-into-lava.) You're still going to have to fall back on hit-with-stick. Why make the interesting stuff so much more difficult to perform?
That and I'm not really all that interested in trying to trip an Elder Wyrm.Well why not? If you're investing multiple feats, class features, and magic items into making a particular tactic good, shouldn't you want to be able to use that tactic pretty regularly? It doesn't matter whether that tactic is damage, save-or-die, channel, or whatever. It also isn't equivalent to, say, undead shutting down an enchanter. Odds are there's something they can still do, and if not, there's always the next battle. CMD for monstrous types rises quickly enough that the list of things you won't have problems tripping is larger that the list of trippables.
Well yeah it's just that, Combat Maneuvers are debuffs, they don't end fights in and of themselves (save for maybe Bull Rushing someone off a ledge). In a sense you're right, monsters may have well have DR/100 since CMs aren't damaging them. Unless you have a way of killing an enemy it doesn't really matter how many times you trip them. I think I'm just rambling at this point and not really debating so I'm gonna let it drop, it's also cluttering the thread, so my apologies.
(The no desire to trip an Elder Wyrm thing was a joke, since they have flight it wouldn't really bother them even if you could :3)
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Spoiler:I was rather baffled that Tieldlara's feint was on the bard spell list but not the mesmerist spell list, though, given the feint-related abilities the mesmerist gets...but ah, well.
While that would make a certain amount of sense mechanically...
1) What does the Armiger do?
2) Are the Hellknight and Hellknight Signifier literally just reprints, or are they altered in some way?
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It gets to 70 at CR 30, not by level 20 for the PCs, the Median you listed still has it in the 50s.for a massive scaling +2 bonus on all combat maneuvers that stacked with the fighter's weapon training, for a total bonus of +11 at high levels. Effectively, it traded a weak defense for the best maneuver-based offense in the game.A mere +11 to combat maneuvers is still on the weak side, given that just in Bestiary 1, median CMD by CR gets to over 70 by level 20, while median AC only gets into the 40s.At level 20, median AC hits 38 (max is only 42). At that same level, median CMD is 54 - a difference of 16. The +8 CMB the old Lore Warden gets (that doesn't apply to hit-for-damage rolls) doesn't grow fast enough. That means that even the "too-powerful" version isn't strong enough to make combat maneuvers nearly as consistent as just hit-with-stick. And when some of the more useful combat maneuvers have penalties for failing by too much, a 1-in-4 chance of success also means a 1-in-4 chance of tripping yourself.
If average AC rises by 1/level, and average CMD rises by 2/level, you need a CMB boost of at least 0.5/level to even bother trying. Maneuver training (as the Brawler ability) boosts by 0.25/level for one or two maneuvers. That's maybe half of what should be the bare minimum for someone trying to use maneuvers on arbitrary monsters.
If you can guarantee that you'll mostly be fighting humanoids, maybe one point per four levels is passable. Maybe. As long as you only focus on one or two maneuver types. If you want to use multiple types of combat maneuvers, or if you end up fighting non-humanoids (or really big ones), it's not.
Isn't "using multiple types of maneuvers" similar to "using multiple types of weapons" though?
That and I'm not really all that interested in trying to trip an Elder Wyrm.
If you can't repeatedly choke-slam a dragon into a pool of lava at level 20, what is the point of combat maneuvers?
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