Those suggestions, such as the ability to grapple molecules, *are* increasing the super weight. They're super powers. You can say that you're just that badass and you didn't need to study magic to pick up that trick, but you're no longer Normal by the standard measure.
Those suggestions, such as the ability to grapple molecules, *are* increasing the super weight. They're super powers. You can say that you're just that badass and you didn't need to study magic to pick up that trick, but you're no longer Normal by the standard measure.
True, but an ability to pee tomato juice would also qualify as "no longer Normal," but not enhance your Super Weight. ("Evildoers of the world, beware! Vee-Eight Man is here to provide you with a nutritious breakfast!")
The issue is that, as the article acknowledges, a Badass Normal can still pose a challenge, or even defeat, a Sentient Cosmic Force. It therefore should not be necessary for a fighter to become a Sentient Cosmic Force (or a caster) in order to be a respectable opponent for one.
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Those suggestions, such as the ability to grapple molecules, *are* increasing the super weight. They're super powers. You can say that you're just that badass and you didn't need to study magic to pick up that trick, but you're no longer Normal by the standard measure.
Correct.
You're no longer normal.
You're a fantasy hero.
Which is, allegedly, what Pathfinder offers to let people play as, supposedly regardless of your choice of class.
Finally some action:
The doors exploded. The twenty foot tall double stone doors that led into Nerex’s sanctum shattered into a heavy and sharp rain of debris. Orusk laughed madly as he filled the gap where the doors had once stood his club swinging again. It smashed effortlessly through a number of misshapen undead near the entrance carving out a wide beachhead into the chamber.
Even as the sudden impact from the rain of stone shard subsided, a flock of gold winged birds flitted through the air. Each humming as it passed through the air to bury itself in the head of a horned demon or sever the neck of a looming scaled thing. Each golden axe returning to Lesha’s hand after finding flesh to wet their beaks.
For her own part Lesha moved with the intense rhythm of absolute focus. One hand fetching a halve of Morning Glory out of mid air, while the other poured a vial of some insidious substance over it before discarding the bottle. Finally, Morning Glory would be released with a flick of the wrist to find new prey, while the other hand temporarily called the other halve to heel. Once and again,each time nothing more than a blur of motion.
In stark contrast to the storm of activity around her, Evaly advanced into the breach with slow certain steps. Her greaves clashed with the floor at each step, driving her deeper into enemy territory. To her left Orusk, had adjusted his sweeping strikes to permit her to pass ever onward. To her right, Lesha angled her stream of thrown axes to flow around the space she occupied.
“Orusk, the big one in the middle next.”, She said with perfect clarity despite the raging battle. “Lesha, focus on the enemies with range.” She gestured her bladeless hilt at a group of robed figures near the back of the room. Vas knew that only fool would believe that Evaly’s hilt held no blade, but he could See what they did not and knew that her blade could be said to be literally at everyone’s throats.
Evaly raised her great aegis of ice, The Folly of Meriem, a gesture that made every enemy aware there would be no safe passage through the storm. “Worry not about answering The Thirteen, you will answer to me.” Her tone was calm. Her voice even and unraised. It was to her nothing more and nothing less than the truth, filled with the certainty that calm would follow storm. Like a physical weight her words bore down on the masses arrayed against her driving the weakest foes to fall, while the rest staggered from the blow.
As to his own task, Vas had once heard it said that the straightest point between two points is a straight line. That might be true in many cases. But in the heat of battle going in a staight line to your target was generally speaking a terrible idea. And so he slipped into the battle becoming just another part of the chaos. A blade slipping through the cracks in his enemies armor. Even as he moved unhindered and unseen through the turmoil of the battle, Vas never took his eyes off Nerex.
“Please kill them.” Nerex said dismissively as he raised a skull bearing rod in one hand and motioned with his other. Vas saw what was coming, a spell faster than normally possible spread out from Nerex’s hand. It stretched across the chamber and surrounded Orusk before it manifested into reality. Orusk was there for only a moment. The next there was nothing there. But Vas could still See as Nerex’s hand weaved another spell into existence.
This one stretched out farther, splitting and twisting as it unraveled outward. Then it swallowed the light around Vas and his party, snuffing it out like a candle’s flame. The darkness itself lashed out at them, worrying and tearing at their flesh. Vas was unconcerned, the fangs sank into places where he was nothing but an illusion. Being attacked by something unimaginable where he was only imagined. There was probably irony in that.
Nope to wuxia. The characters were using their skills to a mythical degree.Well, since you're the first person to actually raise a complaint about "too wuxia" on this thread, you're invited to expound upon what, exactly, you object to regarding the scenario posed and what, specifically, you consider over-the-top.
Firstly, I'm not complaining against "too wuxia", if anything I am "Pro-Wuxia/Anime/Celtic/Mythic". Because it seems like the only way to actually help non-casters.
As for what would count as over the top:
her blackmarket ties was able to get all needed magical items at 1/2 price.
No market would sell items at the cost it takes to create them. That's just ridiculous, and makes the whole point of selling goods for wealth.
Naturally, the rogue is able to bypass every trap, sensor, and guard.
Defeating the magical sensors would require a level of skill that enters mythical territory and is thus "too wuxia". Note: I still think this should be possible for rogues.
constructs a disguise for herself that can even trick lifesense and divinations.
Doing that would require supernatural skill since you're hiding your soul and tricking "The Universe" into thinking you don't exist. Thus, is too mythic and wuxia. Note: I still think this should be a rogue ability.
He is familiar with humans, knowing how they look, smell, sound, etc. and realizes something is off about this guy. He quickly then takes the scent of the clones, compares the two, and learns something invaluable: the wizard is really on another plane. This is just an astral projection.
There isn't really any reason for the wizard to even smell different from the clones aside from the fact that he'd be wearing clothes so it doesn't make sense to begin with... But regardless, the ranger now has long range scent so precise that he can smell planes, that's mythic, cool and fits the wilderness theme of ranger, but it's over the top and mythic. So, wuxia.
In his private demiplane surrounded by simulacra tarrasques and balors. After buying a few scrolls, they are ready to move.
Even guessing his own his private demiplane wouldn't give you the information to know what metal to use to get to that plane. If he can guess that, then it's over the top ridiculous and thus "wuxia".
They plane shift there, landing exactly where they wanted thanks to the rogue's incredible skill with magic items. Here, the brawler steps up, and starts throwing monsters left and right. She picks up a tarrasque simulacra and throws it into a bound greater fire elemental, melting the former into water that extinguishes the latter. With a swift series of kicks she is able to fell a pit fiend copy, leaving it too stunned to retaliate.
The ranger meanwhile has been slinging arrows left and right, breaking spells and melting sno-cone copies. He is able to shoot with such incredible timing that an arrow seems to puncture an enemy throat right before they cast a spell. The fighter meanwhile is able to slay enemies with a single swipe of his mighty blade. When he can't get to one, he glares so fiercely it breaks the enemy's loyalty, even if they have no free will, causing them to drop down, either dead or faking.
Note wuxia, but this wouldn't work simply because of the action economy. You'd be soooo covered in hundreds of SLA's while you're outnumbered, even if you had giant saves you're gonna roll a tonne of ones.
Wading througb, they get to the wizard and plane shift him back to the astral plane.
How are they even doing this?
Then they coup de grace the astral wizard
How are they doing this either? The wizard would be in the air, covered in buffs, and illusions.
binding it in chains that are unescapable by any means... for good measure they delicately remove the wizard's vocal cords.
Still silent spells. Done.
As for what would count as over the top:
her blackmarket ties was able to get all needed magical items at 1/2 price.No market would sell items at the cost it takes to create them. That's just ridiculous, and makes the whole point of selling goods for wealth.
Loss leader. Give her the goods at a good price and she'll steer lots of other customers your way. This isn't even fantastic, that's mundane. The local A&P does this on a weekly basis.
Naturally, the rogue is able to bypass every trap, sensor, and guard.Defeating the magical sensors would require a level of skill that enters mythical territory and is thus "too wuxia". Note: I still think this should be possible for rogues.
So, basically, you don't actually have any objections. Got it.
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huh the quote thing glitches
Anyway re: homuclous, no I'm not saying to beat a caster you need to be a caster, I'm reccomending that you be an engineer the master craftsman feat existsRe rogues: naw, the glory rogue gives them a pool of points akin to ki or grit and some other abilities
Ninjas get quite a bit of nice things from their ki, like invisibility and extra atacks and they're good at hiding and being able to make a steal combat maneuver as an iterative attack is pretty sweet, with those buffs a rogue might not even still be particularly strong but now they have some options, and they're better at social stuff
Re: casters, that's fine it was a really minor point, it's just something I do in my home games
Any opinion on bringing back some of the 2e stuff or giving bombs And the ability to build special ammo that does special things like explode or deliver poisons or alchemical consumables?
I'm trying to think of abilities for the brawler, probably booze related abilities
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I think Milo is presenting things that Milo feels the "too wuxia" crowd would have a problem with, not things Milo has a problem with.
We need to shanghai an actual "too wuxia" crowd member and interrogate them. With mundane items. Sorry for the sensitive term there.
Also, many of the suggestions here exist in 3PP works, but not so much in any Paizo works barring Mythic Adventures.
I'm merely a viewer here as I'm all for and love me some wushu/wuxia/fantastic elements where the game is fantastic, and almost never play casters, but I'd also like to see more discussion of elements of the non-fantastic for the extraordinary type game - which has no, or little magic, and definitely no wings (muscle-plumag'd or otherwise) on ragign barbarians.
Any opinion on bringing back some of the 2e stuff or giving bombs And the ability to build special ammo that does special things like explode or deliver poisons or alchemical consumables?
Yeah.... I don't think it would do much of anything. If a martial can hit the damn wizard in the first place, he's probably going down. Throwing a bomb at a projected image simply wastes the bomb, and ditto for alchemist's fire.
From a 30,000 foot viewpoint, the issues -- well, some of the issues -- are
* You can't get near the caster without being "made." High Stealth doesn't touch this problem, but in conjunction with immunity to divination might solve it.
* The caster has access to a potentially unbounded set of allies through some of the more unbalanced spells. Even dropping them at one per attack will not let you close enough to the caster to do anything; they must be bypassed.
* The caster has effective access to one-shot kills against any member of the group; some sort of magic resistance may mitigate this, but it needs to be considerably better than either SR or good saves.
* The caster has effective immunity to any negative effects due to not being there, contingent spells, and clones. Some method of dealing with these is necessary.
If you are in a position where a bullet would do anything at all to the wizard, that bullet is probably sufficient to handle him. More likely, it doesn't matter if you are firing bullets or orbital rods-from-God, as neither will have any effect.
And therein lies the challenge.
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It's weird, I have been playing since 81 and it wasn't until I discovered this site that I'd been wrong the whole time and my poor pathetic fighter had been useless the entire time.
Then you should have no problem describing a strategy for Team Martial. Post #1 lists the constraints.
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team martial can use any pathfinder rule?
All the martial took variant multiclassing: wizard foresight subschool, so they all have a ridiculous bonus to initiative and can always act in surprise round [pathfinder unchained] and the wizard discovery at level 15 [True Name] to have an extra planar buddy and they all throw their 12 hd outsiders with spells abilities to deal with it.
With each of them bringing an outsider that can do something needed for the mission, such as imprison the soul to prevent Resurrection, someone that can dispel spells/destroy wards, an outsider that can buff all of them etc...
team martial can use any pathfinder rule?
All the martial took variant multiclassing: wizard foresight subschool, so they all have a ridiculous bonus to initiative and can always act in surprise round [pathfinder unchained] and the wizard discovery at level 15 [True Name] to have an extra planar buddy and they all throw their 12 hd outsiders with spells abilities to deal with it.
With each of them bringing an outsider that can do something needed for the mission, such as imprison the soul to prevent Resurrection, someone that can dispel spells/destroy wards, an outsider that can buff all of them etc...
@Eltaco - Team Martial can make use of any rule you invent that doesn't break the central conceit that it can't be "too anime/wuxia" as defined by hypothetical anime/wuxia haters.
Try to invent cool (Ex) abilities that aren't spell-like, and in theme with Team Martial. But please, no raging wings... Though races with wings certainly help.
You may have misread, Elta—Team Martial can't use any Pathfinder rules. I suggest you double-check the first post, or example some of the posts by people who have undertaken the challenge.
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Then you should have no problem describing a strategy for Team Martial. Post #1 lists the constraints.It's weird, I have been playing since 81 and it wasn't until I discovered this site that I'd been wrong the whole time and my poor pathetic fighter had been useless the entire time.
I will be the first to admit my story telling prowess is sub op, especially compared to those awesome stories by Anzyr, Kirth and that pesky kobold 8>)...But if i get inspired I will give it a whirl.
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To use clearer terminology than "wuxia", we're meant here to invent abilities and the sort that are not "cartoonishly" disrespectful towards physics. It should be vaguely believable that a real-life paragon could, on a very lucky day, achieve something like this. See it as the Action Hero Rule. Surviving an explosion by going into a fridge? Works. Throwing a dwarf ten feet into the midst of enemies without the enemies immediately impaling the flying warrior? Works. Using a bow to shoot a man down from a hundred yards off while riding away on the back of a horse? Works. Jumping onto a flying helicopter and managing to break the glass, get inside, and take control of the helicopter without getting a scratch? Works, though maybe a bit too technological for this particular thread. Basically, if Indiana Jones, Black Widow, Captain America (see below), a Slayer, a character from Firefly, Schwarzenegger (barring a couple of his roles, of course), Sokka, or any non-magical non-inhuman superhero* could do it, it's okay. It doesn't have to be "realistic", but it does have to be "buyable". In other words, if it's implausible, its implausibility needs to be strictly Fridge Logic. It needs to be something that only occurs to us a few hours later, or that only occurs to major physics nerds who complain about things like Coruscant's weight. :P
On the other hand, cutting a building in half with a sword, drilling a tunnel through a mountain with your fists, running so fast you burst into flames, blowing up a planet, shooting a man eight miles away, ripping an old oak out of the earth, or anything that would require Superman/The Hulk/a character from an action-based anime like Hellsing? That's going a bit too far. It can't be squared. Moviegoers would snicker if Captain America stomped the ground so hard a ten-foot wide crevice opened and his enemies all fell through, because he's supposed to be relatively—relatively—buyable as a human being.
There's nothing wrong with Superman. It's just not necessarily what all of us want to be. Badass Normal—normal mortal, that is—can and should have a place. It does in movies. It does in novels. It even does in classic mythology—Odysseus, for instance, is a respected tactician who alone is able to survive the journey home. It has a place in most media, in fact. It should in Pathfinder.
*Captain America is, yes, a sueprhero. But to quote his Wikipedia page, "His skill with his shield is such that he can attack multiple targets in succession with a single throw or even cause a boomerang-like return from a throw to attack an enemy from behind. In canon, he is regarded by other skilled fighters as one of the best hand-to-hand combatants in the Marvel Universe, limited only by his human physique." Limited by his human physique. Captain America could be likened to an incredibly high-level PC, yes, but he is limited by very, very loose senses of logic and physics. Unlike, say, the Hulk, who's an alchemist (or barbarian) through and through. We've already discussed where barbarians kinda fall on this scale of "weeabooness". It depends.
You may have misread, Elta—Team Martial can't use any Pathfinder rules. I suggest you double-check the first post, or example some of the posts by people who have undertaken the challenge.I'm pretty sure team martial CAN use any Pathfinder rules, they just aren't restricted to them.
Well, just because I say a fighter disarms doesn't mean he's using Improved Disarm. We're telling this via story. Relying on rules isn't very conducive to that, though if the options given in the rules help you think of ideas, that's fine. I see rules as things you need to follow that limit what you can do.
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The problem here seems to be that belief is magic is unblockable, unavoidable, and can't be overcome.
And the wizard would certainly like to think so.
Something as basic as the barbarian sundering through his mighty spells, a ranger's ability to track extending through dimensions, thieves being able to fool fate and chance, and fighters with souls refined so sharp they can cut dimensions with a blade should boggle a wizard who can't believe 'ordinary people' can undercut his magic so easily.
A rogue should be able to unravel a mage's defenses as easily as any other lock or ward, that's what they do. They are so clever they can trick magic into acting for them in ways normal spellcasters find just impossible.
Barbs and fighters should consider magic just to be tricks, nowhere near as strong as the fundamental part of a warrior's soul, and they should be able to impose reality back onto those tricks and overcome them, revealing them for the empty things they are. Again, wizards should be absolutely agog that a 'normal' person can force 'magic' to be 'normal' again.
It's the one thing PF does not do, the ability to broadly act against magic itself, yet its a common trope in pretty much every fantasy story. In the West, the common bane of all magic was simply cold iron, or 'steel'. Further then that, it was that a warrior's soul flew free of fate and so was able to triumph over the manipulations of wizardry. Will power was hardly limited to sages! The rage and emotional strength of a true warrior, honed in combat and training, was the equal of books and runes. Knowledge was something, but knowledge was not EVERYTHING.
Meh.
IMC, there's an entire class of people called The Forsaken, who have no magical ability at all, especially UMD, and can never develop it.
But they have the ability to force magic back into 'normalcy'. They can see through magical illusions, force magical fliers out of the air, stop dimensional hijinks, are invisible to divinations, walk through magical effects, cleave magical barriers, banish magical beings back to their planes, and basically treat magic like it isn't anything important at all.
They terrify casters, naturally enough. They may never fly, but when they can make dragons crash back to the ground, they don't really care. Your illusions won't stop them, your magical defenses won't stop them, and if they kill you, they cut the connection to your body and you die, magic jar or astral body or clones notwithstanding. You're just normal to them, and you're dead.
It keeps casters VERY much on their toes.
==Aelryinth
Oh, that sounds nice, I'm adding it to my list of house rules, total defense adds it's bonus to saves, and fighting defensively adds half of its bonus to saves
It's small but it helps and it makes sense
I just so happened to make this one of the benefits of taking Expertise, learning how to do this.
Just one more way to make Expertise rock as a feat.
==Aelryinth
Evasion for Fortitude does actually exist, with Blessed Fortitude. Think that's a Sacred Fist Warpriest ability. It doesn't come up often.
In 3.5, evasion for Will/Fort is called Mettle.
About the biggest thing it comes up for is poison, since one save stops any need for future saves. Truly, it really does not happen often, which is why they could lump will and fort together in one ability. There were less then a handful of will saves with partial effects, and Fort was almost all vectored towards poison and some necromantic stuff.
==Aelryinth
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Evasion for Fortitude does actually exist, with Blessed Fortitude. Think that's a Sacred Fist Warpriest ability. It doesn't come up often.In 3.5, evasion for Will/Fort is called Mettle.
About the biggest thing it comes up for is poison, since one save stops any need for future saves. Truly, it really does not happen often, which is why they could lump will and fort together in one ability. There were less then a handful of will saves with partial effects, and Fort was almost all vectored towards poison and some necromantic stuff.
==Aelryinth
there were two reasons I gave that feature in my fix list
1) it looks nice2) it comes with turning the save chosen into a good save
ps: in pathfinder getting both but not making them into good saves is called stalwart
the only two ways I know about to get it are the hexcrafter magus can have it as a magus arcana, and the ageis can select it as an armor customization
Dhampir rogue with natural charmer completely focussed around diplomacy and bluff. I don't know for sure how well it would work in this situation, but at first glance the only nonexistent thing I would want would be something to keep my thoughts from being detected and something to keep people from sensing my motives. He'd have 17 levels of bluff, +3 for it being a class skill, +2 racial bonus, +4 for deceitful, +6 for skill focus, +7 for charisma score, he takes 20's on all lies because of natural charmer and there may be other ways to boost bluff that I'm not thinking of. That mean's I'm guaranteed a 59 bluff check when it counts. Plus, there's that one rouge talent that let's people you've fooled use your bluff check when they repeat your lie to someone else.
Assuming the rogue's journey to the evil castle has been fairly low key, since he's not cut out for combat (fighter, ranger and brawler could take care of that without him getting involved, assuming it was needed at all) and can probably make most bruiser types believe that the sky is red, he could potentially just lie his way into the castle. He most likely won't be able to lie to the wizard because of the wizard's high wisdom, but assuming a similarly high diplomacy check, he could become "friends" with the wizard and then "ask him for some favors". Since all you get when rolling against diplomacy is charisma plus a maximum 25 modifier for a hostile attitude, all he'd have to do is convert the wizard's attitude to helpful and he'd have an all powerful puppet.
It may seem like the wizard would have to be sloppy to allow this to happen, but think about the fact that a maxed out strength score makes the strongest man currently alive look like a gnat. Talking to a guy with maxed out diplomacy checks would basically be like talking to the devil.
Those suggestions, such as the ability to grapple molecules, *are* increasing the super weight. They're super powers. You can say that you're just that badass and you didn't need to study magic to pick up that trick, but you're no longer Normal by the standard measure.Correct.
You're no longer normal.
You're a fantasy hero.
Which is, allegedly, what Pathfinder offers to let people play as, supposedly regardless of your choice of class.
Absolutely. The issue as I perceive it (and have mentioned several times) are classes that are mundane as a selling point.
The Barbarian is a "fantastic" martial (as you would put it), the Fighter is a mundane martial.To become a fantastic martial, the Fighter cannot remain the Badass Normal. So what's left of his identity with that gone? (I'm a fan of removing Fighter as a class in high fantasy ala Legend, but I also like the Fighter in 5e).
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Absolutely. The issue as I perceive it (and have mentioned several times) are classes that are mundane as a selling point.
The Barbarian is a "fantastic" martial (as you would put it), the Fighter is a mundane martial.
To become a fantastic martial, the Fighter cannot remain the Badass Normal. So what's left of his identity with that gone? (I'm a fan of removing Fighter as a class in high fantasy ala Legend, but I also like the Fighter in 5e).
If the fighter is not allowed to exceed reality (to be "fantastic"), then he should not be offered as a PC option in a game about being fantastic. So if the fighter's "identity" is literally defined by NOT having whatever it is that's required for exceeding reality, then he is a background mook, not a player option.
If you want something called the "fighter" to be a player option in a game where you're supposed to be able to play a fantasy hero, then the thing called "fighter" needs to be defined as something that—one way or another—has access to the thing that's necessary to exceed reality.
Whatever you decide is necessary to be "fantastic", every PC class needs to have access to it, and any class that doesn't have access to it isn't really a PC class at all.
Or to put it more specifically toward your post:
If the fighter's identity is the "Badass Normal", then you either need to define "Badass" and "Normal" in such ways as to allow the result to be fantastic, or you need to remove the fighter from the list of playable PC classes. (Or, I suppose, change the branding of the game to no longer promise that PCs get to be fantasy heroes.)
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It's weird, I have been playing since 81 and it wasn't until I discovered this site that I'd been wrong the whole time and my poor pathetic fighter had been useless the entire time. #caster/martial fallacy
Nah, you haven't been wrong the whole time; you started out correctly assessing the necessity of martials, then you failed to notice when different rulesets had different balances. You just assumed that decades of changing rules would never result in a change of balance. ;D
#missedthebus
The Barbarian is a "fantastic" martial (as you would put it), the Fighter is a mundane martial.
To become a fantastic martial, the Fighter cannot remain the Badass Normal.
Sure he can. The Badass Normal is not "normal." He is by definition fantastic. He simply draws his fantastic powers from a different source. Captain America, for example, is a clear-cut Badass Normal, but he's also a full-fledged member of the Avengers who can hold his own with Iron Man, the Hulk, and Thor (who is supposed to be a full-fledged god).
I vaguely remember an old superheroes RPG -- maybe Villains and Vigilantes? -- that classified characters by type of origin. You could be a gadgeteer (I forget the in-game term) like Iron Man, a "special" (like the Hulk or Superman), or an "übermensch" like Cap or like Batman, essentially a badass normal. If I remember correctly, this limited the type of powers you could get -- Cap couldn't shoot laser beams out of his eyes -- but not the level of power you could get with them. Cap could throw just as hard a punch against a human target as the Hulk, even if he couldn't fly like Thor.
My body's in my Demiplane, I'm Astrally Projected and interacting with the world through a Projected Image because I'm a paranoid wizard who adventurers are gunning for?
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This is good news because that meens the wizard is sleeping when my party sneek in to kill him like the rules of the Challenge says:) it wont be hard and we dont need special rules:)
team martial can use any pathfinder rule?
Team martial can use anything you like as long as it's not too wuxia and doesn't involve spellcasting. Pull something from GURPS if you like, or make it up out of your own skull.
Frex:
All the martial took variant multiclassing: wizard foresight subschool, so they all have a ridiculous bonus to initiative and can always act in surprise round [pathfinder unchained] and the wizard discovery at level 15 [True Name] to have an extra planar buddy and they all throw their 12 hd outsiders with spells abilities to deal with it.
I'm not sure that you really want them to be taking pseudo-levels in wizard. This is supposed to be about martials being awesome, not martials pretending to be casters (renting pointy hats, putting on false beards, &c).
But there's no reason martials can't have ridiculous bonuses to initiative because they themselves are awesomely ridiculous (or ridiculously awesome). I would expect that the fastest draw in Golarion is a rogue or a gunslinger, and not an asthmatic wizard in a moth-eaten robe. That simply makes more thematic sense (to me).
In fact, one of the easiest ways to make martials more powerful is not at all too wuxia -- giving them larger bonuses to everything they do. If, every time a fighter rolled a d20, he instead rolled 5 d20s and took the best, he'd be substantially better at everything he could do, and it wouldn't actually show up in the game narrative at all. Things like initiative, BAB, saving throw modifiers, and so forth are part of the mechanics but invisible to the story. The story simply sees that Conan is really good at climbing ("No human could have climbed that wall!") and can shrug off spells that would bring lesser men down.
I'm not sure -- in fact, I'm pretty sure in the other direction -- that it would address the key issue, which is that magic too often trumps die rolls entirely. If your Perception is good enough, you can detect an invisible foe, but it doesn't matter how good your CMB is if your foe is gaseous or a projected image. No bonus to running speed lets you walk through walls, but ethereal jaunt does.
But maybe Fimli son of Forin is awesome enough he can spot flaws in the walls and smash through them with his axe, giving him a burrow speed. That would be, to me, very cool but also plausible.
To use clearer terminology than "wuxia", we're meant here to invent abilities and the sort that are not "cartoonishly" disrespectful towards physics.
I like that formulation, but I also think we're spending way too much time arguing about exactly where the line is.
Especially since half of "the line" is coming up with a way to sell the power.
Saying that Mr Fantastic can punch guys from behind because he can stretch his arm around the world.... that's "cartoonish."
Saying that Captain American can "cause a boomerang-like return from a throw to attack an enemy from behind"... that's merely high skill.
And of course, neither one mean a thing in the Pathfinder system since facing isn't a thing. But maybe both of them could flank with themselves, one as an (Su) ability and one as an (Ex) ability.
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thought up some class abilities
Fighter - natural tactician - gives himself as mentioned earlier the ability to take actions as an immediate action. however also at higher levels allows him to give orders to another party member, if they try to follow this order they gain an action 1 step down from fighter's.
Steel soul - at first gives him a bonus to will saves(probably replace bravery) at later level every time he succeeds on a will save against a target he gains a morale bonus that applies to all his saves and all skill checks against that one target. this bonus stacks with itself.
Rogue - disable magic - rogue can dispel a magical effect as a standard action by making a disable device check.
skill finesse - the rogue is a quicker and yet also clearer thinker than most, every skill's action is reduced by 1 step. any skill that requires a duration longer than 1 full round action instead has the time halved. possibly have this improve at higher levels.
casing - the rogue can watch his target for 1 week, the target can be a single person or an organization using a single structure. make a stealth check, disguise check or bluff check, if this can beat the target's or it's average member's sense motive bonus + 10, you will not be noticed during this week. after which for the next week, the rogue will know with a 80+rogue_level% accuracy where the target is or where any given member will be. If the rogue was "made" reduce the chance by half.
Ranger - subconscious trajectory - the ranger let's his instincts do most of the aiming, mixed with his knowledge of flight paths and wind currents he can reduce the miss chance related to range and wind by half. later he can ignore concealment, and finally later he can make attacks at people who have total cover to him, making damage rolls against the objects in his way, if he does enough damage to destroy the object his shot keeps going.
tracking(replaces how tracking currently works) - add half your level to all survival checks to track, at higher level act as if the ground was 1 degree softer, at further higher level track flying targets by noticing wind patterns and surmising how the target would have flown given his last known trajectory. act as if flying targets are tracked on Hard ground.
Gunslinger - instead of all the abilities that allow him to reduce reload times or ignored misfires and what not not being explained and tied to grit, he gets an ability where he tinkers with his gun, so that it reloads easier(maybe he actually adds a breech) and knows when it missfires exactly what went wrong and how to fix it now.
at additional levels he probably gains more guns, so eventually at 20th level he probably could have 8 pistols on him and draw them as free actions or some such.
thought up some class abilities
casing - the rogue can watch his target for 1 week, the target can be a single person or an organization using a single structure. make a stealth check, disguise check or bluff check, if this can beat the target's or it's average member's sense motive bonus + 10, you will not be noticed during this week. after which for the next week, the rogue will know with a 80+rogue_level% accuracy where the target is or where any given member will be. If the rogue was "made" reduce the chance by half.
Interesting ideas, all of them. Is this "knowing where he will be" in the sense of "he's in Absalom," "he's in the library," or in the sense of "he's three squares to the left of the green marble end table"? Or are those three separate levels of the ability?
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It's weird, I have been playing since 81 and it wasn't until I discovered this site that I'd been wrong the whole time and my poor pathetic fighter had been useless the entire time. #caster/martial fallacyNah, you haven't been wrong the whole time; you started out correctly assessing the necessity of martials, then you failed to notice when different rulesets had different balances. You just assumed that decades of changing rules would never result in a change of balance. ;D
#missedthebus
Eh..The balance issue along with plenty of other corner case issues that pop up on these boards has never come up, we get together to play as a team and have fun.
Back on topic, I am enjoying the stories that are being presented and would love to see more.
thought up some class abilities
casing - the rogue can watch his target for 1 week, the target can be a single person or an organization using a single structure. make a stealth check, disguise check or bluff check, if this can beat the target's or it's average member's sense motive bonus + 10, you will not be noticed during this week. after which for the next week, the rogue will know with a 80+rogue_level% accuracy where the target is or where any given member will be. If the rogue was "made" reduce the chance by half.Interesting ideas, all of them. Is this "knowing where he will be" in the sense of "he's in Absalom," "he's in the library," or in the sense of "he's three squares to the left of the green marble end table"? Or are those three separate levels of the ability?
I would definitely think the ability could have levels, I was thinking like he would be at the library, or in his base in the vault at 2 PM, or will leave for the coffee shop at tea time, but definitely later he should be able to know what square he is in even if he's invisible just by knowing what the target is thinking. maybe don't allow this level if you case an organization. maybe. possibly if you case an organization, reduce your knowledge of the target(s) by 1 step. so, town/district in larger cities -> current building -> room/plane -> his exact square.
edit: also casing should automatically if you weren't made, allow you to realize who the target really is, so if he's using a disguise, you know he is. possibly different levels of accuracy, not sure. I like this ability, maybe it should be a base ability with rogue talents that augment it.|
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Eh..The balance issue along with plenty of other corner case issues that pop up on these boards has never come up, we get together to play as a team and have fun.It's weird, I have been playing since 81 and it wasn't until I discovered this site that I'd been wrong the whole time and my poor pathetic fighter had been useless the entire time. #caster/martial fallacyNah, you haven't been wrong the whole time; you started out correctly assessing the necessity of martials, then you failed to notice when different rulesets had different balances. You just assumed that decades of changing rules would never result in a change of balance. ;D
#missedthebus
I've had fun with games I didn't fully understand too. Doesn't mean I wasn't wrong and/or ignorant, and doesn't mean it wouldn't have been rude to point at everyone who had looked at the game more closely than I had and call their conclusions "fallacies".
You're able to have fun with a game whose inner workings you've stayed happily ignorant of? More power to you. Doesn't mean you're not being a dick when you make fun of people for understanding the system better than you do. Be nice.