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I picture the alchemist reaching for a fragile vial of fluid, crushing it in his hand and engulfing the hand in flames, noxious fumes, or whatever.
Probably let it apply for a number of rounds (equal to INT mod?) to allow for the difference in difficulty between hitting touch AC and regular AC and not hitting a splash area.
You could make him like, an anti-equipment specialist, whose acid solutions give him the ability to lower armor or natural based AC bonuses, bypass hardness on Sunder attempts, things like that. Kind of a melee debuffer.
You could make him like, an anti-equipment specialist, whose acid solutions give him the ability to lower armor or natural based AC bonuses, bypass hardness on Sunder attempts, things like that. Kind of a melee debuffer.I picture the alchemist reaching for a fragile vial of fluid, crushing it in his hand and engulfing the hand in flames, noxious fumes, or whatever.
Probably let it apply for a number of rounds (equal to INT mod?) to allow for the difference in difficulty between hitting touch AC and regular AC and not hitting a splash area.
Now that could be really cool, especially if you could start doing things like tossing on status ailments and such as well.
I'm without net for a week and the thread grows like eight pages. That was a lot to read. Relevant points:
1. Iron Pallisade. That is bad. How about: Iron Wall, Iron Fortress, Steel Fortress, Fortress of Steel, Iron Mountain, Adamantine Fortress, Steel Mountain, Adamantine Mountain, Mithral Mountain, Stronghold of Steel. That is just off the top of my head. I really like Stronghold of Steel.
2. When the archetype talk started flying my first thought was that just being a paladin with Scarlet Throne or Golden Lion wouldn't cut it. You can already use the feats to do that. Now the idea of having their class abilities interact with their maneuvers, now that I can get behind, Yuenglings ideas specially. I'll see what I can dream up.
3. Weren't there supposed to be 13 styles? I'm only getting ten. Did I miss something? Again?
4. Didn't get to play much, with most of my group doing college and tests, but I did play a lot with char building and the martial training feat tree. I will expand on that tomorrow when I have more time and less insomnia induced crazyness.
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So I was reading an NPR article about the US government shutdown. An expert on negotiations said that (paraphrasing) in a game of chicken, the person that can take the steering wheel off and throw it out the window will win.
I want an archetype that throws the steering wheel out the window. Someone that wins because he's flat out crazier than the other guy. I mean ( to steal a line from Se7en) sitting around reading Guns & Ammo masturbating in your own feces crazy.
Major updates to the Warlord BETA.
-X
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I'm still reading but I think you may have swung too far the other way on Gambits. A free crit just for passing an acrobatics check? I foresee a high dex warlord with a light pick or scythe in your future.
The reward was supposed to be that you got maneuvers and still did something to the bad guys instead of everyone else who sits on their arse to get maneuvers back.
I'm still reading but I think you may have swung too far the other way on Gambits. A free crit just for passing an acrobatics check? I foresee a high dex warlord with a light pick or scythe in your future.
The reward was supposed to be that you got maneuvers and still did something to the bad guys instead of everyone else who sits on their arse to get maneuvers back.
I'm going back on THAT particular one, but it has 2 rolls, takes a move and a standard, meaning 2 chances to fail, it should get a bigger reward. I'm changing the wording to mean what I wanted; double damage, or increase the multiplier on by 1 if you crit on that attack.
To break it down for you, lemme repost what I posted on Giant in the Playground:
Stalkers spend a point of Ki and pause their murder spree for a moment to catch their breath as a full round to gain their Wisdom mod in maneuvers back or spend a standard to contemplate how they're going to kill you to regain 1 maneuver.. This does not make them Bad at Their Job (as a Knives would say). As we speak I'm working on the final touches to a stalker update.
Warders can, as a full round, continue to be freakin' amazing at that job with Defensive Focus to regain their Int mod in maneuvers, or they can spend a standard and still continue to do their job as they have extended defense, aegis, and counters. They are Good at Their Job.
Warlords previously, well, were okay at their job. They could standard action a maneuver back (as Craft has gone on about at length, go back in the history to reread points brought up), or run the risk to get their Charisma mod in maneuvers back or be punished for it; no one else gets punished, they just get stuff and heck, warders are awesome sauce for it to boot. After much deliberation, as it was Cool In Theory, it made them Bad at Their Job. They'd either be useless to recover 1 maneuver, OR they'd run the risk of being punished for being cool and get nothing for their trouble to boot. The rest of their class features just lacked a lust of Charisma-needs, which to a class that's supposed to value Charisma as much as Strength, it was again being Bad at Its Job.
So, thus, you get what you have here.
-X
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Yeah, that's all very reasonable but you've still made the Warlord rather more powerful and allowed a bunch of abuse back into the Gambit system. Let's ignore the Acrobatic Gambit and assume it gets replaced by double normal weapon damage (like Vital Strike) instead. Let's talk about something else.
Meet Wally the Warlord. He has a Falcion and keen or Improved Crit. He has Sundering Strike. Whenever he crits, about one of every three rolls, he gets to Sunder. So when he crits, he says he's using the Gambit, the way I read it, he gets a bonus on the confirmation roll equal to his Cha modifier and if the confirmation roll beats CMD he sunders and ignores hardness equal to cha modifier. And he's doing this all without having to do anything special, just killing folks like normal.
Same goes for all the [Insert Combat Maneuver here] Strike feats.
Hell, man. The Rewards are hige for these and as we've already established, most of them are virtually auto-successes for a full BAB PC with the right feats. That was fine when they were just a way of getting maneuver's back but now they have an even higher chance of success and substantial bonuses.
If you really like them where they are then some other things need to change. Dropping Battle Prowess would bea good first step to rebalancing.
The gambit rolls have only changed minimally; you get a bonus on them now, yes, but many of them you still need to pay either feats or maneuvers for better usage or to prevent provoking an attack of opportunity. So that alone is price you pay to use the gambits more effectively.
But over all, the basic gambit system itself hasn't changed, it's just that penalties no longer outweigh the reward. Now I'll tone down some of the rewards, because they are pretty good. Might be too good; might eclipse what bards can accomplish and that's a Bad Thing.
Using your example, Wally has invested 3 feats, or 4 if he has improved critical, plus he's chosen one of his limited known gambits and if he goes for use of a maneuver that allows for sundering, there's another investment. At this point, he's invested a lot of limited resources to be particularly crafty at performing this ONE gambit. ONCE per encounter.
I don't see a problem with this. At all. He's paid in full for the benefits. Do you see what I mean?
-X
New update to the warlord, but the dang thing isn't working right on the forum. I've included a link to my google drive on the OP.
-X
Yeah, that's all very reasonable but you've still made the Warlord rather more powerful and allowed a bunch of abuse back into the Gambit system. Let's ignore the Acrobatic Gambit and assume it gets replaced by double normal weapon damage (like Vital Strike) instead. Let's talk about something else.
Meet Wally the Warlord. He has a Falcion and keen or Improved Crit. He has Sundering Strike. Whenever he crits, about one of every three rolls, he gets to Sunder. So when he crits, he says he's using the Gambit, the way I read it, he gets a bonus on the confirmation roll equal to his Cha modifier and if the confirmation roll beats CMD he sunders and ignores hardness equal to cha modifier. And he's doing this all without having to do anything special, just killing folks like normal.
Same goes for all the [Insert Combat Maneuver here] Strike feats.
Hell, man. The Rewards are hige for these and as we've already established, most of them are virtually auto-successes for a full BAB PC with the right feats. That was fine when they were just a way of getting maneuver's back but now they have an even higher chance of success and substantial bonuses.
If you really like them where they are then some other things need to change. Dropping Battle Prowess would bea good first step to rebalancing.
I'm really going to have to straight-up disagree with the sentiment here. As they stand, combat maneuvers like Sunder and Trip are about as close to straight-up useless in Pathfinder as it's possible to get, given how CMD scales in a way that CMB just doesn't. Quite aside from the fact that this specific example (Sunder) commits the sin of Breaking The Loot and frankly just shouldn't exist on either end of the table (and curse WotC for inventing it too), the others require significant investment of irreplacable resources to then proceed to do almost nothing ever.
If Gambits and/or maneuvers cause those feats to suddenly do something, I'm not going to complain about it. Part of my personal goals is to make these classes similar to the ToB classes in this sense: if you pick an option that sounds cool for your character, it will be. Do you wanna TWF bastard swords on your Stalker? Sure, go for it. Thrashing Dragon will pick up the slack your wasted feats left.
I didn't fill Pathfinder with trap options for melee and I'm not going to start doing so just because its first-party designers did.
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I'm just going to step in and say this-
Prince, coming at design from the perspective of "I'm going to do this so much better than the guys who created the framework I'm working with because I can see everything they did wrong and can do it better" is a nice sense of confidence to take into a project, but sometimes you make me really worried about the direction you're pushing the project. You tend to present a lot of commonly held but inaccurate concepts of the flaws in the game system as solid design philosophy and then push from there.
For example, Trip and Sunder are not wasted abilities, they're highly situational abilities that utilize a very limited resource. If you're running a campaign where you largely fight dwarves, giants, and dragons, then yeah, Trip is useless and Sunder will be of sporadic viability. If you're running a campaign or module with a focus on melee combat and humanoids as your primary antagonists though, they are actually very potent abilities (run The Ruby Phoenix Tournament sometime, where maneuvers win or lose fights). A martial character without Broken Blade or IUS will find themselves annihilated by a simple Disarm from a character who's decided to specialize in that, and Trip likewise, can effectively end a combat when used successfully in the right situation.
Dreamscarred has always been very careful to build within the context of the system Paizo has created, remaining respectful and mindful of the choices and mechanics they utilize. Chris likewise has portrayed this respect and awareness in the material he has presented.
Since you've come on to this project I've seen both a marked lack of respect from you for the creators of the game you're adding to and a steady upward trend in the power of the mechanics being rolled out. One of those is a very bad thing, and the other one is a risky thing.
Book of Nine Swords is treated with such mixed regard by players because it came in and just straight up invalidated whole swaths of material. The designers knew they were rolling out a new addition and wanted to try other things, and didn't take much care about what the new material did to the old, because the old was passing. This is not the situation you are bringing Path of War into. PoW is coming into a vibrant system with several years of viability left in it, whose designers have taken great care to monitor the elements that do and do not make it in to the system, and to try and narrow the gaps that existed previously. The idea of "Fighters suck, so I'm going to make a class that's way cooler" is something you should be careful with.
3PP material has a fairly widespread reputation (sometimes earned, often not) for containing game-breaking or unbalanced material. This is the primary reason it only covers such a narrow percentage of the people who play, despite often having cool or thematically appropriate material that the core system does not. The 3PP who are best known and most successful are people who respect the system they're coming into and work within it's accepted boundaries, usually in creative and unusual ways. Jeremy and Andreas have been so successful with their Psionic material in part because they have been so meticulous in the balance and development of everything they've put out. Please, please follow their example and respect the system that you are working with, and be aware of the full impact your choices in mechanics make.
I'm not saying that I disagree with the updates to the Warlord (I haven't been able to completely run them through full playtesting yet) but I do know that Yuengling Dragon is meticulous in his testing and if he raises a concern it is worth listening to. The Warlord was a well-balanced and combat capable class prior to the upgrade, capable of doing large and consistent damage with the same improved mobility that initiator classes in general are capable of. He, like the Warder, dealt this damage in a kind of wave-pattern that had him spiking higher than most other martial classes, but which balanced over the course of several rounds of play because of that wave-pattern. I do see that with these changes that wave pattern has shifted, just a bit, towards a straight line.
I also disagree with something you said Chris. You stated that the Warlord wasn't doing his job in rounds where he wasn't utilizing his maneuvers because of the Gambit system. You pointed out the Warder as still fulfilling his role with Defensive Focus et al.
If the Warders role is to defend, doesn't that mean the Warlord's job is to lead? Did Warleader stop working when the Warlord was performing a Gambit? Does activating a Swift action boost, moving into position, and spending a standard action to recover the strike you're going to use to finish off the BBEG next round really qualify as useless or bad at your job? Especially since you could be granting Teamwork feats to all of your allies at the same time? Because if so, half the existing material is useless because in many cases it's as much or more than they could do in the same timeframe, and if you're regaining a maneuver that means you've already let loose with some pretty potent stuff already this combat.
Just be careful and be aware guys. If a class is just plain better at multiple things than a variety of other classes, not because of system mastery or skill but just because during design there was no care taken to respect and acknowledge the framework the class was being introduced to, than a lot of GM's, including myself, aren't going to let it come to the table, or they're going to put it in the "One-offs where we all try to find something really OP and go play golf with Balor balls" folder. Which is okay, but Dreamscarred right now sits on the same shelf as all my Paizo stuff, and has the same trust as Paizo, where when a player says "I want to play X from DS" it gets a free pass and gets to sit right between the Fighter and the Wizard without a second thought. I want all of Dreamscarred's products to be able to have that pass, and be just a normal part of whatever campaign we happen to be playing.
Thanks.
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The Warlord wasn't doing his job as well as he could have been; I've since toned down some of the gambit rewards to make them more reasonable (I would always rather write them too strong then tone it back than the other way, it's easier for me to do so that way). The previous system was good; but it left too much in the risk department and too little in the reward department. This way; there is an actual reward beyond breaking even (which stalker and warder do perfectly well, as they recover their maneuvers and that's all with zero risk) and get a bonus they can share with their allies (boosting allies being what a warlord is good for).
Now if the rewards are too strong still, I'm happy to discuss what we can do with them. The old system of individual rakes I think was doing more harm then good; it works, yes, and worked just fine, but if you got raked you'd be unhappy because your character is sucking for rounds on a bad d20 roll. Now, if you rolled poorly and got raked, you still suck a penalty, but it's not this awful thing. If you succeeded before, yay maneuvers. If you succeed now, yay maneuvers and "hey everyone, check out how awesome I am!" and bam, party benefits for a round. Considering that you're not going to run a gambit every turn or so, due to limited numbers of gambits known and being only able to run a gambit once, you're only getting it a few times in any given combat at most. Please tell me if there is a concern about this; you guys know me to have an open door policy on this. I want to make a product that we are all proud of, not something that needs to be house ruled or banned on entry.
That being said, I will say that I am trying to keep in line with Dreamscarred Press' reputation for excellence and fair, balanced classes. I'm largely with you on this Ssalarn; I think that abilities like Sunder and Trip have an excellent precedence and definitely have a place. I like those abilities and I like seeing new ways to get them used because of the heavy feat investment that sometimes goes into being good at those abilities. The changes to Warlord were largely done because of a failure in the class' design was brought my attention by another poster on GitP (user Craft(Cheese) to be exact); I had no justifiable response to his statements towards gambits and how Charisma could easily be a dump stat for the class. So, I went back to the keyboard and made some changes.
Yuengling Dragon had concerns, I immediately went and revisited my changes and made some alterations to tone some stuff down. I definitely want to know how you all feel about it.
-X
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I do like the shift to making Charisma more of a primary stat; it really was optional previously (As a quick note, it looks like the description for Gambits still references Rakes). On small notes, I think Unbreakable Gambit is going to be pretty potent at low levels (it's like a free CLW every time you make a Fort or Will save), and it kind of breaks away from the team oriented theme of the other rewards; meanwhile, Deadeye Gambit doesn't really make sense, it feels like you were maybe stretching a bit to find something you hadn't used to fill in there. What would you think about applying the Deadeye reward to Unbreakable and then having Deadeye impose like a movement penalty on the target equal to 5xCHA mod? That's just a thought.
Rascal's Gambit doesn't work very well. Feints are standard actions, or move actions with Improved Feint. Combat Maneuver's are very focused as it is, and Feint is one of those ones that you either go all in on with a very specific build or don't bother with. Either way the Warlord probably won't ever gain the advantage of his own Gambit without burning a couple feats, and if the enemy happens to be next up in initiative (or at least moves before any other attacking party members) the Gambit is literally worthless. Maybe either extend that penalty for a number of attacks equal to CHA modifier or a number of rounds equal to 1/2 CHA mod?
Force of Personality- the bit that states "If the character is ever able to add his Charisma modifier to his Will save through use of another ability(for example. the paladin's divine grace) he may only add his Charisma modifier once to his Will save." is really clunky. You could probably get away with "This does not stack with other effects that add your CHA mod to your Will save".
With the bonuses the Warlord is getting from his Gambits and the tweaks to various other abilities, Battle Prowess seems not entirely worthwhile anymore. You've got a class ability spread out all the way up to 19th level for a total bonus of +3....
Remember that conversation about an ability that would allow the Warlord to "share" his Boosts and Counters? I'm thinking at this point you could almost drop Battle Prowess altogether and slide that ability in to fill up the new empty space up at level 19. I still think the ability is too powerful to introduce earlier given the other strengths of the Warlord, but it isn't going to be breaking anything at level 19, makes sense as a power at that level (you know, he's literally overflowing with martial prowess), and just closes the door on whether or not Martial Prowess is even an appropriate ability for the class in the first place (I still say it was a good idea, but in the current execution...)
Final Alpha of the Stalker is available. Bunch of new feats as well in the feat section. Check the OP!
Mostly what I'm looking for here is streamlining and going over the disciplines again with a fine toothed comb and for people to check over the new feats.
-X
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Final Alpha of the Stalker is available. Bunch of new feats as well in the feat section. Check the OP!
Mostly what I'm looking for here is streamlining and going over the disciplines again with a fine toothed comb and for people to check over the new feats.
-X
Hey Chris, I elaborated a bit on my first review of the "new" Warlord above, just in case you would have missed it.
Looking forward to checking out this run of the Stalker!
Maybe allow for his boosts to help all allies within 30ft?
I.e. the warlord initiates a boost and those allies gain all of the mechanical benefits of it as if they initiated the boost?
-X
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Maybe allow for his boosts to help all allies within 30ft?
I.e. the warlord initiates a boost and those allies gain all of the mechanical benefits of it as if they initiated the boost?
-X
That oughta do it, yeah. Do you think you should throw anything in there so that the ability also affects boosts that already would have been shared? So like-
"Legendary Leader- When the Warlord activates a Boost with a range of Personal, that Boost also affects all allies within 30 feet. If the Boost already affects allies within a certain radius, double that range (e.g. Encouraging Roar normally affects all allies within 30 ft; a Warlord with the Legendary Leader ability extends this effect to all allies within 60 feet instead)."|
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I'm at a conference in Denver and I left my laptops charging cable a few thousand miles away in Maryland so I may not be able to provide feedback on the new changes for a bit. I'll see how much charge in left in the battery this evening. Hopefully enough to get the new PDFs and move them to my phone.
But I want to state for the record that Ssalarn is awesome and the things he says are straight up gospel.
If people who are interested would, could you all go over the stalker one last time to let me know if you see anything in that needs addressing? Moving this beta!
-X
I looked over my test notes and the only thing I'd like clarification on is if I need to be in contact with an enemy to begin Eclipsing Moon or if I can forgo an attack to teleport and then take the rest of my attacks.
I clarified it in the new version... which I sent to Jeremy. For formatting. For a beta release. I've seen the covert art already and it's going to be awesome!
-X
Okay, status of things:
Warlord: In beta testing, working on archetypes on the side, new discipline work being laid out
Stalker: In beta release, on hold for further updates, working on archetypes on the side
Warder: In alpha testing, the base class itself seems pretty rock solid (no one has told me otherwise), working on its current disciplines and sect archetypes and codes (fluff and mechanics) with Prince of Knives, and writing up expansion disciplines for mystical warder sects
Base Class / Psionic Class Support: Drafting out archetype concepts and picking concepts from suggestions from the boards, for the martial disciples, psionic classes, and for the core Pathfinder classes.
Feats: Working on these as they come to me
Items and Monsters: On hold for now
Prestige Classes: Drafted a few ideas, but mostly on hold for now.
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Just wanted to give you all an update!
-X
Thanks! Looking forward to beta!!
Dangit. :P
I am fail.
-X
If you're quick you should still have time to edit! ;)
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This looks absolutely wonderful. Going to be taking the time to break the living crap out of Warlord soon.
So, I know the DSP website for some reason is hating my ability to post a new version of the Warlord as an attachment, but can everyone get it from my Google drive location? Assuming so, because no one has gotten angry...
Also: I made changes to the gambits to reduce their bonuses and such. I just want to make sure that people feel happy with the Warlord as it stands so I can push it to beta release, because frankly I'm happy with it.
-X
I haven't seen a Drive link anywhere, can you post it or at least PM it?
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I haven't seen a Drive link anywhere, can you post it or at least PM it?
Also looking to see if people are happy with just the base class of warder. Not asking about the sects, those are still going through testing and review, as well as writing on their codes. Iron Palisade is going back to Iron Tortoise, thus winning the Turtle/Blockade-of-some-kind War. A few tweeks here and there with maneuvers have been done, but overall its the same document.
If people agree, then I can push both the warlord and warder to Jeremy for formatting for beta releases.
-X
Archetypes are being held back so we can get those good enough for beta release, but expect to see them in alpha again real soon! Especially archetypes for all sorts of classes!
-X
Huh, just looked through everything for the first time. Lots to take in, but lots of cool stuff. Are we allowed to make commentary and critique about what we see about things on the paizo site or speak up about any worries?
Huh, just looked through everything for the first time. Lots to take in, but lots of cool stuff. Are we allowed to make commentary and critique about what we see about things on the paizo site or speak up about any worries?
Feel free. I check multiple forums over it.
-X
Huh, just looked through everything for the first time. Lots to take in, but lots of cool stuff. Are we allowed to make commentary and critique about what we see about things on the paizo site or speak up about any worries?Feel free. I check multiple forums over it.
I'd hate to intrude dontcha' know. Especially after I missed 800+ pages...
Anyways, I was reading over the stalker alpha and there are a few things that I thought were offputting. I just made a quick skim over the class because its late where I am, so I might be a bit off. I was horrified while writing this monster of a text block I might accidentally delete it or it might be devoured by a forum monster. My gosh I'm glad I and it survived.
Deadly strikes itself look situational, and if its cued off by a critical hit that means your asking for crit fishers. This is a bit off putting because your actively pushing people towards a single fighting style, and there's a good chance that once you do crit your foe is going to drop pretty quickly so you may not see much of a benefit from it. You also tend to open up with a maneuver if your moving in, which gives you at best 1/4ish chance of actually getting your deadly strikes moving. If you actually do full attack them your using 3/4 BAB and if your TWF for crit fishing you may not hit because that to hit is going to be pretty awful. I'd also hope a guy you crit is dead or close to it! Are there alternative ways to start using deadly stirkes that I missed?
It also has a x/day design, which is weird for a martial adept. Martial Adepts in 3.5 could go all day fighting and fighting and smacking things. This guy not only has ki points, but also has double strikes. One of the big draws of Martial Adepts I thought was their lack of an x/day design. In 3.5 the Martial Adepts only had a total of 2 x/day related skills between the three of them. Crusader's could smite 2/day and swordsages got one as a level 20 ability, and they definitely didn't rely on them to function. Its a bit of a worry that this class might actually require one of those x/day to function.
Proficiency; This is all in line with paizo/DSP stuff I've seen so far, so not a big deal but its something that I saw and wanted to make some commentary on.
They have simple/martial and light armor and no shields. That's actually pretty weak. They have no synergy with light armor at the moment, and they're a little MAD with the wisdom needs and they won't have a sky high wisdom. This is helped by their dodge, so I think it'll get better over time but I'm not sure how well. At the start they look pretty squishy, and there isn't anything to keep me from getting in full plate is there? Breastplate in pathfinder is also ridiculously easy to wear because you can reduce the ACP to 0, so not giving people medium just ends up being one thing they can walk right over with a trait or armor quality. Edit: Double checked the end results of a swordsage with their light armor, you end up around the same place if you end with 20 wisdom as a swordsage in a chainshirt. +5 for both of them, though the stalker starts out a little lower and could get 2 more by wearing a breastplate.
The simple/martial weapon thing is a bit weird because they look like they're pointed to being crit fishers, but they don't have access to wakazashi. Are they expected to be kukri fishers? Or are they expected to wield a Nodachi/Falchion? I don't see them going the kukri road because their to hit is pretty bleh at a glance. So its not a huge deal, just not sure if that's what's wanted. What sort of weapon are they ideally going to use? The ninja and samurai both give proficiency with exotic weapons from the start, so I wouldn't think it would be too much to add ideal weapons to the stalker's choices.
The text in a few places looks like it repeats itself, such as with the AC bonus when recovering is mentioned at least twice. The actual recovery looks a bit weirdly worded because it looks like you can't use a skill you recover.
Last thing, think it would be overpowered if someone changed the attached mental stat to a Path of War class? I would think no, but I was curious what you thought.
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Hey Sin,
So on the note of the Stalker being a crit fisher....
There are some builds where that's definitely the case, but the class can also focus on triggering Deadly Strike through k expenditure, and benefits from low range high multiplier crit weapons as well. Crit range and multiplier definitely play a role in the class, but that was intentional and the scaling damage dice (1d6 for x2, 1d8 for x3, 1d10 for x4) actually help shift the focus of the class to be able to accomodate a wide range of weapons and basically break even regardless. A dual kukri wielding stalker is probably going to be able to utilize Deadly Strikes with lower ki expenditure, but there are definitely reasons to play a Stalker who uses a scythe, or a battleaxe, or a pick or a longbow, or a crossbow, or what have you.
While he does go off a limited resource with his ki pool, his maneuvers still refresh every combat, and he can spend a round forgoing his attack to regain a maneuver, so even with a limited resource to draw on he'll never be entirely without access to his maneuvers.
There are some builds where that's definitely the case, but the class can also focus on triggering Deadly Strike through k expenditure, and benefits from low range high multiplier crit weapons as well. Crit range and multiplier definitely play a role in the class, but that was intentional and the scaling damage dice (1d6 for x2, 1d8 for x3, 1d10 for x4) actually help shift the focus of the class to be able to accomodate a wide range of weapons and basically break even regardless. A dual kukri wielding stalker is probably going to be able to utilize Deadly Strikes with lower ki expenditure, but there are definitely reasons to play a Stalker who uses a scythe, or a battleaxe, or a pick or a longbow, or a crossbow, or what have you.
I thought I'd read over something, it was 2 AM when I wrote that monster of text dontcha' know. Good to see he can activate deadly strke through other means. Reread the ki pool feature now. Speaking of which! The ki pool says that you extend the duration of deadly strike by one round, just like deadly strikes already tells you it does.
Why exactly would he use a low range, high multiplier weapon? Even if the damage scales, you'll still likely kill them on that turn or the next. x4 damage is painful and tend to be overkill, and that's one of the reasons why wide crit range weapons are preferred(also they work better with abilities that proc off crits, such as critical feats). I think just makes it a little less not appealing, if that makes sense. I think for minmaxing the class will be handed a nodachi. Edit: Deadly ambush looks like it helps this out more too actually.
My biggest concern though is definitely its to hit. Did I miss something with that? It looked like he was a 3/4 BAB class with no bonuses to hit. If you put him next to paizo classes, there's only one other martial with no bonus to his to hit, the rogue. 3/4 BAB works great for a gish, but not so hot for martials. It can be helped greatly with buffs though.
While he does go off a limited resource with his ki pool, his maneuvers still refresh every combat, and he can spend a round forgoing his attack to regain a maneuver, so even with a limited resource to draw on he'll never be entirely without access to his maneuvers.
I know he'll still have maneuvers, but I was just noting that its a bit wierd for a martial adept to use an x/day mechanic. And its attached to his abilities such as deadly strikes, so he looks a little hungry to me. At lower levels I don't see him using deadly strikes very often because he'll quickly eat through his ki pool and he won't have access to keen quality. Ki has a lot of uses!
Feel bad for not saying anything nice last time btw. I do think the class is neat and I love martial adepts. ToB was by far my favorite splat from 3.5. Just expressing my concerns because I'm worried as to how successful it will be. Both in flavor and a lot of the mechanics I do like, or at least think add to it.
We heavily encouraged the rewarding of using those low-range, high-multipler weapons because due to the fact that almost every other class makes optimal use of the wide-range, low-multiplier weapons the former tend to be very underused. I personally wanted a class that made swinging an axe, hammer, or scythe more rewarding, and several other posters agreed.
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Stalker is extremely powerful. The biggest reason to go with a big crit low range weapon like a scythe is if you plan on utilizing your Ki pool primarily for damage. A Scythe does d10's, a kukri does d6's. While the kukri will trigger for free more often, the scythe is going to give you a lot more oomph when you intentionally trigger the ability, and it still lasts for rounds = WIS when triggered via ki point. You can get a big boost of damage exactly when you need it with a high multiplier weapon, or you can pull off more freebie instances of somewhat lower damage boosts with a high range weapon.
His to-hit bonuses come into play in a lot of non-obvious ways. One of the big ones is having incredibly high mobility and the ability to stack tons of damage on to standard actions. During playtesting with the class, it was extremely rare to encounter an instance where the Stalker wasn't set up for a flank. He works in practice how the monk should work in theory, and a 3/4 BAB is very much in line with his capabilities.
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We heavily encouraged the rewarding of using those low-range, high-multipler weapons because due to the fact that almost every other class makes optimal use of the wide-range, low-multiplier weapons the former tend to be very underused. I personally wanted a class that made swinging an axe, hammer, or scythe more rewarding, and several other posters agreed.
And one poster *cough, cough* provided the mechanic for damage progression that ended up being what we now have.....
:)
That was one of the most awesome instances of this thread helping institute a great mechanic into the product, and I'm super proud of what Orthos, Yuengling, and myself all contributed to make Deadly Strike more viable for high multiplier low range crit weapons.
We heavily encouraged the rewarding of using those low-range, high-multipler weapons because due to the fact that almost every other class makes optimal use of the wide-range, low-multiplier weapons the former tend to be very underused. I personally wanted a class that made swinging an axe, hammer, or scythe more rewarding, and several other posters agreed.
I actually like axes and scythes thematically more than swords. Just not sure if its rewarding enough. Still happy that they aren't entirely unrewarded. In my own games I just end up allowing reskinning so people can use what they want and use the stats they want.
Stalker is extremely powerful. The biggest reason to go with a big crit low range weapon like a scythe is if you plan on utilizing your Ki pool primarily for damage. A Scythe does d10's, a kukri does d6's. While the kukri will trigger for free more often, the scythe is going to give you a lot more oomph when you intentionally trigger the ability, and it still lasts for rounds = WIS when triggered via ki point. You can get a big boost of damage exactly when you need it with a high multiplier weapon, or you can pull off more freebie instances of somewhat lower damage boosts with a high range weapon.
That makes more sense, though its a little swingy. Makes a lot more sense from the view that you can set it up whenever you want.
His to-hit bonuses come into play in a lot of non-obvious ways. One of the big ones is having incredibly high mobility and the ability to stack tons of damage on to standard actions. During playtesting with the class, it was extremely rare to encounter an instance where the Stalker wasn't set up for a flank. He works in practice how the monk should work in theory, and a 3/4 BAB is very much in line with his capabilities.
This one doesn't make sense. Flanking isn't a class feature, its something everyone and a commoner can do. Martial adepts have the advantage that they don't have to use full attacks so its easier for them to move into position, and the stalker has abilities that let him move quickly and without provoking so I can see him doing a good job with mobility(though again, devouring that ki pool). However its still not much to help his actual BAB, nor his to hit. Flanking is just a +2, and a situational one at that. Its also something every other martial has access to, including the monk and rogue who still aren't the most amazing in the world. Have something else? He's still behind his martial adept brothers and the sword sage.
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Go take a peak at Veiled Moon, which is a Stalker specific discipline. It has numerous maneuvers that target touch, ignore Armor, target flat footed, etc. Thrashing Dragon also includes abilities that do things like removing penalties for iterative attacks, attack with two weapons without taking TWF penalties, etc. He also picks up teleportation stances, which making flanking far more likely. The ability to easily move into flanking is a class feature (or more accurately the result of several) and makes a quantifiable difference.
This ability to negate common penalties and capitolize on positioning using teleportation, big boosts to Acrobatics and/or AC, incorporealness and other abilities, is in most instances, as good or better than full BAB. The class has altogether too much going for it between skills, supernatural abilties, damage capacity, etc. to justify also giving it full BAB.
He also gets access to bonus combat feats via Stalker Arts (up to 5) and the ability to apply two primary attribute bonuses to initiative, increasing his chances of making that first big strike against flat-footed.
We have playtested the class extensively and it works, and works incredibly well. The Stalker has the highest damage potential available between all 3 classes, and has the ability to deliver on that damage as consistently if not moreso than his counterparts.
We have playtested the class extensively and it works, and works incredibly well. The Stalker has the highest damage potential available between all 3 classes, and has the ability to deliver on that damage as consistently if not moreso than his counterparts.
I'll trust you. I haven't gotten a chance to look through the list of disciplines or maneuvers yet. All I've got is a little theory crafting in my head atm. I like reliable over chance though.
How do the ki points work out in your usual adventuring day?
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We have playtested the class extensively and it works, and works incredibly well. The Stalker has the highest damage potential available between all 3 classes, and has the ability to deliver on that damage as consistently if not moreso than his counterparts.I'll trust you. I haven't gotten a chance to look through the list of disciplines or maneuvers yet. All I've got is a little theory crafting in my head atm. I like reliable over chance though.
How do the ki points work out in your usual adventuring day?
Ki points are the class feature with the biggest variables in play. If you're running with high range crit weapons, you probably aren't having to spend them as often, so they end up getting used more to trigger arts or boost saves and you probably won't end up ever using all of them. If you go with the high multiplier weapons though, those d10's get really tempting and you see a bit of a dynamic shift towards going "nova" more often. That's where you find you need to play a little smarter and really decide what you want to do and when you want to do it, or you start burning through them like an inexperienced magus burns through spells, and you might find they run out pretty quick. Still, having your base allotment of maneuvers to fall back on each combat helps dull the sting of that blow a bit. When you nova with the Stalker, you tend to go way above par while ki points are available, and then fall back to par or just a bit under when they burn out. The baseline for the stalker is very high, so he's comparable to the magus, but doesn't crash as hard when he's expended his limited resource.
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Here's the thing about the game design. Full BAB pretty much guarantees a hit against everybody. My Warder and Warlord hit nearly all enemies on a 2-5 or better. 3/4 BAB is not significantly worse. It's designed to hit normal AC most of the time. So like a 7 or an 8 on the die. And with abilities that allow me to hit touch or flatfooted, it just gets better. The Stalker is firmly in Tier 3 territory.
I can certainly understand not wanting to dig through all the pages here to find the posted playtest data so I'll post my first arena stuff here.
OK, so the first YuenglingDragon Arena of Doom has finished. The Arena style fights I did during UM and UC playtesting were fun and, I hope, informative. I've refined that process a bit and here's what I did.
A level 5 Stalker and a level 5 Magus each have 4 fights to represent a fairly normal adventuring day. Between fights they have access to a cleric that can do some level appropriate healing plus any other items or potions that they want to use. Both contestants used the same stats with only Int and Wis being swapped and only one dump stat allowed and only to 8 (Cha in both cases). They have level appropriate wealth. Neither were heavily optimized but system mastery with a heavy dose of fun was shown.
The Magus was an Aldori dueling sword user because I like the extra defense and initiative it provides and being able to power attack two handed on a spell strike is swanky down the line, though not quite at this level. The Stalker used two kukri and had a mix of Crescent Moon and Thrashing Dragon maneuvers. Both had a highly respectable AC of 23 in the end. The Magus had slightly better overall saves but the Stalker will soon be able to use a ki point to shore up his fort or will as needed.
The two contestants would face:
CR3: 1 randomized monster (Gutslug)
CR4: d6 randomized NPC's (2 Veteran Buccaneer's) [If I ever write taht b-word again it will be too soon]
CR4: d6 randomized monsters (2 Kijimuna)
CR5: 1 randomized NPC (Forest Guardian)
The Magus pretty much crushed everything in his path until he came to the Forest Guardian. This loss was more due to bad luck than anything else. The Guardian just kept rolling high on his attacks and getting past two mirror images. He had such tremendous burst damage from his piles of shocking grasps that he could quickly end fights without using too many resources, especially since Pearls of Power are so damn cheap.
The Stalker did pretty well, too. The [shudder, here's that word again] buccaneers were a pain because the Stalker doesn't quite have the level of burst damage that a Magus can put up. I screwed up and accidentally used the rules for Improved Uncanny Dodge here but the Stalker was so bloody hard to hit I don't think it mattered much. Highlight of the fight was the Blur effect from Formless Dance stopping what would have been a really nasty crit. The Kijimuna were a joke to both contestants and probably don't deserve their CR.
I think the last fight against the Forest Guardian was where the Stalker really got to shine. He was so flexible I realized I could basically keep the Guardian from every getting a full attack by staggering, tripping, disarming, and kiting with Fading Strike. It didn't hurt that I got a couple crits and was able to Deadly Strike the bejeesus out of him.
The stalker continued to keep up with the Magus in the level 10 trials but fell a bit behind in level 15. But not because he couldn't hit. His problem was the lack of flexibility that is inherent in a caster.