To the OP: RE "M.A.D vs Min Maxing
These two terms are independent of each other. For S.A.D. vs M.A.D its about which classes need good scores in more abilities to fulfill their
normal role in the party. Lets compare a wizard to a monk. A wizard's roll is too cast spells, usually to deal damage, or control the battle field. All it Needs is Intelligence. A good dexterity and constitution can be useful but are don't need to be real high. Monks are melee damage dealers. A monk needs Wisdom, for monk abilities and AC, dexterity in order to actually have decent AC and strength to deal hit stuff and deal more damage. A good constitution is always helpful to hand to hand combatant.
A weapon finesse version, does not need strength, so its less Mad, but that costs, a feat and lowers your damage output. Pathfinder actually made Paladin less MAD, by linking their spells to Charisma, instead of Wisdom.
Min maxing is raising your primary abilities while dumping others. A wizard with max intelligence, but an 8 in charisma and wisdom for example. A MAD character often needs to "min-max". Most times a monk can't afford to to put a lot of points in Intelligence or Charisma. SAD classes allow greater variety in attribute array, while being "good" in a mechanical way.
TLDR: a MAD class almost has "min max" to be good in there normal mechanical role, while SAD classes can afford to spend build points in non mechanical link abilities.
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Okay, so what I'm really hearing from all of you is that ALL of my fears are hugely confirmed.Rogues/Ninjas are collectively seen as completely fungible, mostly useless in combat and therefore unwanted, and nobody likes a character with a well-rounded set of abilities because apparently min/maxing is the only way to go.
This does not sound like a tabletop RPG I would enjoy.
Which is a pity, this game sounded like it would be awesome.
The game is awesome. Message boards tend to have more optimizers than you find in the general gaming population (in my experience anyway). There are those who love optimization and those who despise it as well as those somewhere in between. You just have to find the right group. This thread, by the nature of it's title, has attracted people who want to argue the relative merits of the classes in relation to eachother as well as the other classes by picking apart the numbers. There are plenty of people out there who pick what they want to roleplay as opposed to rollplay. And, of course, some who want to do both. Good luck finding the right group and enjoy the game. It is as fun as you remember.
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A fine example of how out of whack analysis is on these boards. A feat that nets a whopping 1.3 dpr loss is 'bad' and a 'trap,' and never under any circumstances should anyone be encouraged to use it! Even though that loss is highly situational.
No, it nets a 1.3 dpr loss in absolutely ideal circumstances for it.
There is no better way to take advantage of this. Every point of damage you add to your attacks that is not the result of pure weapon dice takes more and more away from Vital Strike. If this character had used normal wealth for a level 8 character, for example, the scales would be tipped far more dramatically. If this character had a higher point buy, or spent the points in a better fashion, the scales would tip further. That's why it's bad.
Moonlight stalker is nice. It's also more situational than just saying 'I use my damage increasing feat!' It also requires two feats, not one. One of those is bad, the other is highly situational.
I think moving around a lot instead of full attacking as much as possible is actually more situational than having concealment, especially for a Ninja. At level 10, for example, you're looking at 10 rounds of Greater Invisibility at least 5 times a day. Plus, one of the strongest Ninja builds is the Ninja/Deaf Waves Oracle constantly dropping concealment all over the place.
(And moonlight stalker feint is not 'so much better it's ridiculous.' It has huge prerequisites, and if you already have concealment, why are you feinting in the first place?)
Because while total concealment denies dex, regular concealment does not, so you still can't sneak attack. Of course note that I did not advocate actually taking it, just that it was a significantly better alternative to Improved Feint.
The other problem with this is simply one of philosophy. Somehow dpr got super popular on these boards as a metric for valuing combat ability, and the concept just won't go away. This is not a video game. We do not play in the averages. Fights are way too short for average performance to really mean anything. You could go months without seeing expected average dpr over the course of any particular fight. Also, average dpr is simply overvalued. Next few sessions pay attention to how many times enemies die by one or two hp. That's how often this would be relevant.
So, what metric, then, is better? Random trials? Or are you basically saying, "you shouldn't compare at all?"
You also fail to account for lead blades and enlarge person
No, I accounted for Lead Blades--it was part of his base assumptions. He did not include Enlarge Person, so I did not either. Since that would penalize hit chance some more, I am not totally sure it would end up helping, but again, even if it did, this character was pushing the limits of believability in order to make Vital Strike look good, and it still lost. That's how bad Vital Strike is--contrived situations designed to make it look good still look bad.
You also fail to account for lead blades and enlarge person, both of which will significantly increase the max potential of the swing, which is vastly more important than 1.4 dpr.
Why would the maximum damage ever matter more than average damage?
And, it's more fun to roll buckets of dice than knowing in your head that you're, in theory, doing more damage than the guy with vital strike
That's why I am so vocal against Vital Strike. It's so insidious specifically because it looks more fun. It tricks you into thinking it's good, but it's not. It feels deceitful to include it the way it is.
even though he actually outdamages you over the course of the campaign because we do not roll enough dice for the law of large numbers to kick in.
On what basis? If you're talking about small sample sizes, it's just as likely that he rolled low on all his dice and ended up looking pathetic and weak.
Vital strike is not one of the top tier feats. It's also not bad, it's not a trap, you're not a bad person for using it or for suggesting it's a fun/decent feat to take.
It is bad and it is a trap. The fact that people keep insisting it's not despite proof to the contrary is exactly why it absolutely is a trap.
But no, you are not a bad person for taking it or using it. You are never a bad person for making a choice for your character in an RPG. You are also never a bad person for honestly and earnestly advocating a feat you happen to like.
It is bordering on "bad person territory" when you advocate a bad feat that appears good even after someone proves, mathematically, that it is actually bad, because at that point, you are screwing new players who might not know better. Impassioned arguments about "heroically tearing down the sacred altar of DPR" or whatever bull only exacerbate this because it puts newer players in an oppositional mindset. Either they can have fun and take crappy feats, or they can be part of the problem.
This attitude just has no place in the game. It's all equally important. People who think Vital Strike is fun should take it, but they should take it for fun fully knowing that it's actually a weak choice, mechanically.
2d6+2 guy also gets more attacks than you. which with bigger static bonuses, will blow vital strike out of the water.
with 2 attacks, 2d6+2 becomes 4d6+4
Vital Strikers only have one swing, the others are laughing at your one swing with their plural strikes.
and spring attack can be stopped by a readied grapple check
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It is bad and it is a trap. The fact that people keep insisting it's not despite proof to the contrary is exactly why it absolutely is a trap.
I don't understand this proof. It seems to resolve assumptions like 'my character is a ninja with spare ki points'.
Suppose the situation is: I'm a melee character. Any time I'm walking over to an enemy and hitting them, Vital Strike will give me a not insignificant bonus to my damage. This is a situation that probably happens once or twice per encounter.Is there another feat (that I don't already have) that is unreservedly better than Vital Strike for this character?
Suppose the situation is: I'm a melee character. Any time I'm walking over to an enemy and hitting them, Vital Strike will give me a not insignificant bonus to my damage. This is a situation that probably happens once or twice per encounter.
Is there another feat (that I don't already have) that is unreservedly better than Vital Strike for this character?
It depends on the character and what he already has, but generally, yes, there are always better feats.
A feat I can only use once or twice per encounter is not a great pick unless it has absolutely earth shattering results. If you're moving around more than that, you need to reconsider tactics before taking a consolation prize like Vital Strike. Full Attacks are better, always, so more effort should be taken to full attack rather than expending effort assuming you're going to lose (i.e. not get a full attack).
The 'proof' is thus:
Blind fight + Combat expertise + Moonlight Stalker = 1.3 more dps than vital strike alone, ergo, vital strike is bad, horrible, not worth the paper it's printed on, etc.
It's a horrible, nonsensical proof.
No, the proof is that on a character specifically built to make Vital Strike look good in a situation designed to make Vital Strike look even better, it still loses. The fact that it loses by a tiny margin is irrelevant. This would be like saying the thing you are best at is spelling, and then you losing a spelling bee. If you lose at the thing you are best at, you're pretty screwed overall.
I compared making a single attack with feat set X vs. making a single attack with feat set Y. I only changed two feats--the first build with Vital Strike already had Combat Expertise, for example. And in this case, the challenge was not just about Vital Strike but Improved Feint plus Vital Strike.
This did not compare DPR overall--this latter test did not include full attacks. It basically did not include items. It did not include good attributes. It's not about 1.3 dpr total. It's about 1.3 dpr when Vital Strike has every advantage. That's how bad it is--it's so bad that it loses when it is at its best.
To answer the OP: (avoiding the vital strike mess...seriously, that feat...what a mess...)
I simply don't allow Ninjas in the majority of my campaigns for the same reason that I ban monks, samurai, gunslingers, etc. They don't fit a medieval swords and sorcery style game. Having ninjas in a "standard" Pathfinder game would be like having an illiterate, technophobic, smashing stuff-prone barbarian in a steampunk game. Or a wizard in a Star Trek game. Or whatever.
As to balance, first you must fix the fact that the wizard makes the rogue redundant before you can get around to balancing rogue vs. ninja. To give you some examples:
Invisibility eliminates Stealth. Feather Fall, Levitate, and Fly eliminate Acrobatics. Knock hurts Disable Device. Fly + Invisibility destroys trapfinding. Detect Secret Doors hurts Perception. Comprehend Languages destroys Linguistics. Summon Monster I destroys trapfinding. Freedom of Movement destroys escape artist.
I could go on, but you probably get the point. Why be like Jack Sparrow or Robin Hood and make a risky, daring attempt to infiltrate the castle, when you could just cast fly, invisibility, and use a wand of knock, and completely eliminate the castle. Or maybe just use arcane eye and dimension door to pop right into the evil bad guy's lair, bypassing all his minions.
I personally would prefer to be Jack Sparrow, but then again, playing Jack Sparrow isn't optimized, is it?
Let's look at this logically. If a wizard uses magic to usurp the traditional role of the rogue/ninja, and this is self-evidently a better option than having an actual rogue/ninja, then wouldn't there be a plethora of wizards using such tactics to infiltrate BBEG strongholds, and a minimum of actual rogue/ninjas? Therefore, wouldn't those BBEGs, who aren't stupid themselves, and have access to considerable resources because they are a BBEG, then design special traps/defenses to counter those efforts?
To put it bluntly, if fly, invisibility and knock become the best ways to infiltrate, then defenses against those methods would naturally evolve and become more common. And if rogues/ninjas are less of a threat, then proportionally less effort would be made to defend against them. If in your game, those simple spells/tactics consistently work and the BBEGs never change tactics to adjust, that's poor encounter design or a GM determined to keep the game on the Easy setting.
So Jack Sparrow, Robin Hood, the Gray Mouser, Bilbo Baggins and their ilk will never truly go out of style.
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Don't give up so soon.
These boards are heavily populated with people who are deeply into optimization and very judgmental about anything less than completely optimal, usually in a purely mechanical, heavily combat-focused sense.
Some of the optimizers are broad-minded enough to realize that the way they play is not the only way there is to play, while others are stubbornly resistant to the radical concept that different groups can and do play the game in diffewrent ways and love to throw around terms like "MAD", "gimped", "useless", etc. about anything that doesn't meet their own definition of a strong character.
They are useful to listen to only if you intend to play in/run an optimized game, or if your existing group begins to optimize. If you aren't, ignore them.
Be assured it is still more than possible to play PF in any style you and your group wants, and many, many people out there are playing rogues, fighters, monks and other less than optimal characters happily and could care less that their choice was "not optimal". Many times, those characters end up being the most effective and memorable in their games because in the end, it is a how a character is played that truly determines its success, not the numbers on the stat sheet.
Thanks for the well-needed voice of reason.
In the long run Pathfinder has already succeeded in something that hasn't been done in almost ten years-- it's got me pouring through texts, sitting cross-legged surrounded by heavy books, rolling dice and taking notes. I'm going to look into signing up for a game as soon as I can.
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Stormwind Fallacy, my good man. Having a well-built character doesn't make your roleplaying worse. That a lot of people here are able to recognize that the Rogue/Ninja ( and, yes, the Monk ) are mechanically worse built than the other classes doesn't make them worse roleplayers nor the game less capable of delivering interesting roleplaying challenges.Mechanical concerns over those classes mostly come from people who like those classes and want to love to play them, but feel that they are not contributing enough to party advancement when they do. After all, if your party dies because your character failed on his job, the campaign is over. And adventure paths can be pretty brutal when played as they should be ( 15 pts buy, 4 characters ).
Quite honestly, as of this moment you sound more like you are actively seeking reasons to not play Pathfinder, rather than coming at this with an open mind. If you think we are collectively unable of roleplaying, I'd invite you to peruse, say, some of the frequent alignment threads, where you will see a lot of discussion of the roleplaying aspects of the game.
Quite the contrary, my friend. The reason I set up an account and essentially begged to be proven wrong is because I'm so eager to give Pathfinder a try and find out that I love it. I just have to be careful before dipping into my resources to buy a handful of new texts and core rulebooks.
Honestly, if I was looking at a chance to play a home-brew game I'd be even less worried about having a more flavorful character lost in the cold grips of a combat-heavy game that perhaps requires a lot of skill and pure optimization. As it stands, I haven't been able to find any and in some cases it seems more reasonable to join in at a Pathfinder Society organized game. That's when I got to checking out the message boards and saw that most folks who partake in organized play seem to be single-mindedly focussed on pure optimization.
I guess I get a little worried that in the pursuit of creating a fun character I may inadvertently screw over the whole party and be THAT GUY.
And nobody wants to be THAT GUY.
Thanks for all the great dialogue, this has been a great exchange of ideas and for the most part you've all been very warm and welcoming to a Pathfinder newbie. I can't wait to roll out a character and head to the local hobby shop.
I'm going to have to disagree with the consensus here. While rogues and ninjas may not have the best attack bonus, It's pretty easy to apply sneak damage, and the damage builds up quick. All you have to do is feint them (preferably with improved two-weapon feint), which isn't that hard to do. Combine the two weapon fighting with a speed weapon, and you got 7 sneak attacks per round, which is on average over 200 damage from sneak alone. And it's even better (and easier) as a ninja, as they can be invisible, which applies your sneak, and use nonlethal unarmed, which does 2d8 (I think, don't remember off the top of my head), because of the unarmed mastery, per attack, plus it can be increased from the nonlethal sneak feats, to the point where it can basically one-turn kill anything (especially if you work as a team, and get an attack or CMB buff from a caster). Granted, that's not going to happen every time (wouldn't be fun if it did anyway), but you can't just dismiss that as weak.
7 Attacks looks good on paper but in the game form experience as GM the rogue usually lands 2 maybe 4 of those attacks. I usually as GM throw in some encounters where the rogue can land all his attacks to be nice, usually designing an encounter with many lower CR monsters. But typically the caster of the group just takes the encounter out before the rogue gets a chance to perform.
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After looking across the information for rogues and ninjas it appears to me almost as if rogues are obsolete. The vast majority of their abilities are identical and not only do ninjas have their own Tricks, they can instead take up a rogue Talent.
It seems like the ONLY thing a rogue has that a ninja can't is Trapfinding and the ability to disarm magical traps. Granted, this is an important skill, but it just seems a little slim in determining the difference between the two.
In the long run Ninja just reads like an over-powered archetype than an individual class.
Someone please come tell me that I'm wrong and that I'm an idiot.
And, y'know, tell me why so I can stop being an idiot.
Story, Flavor, and Traps. Not everything boils down the the efficiency of DPR, action economy, and attacks per round. And it shouldn't EVER boil down to that. But that's a discussion for a different day.
I completely agree with you, the problem in its essence is that the rogue/ninja are sub optimal choices for just about anything. There are many classes that fill the role and flavor of them, and have even more features and options to give them even more roles and flavor.
I'm not saying you can't have FUN with a rogue or ninja, just that you can have MORE fun with something else. My wife's old flip phone still makes calls and can take pictures and play PAC-man, it has utility and specific functions that make it viable in its role as a cell phone. My iPhone does all of that and SO MUCH MORE. I have more fun with my iPhone than she does with her old flip. Rogues are flip phones, ninjas have more bells and whistles, but the are still old flip phones. They both need major overhauls and upgrades to be contenders in a iPhone/ droid/ blackberry dominated market.
I'm not saying you can't have FUN with a rogue or ninja, just that you can have MORE fun with something else. My wife's old flip phone still makes calls and can take pictures and play PAC-man, it has utility and specific functions that make it viable in its role as a cell phone. My iPhone does all of that and SO MUCH MORE. I have more fun with my iPhone than she does with her old flip. Rogues are flip phones, ninjas have more bells and whistles, but the are still old flip phones. They both need major overhauls and upgrades to be contenders in a iPhone/ droid/ blackberry dominated market.
This... This is by far the best analogy I've ever seen in this forum!
My compliments, sir! Know that the next time you eat a cookie, you truly deserved it.
I completely agree with you, the problem in its essence is that the rogue/ninja are sub optimal choices for just about anything. There are many classes that fill the role and flavor of them, and have even more features and options to give them even more roles and flavor.
I'm not saying you can't have FUN with a rogue or ninja, just that you can have MORE fun with something else. My wife's old flip phone still makes calls and can take pictures and play PAC-man, it has utility and specific functions that make it viable in its role as a cell phone. My iPhone does all of that and SO MUCH MORE. I have more fun with my iPhone than she does with her old flip. Rogues are flip phones, ninjas have more bells and whistles, but the are still old flip phones. They both need major overhauls and upgrades to be contenders in a iPhone/ droid/ blackberry dominated market.
The rogue doesn't need a complete redesign. It suffers from one major problem. An average rogue can't hit. By average I mean a 15 pt buy rogue who isn't min maxing. If you do that you hit level 12 and find you have fair chance to miss on your primary attack, the iterative attacks are pretty guaranteed misses.
I mean when you have to optimize to the max to make class viable then the class is not functional. The rogue has this problem as does the Ninja.
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To answer the OP: (avoiding the vital strike mess...seriously, that feat...what a mess...)
I simply don't allow Ninjas in the majority of my campaigns for the same reason that I ban monks, samurai, gunslingers, etc. They don't fit a medieval swords and sorcery style game. Having ninjas in a "standard" Pathfinder game would be like having an illiterate, technophobic, smashing stuff-prone barbarian in a steampunk game. Or a wizard in a Star Trek game. Or whatever.
This is a false dictomy.
If I were to deal with the 'ninja' as a western character, I'd simply give them the Rogues weapons and call it a day. I think of George RR Martin's faceless men of such characters.They might have the ninja as a class, but they need not be orientals in black pajamas. Thinking of them as such seems short sighted.
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Just cross out "ki" write in "panache" and call it a day.
Ninjas are marginally better at two-weapon fighting, but doing so is resource-intensive. Rogues are largely resource-independent. That's it. They are so interchangeable you have to squint to tell the difference between their character sheets. Despite some significant reworking of some core abilities, the ninja is an alternate class that manages to be closer to the original class than most archetypes. -- It bugs me that the wakizashi is a better shortsword, but that's a problem with some of the "Oriental" weapon writeups, not the class.
Sneak attack only excludes criticals. Nothing prevents it from multiplying on lance charges.
This is my new favorite thing.
Does anyone have a suggestion for a ninja lancer build? Cast invisibility and silence on the mount, vanish, and *BOOM* lance of death from nowhere. Ninja disappears again, horse stays disappeared, rinse, repeat.
edit: Related rules thread confirmed sneak attack dice don't get multiplied for any reason.
If you are taking more than a 5-foot step more than once an encounter as a melee fighter (note the small 'f'), someone else isn't doing their job.If you can take nothing but 5' steps during an entire encounter, the GM isn't doing his job. And god, that sounds incredibly boring besides.
"Enemies move around to stop you from full attacking."
This never made sense to me. In my experience:
"Enemies stay still because they also want to full attack."
There are rare exceptions (things with only one attack, mostly), but combat in 3rd edition was designed to be pretty static. That's the consequence of the Full Attack Action. In order to be effective in a fight without spells, you have to full attack.
I'd also suggest that if melee has to constantly move to be effective, then you're better off with a ranged build so you can stop moving and start full attacking.
The problem is that MAD and min maxing are interrelated and intertwined with a change in how campaigns have evolved
Campaigns
In early D&D you spent the majority of the adventures GETTING to the BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy/Girl/Gestalt)or doing random dungeon crawls. Having a character that could do 1 thing and only 1 thing meant that they were dead weight the majority of the time (carry the mage in a backpack so he can launch the fireball at the right time). The encounters were varied and the needs widespread. The only way to make this happen was if everyone was at least competent in fighting, surviving, fulfill another role, etc. Think of it as a jam sessionThe current way of D&D/PF is an optimized team which goes from set encounter to set encounter. The encounters are designed to have a full team that interacts with each other like clockwork. Think of it as a symphony which constantly practices
MAD and Min Maxing
Given the need to have an optimized team, you need to create an optimized character. Using a point buy system, you can usually only optimize 1 or 2 stats. A MAD character cannot optimize in all their stats since they have more stats that need to be high. Min Maxing is the only way to maybe allow for 3 stats to be high enough (since it takes 7 points to get to 15 in a single stat and 10 points to get to 16 in a single stat, you are build point starved). Thus you have to take huge negative somewhere to get the points.Unfortunately, this leads to characters who are referred to by their abilities instead of their character makeup (e.g. " Heaven's Oracle" -designed to colour spray), "Greatsword with organic counterweight" - designed to power attack and only power attack", "Lightning Blade aka Magus" -designed to deliver a maximized shocking grasp). If you want to create interesting characters that are not optimized, then you need to make sure you get in with a group which shares your philosophy since the PF system is really focused upon optimized characters
Have to disagree with you here. While the 3.5/PF system certainly made optimizing easier and more tempting than previous versions, the game is not designed to make optimization the only or best way to play.
PF in particular was designed to support the adventure paths and vice versa. Take a look at the adventure paths and the sample characters they include. Definitely not optimized. Take a look at the encounters in them - definitely not challenging for an optimized party.
So it seems that the general system, including the CR system, is actually designed with the casual gamer who doesn't want to or is not willing to put the effort in to optimize (not that it is all that hard with all the advice out there on various builds). Talk to most GMs that have optimized groups, and they will tell you they have to beef up the CRs of encounters quite a bit off the standard to remain challenging.
My memories of AD&D were a bit different, although your overall portrayal isn't bad. Parties were assumed to be larger, for one thing. The default assumption was six, rather than four. That allowed for more specialization. Our "classic" party that we found worked best was one thief, one magic-user, one cleric, and three fighter/ranger/paladins. Combat was important, but less of a dominant factor than now, and a group could usually get away with carrying one or two characters that weren't that good in a fight, like the classic halfling thief, because they were so good at other things.
Party dynamics make a big difference on whether a class is "underpowered" or not. The barbarian in Runelords did SICK damage, and felled Karzoug with the final blow, with help from the party. The party rogue was a close second in damage, and the difference was probably down to one having a better magic item.
For rogue vs ninja, Losing evasion, no trap love, and being MAD are BIG downsides that might not be so obvious at first glance. Traps have a prominent place in APs and have difficulties that are scaled for rogues who max their perceptions. Evasion often saves you from being killed in an encounter, not by the fireball you failed a save against, but the next big hit that comes along. Evasion saves you from dying of attrition. Being MAD means you can't specialize as much as you might like to get that extra attribute bonus.
Basically I look at the ninja as a combat rogue variant. Good at fighting, not as good at treasure hunting. And if I ever hit 10+ levels in a ninja, you can bet I will be picking up Evasion. Karzoug taught me that much.
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That's when I got to checking out the message boards and saw that most folks who partake in organized play seem to be single-mindedly focussed on pure optimization.
You're missing a big point here. It's not the people who play PFS organized play are focused on optimization. It's that people on the message boards are focused on optimization. There are a ton of players out there who aren't playing optimized PCs.
Lots of people who play the game don't come to the message boards. And the percentage of optimizers who come to the message boards is going to be much, much higher than the percentage of the non-optimizers who come here. After all, discussing how to optimize your characters is a large part of the discussion here.
So don't let the optimization discussion around here scare you off, or make you think that you have to play an uber-optimized PC. You should make a character who has something to contribute to the table, but that doesn't mean you have to be a combat monster.
For instance, people in this thread keep going on and on about rogues and ninjas being useless, yet I see them all the time in PFS. I play a rogue (mostly - he's got a 1 level dip in a weird bard archetype for a specific reason), and I'm currently looking at making a ninja. Rogues and ninjas aren't likely to do as much damage as a strength heavy power attacking barbarian with a two handed weapon, but that doesn't mean they aren't contributing. If the rogue/ninja does 75% as much damage as the barbarian, that's still a lot of damage to the bad guys, and the rogue/ninja will have more fun stuff to do outside of combat.