Mistah Green wrote:
The result of attempting a maneuver is that you will not succeed at it. The results of a maneuver being attempted on you range from the maneuver fails and the enemy wastes a turn, to the enemy would easily succeed regardless depending on who it is and what they are doing.
This is a clear sign of not have actually played the game. We could just stop here. But let's go on.
Bonus to the to-hit go to the CMB too. Flanks. Feats. Bards. Cavaliers. Charges. Weapon Enhancements. I can understand for iteratives, but charges, whirlwind, cleaves, vital strikes (sunder), AOOs are VERY likely to land.
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This would be important if it did not come with PA being nerfed into non viability. But since it has, the result is that you will not do enough damage either way. You will also still be hit by enemy attacks, so there is no point in using CE at all.
The power attack hase been "nerfed" only for touch attacks (rare without optimization) and for the Shock Trooper combo, that made combats boolean (IF the fighter was able to charge, enemies were one-shotted. But the DM managed to make him charge less frequently to avoid the one-shotting).
For normal, casual play, the PA now gives a better exchange for two hande, for one-hand, and has been made useful for off-hand. One could say that LIKES more the older because one could choose the amount subtracted from the dice roll... but THAT it's a matter of TASTE. PA is EFFECTIVE for CASUAL PLAYERS too.
Again, this is another criticism I keep hear from people that DID NOT play the new rules and didn't pay attention to the cumulative effect of several changes.
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So at level 6 and 7, you get an extra swing at -5, if the enemy is nice enough to stand still and let you full attack them. The only things that will let you full attack them are the ones who are intent on full attacking you. Monsters are statistically superior to PC melees at any given level.
You assume that every fight is the same. How's the terrain? What about the motivations of the fight? Where are the enemies heading? CAN happen several times that enemies are struck and vulnerable to full attack. Or care tripped or "Stand Stilled" in place if they try to escape. Lunge. Step Up. Battlefield control. There are lots of way to allow warriors full attack nicely and frequently.
IF there is not the option, one can switch to ranged weapons. One can build warriors able to move frequently and deliver single devastating blows, both on feet and mounted.
Statistically superior? Every monster? Even fey? Are we talking about the tremendous damage output of Pixies? And do you always use single or few same level monsters? What about large groups? Are they superior? Everyone of them?
I'm sorry, but you talk about the game as if you play all the encounters in the same way.
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This would be a factor with Pounce and Power Attack, but PA has been nerfed, and as far as I know there is no way to get Pounce on a melee using only PF content.
APG monk. APG barbarian. APG Mobility fighter standard action full attack. Nice, not NEEDED, BTW.
And DO NOT TRY the "it's not core" trick. It's open content.
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As it is, full attacks are fundamentally flawed, and anyone who is forced to rely on them suffers from it unless they can somehow circumvent the limitations. Pounce lets them move and full attack in the same round, so that is one way to do it.
Full attack is NOT the only way to play a meleer. It's an option for some part of most fights but you can perform a lot of other things. If the party plays well CAN be tremendously effective.
Are they the best mechanich in the game? I guess not. Could the thing being done better? I guess so.
Are meleers "on par" with casters? I guess not. Are you, at least minimally, contributing to the issue? Absolutely not, because instead of focusing on actual problems, you come her with flawed argumentations (see power attack and stuff, above).
What you think about an ability, take between the 5th or 8th level, which much like the flurry of blows, grants to the magus the full BAB if he makes a full-attack actions?
I guess (and wish), this resolve this question without overpowering the magus and too granting to the magus some new options of build. Maybe something like a magus that uses a shield (probably a buckler, to cast spells when need by the spell combat ability).
Pellatarrum wrote: I really, really like this. Combined with the proposal to make the various feats (armor training, etc) into Magus Arcana and increase their frequency to every odd level, I think this makes the Magus a real winner without being overpowered.
Of course, I'm new here, so I could be missing something.
Count me in too! I am in total agreement with these suggestions. They seem to make a lot of sense in terms of game play, balance, and flavor.
Kaiyanwang wrote: Mistah Green wrote:
The result of attempting a maneuver is that you will not succeed at it. The results of a maneuver being attempted on you range from the maneuver fails and the enemy wastes a turn, to the enemy would easily succeed regardless depending on who it is and what they are doing.
This is a clear sign of not have actually played the game. We could just stop here. But let's go on.
Bonus to the to-hit go to the CMB too. Flanks. Feats. Bards. Cavaliers. Charges. Weapon Enhancements. I can understand for iteratives, but charges, whirlwind, cleaves, vital strikes (sunder), AOOs are VERY likely to land. Maneuvers mean things like tripping and disarming.
Quote: The power attack hase been "nerfed" only for touch attacks (rare without optimization) and for the Shock Trooper combo, that made combats boolean (IF the fighter was able to charge, enemies were one-shotted. But the DM managed to make him charge less frequently to avoid the one-shotting). Said classes require optimization to work. Any discussion of them that presumes that they are viable predicates that such optimization is taking place.
HP damage is a boolean. It's either dead or not dead, and no state in between matters. This is one of those problems I alluded to. Combine that with the high enemy HP, and low damage without optimization and that is what sets this scenario.
Yes, charges did not often work because many things stopped them, and adaptable beings (anyone but them and those like them) could use one or more of those methods. This is another part of the problem.
Quote: For normal, casual play, the PA now gives a better exchange for two hande, for one-hand, and has been made useful for off-hand. One could say that LIKES more the older because one could choose the amount subtracted from the dice roll... but THAT it's a matter of TASTE. PA is EFFECTIVE for CASUAL PLAYERS too. One handed and light weapons are still non viable. They are not factors in any discussion that predicates viable options. Casual play of non casters is also still non viable.
And since you brought it up, being able to choose how much you are PAing for instead of it being a boolean is objectively useful. It is also one of the few decisions that non casters get to make, as sad as that is. You can YELL random WORDS all YOU want, but no one but you is talking about anything subjective here. We're still on math.
Quote: You assume that every fight is the same. How's the terrain? What about the motivations of the fight? Where are the enemies heading? CAN happen several times that enemies are struck and vulnerable to full attack. Or care tripped or "Stand Stilled" in place if they try to escape. Lunge. Step Up. Battlefield control. There are lots of way to allow warriors full attack nicely and frequently. Enemies that can engage in meaningful actions as a standard action have no reason to ever stand still. Either next to you, or anywhere else. So they will move around and do their thing. There are some enemies that have to full attack to contribute, but since their full attacks are better than yours you have no reason to stand still next to them.
Quote: IF there is not the option, one can switch to ranged weapons. One can build warriors able to move frequently and deliver single devastating blows, both on feet and mounted. The moment you pull out a bow you stop contributing. I'd make a joke about pewpewpew, but it would go over your heads.
And what makes you think your single hit is a good contribution? We're talking about the classes who have to optimize like crazy, and get multiple attacks to keep up. Even if you have such a build, only hitting once lowers your ability immensely. Just where are these builds that do single hit damage in excess of 100 at level 10? If you said 'they require even more optimization than the full attackers do, so anything that disqualifies the full attackers easily disqualifies them' you are right.
Quote: Statistically superior? Every monster? Even fey? Are we talking about the tremendous damage output of Pixies? And do you always use single or few same level monsters? What about large groups? Are they superior? Everyone of them? Pixies are a spellcaster enemy. They aren't going to stand still and trade full attacks with you. They're going to move around in 3 dimensions, while invisible and say in a high shrill voice "Dance Monkey, Dance!"
And then the Fighter will say "Ooki ooki ah!" and show his moves.
Given that encounters are supposed to only involve one, or a few enemies yes. An encounter with many enemies is going to have enemies so individually weak they barely give any XP. But despite this they can easily swarm and kill a weak class. So it goes something like this:
Fighter attacks one enemy. He might even kill it.
The other 11 attack him. He dies.
Quote: I'm sorry, but you talk about the game as if you play all the encounters in the same way. Some things don't change. The main differences between bruiser enemies are numerical in nature. They're all going to play as stand and full attack. Everything else, or near everything else only needs a Standard action to do their thing. So they can and will move around.
Quote: Full attack is NOT the only way to play a meleer. It's an option for some part of most fights but you can perform a lot of other things. If the party plays well CAN be tremendously effective. It is the only viable way. You can move and full attack with certain abilities, which is even better. If you try to do something else, you're just looking busy.
As for contributing, getting to the root of the problem is a great contribution. Conversely statements such as denying math without evidence, insinuating that I have not played the game at all and adding insults without content add nothing of value to this or any other discussion.
You might even say that getting to the root of the problem is the beginning of the discussion, which continues on to elaborate on just how the Magus could be made playable. But nah, that's crazy talk. You should go back to insinuating my ignorance to make yourselves feel better. /reverse psychology
Well, I tried.
Good luck with your conclusions and infallible math. Have fun playing.
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As for the Magus, I would strongly prefer a class with 3/4 base, and some cool options to use spells in combat in ways that bards and EKs can't. I also look forward to the Ultimate Combat type book with a full BAB caster, and some unique abilities of their own.
I have been playing a half-orc bard who can do some real nice great-axing with a round or two of prep, and really enjoy balancing casting and melee. It isn't always easy, but it is a nice to mix things up.
seekerofshadowlight wrote: who boy, that was some funny reading right there. I stopped. It was just too frustrating.
I'm stopping reading the whole thread. Ridiculous.
YuenglingDragon wrote: seekerofshadowlight wrote: who boy, that was some funny reading right there. I stopped. It was just too frustrating.
I'm stopping reading the whole thread. Ridiculous. I didn't make it all the way though and it was ridiculous but I needed a laugh today
Sure is a lot of anti intellectualism around here. A lot of trolling too.
Do any of you have anything useful to contribute to the topic?
No offense mate, but you have to admit that some of your own comments did serve to cause such response seeing as how you appear just a tad condenscending. Could be wrong of course; the written word is not the best way to convey tone and the various other nuances of the spoken word.
Mistah Green wrote: Most of the users here are making obviously false claims such as 'full BAB is useful' and 'PA is still good after the nerf'. Even after a point by point demonstration of why this is not so. So yes, I can say with confidence I am more knowledgeable than most of the community here. Keyword: Most. Mistah Green wrote: The moment you pull out a bow you stop contributing. I'd make a joke about pewpewpew, but it would go over your heads. Altough mathematics is indeed a very specific science, this is a game and not all sessions and groups play under your criteria of power, usefulness and viability of class A or B. In my opinion, games are far more a case of 'eye of the beholder' than 'exact and specific science'.
A high-powered game like the one you seem to be talking about might indeed need careful optimization and in such a game fighters might indeed fall behind after the first few levels, but to suggest that such a thing is a truth to end all truths is a bit presumptuous I think. There are many variations of play-styles and power levels as there are DMs and groups of players.
You seem to talk from personal experience, as well as a background in character optimization, thus what you are talking about is true... from your point of view. That does not make it true for everyone, since others might have experienced the game somewhat differently than you. To say that your way is the only way is akin to overly simplifying things.
This is not an MMO where add-ons provide ways to measure how much damage one does during a raid or how much healing, or where a party or raid is looking for members based on equipment and build, making anyone deemed not 'leet' enough not even worth considering for a spot, or where a great part of the game is 'farming for mats' or 'grinding for xp'. Sure, there are groups that want their PCs to be powerful and optimized as much as possible, but there are also groups that do not have that as a prerequisite.
Yes, mathematics is an exact science, but gaming is not. Just my opinion of course. :-)
Mistah Green wrote: Sure is a lot of anti intellectualism around here. A lot of trolling too.
Do any of you have anything useful to contribute to the topic?
Are you kidding me? You didn't reply to response about my experiences with full BAB and its usefulness and how much I enjoy PA and a 1 for 3 exchange.
Instead you claimed to have infallible math that supports your suppositions that I have not seen and does not align with my own experiences. You continue to speak with disdain about everyone else on the thread. The troll is in the mirror, sir, and I'll not engage you further. It is not anti-intellectual. I hold both undergraduate and graduate degrees. I like smart. I don't like people who can't have a decent conversation. People who ignore my posts in order to just catapult more vitriol into the air.
Just not going to do this.
Fergie wrote: "Do I know more about the game then the Paizo design team, and the vast majority of posters here, or is it possible that there are other opinions that could be as valid (or GASP, more valid) as my own?" No. Appeal to authority and all that. The Paizo team clearly doesn't really understand D&D 3e.
Mistah Green wrote: Maneuvers mean things like tripping and disarming. Right. The bonuses above apply to those maneuvers to-hit rolls. All the rolls in the examples are made with the highest BAB.. see what I mean?
Quote: Said classes require optimization to work. Any discussion of them that presumes that they are viable predicates that such optimization is taking place.
HP damage is a boolean. It's either dead or not dead, and no state in between matters. This is one of those problems I alluded to. Combine that with the high enemy HP, and low damage without optimization and that is what sets this scenario.
Yes, charges did not often work because many things stopped them, and adaptable beings (anyone but them and those like them) could use one or more of those methods. This is another part of the problem.
The point is that the OLD power attack if optimized made the charge TOO effective. For Boolean I meant that a charge (and a great cleave) meant dead enemy(ies). So the DM managed to make the charge less and less likely to happen to not repeat the same scenario. So the tactic became useless. New power attack means a more controlled damage output, with a better change hit-damage than before.
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One handed and light weapons are still non viable. They are not factors in any discussion that predicates viable options. Casual play of non casters is also still non viable.
You assume here non causal play for casters. Believe it or not, a lot of people use blasters and stuff. Moreover, the casters can make meleers stronger with buffs. You know, you play with your friends..
Moreover.. so a fighter with 2 kukri and critical feats is not viable? Only THF is viable? I couldn’t move and bash enemies on the black tentacles, just as an example? More enemies with shiedl builds and great cleave?
Quote: And since you brought it up, being able to choose how much you are PAing for instead of it being a boolean is objectively useful. It is also one of the few decisions that non casters get to make, as sad as that is. You can YELL random WORDS all YOU want, but no one but you is talking about anything subjective here. We're still on math. So decide to move and cleave, whirlwind, lunge, cleave and lunge, full attack and lunge, whirlwind and lunge, power attack and lunge, power attack and cleave are not decisions? Wut? I explained above why of the change (even of course prefer the version before is a perfectly legitimate position, until you say that is a nerf – it isn’t).
“the only few decisions” you can decide now, the same way. With less metagame. And options are out the, try to find them.
AND I’m not yelling random words, I’m remarking. Bring relevant argumentations, if able, do not insult my way of write is not useful. Unless, you know, you cannot do else.
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Enemies that can engage in meaningful actions as a standard action have no reason to ever stand still. Either next to you, or anywhere else. So they will move around and do their thing. There are some enemies that have to full attack to contribute, but since their full attacks are better than yours you have no reason to stand still next to them.
This CAN happen but you state it as a rule. Not every eney is able to tumble away from the warrior. Someone will be stuck there with Stand Still if tries to go through. Or tripped. Or the barbarian will perform an Unexpected Strike + Knockdown. The Cavalier will follow with an immediate action.
CAN happen they go away. BUT it’s not a sure thing and the meleer is not completely screwed in that case.
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The moment you pull out a bow you stop contributing. I'd make a joke about pewpewpew, but it would go over your heads.
Wut? You need one feat to deliver decent blows with a composite bow. Never switched weapons with a warrior?
Quote: And what makes you think your single hit is a good contribution? We're talking about the classes who have to optimize like crazy, and get multiple attacks to keep up. Even if you have such a build, only hitting once lowers your ability immensely. Just where are these builds that do single hit damage in excess of 100 at level 10? If you said 'they require even more optimization than the full attackers do, so anything that disqualifies the full attackers easily disqualifies them' you are right. If my hit trips, or stun d4 rounds a relevant enemy, yes, I did a good job. I continue to wonder about the way you play this game.
Why should I deliver 100 damage with a blow at level 10? A good maneuver, a bull rush on a fire wall, a pit, disarming a powerful equipment, grapple, could be enough. Anyway, a scythe can go past 100 damage at level 10. A good mounted charger can go past 100 too.
I agree that meleers need more care and planning in builds. No doubt.
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Pixies are a spellcaster enemy. They aren't going to stand still and trade full attacks with you. They're going to move around in 3 dimensions, while invisible and say in a high shrill voice "Dance Monkey, Dance!"
Posts above, you were talking about damage output of same level enemies. Every one of them. You were substantially saying that a level 4 barbarian and a pixie have the same damage output. How pixies behave is not relevant with the discussion.
Quote: Given that encounters are supposed to only involve one, or a few enemies yes. Where is stated? And why you continue to see the fighter in a vacuum? Without party, terrain and so on? Fight 10 orc barbarians is the same in a plain or in a wood or in a corridor? I ask.
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Some things don't change. The main differences between bruiser enemies are numerical in nature. They're all going to play as stand and full attack. Everything else, or near everything else only needs a Standard action to do their thing. So they can and will move around.
See above on moving out of melee.
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It is the only viable way. You can move and full attack with certain abilities, which is even better. If you try to do something else, you're just looking busy.
Absolutes. One tries to play on his advantages, if fails look for alternatives is part of the fun. And a Deadly Stroke or a Devastating blow can be vey fun to deliver.
Full attacking is the ideal options a lot of times. But if the combats are build in an interesting way, they are not the only thing happening, if you don’t perform them every round you can do useful things anyway, and you allies can help.
Quote: As for contributing, getting to the root of the problem is a great contribution. Conversely statements such as denying math without evidence, insinuating that I have not played the game at all and adding insults without content add nothing of value to this or any other discussion. This could make sense… assuming you wouldn’t state everything as an absolute. Reread what you wrote. You do not talk of more or less optimal choice, you talk about viable things. You show things as few options exist and the rest is trash. How can we discuss about BAB if you don’t consider power attack viable?
Quote: You might even say that getting to the root of the problem is the beginning of the discussion, which continues on to elaborate on just how the Magus could be made playable. But nah, that's crazy talk. You should go back to insinuating my ignorance to make yourselves feel better. /reverse psychology I wonder how useful can be a discussion bout a gish if we start saying that melee classes are unplayable without full attacks, maneuvers sucks and power attack is pointless in pathfinder.
I’m sorry, but this COULD be a great discussion about pathfinder 2.0 not about the magus playtest.
To clarify, I don't say all of this to shut down the criticism. The magus needs A LOT of work.
F. Castor wrote: No offense mate, but you have to admit that some of your own comments did serve to cause such response seeing as how you appear just a tad condenscending. Could be wrong of course; the written word is not the best way to convey tone and the various other nuances of the spoken word. The only people I've been condescending to on these boards are those who regularly admit to fudging dice. And that is because I can say with reasonable confidence I am better than people who have to cheat at a game, and lie to their friends. As is anyone else who does not have to resort to such underhanded measures.
Other than that it's a consequence of text lacking tone.
Quote: Altough mathematics is indeed a very specific science, this is a game and not all sessions and groups play under your criteria of power, usefulness and viability of class A or B. In my opinion, games are far more a case of 'eye of the beholder' than 'exact and specific science'. Except that my standards are based on the enemy stats you can crack open your books and see for yourself. Those are the guidelines the game sets, not some fellow on the internet named Robert Green.
Quote: A high-powered game like the one you seem to be talking about might indeed need careful optimization and in such a game fighters might indeed fall behind after the first few levels, but to suggest that such a thing is a truth to end all truths is a bit presumptuous I think. There are many variations of play-styles and power levels as there are DMs and groups of players. D&D is a high power game by default yes. You go from barely over commoner level to fantastic cosmic power (itty bitty living space) inside of a single season. But that is not what you were trying to say.
In a high power game of the sort you are talking about you not only need casters, but optimized casters. Optimized means more than common sense choices like 'Don't cast Fireball'.
But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about regular D&D.
All you have to do is compare fighters and other such melee classes' damage output to enemy HP, remember that HP is a boolean, and that everyone in the game can adapt but them. People that understand the system are not some universal hive mind. We came to these conclusions on our own, because it's quite obvious if you only look.
Quote: You seem to talk from personal experience, as well as a background in character optimization, thus what you are talking about is true... from your point of view. That does not make it true for everyone, since others might have experienced the game somewhat differently than you. To say that your way is the only way is akin to overly simplifying things. Practical optimization. Making things work in day to day games. It's what I do, and it's what all the good optimizers do.
A truly optimized character would be head and shoulders over anything I'm advocating. I've played some of those before. I wouldn't recommend them in anything other than a high powered game. For normal games, common sense casters are fine... the problem is that everyone else needs a CharOp quality build to hold up to even the default standard, and if they can't get one they are not playable.
Quote: This is not an MMO where add-ons provide ways to measure how much damage one does during a raid or how much healing, or where a party or raid is looking for members based on equipment and build, making anyone deemed not 'leet' enough not even worth considering for a spot, or where a great part of the game is 'farming for mats' or 'grinding for xp'. Sure, there are groups that want their PCs to be powerful and optimized as much as possible, but there are also groups that do not have that as a prerequisite.
Yes, mathematics is an exact science, but gaming is not. Just my opinion of course. :-)
Did anyone mention being as uber as possible? No, they did not. There still are minimum benchmarks though, because if you can't hit those you aren't pulling your weight, and that deficiency greatly increases the chances of your death. Staying alive is a prerequisite to every other part of the game. And while I don't know any parties that opt for some MMO standard of leetness for the sake of it, I know quite a few that will refuse to continue traveling with those who cannot perform at par.
Remember that as far as the characters are concerned they are real people, in a real world facing real and very severe dangers. If you can't rely on your teammate to watch your back, both of you are going to die. If you're constantly having to babysit them then they are not really helping you, only slowing you down. The exact manner in which you part ways depends on the party. Good aligned sorts might express concerns for the subpar character's well being and insist they not come along for their own safety. More mercenary types are likely to opt for a 'you're not worth your share of the treasure' type and order you to leave. Evil characters might just stab them in their sleep. But in any case the outcome is the same. Don't pull your weight, and you are no longer welcome in the party.
Mistah Green wrote:
The only people I've been condescending to on these boards are those who regularly admit to fudging dice. And that is because I can say with reasonable confidence I am better than people who have to cheat at a game, and lie to their friends. As is anyone else who does not have to resort to such underhanded measures.
Woh, better then you attitude much? what does fudging have to do with any of this? You already seem to have an awful odd definition of fudging anyhow but what does that have to to with a single thing in this thread?
Just because some folks game do not match you math does not mean a single person fudged a single roll.
Mistah Green wrote: wraithstrike wrote:
Abilities have a price. Better abilities have a higher price, while weaker ones are less expensive. This price comes into play when determining how much 'stuff' a class should get.
Nearly every balance problem that has ever existed came about because the value of an ability was misjudged. Either the ability was deemed much stronger than it actually is and anyone who has it suffers for it, or the ability was deemed much weaker than it actually is and anyone who has it gets a huge boost.
The easiest way to gauge the value of an ability is to determine what it does. This means both direct effects and indirect ones.
Direct effects of full BAB, as opposed to 3/4th BAB:
+1 to hit per point of BAB.
1 extra attack at a large penalty.
A -15 to hit attack isn't going to hit anything. Value = near zero.
To hit bonuses are useful, but very common. Value = low.
So what does full BAB do indirectly? It lets you qualify for feats with BAB requirements of 16 or higher. As such its value is directly proportional to the value of those feats. Since there aren't any good ones, this ability does not help much either. Value = near zero.
Conclusion: Full BAB is a very weak ability, barely worth anything.
Where I find Full BAB as valuable is early levels. Starting at 1st level it allows you to qualify for Power Attack or Weapon Focus. If you are Human that's very nice as you can get both.
Mistah Green wrote: wraithstrike wrote:
Abilities have a price. Better abilities have a higher price, while weaker ones are less expensive. This price comes into play when determining how much 'stuff' a class should get.
Nearly every balance problem that has ever existed came about because the value of an ability was misjudged. Either the ability was deemed much stronger than it actually is and anyone who has it suffers for it, or the ability was deemed much weaker than it actually is and anyone who has it gets a huge boost.
The easiest way to gauge the value of an ability is to determine what it does. This means both direct effects and indirect ones.
Direct effects of full BAB, as opposed to 3/4th BAB:
+1 to hit per point of BAB.
1 extra attack at a large penalty.
A -15 to hit attack isn't going to hit anything. Value = near zero.
To hit bonuses are useful, but very common. Value = low.
So what does full BAB do indirectly? It lets you qualify for feats with BAB requirements of 16 or higher. As such its value is directly proportional to the value of those feats. Since there aren't any good ones, this ability does not help much either. Value = near zero.
Conclusion: Full BAB is a very weak ability, barely worth anything.
Full BAB is valuable at the early levels. After level 9 it's value is less noticeable. For example I'm playing an Inquisitor. 3/4 BAB and that's good enough, only problem is I'd wish I could take Power Attack and Weapon focus at 1st. That would make my Inquisitor much more powerful at 1st. As for qualifying for feats like Greater Vital Strike with BAB 16 that's not really a problem. By the time I'm that high level the extra damage from is minor.
seekerofshadowlight wrote: Mistah Green wrote:
The only people I've been condescending to on these boards are those who regularly admit to fudging dice. And that is because I can say with reasonable confidence I am better than people who have to cheat at a game, and lie to their friends. As is anyone else who does not have to resort to such underhanded measures.
Woh, better then you attitude much? what does fudging have to do with any of this? You already seem to have an awful odd definition of fudging anyhow but what does that have to to with a single thing in this thread?
Just because some folks game do not match you math does not mean a single person fudged a single roll. Ermmm...I'm assuming he means cheating (as in a player), not fudging (as in a DM).
Kaiyanwang wrote: The point is that the OLD power attack if optimized made the charge TOO effective. For Boolean I meant that a charge (and a great cleave) meant dead enemy(ies). So the DM managed to make the charge less and less likely to happen to not repeat the same scenario. So the tactic became useless. New power attack means a more controlled damage output, with a better change hit-damage than before. Someone mentioned level 12 before, so let's go with that.
Power Attack + Leap Attack + Shock Trooper = 48 damage added. 34 more than what nerfed PA offers. With Pounce you're getting 4 attacks, because you are level 12 and wearing Boots of Speed. The last one probably won't hit though, so 2-3. Sounds impressive until you remember that enemies at this level average around 200 HP and can two round you, so you need all that damage.
And there's still just as many things that interfere with full attacks and charges, if not more.
Quote: You assume here non causal play for casters. Believe it or not, a lot of people use blasters and stuff. Moreover, the casters can make meleers stronger with buffs. You know, you play with your friends..
Moreover.. so a fighter with 2 kukri and critical feats is not viable? Only THF is viable? I couldn’t move and bash enemies on the black tentacles, just as an example? More enemies with shiedl builds and great cleave?
'Don't use Evocation'. That's it. That's all you have to know to have an effective caster in normal play. There's also 'Don't dumpstat Con' but that is basic advice for everyone regardless of class. Nothing not casual about that. Looking in a dozen or more books to find charge related feats, items, and abilities? That is non casual. Same for a tripping based build.
Define buff spells. Some are not worth casting. Some are. Most of the good ones that apply to those other than the caster are only available outside of core.
A TWF is worse than a comparable THF in every way. If you want to try an apples to apples comparison vs a falchion, don't. It won't help. Critical focused builds are non viable no matter what they do as a result of fundamental flaws.
There is also no reason to use a shield. You will be hit anyways. All you are doing is lowering your DPS.
Quote: So decide to move and cleave, whirlwind, lunge, cleave and lunge, full attack and lunge, whirlwind and lunge, power attack and lunge, power attack and cleave are not decisions? Wut? I explained above why of the change (even of course prefer the version before is a perfectly legitimate position, until you say that is a nerf – it isn’t).
“the only few decisions” you can decide now, the same way. With less metagame. And options are out the, try to find them.
AND I’m not yelling random words, I’m remarking. Bring relevant argumentations, if able, do not insult my way of write is not useful. Unless, you know, you cannot do else.
Cleave is not a viable option. Whirlwind isn't either. I don't have my book in front of me to check lunge.
Going from +48 damage to +14 damage is a nerf. 14 is less than 48.
Caps means yelling in any text best medium. Italics exist to emphasize.
Quote: Wut? You need one feat to deliver decent blows with a composite bow. Never switched weapons with a warrior? Archery requires:
A level appropriate bow (lots of gp). With many specific enhancements on it. Not just any old random magic bow.
A lot of archery feats.
One of a handful of specific builds.
There's more than that, but I've blown enough people's minds with the harsh realities of D&D around here for one day. You can just carry around some random bow and try and shoot stuff with it, but then you are just looking busy. As I said.
Quote: If my hit trips, or stun d4 rounds a relevant enemy, yes, I did a good job. I continue to wonder about the way you play this game.
Why should I deliver 100 damage with a blow at level 10? A good maneuver, a bull rush on a fire wall, a pit, disarming a powerful equipment, grapple, could be enough. Anyway, a scythe can go past 100 damage at level 10. A good mounted charger can go past 100 too.
I agree that meleers need more care and planning in builds. No doubt.
Stunning fist is strength based now? I must have missed that memo. If it is then that's something halfway decent. If it's still Wisdom based, it's going to fizzle on any non 1 because you are not a Wisdom based class.
Bull Rush into Fire Wall: Why is the Wizard casting a Fire Wall? That's not a good spell at all. But let's say he does anyways. If you guessed that the enemy takes substantially less than 100 damage you are correct.
Bull Rush into pit: So there's a conveniently placed pit on the field? And the enemy is fighting around it despite not being a flier? You're getting quite unreasonable with the circumstances but ok. The enemy takes substantially less than 100 damage.
Both of these assume the maneuver works, which it won't.
Disarming something: Just what are you disarming? Claws cannot be disarmed. Neither can teeth. Are you implying that maneuver would work against anything that is a threat to you?
Grappling: Do I even need to explain why the monster wins this one?
Oh and when I say 100 damage, crits only count if you can get those every single time. Since you can't, that's per hit damage. And even the optimized builds will fall short of this mark on a per hit basis.
Quote: Posts above, you were talking about damage output of same level enemies. Every one of them. You were substantially saying that a level 4 barbarian and a pixie have the same damage output. How pixies behave is not relevant with the discussion. Damage output of same level melee enemies, because those are the only ones that will let you full attack them. No one said anything about a pixie's damage but you. So you're right it is not relevant, but you brought it up.
Quote: Where is stated? And why you continue to see the fighter in a vacuum? Without party, terrain and so on? Fight 10 orc barbarians is the same in a plain or in a wood or in a corridor? I ask. Encounter design paradigms. One to a few enemies being typical, and no more than 12 at the most.
I don't include any mention of the party because it's his abilities that matter. Anyone can 'pike'. It says nothing about their abilities. All that happens when you include the party in the example is that the party has to work harder to compensate for the weak member and that it's harder to spot the weakest link.
I don't include mentions of terrain because terrain favors the enemy, and I was being nice to him. But if you like he can fight stuff on their home terrain instead, because that's where they will live. Doing so raises the bar he needs to contribute at though, so that will not help your argument.
Quote: Absolutes. One tries to play on his advantages, if fails look for alternatives is part of the fun. And a Deadly Stroke or a Devastating blow can be vey fun to deliver.
Full attacking is the ideal options a lot of times. But if the combats are build in an interesting way, they are not the only thing happening, if you don’t perform them every round you can do useful things anyway, and you allies can help.
But ineffective. Some people have 'fun' when subjected to physical pain. That does not mean punching people in the face is a good thing. It doesn't even mean those particular people should be punched in the face.
This topic isn't about what sort of unusual tastes people have. It is about effectiveness.
Quote: This could make sense… assuming you wouldn’t state everything as an absolute. Reread what you wrote. You do not talk of more or less optimal choice, you talk about viable things. You show things as few options exist and the rest is trash. How can we discuss about BAB if you don’t consider power attack viable? Non viable = anything below the baseline.
Viable = anything at or above that baseline.
I don't bother to quantify how far it is over the baseline because the key detail is that it be over it. Nor do I bother mentioning things that are clearly far above it, and therefore unsuited for normal play.
When it comes to non casters, yes few options exist and the rest are trash.
That last sentence is a non sequitor though.
Quote: I wonder how useful can be a discussion bout a gish if we start saying that melee classes are unplayable without full attacks, maneuvers sucks and power attack is pointless in pathfinder.
I’m sorry, but this COULD be a great discussion about pathfinder 2.0 not about the magus playtest.
To clarify, I don't say all of this to shut down the criticism. The magus needs A LOT of work.
Because the Magus would also be full attacking? This sort of talk would only be off topic if discussing a pure caster sort such as the Wizard. As it is every melee uses the same foundation. Things like 'PA being nerfed' and 'ability to deliver full attacks' affects all of them, past, present, and future. It is fundamental.
By the way, the Magus would have a decent shot at being viable with full BAB, two handed weapons, and some offensive and more defensive buffs.
People, please, look at what he says:
Mistah Green wrote: The Paizo team clearly doesn't really understand D&D 3e. Why is anyone still talking to him? If he thinks that, why is he on this forum? It is a troll! Someone call an adventure party.
You continue to assume 1 enemy, to assume that the enemy must be one-shotted, I mentioned causal player PA and you are blatantly ignoring it continuing to bring in Shocktrooper.
Pathfinder now has TWO hardcovers with heavy crunch for players.What are you talking about?
TWF deals less damage and needs more feats. Fine. But has other advantages. More attacks, different weapons, more procs for critical hits. With a feat you are a thrower.
Shields are primarily weapons now. For control. Once you wrote that sentence about shields, you immiedately stopped to have a chance to be taken seriously. You can use cleave with maneuvers. And you keep saying that every thing I suggest "is not" an option. You appear not even able to combine maneuvers and core combat feats BUT you show yourself an an advocate of combat optimization.
With shield feats and great you can move and splat 3 enemies on a fire wall. Do not like firewall? Black tentacles.
I was not referring to stunning fist but to stunning critical (hence the d4 rounds). I can disarm or sunder a component pouch or an holy symbol.
Yeah, a lot of monsters are not affected to disarm. BUt are affected by SOMETHING. So I will do that something. If not able, time to use a bow.
If switch to a ranged weapon is a problem in your games, I really don't know what to say.
According to this table of CR Equivalencies
1 Creature CR
2 Creatures CR +2
3 Creatures CR +3
4 Creatures CR +4
6 Creatures CR +5
8 Creatures CR +6
12 Creatures CR +7
16 Creatures CR +8
I guess 12 gs creatures are not so likely to hit that hard a level 10 fighter. Well, lucky orcs maybe.
A pit, a trap, can be there for a million of reasons. PC could have prepared an ambush. Again, you suppose a linear gameplay that do not actually happens. Terrain CAN favor monsters. Full attack CAN be or CAN NOT be viable.
I start to think, seeing what you wrote about shields, that you are not simply able to use a warrior. You only calculate damage. Damage is important. Theoretical calculations about damage are very important. But that's not all.
You continue to assume as absolutes things that can be changed a lot to influence the flow of the game. You completely fail to understand how maneuvers work. You transforemd a discussion on Magus on a melee-bashing. What I read about shields is enough for me.. I' completely done with you and with this thread.
Mistah Green,
I started this thread a while back about the most powerful spells within pathfinder core. I didn't go up to the highest spell levels, but you are welcome to do so. I would be very interested to know what you think are the best options when choosing spells.
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/general/theMostPowerfulOverpoweredSpellsInPathfinder
Please post responses in that thread as I don't want to derail this thread more then it already has been.
Mistah Green wrote: a lot of things 7/10.
Next time you troll, may I suggest you tone down on the insults, insinuations of stupidity, and read the rules at the bottom of the posting page.
Rules at the bottom of posting wrote:
* Do not use profanity or vulgar speech;
* Do not make bigoted, hateful, or racially insensitive statements;
* Do not defame, abuse, stalk, harass, or threaten others;
* Do not advocate illegal activities or discuss them with intent to commit them;
* Do not post any content that infringes and/or violates any patent, trademark, copyright, or other proprietary right of any third party. Emphasis mine.
EDIT: Okay, on the actual subject of the thread, yes, I like. I was thinking that myself, though I was only considering two of them (Spell Combat and Arcane Weapon). Your idea probably works better. Whether it solves everything or not...probably not. You just can't please some people, and you definitely can't please everyone. The fact that people are even trying, especially in such an acidic environment, is commendable.
VM mercenario wrote: People, please, look at what he says:
Mistah Green wrote: The Paizo team clearly doesn't really understand D&D 3e. Why is anyone still talking to him? If he thinks that, why is he on this forum? It is a troll! Someone call an adventure party.
Enchanter Tom not Mistah Green wrote:
No. Appeal to authority and all that. The Paizo team clearly doesn't really understand D&D 3e.
Enchanter Tom wrote: My words are true. I'm not denying that. But someone quoted you and put my name on it instead.
Fergie wants my help with something. Unfortunately he was unable to accept the prerequisite for a conversation - math is not an opinion. When asked to he got snarky and refused. So I'm not giving him anything.
Hey, if you to dislike pathfinder rules/combat and classes perhaps you'd be happier either 1. playing 4e or 2. coming up with your own rules flawless, balanced game....
Kaiyanwang wrote: You continue to assume 1 enemy, to assume that the enemy must be one-shotted, I mentioned causal player PA and you are blatantly ignoring it continuing to bring in Shocktrooper. We can assume two enemies if you want.
Ok, 2 level 10s instead of 1 level 12. Now instead of almost 200 HP, you have over 270 you need to plow through, meanwhile you lose on economy of actions. This does not help you. I stuck to one guy to give the Fighter a fighting change.
I never said anything about being one shotted. I did say kill the enemies in two rounds. If there are two enemies then yes, you'd need to take out one a round. That's still not one shotted, and it's why I stuck to one opponent to favor the fighter and show that even under favorable conditions he still does poorly.
Quote: TWF deals less damage and needs more feats. Fine. But has other advantages. More attacks, different weapons, more procs for critical hits. With a feat you are a thrower. You don't see the problem with something that costs more resources (feats, wealth, stats) for a lesser return? Because that's exactly what it does. You pay multiple feats, take a Dex you would otherwise have no reason to take, and spend twice as much on weapons and do less damage than you would just picking up a two handed weapon and saving those resources.
Quantity of attacks is not a positive factor. All that matters is the end result. Swinging 5 times for 20, or 2 times for 50 is still 100 damage. Quantity of attacks can be a negative factor. The more attacks you have, the more you care about DR and the more you care about anything that prevents full attacking.
When you can get good quality attacks, then jacking up the quantity is a good thing. But you are dual wielding, so you can't do that.
There is a reason why the Monk is the worst class in the game despite its high number of attacks.
Critical hits are not a factor in any credible evaluation. See if you can figure out why. But if you can't ask.
I'm skipping past a whole bunch of things that assume highly favorable yet infinitely reproducible conditions for the fighter. Giving him a one on one match in undefined terrain is one thing. When every single thing has to go his way for him to win a fight that says a lot more about how he is unable to win fights than any mathematical demonstration of his weaknesses.
With that said you can analyze the depth of the game based on the difference between the best player and the worst player. If the best player is playing significantly better than the worst one, the game has a lot of depth. If there is very little difference in their playing ability the game is quite shallow.
D&D itself has a great deal of depth... but not all parts of it do.
The best player and the worst player, if given melee classes are going to be doing the same things. Run up and hit it. The best player will have a much better build for doing so, but if you gave that same build to the bad player and then compared the two there would be very little difference. This is because aside from the character building to get your numbers up to par, there simply is not much depth to non casters.
Viletta Vadim explained all this in another thread. It was in a different context, but the core message was clear enough - the only parts of the game that have any depth are the parts pertaining to magic. Everything else is different gradations of attack for HP damage and various minor ineffective abilities. Once you get out of the character building phase, your decisions barely make any difference. This is key. In games with high depth choosing to do something, or not do something has consequences that can be measured, assessed, and adapted. In games with low depth there is little reason to even be at the table.
So in addition to acting as a measure of the depth of the game, they act as a measure of player's ability to get involved within the game.
Now I know five people are going to respond to this and posit some argument with a form of 'I like Fighters, so you are wrong'. Liking, or not liking something has no correlation to its merit. It particularly does not make a thing good. After all, there are people in the world that enjoy physical pain. Punching people in the face is still generally considered unacceptable, even if the target is such a person.
Ardenup wrote: Hey, if you to dislike pathfinder rules/combat and classes perhaps you'd be happier either 1. playing 4e or 2. coming up with your own rules flawless, balanced game.... ...Or I can participate in this grand playtest designed to work out these sorts of things.
I've played 4th edition before. 5 rounds in, the encounter was maybe half over and there was nothing left to do but declare we use our at wills repeatedly until it dies. No risk of death, no danger, no excitement. Just the tabletop equivalent of mashing the attack button. Then we realized we would be turning on 'auto attack' sooner in subsequent fights. We have since reimbursed that player in full for the cost of the 4th edition rulebooks out of guilt.
And speaking of playing, our DM snuck the Magus in like I asked him to. He never said where.
I'll just summarize the result.
Party kills some minions, keeps searching for the BBEG.
Party kills some more minions, keeps searching for the BBEG.
Party kills still more minions(?).
The first reaction by everyone, including me is "Where is this guy? And how many minions does he have to hide behind?"
The DM informs us that we had just killed the BBEG. I understood immediately. Everyone else looks at him funny.
"Should you tell him, or shall I?"
I explain what had just happened. The rest of the players are genuinely surprised - they were completely unable to distinguish the Magus BBEG from a random mook.
They had to be told OOC they were fighting a BBEG, as his performance was so lackluster he was indistinguishable from the servants he hid himself among and who in turn often pretended to be him. Not even me, who knew this would happen but not how was aware of when it happened.
The confusion did not dissolve until the DM said 'Happy Birthday'. At this point everyone understood that the pushover encounter was a present and to not expect it to become a habit.
Conclusion: Magus class will not be used on the grounds it performed so poorly it did not even blip on the radar.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Mistah, I DO SEE the problems. I point them out sometimes, as I point out things that concern me or need errata (IMHO).
In my opinion feats should scale better. TWF, vital strike. It makes no sense that PA scales with BAB and vital strike does not.
But you don't put the thing in terms "this should be improved".
You put the things like "all sucks barring few barely viable options". This makes you unable to be taken seriously.
You put minimal standards (like the 100 damage) completely arbitrary. And I shown that a lvl 10 fighter can remove 2/3 of the HPs of most CR 10 enemies with one blow.
Problems do exist, but you exaggerate them. One can play the battlefield or the game environment better than "I run and hit" and "I hit hit hit", expecially if you find combos with your spellcasters, fellow meleers and the like.
You are not able to see the differencies and see all as being the same. A fighter with power attack, cleave and lunge has 7 ways to deliver a standard action attack that, seeing implications about enemies engaged and penalties, can vary dramatically the flow of the battle. Not considering the choose of the weapon (greataxe vs guisarme as an example).
Things could be done better, but yours is not a polite pointing out. It's a rant filled with blatant lies. There is truth in some things you say? For sure I think. But is covered by the rest. Sorry.
____________________________________________________________________
Magus BBEG killed among minions.. out of curiosity (barring the fact that I DO THINK that magus needs a lot of rework) what spells did he cast?
Hey, guys, remember this?
w0nkothesane wrote: Has anybody considered moving Spell Combat to 4th level, Spell Strike to 2nd, and Arcane Weapon to 1st? I think this is worth considering.
[...justifications cut for space ...]
Feedback would be appreciated, but let's keep it civil
I think this is a good idea - to the point of thinking that, with the right spell list, we could have a good class on our hands - and I'd hate for it to get lost in a discussion of two weapon fighting, "pewpewpew," and the validity of math when appraising character classes. Why don't we talk about these modifications, here in the thread w0nk' set up to discuss them? It seems to me - based on recollections on exactly what was wrong with the soul knife (neither full BAB nor the ability to stack mindblade effects with existing weapons) - that this could be just the thing we need. We get 3/4 BAB, the weapon bonus, and the Arcane Weapon bonus - sorta like the monk (who gets 3/4 BAB, plus effective full for CM and Flurry), but without the MAD.
Kaiyanwang wrote: Mistah, I DO SEE the problems. I point them out sometimes, as I point out things that concern me or need errata (IMHO).
In my opinion feats should scale better. TWF, vital strike. It makes no sense that PA scales with BAB and vital strike does not.
But you don't put the thing in terms "this should be improved".
You put the things like "all sucks barring few barely viable options". This makes you unable to be taken seriously.
If people can't take a serious claim seriously, that is their loss. That is what non caster play is. A whole bunch of things that don't work, and a few things that barely work if the stars align for you.
Quote: You put minimal standards (like the 100 damage) completely arbitrary. And I shown that a lvl 10 fighter can remove 2/3 of the HPs of most CR 10 enemies with one blow. 100 damage is not arbitrary. It's the result of needing to take out the enemy in two rounds (minimum required: 68) but with some allowance for slightly above average enemy HP and natural 1s (minimum required: 80). The bar got raised to 100 because of the very arguments presented by the other side, making it clear the bar should be higher than that, not lower.
And what you showed is that 5% of the time, a critical hit can do this. You always roll 20s? Does everyone always roll 20s? Unless they are very flagrantly cheating, no. The other 95% of the time, you do 25. Which is negligible. Now you can try and argue things like Improved Critical, but that's still nothing close to 100%. Odds are much better than not you'll fall short on the very first fight. And even if you do get super lucky, you'll fall on the second. Not so good for lasting campaigns.
Critical hits are not a factor for this and other reasons.
Mounted chargers have even more things that shut them down than chargers on foot. You'd be lucky to get a mounted charge to work once in the entire campaign. Meanwhile your character is reliant upon something that can be very easily killed off, and that he is useless without. You might as well be advocating the Hulking Hurler for all the practical game application it has.
Quote: Problems do exist, but you exaggerate them. One can play the battlefield or the game environment better than "I run and hit" and "I hit hit hit", expecially if you find combos with your spellcasters, fellow meleers and the like. The extent of your decision making is who you hit, and how hard. HP are boolean. You either have them or you don't. The casters are busy throwing around decisive spells. Now you can try to argue that Angel Summoner... I mean the caster does all the real work and BMX Bandit... I mean the fighter stands there looking pretty and that's a combo, but no one will take you seriously if you do.
Quote: You are not able to see the differencies and see all as being the same. A fighter with power attack, cleave and lunge has 7 ways to deliver a standard action attack that, seeing implications about enemies engaged and penalties, can vary dramatically the flow of the battle. Not considering the choose of the weapon (greataxe vs guisarme as an example). All of which are some variation of 'I run up and hit it'. 4th edition powers only have slightly less variety than this.
Quote: Magus BBEG killed among minions.. out of curiosity (barring the fact that I DO THINK that magus needs a lot of rework) what spells did he cast? Black tentacles. He then died two actions later. If he wasn't able to get a surprise round the answer would be 'none'.
So he is level 12 (I asked afterwards) up against a level 10 party and his best and only showing is a 4th level spell. It's easy to understand why he would be mistaken for a mook. Especially when he dies like one.
After that game I took a good look over the Magus class. That was about the best action he could have taken, or close to it. Despite this he was completely unable to even elevate himself over the rabble he mingled with much less make for a good fight, as you'd expect with a two levels higher foe.
Were he to be played more like the Magus is expected to be played (swing a sword around, cast Fireball) he would have fared worse, not better. Instead the DM quickly realized the concept wasn't workable and made him a caster light instead to try and make him work as intended.
I really like this idea as well, as since it isn't a full BaB class, none of the full BaB classes would take a dip for a +1 weapon only to lose +1 to attack and a hitpoint (or two if you consider the favored class stuff)
I think this fixes a lot of the issues.
+1
Also, don't feed the troll kids, I believe this is the same guy who said rogues could take epic feats at 10th because of a "loophole".
The risk of losing is what makes winning worthwhile. Some people get that, some people put it in god mode. To each their own...
Black Tentacles are level 4th. A level where magus can take fogs, walls, greater invisibility, dimensional door.
Fly, wind wall and major image are a level before.
Now, you are either officially trolling, or are de facto declaring the DM not able to use a spellcaster.
Kaiyanwang wrote: Black Tentacles are level 4th. A level where magus can take fogs, walls, greater invisibility, dimensional door.
Fly, wind wall and major image are a level before.
Now, you are either officially trolling, or are de facto declaring the DM not able to use a spellcaster.
Fly only shuts down melees. Wind wall only shuts down archers. This is a Pathfinder game, so you should not be playing either of those anyways, consequently no one at the table is.
Major image might have gotten him somewhere, if we were not packing True Seeing the moment it became apparent that this particular organization enjoyed trickery and subterfuge. So if he did try a Major Image, the Cleric would simply do his best Ackbar impression, everyone would shrug and he would have wasted his turn.
Greater invisibility might have worked except true seeing, again. And See invis too, just so more than one of us had it.
Dimension Door is an escape. Why is he escaping on the first round? Nothing's happened. Yet.
Wall of what?
You are quick to join your buddies in accusations of trolling. I get it. Someone is insinuating that you are wrong, so rather than stop to think about why this is you dismiss it out of hand by labeling the person as a troll, or as a member of some rival forum, or something that causes you to not have to accept that you are wrong.
But this isn't some contest, where when you admit you are wrong I win. You don't even have to admit this to anyone but yourself. And all you have to do to do that is save the accusations of trolling for people who actually are just entering the thread to throw around insults and accusations and no data.
I am reminded of nothing more than the DDO boards by this. People that are new to the forum will often get some novel but ultimately wrong idea into their heads such as 'I should make an archer with max Dex and min Con, because I won't be hit anyways' or 'Heavy Fortification is optional' or 'Multiclassing Fighter and Wizard at even levels is a great idea'.
And then the experienced players will step in and offer their advice based on a mix of theorycraft and direct experience. Sometimes the new player will realize the veterans are showing up to help. Sometimes they will dismiss the veterans as trolls, insist they are doing just fine as they are, and then proceed to be a burden to every group they are a part of. When you see a player kiting 20 mobs around while yelling 'pewpewpew' into the mic you have one of these. When someone randomly drops dead in one hit you have one of these.
Now this is an MMO. You might think this makes it less forgiving, but it actually makes it more so for several reasons. No permadeath is the first one. No matter how many times you do something stupid and die, you can release and retry with no real penalty. That and any given encounter is much easier to survive. People will always strive for uberness in MMOs, but the bar for performance is set rather low intentionally so as to avoid driving players away. Just follow some common sense advice, and some slightly less common sense advice and you'll be fine. Some classes in tabletop are like this. The majority are much less forgiving of mistakes, as are the combats where there is about 2 decision points between full health and dead and death is difficult to recover from.
But the main part of that story is to take a good hard look at those stubborn but inexperienced players, and then look at those veteran players. Sound like anyone you know here? Consider why that is. Or enjoy your pewpewpew.
Mistah Green wrote: This is a Pathfinder game, so you should not be playing either of those anyways, See what you are doing here? Why shouldn't people yell at you?
Mathematics being a very specific thing (and they are, no argument) notwithstanding, what makes you think that all Pathfinder -or for that matter, 4E or 3.5E or 3E or GURPS or what not- games adhere only to your standards or that the way you play the game is the only valid and true way? I am honestly asking here, not being sarcastic or anything.
Once again, there are as many playstyles as there are groups and just because something works one particular way in your games (say, melee fighters and archers being useless), that does by no means entail that that is the way it works across the board. Not to mention that not all gaming groups are about how fast you can defeat the enemy or how optimized one's character is. A player's contribution in a role-playing game -as always, in my opinion and experience- goes beyond mere damage-dealing and damage-soaking.
And as far as the Magus is concerned, what we have at the moment is the earliest possible draft if I am not mistaken, ergo the whole playtest thingy. Is it really a valid test to put the earliest draft of a class -in this case, the Magus- against the finished versions of the other classes and declare the result entirely accurate?
And out of simple curiosity again, what was the Magus' build? And what characters, or classes if you will, do the players have in the game you mentioned?
F. Castor wrote:
And out of simple curiosity again, what was the Magus' build? And what characters, or classes if you will, do the players have in the game you mentioned?
As far as I can tell, a cleric that studied 6 true seeing.
To be fair, the party could have the true seeing spell in a scroll or two, or they could be in possession of a gem of seeing. That is, of course, only an assumption or a guess.
I really like this idea, partially because I see the -4 penalty being too much that early, and partially because I love the Arcane Weapon idea!
Now, if we could just do something for their action economy, lol
Mok wrote: CezarJ wrote: Monte Cook's Mageblade from Arcana Evolved has the Arcane Weapon special ability with lvl 1, and it levels up every 4 levels.
Maybe they just didn't want to copy it completely.
Fortunately, that is open content, so it wouldn't really be much of an issue.
Also, the "athame" power of the Mage Blade does diverge in many other ways, providing sentience to the weapon, day long ritual to create it, etc. The Arcane Weapon description is much more meat and potatoes mechanics. I'm not familiar with the Mageblade or it's Arcane Weapon. I guess my question is can you change weapons each day? Currently as written the Magus can pick any weapon in his arsenal to boost at the same time he prepares his spells that, which is a big difference over most similar abilities which lock you into a single weapon for all time (until destroyed or dismissed).
Kaiyanwang wrote: Mistah Green wrote: This is a Pathfinder game, so you should not be playing either of those anyways, See what you are doing here? Why shouldn't people yell at you? Because they are over the age of 6 and are capable of separating things they like from things that are correct and therefore do not get offended when someone tells them that something they like is wrong, even if they like it?
Because this forum has a spoken and unspoken policy about extreme adverseness to rudeness, which yelling at me or anyone for any reason would violate?
Because they are reasonable people who need not resort to yelling when things are not going their way?
I could keep going, but apparently you have a lower opinion of your fellow forumgoers than I do to think that they would resort to such puerile behavior. Though I must admit your claims are dead on about select members.
F. Castor wrote: Mathematics being a very specific thing (and they are, no argument) notwithstanding, what makes you think that all Pathfinder -or for that matter, 4E or 3.5E or 3E or GURPS or what not- games adhere only to your standards or that the way you play the game is the only valid and true way? I am honestly asking here, not being sarcastic or anything. As I said before. Some parts of the game have depth and options. Some do not. When discussing the latter category it is inevitable there will be a lack of alternatives discussed, because there are a lack of alternatives. Forget the 'your'. This is practical optimization. It's based on the standards set by the actual game. For PF this means anyone using PF books. So if you are using PF books, these standards apply to you and your games. If you're using 3.5 books instead, then a different set of standards apply to you and your games. But there are set standards nonetheless. And you can either meet those standards, fall short of those standards, or exceed those standards.
Quote: Once again, there are as many playstyles as there are groups and just because something works one particular way in your games (say, melee fighters and archers being useless), that does by no means entail that that is the way it works across the board. Not to mention that not all gaming groups are about how fast you can defeat the enemy or how optimized one's character is. A player's contribution in a role-playing game -as always, in my opinion and experience- goes beyond mere damage-dealing and damage-soaking. Melee fighters and archers being useless is a consequence of the rules for melee fighters and archers as opposed to their opposition. No amount of playstyle differences will change this. Melodrama, beer and pretzels, or the tabletop version of 'Stop Having Fun Guys' the melee fighters will get stomped by melee opponents and evaded by everyone else and the archer will be quite ignorable.
Even if a group does not care how fast they defeat the enemy it still does matter. If they are not fast enough, enemy defeats them. So no matter how much they would rather weave baskets, their killing speed does matter.
Further, a player's contribution in a roleplaying game is exactly zero if their character is dead. Having a mechanically sound character is a prerequisite to playing at all accordingly.
Quote: And as far as the Magus is concerned, what we have at the moment is the earliest possible draft if I am not mistaken, ergo the whole playtest thingy. Is it really a valid test to put the earliest draft of a class -in this case, the Magus- against the finished versions of the other classes and declare the result entirely accurate? Given that this forum makes a big deal out of doing exactly that, even going so far as to outright dismiss any amount of math and theorycrafting in favor of anecdotes yes it is. Obviously, real testing would be more productive. You can argue that this is a 'Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it' on the part of the designers, and I'd agree with you. But because it is exactly what they want...
Quote: And out of simple curiosity again, what was the Magus' build? And what characters, or classes if you will, do the players have in the game you mentioned? I don't know his build. I'd prefer not to pry into the finer workings of opponents, even after they are dead.
As for our party, it is Cleric, Druid, Wizard, Wizard, all level 10. The original group was actually a bit different than this but I'm not inclined to share that story until the hostility dies down.
Only one of them had True Seeing. I said this. Not 6, 1.
Once one of them recognizes it as an illusion, they declare as much to everyone else. Some people must not watch Star Wars or else the Ackbar reference would not have went over their heads.
Not to mention Will saves vs a party of casters... not a winning proposition.
I also had a scroll if we needed it (went too slow, got Dispelled) but we didn't.
Dorje Sylas wrote: I'm not familiar with the Mageblade or it's Arcane Weapon. I guess my question is can you change weapons each day? Currently as written the Magus can pick any weapon in his arsenal to boost at the same time he prepares his spells that, which is a big difference over most similar abilities which lock you into a single weapon for all time (until destroyed or dismissed). For the Mageblade you can only have one weapon at a time be imbued with the enchantment, but it can be switched. It just required a long ceremony. Also, it has to be a bladed weapon.
I guess how the Magus would do that just has to come down to how you want to tease out the "metaphysics" of what the class is doing with the weapon.
The Magus is definitely more flexible as written right now. I'm not seeing that as a problem in terms of balance. I can see people getting wound up about it in terms of fluff, but I've never seen a piece of fluff that can't be reframed to give whatever effect you want by the end of the day.
Mistah Green, can you please ask your GM to post the play test along with the Magus build (gear, spell selection, and encounter setup). It would be most appreciated by all concerned as the more play tests we can get back the better an idea the design team gets of how this class gets use in actual games.
I'd like to make a request, as the OP of the thread, that Mistah Green and Enchanter Tom either stay on topic of my proposed tweak to the Magus class, or stop posting here. You guys are really derailing the conversation, and if I didn't know any better I might accuse you both of trolling.
Let's keep the playtest threads focused. You're welcome to argue back and forth about the game elsewhere, and you both have the power to make threads. Honestly though, I'd recommend finding different games to play because you both seem to have problems with a few things about the game that are never going to change.
Anyway, I'm doing a playtest at level 5 later today, looking forward to the results. Look for the results in a new thread later tonight.
Mistah Green wrote: Someone is insinuating that you are wrong, so rather than stop to think about why this is you dismiss it out of hand by labeling the person as a troll, or as a member of some rival forum, or something that causes you to not have to accept that you are wrong. Okay, 1, you're obviously of the Tome school of thought. Anyone who's so much as read the Tome rules could probably see it.
2, you're insinuating we're wrong without displaying the evidence (your math) and with condescending remarks that fall like rain. They're being angry and dismissive because of that. Not that you care, just by virtue of being a Frank Trollman groupie on a non-Tome-Rules board, you're a troll. Trust me when I say I've seen it before.
Quote: But this isn't some contest, where when you admit you are wrong I win. You're the one treating it like that.
Quote: save the accusations of trolling for people who actually are just entering the thread to throw around insults and accusations and no data. You mean like you're doing?
w0nkothesane wrote: I'd like to make a request, as the OP of the thread, that Mistah Green and Enchanter Tom either stay on topic of my proposed tweak to the Magus class, or stop posting here. You guys are really derailing the conversation, and if I didn't know any better I might accuse you both of trolling.
Let's keep the playtest threads focused. You're welcome to argue back and forth about the game elsewhere, and you both have the power to make threads. Honestly though, I'd recommend finding different games to play because you both seem to have problems with a few things about the game that are never going to change.
Anyway, I'm doing a playtest at level 5 later today, looking forward to the results. Look for the results in a new thread later tonight.
Missed this when posting. The Sane one speaks Truth, +1.
Dorje Sylas wrote: Mistah Green, can you please ask your GM to post the play test along with the Magus build (gear, spell selection, and encounter setup). It would be most appreciated by all concerned as the more play tests we can get back the better an idea the design team gets of how this class gets use in actual games. I asked him. He refused to discuss the spell selection and the parts of the encounter that we didn't know about. His reason was that 'it would spoil too much'. I'm guessing either he'll get raised, or more likely all these tricky elves fight in a similar way as a result of being in the same organization. So if he told us everything, we'd know how to handle future fights. Fair enough.
As for the parts of the encounter we did know about, they were clearly intending to ambush us, which is why they got a free turn. This is when the Magus cast a Black tentacles. There were some other mooks there of an obvious melee bent, but some were kept away by their own side's spells and the rest did nothing special. Just some tiny damage to one of the Wizards. Nothing worth being concerned over.
I forget what spell the Cleric cast on the Magus but it took him out for a while. Then the Druid and companion killed him easily. The mooks suddenly lost any desire to fight, but they got cleaned up anyways so as to avoid giving anyone else advance warning. The two Wizards (me, and another player) did not even get a turn. Which is fine by me.
We didn't get around to identifying his items that session. But since it is a given that we would the moment we had time and it wasn't worth waiting a month to give us information we would get as a matter of course anyways he told us everything. None of it was anything special. Just standard stuff to keep your numbers up, something humanoid NPCs have an extremely difficult time doing for all the same reasons as humanoid PCs, except they have a lot less wealth. It was more bent towards anti caster than anti melee, which is understandable given that 1: Physical defense is extraordinarily expensive and offers little benefit against physical attacks. 2: Casters are more dangerous than melee. 3: We were all casters.
If he were a Wizard instead, the save or lose would have almost certainly fizzled unless he were debuffed first, and when he got jumped on by the Druid and friend he would have somehow spelled his way out of it (plenty of ways he could have done this).
But instead he showed himself, got in one action, and died. And looking at the full array of things he could have done, a Bard would have made a better combat oriented opponent than him. If only I were joking.
Machaeus wrote: Not that you care, just by virtue of being a Frank Trollman groupie on a non-Tome-Rules board, you're a troll. I actually had a discussion with K recently on wizard and, even if we didn't agree on a lot of things, at least on te same degree, I don't remember K behaving in the same way of Mistah Green.
K bringed in actual examples, not blatant lies ("PA has been nerfed lol lol").
So, the issue is not agree or not with Tomes, Frank and stuff. It's the way you interact with other people (condiscendence, ranting if people then treat you the same way) not your ideas.
Mistah Green just assumes 75% of the game flat out wrong, and every playstyle different from the one he uses wrong. This makes discussion with him impossible.
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Machaeus wrote: Not that you care, just by virtue of being a Frank Trollman groupie on a non-Tome-Rules board, you're a troll. Are you really any better by saying things such as this?
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