Design Manager
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But I do feel strongly that INT shouldn't govern skills per level as it generates an uneven situation.Int to skills also leads to funky situations such as a lot of animals only being good at one thing. This is sometimes mitigated in bestiary monsters by giving the animal a massive racial bonus, which honestly feels like lazy game design.
Also a lot of animal companions do not get massive racial bonuses. You are given the choice of having your animal companion being mediocre at a few skills your animal companion should have, or having it hyper specialize in one skill. Either way, your animal companion comes out less than natural.
In fact, most creatures with abysmal intelligence come out seeming completely unnatural.
Or you get the flipside of the equation, where you have pit fiends with max ranks in Appraise and Disguise because they have so many skill points they just started getting shoved wherever. "Pit fiends you say? No pit fiends around here. I'm just Jamaal, your friendly 12 foot tall merchant with an aura of unspeakable fear."
It's not really on the martial/caster issue, but I do find it a little unnecessary that monsters have the same design rules as characters. I like the idea of basic monstrous templates based on the monster's expected role so you don't have this huge, page space consuming clutter of ranks in skills that will never matter since the monster is an extension of the GM anyways. Are you going to send your party out to seek the Solar oracle and then actually have the angel roll a Knowledge check after the party gets there to see if he know what he went to learn, or are you just going to assume that the angel the party assumedly went to great lengths to meet has the information you intended them to learn?
I love the crunchiness of Pathfinder, but there are a few areas where things are the way they are for reasons that aren't really that important, or in some instances, for reasons that aren't even all that accurate or relevant to game play.
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Or you get the flipside of the equation, where you have pit fiends with max ranks in Appraise and Disguise because they have so many skill points they just started getting shoved wherever. "Pit fiends you say? No pit fiends around here. I'm just Jamaal, your friendly 12 foot tall merchant with an aura of unspeakable fear."
Sir Brian Consumptington is my favorite thing to come out of /tg/.
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Design Manager
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If you want to call 3 and 3.5 seperate than you have to call fourth edition and essentials as separate as well, and fourth only gets, what, two years?On Wikipedia I see 3rd edition starting in 2000, 4th edition starting in 2008 and 5th edition 2014. (8 years for 3rd, and six years for 4th.) Are we not counting 3.5 and 3.0 as the same edition? Well I guess not because by that logic Pathfinder counts making 3rd edition 15 years old and still active. Although I would argue 3.5's girth more than it's length when it's compared to 4th edition due to the amount of clones and expansion. 4th edition went on pretty hard but is kind of weak and floppy compared to the 3rd edition boom.
****
Kind of random, but I was going to comment on this earlier and got into talking about something else. Essentials was not 4.5, it was perfectly compatible with the core 4E line and designed so you could run a 4E PHB Warlock side-by-side with an Essentials Warlock with no problems. WotC made some very poor marketing decisions in basically forcing people to use their online character builder, and Essentials was a last ditch effort to save their printing viability by presenting some options that didn't require two sheets of power cards and the online character builder to play, with more static class options and fewer of the A/E/D options. They'd already screwed themselves over pretty bad and lost a lot of momentum at that point though, so there was no way to recover. 4E, despite what a few vocal people on the internet will tell you, didn't fail because it was "too much like an MMO", it failed because tabletop RPGs are really too small a market for a company like Hasbro to be playing in, and their attempts to squeeze the amount of money out of the tabletop line that they felt justified their investment nearly tanked the franchise. That's why the actual design team for Dungeons and Dragons 5E has been whittled down to a skeleton crew and most of the work is being done by 3pp companies like Kobold Press and Green Ronin (who are also prominent 3pp designers for Pathfinder).
I've mentioned it before, but the skeleton of 5E is actually almost identical to 4E, just with more of the math hidden, unnecessary limitations removed, and a fresh coat of 2nd edition paint laid over the top to give it a bit more of an old school feel.The 5E Fighter is actually a really interesting place to look for inspiration on how you could make a Fighter in Pathfinder that satisfies the "gritty", easy to play feel your old school "Grognards" like DrDeth are looking for right alongside the dynamic, anime-esque super slayers that your younger "MMO playing" crowd would like to see balanced with the spellcasters. It has three archetypes built into the class, one (the Champion) that gets essentially nothing but flat static bonuses and improved critical ranges, one (the Battle Master) that is essentially your 4E Fighter or your 3.5 ToB Warblade that uses maneuvers to gain counters, give actions to allies, buff allies, and learn information about enemies, and the you have the last one (the Eldritch Knight), which is essentially your Magus. While I like Pathfinder more than I like 5E, I do think that that much, at least, is something that makes a pretty good example of how PF could grow and still retain their player base by expanding the existing options without abandoning the things that make the current game great.
Really, if there were just a better core line selection of Fighter specific feats that did more than stack static bonuses on top of already sufficient static bonuses, you'd have far fewer complaints. That was something I really spent a lot of time thinking about when I wrote The Genius Guide to Bravery Feats, which has been pretty well received. There's not a single feat in there that is about dealing damage, except in the most tertiary way. Instead, the feats focus on using Bravery as a chassis for increasing bonuses to relevant class skills while adding additional options for ways to use those skills, increasing mobility, giving options for unique and useful ways to use combat maneuvers without having to blow all your feats on prereqs, and providing options for the Fighter to successfully and effectively react to the kinds of threats that he's likely to encounter in a world full of magical monsters and evil spellcasters. Due to the current over valued weighting of feats in the core product line, the Bravery feats are bit more prereq heavy than I would have preferred in order to keep them well balanced to core options, but the real point of the thing is that you can have Fighters who still feel and play like Fighters, but who actually have the tools to succeed against magical enemies in a way that they currently lack.
Sir Brian Consumptington is my favorite thing to come out of /tg/.
Or you get the flipside of the equation, where you have pit fiends with max ranks in Appraise and Disguise because they have so many skill points they just started getting shoved wherever. "Pit fiends you say? No pit fiends around here. I'm just Jamaal, your friendly 12 foot tall merchant with an aura of unspeakable fear."
Hah! Magical.
WoTC made loads of marketing blunders. I actually want to do an article on it about how poor business decisions can murder your game.
Among the biggest blunders was killing PDF sales altogether in an effort to stop piracy.
God only knows how much money was lost out of that since it meant you could only get print copies out of blessedly few stores.
The best part was the moment they did that a bunch of other companies went out and ran big sales on their games.
Got a free copy of 2nd ed. Exalted out of that...
But I do feel strongly that INT shouldn't govern skills per level as it generates an uneven situation.Int to skills also leads to funky situations such as a lot of animals only being good at one thing. This is sometimes mitigated in bestiary monsters by giving the animal a massive racial bonus, which honestly feels like lazy game design.
Also a lot of animal companions do not get massive racial bonuses. You are given the choice of having your animal companion being mediocre at a few skills your animal companion should have, or having it hyper specialize in one skill. Either way, your animal companion comes out less than natural.
In fact, most creatures with abysmal intelligence come out seeming completely unnatural.
Or you get the flipside of the equation, where you have pit fiends with max ranks in Appraise and Disguise because they have so many skill points they just started getting shoved wherever. "Pit fiends you say? No pit fiends around here. I'm just Jamaal, your friendly 12 foot tall merchant with an aura of unspeakable fear."
It's not really on the martial/caster issue, but I do find it a little unnecessary that monsters have the same design rules as characters. I like the idea of basic monstrous templates based on the monster's expected role so you don't have this huge, page space consuming clutter of ranks in skills that will never matter since the monster is an extension of the GM anyways. Are you going to send your party out to seek the Solar oracle and then actually have the angel roll a Knowledge check after the party gets there to see if he know what he went to learn, or are you just going to assume that the angel the party assumedly went to great lengths to meet has the information you intended them to learn?
I love the crunchiness of Pathfinder, but there are a few areas where things are the way they are for reasons that aren't really that important, or in some instances, for reasons that aren't even all that...
Oh, that totally pushed me to eliminate INT to skills with the consolidated skill list too. Too much exception patches to where it doesn't make sense.
Playing 5th edition also helped. INT doesn't govern how many skills you're proficient in but it still winds up being important due to skills actually being useful compared to spells and INT having a lot of skills attached to it. That and the party wizard still being able to function with proficiency in only 2 skills from it's class.
Overall I don't mind monsters having the same basic engine as PCs but I think things could have been easier and make more sense with more monster only tools like templates that grant monsters abilities, spells and skill bonuses. Class templates and the Advanced Bestiary have been the biggest time saver in regards to customizing monsters.
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Design Manager
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I'm getting ready to start a high magic game with the idea of wiping out all the T1-T2 classes and things like fighter,rogue, monk, and barbarian as player options (still might possibly be npc options) and adding some 3pp material (PoW and SoP specifically) to see how it all works out.
We're doing a campaign set in Kobold Press' Southlands setting where the characters and races are almost exclusively drawn from Spheres of Power, Spheres of Power: Expanded Options, and Akashic Mysteries. We've got an Incanter, a Hedgewitch, a Daevic, a Guru, and a Sphere Oracle with the Life Mystery. It's been fantastic so far.
Really, if there were just a better core line selection of Fighter specific feats that did more than stack static bonuses on top of already sufficient static bonuses, you'd have far fewer complaints. That was something I really spent a lot of time thinking about when I wrote The Genius Guide to Bravery Feats, which has been pretty well received. There's not a single feat in there that is about dealing damage, except in the most tertiary way. Instead, the feats focus on using Bravery as a chassis for increasing bonuses to relevant class skills while adding additional options for ways to use those skills, increasing mobility, giving options for unique and useful ways to use combat maneuvers without having to blow all your feats on prereqs, and providing options for the Fighter to successfully and effectively react to the kinds of threats that he's likely to encounter in a world full of magical monsters and evil spellcasters. Due to the current over valued weighting of feats in the core product line, the Bravery feats are bit more prereq heavy than I would have preferred in order to keep them well balanced to core options, but the real point of the thing is that you can have Fighters who still feel and play like Fighters, but who actually have the tools to succeed against magical enemies in a way that they currently lack.On Wikipedia I see 3rd edition starting in 2000, 4th edition starting in 2008 and 5th edition 2014. (8 years for 3rd, and six years for 4th.) Are we not counting 3.5 and 3.0 as the same edition? Well I guess not because by that logic Pathfinder counts making 3rd edition 15 years old and still active. Although I would argue 3.5's girth more than it's length when it's compared to 4th edition due to the amount of clones and expansion. 4th edition went on pretty hard but is kind of weak and floppy compared to the 3rd edition boom.
****That really is a nice product. My only complaint is that I really NEED to consolidate combat feats into scaling feats in order to leave room for feats that actually do something new like Bravery Feats.
I was tickled to see familiar names making third party stuff for 5th ed, but I will say I'm playing a Battlemaster Fighter (Got a session in two hours) and I can't really say that I'm particularly inspired by these maneuvers. I get heavy use out of exactly two and I wish I could trade the 3 others I had for something that's not a maneuver. But it does make me think that Stamina is a viable venue of giving fighters good things.
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Design Manager
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WoTC made loads of marketing blunders. I actually want to do an article on it about how poor business decisions can murder your game.
Among the biggest blunders was killing PDF sales altogether in an effort to stop piracy.
God only knows how much money was lost out of that since it meant you could only get print copies out of blessedly few stores.
The best part was the moment they did that a bunch of other companies went out and ran big sales on their games.
Got a free copy of 2nd ed. Exalted out of that...
Those were the days...
But yeah, 4E's failure had much, much more to do with the fact that Hasbro didn't understand the TTRPG market than it did with anything else. 4E at its peak actually was selling in numbers that Paizo is only just recently starting to match, and was backed by a product name that is almost universally recognizable. If 4E had had a canny leader like Lisa Stevens at the helm and the ability to control and direct their own marketing and production decisions, 4E would probably still be in production today, and it's hard to say what Paizo might look like. Which is not to impugn Loren Greenwood or Greg Leeds (the CEOs of WotC during the 4E run) at all, but WotC has made some very foolish decisions that I'm given to understand were based primarily on Hasbro's unrealistic expectations for profitability.
Really, if there were just a better core line selection of Fighter specific feats that did more than stack static bonuses on top of already sufficient static bonuses, you'd have far fewer complaints. That was something I really spent a lot of time thinking about when I wrote The Genius Guide to Bravery Feats, which has been pretty well received.[...]
That really is a nice product. My only complaint is that I really NEED to consolidate combat feats into scaling feats in order to leave room for feats that actually do something new like Bravery Feats.
I was tickled to see familiar names making third party stuff for 5th ed, but I will say I'm playing a Battlemaster Fighter (Got a session in two hours) and I can't really say that I'm particularly inspired by these maneuvers. I get heavy use out of exactly two and I wish I could trade the 3 others I had for something that's not a maneuver. But it does make me think that Stamina is a viable venue of giving fighters good things.
Originally, I'd written the Bravery feats that key off combat maneuvers as actually being available without the associated "Improved" feat, kind of a separate way of accessing those maneuvers. Owen is a pretty canny publisher though, and he's weathered a few storms of people who don't actually understand the math behind the system erroneously calling something overpowered, so he made what I believe was probably a very wise marketing decision to have the Bravery maneuver options step in as alternate capstones. Paizo can get away with a few Sacred Geometry's, but 3pp companies just can't afford to gain a reputation, deserved or otherwise, for producing unbalanced materials. It's actually something I find pretty funny; in my experience any reputable 3pp company (Rogue Genius Games, Dreamscarred Press, Kobold Press, Green Ronin, Amora Games, etc.) probably has a higher percentage of well balanced materials than a parent company like Paizo or WotC, simply because they can't afford too many bad products. Core publishing companies can put out hot garbage like Order of the Flame and Sacred Geometry every other month and not hurt themselves too badly, but you get three or four of those as a 3pp and the security of your day job becomes vitally important, so most 3pps will actually err on the side of caution and put out something that swings just a bit below par, unless the point of the product is for it to be overpowered, like the Genius Guide to Horrifically Overpowered Feats (ironically not as overpowered as you might think compared to many options currently available in the core product line), or if the mission statement involves the material intentionally raising the power bar compared to peer materials, like with Path of War.
I will tell you that in my home games, Fighters are allowed to skip the "Improved X" portion of those prereqs, and generally I like to run a Fighter with Undaunted Assault as his 1st level bonus feat alongside Power Attack, Battlefield Commander as his 2nd level bonus feat, and then whichever combat maneuver Bravery feats fit the character along with a few staples like Stubborn Bravery and either Fearsome Reputation or Combat Engineer, depending on whether I went more intellectual tactician or charismatic warlord for the build.
To me this is why I say they suck. I need a WHOLE feat to do this? I already have full BAB +4, what do I need more damage for? In Magic: the Gathering there's a concept of 'win-more' cards. This means that an effect is great but shows up when it stops being relevant. Its the equivolent of if you reduce a creature to 0 hp you can coup de grace them as a free action. Yeah its great but you don't need it anymore. If I'm one of the heaviest damage dealers in the game I don't need more damage. I need an ability that actually does something that I can't previously do. Weapon Focus/Specialization, barring Combat Expertise, is the worst kind of feat to me. A numerical bonus that otherwise does nothing but give you an edge that you likely already have in the first place.
I think this explains about 99% of the disagreements you and I have in this field HWalsh.In my opinion spending an entire feat for +2 damage is absolutely NOT 'really good.'
MAYBE if Weapon Specialization scaled at +1 damage per 2 points of BAB [which is the ratio it has when first available] it might actually be worth a feat. But Fighters already do damage pretty well, what they need is mobility, resilience and flexibility.
Well, if it's weapon spec, remember you won't have that edge.
Remember, Fighters - the only combat class that doesn't get a damage bonus until level 5!
==Aelryinth
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This is actually possible. Shooting in this way with any accuracy is highly unlikely, but it can be physically done. Moving people in arbitrary directions with arrows...not so much.
Ok, off topic, I know, but this is bugging me. It makes perfect sense to me that you could move enemies with nonmagical arrows. Seeing as how HP is not only a measure of absolute health, but a measure of combat ability (e.g. losing HP doesn't necessarily mean you've gotten hit by something and injured, it can mean that you're being worn out), using an arrow to force your opponent to move a certain way is totally possible. Sure, if you're looking at the arrow hitting the person and causing them to move forward 5' it's going to seem odd, but if you look at it in terms of using an arrow to force your opponent to move to avoid taking said arrow in the face, it makes way more sense.
This is actually possible. Shooting in this way with any accuracy is highly unlikely, but it can be physically done. Moving people in arbitrary directions with arrows...not so much.Ok, off topic, I know, but this is bugging me. It makes perfect sense to me that you could move enemies with nonmagical arrows. Seeing as how HP is not only a measure of absolute health, but a measure of combat ability (e.g. losing HP doesn't necessarily mean you've gotten hit by something and injured, it can mean that you're being worn out), using an arrow to force your opponent to move a certain way is totally possible. Sure, if you're looking at the arrow hitting the person and causing them to move forward 5' it's going to seem odd, but if you look at it in terms of using an arrow to force your opponent to move to avoid taking said arrow in the face, it makes way more sense.
Wait, what if there's an explanation for this mechanic?
What, she tripped, fell, landed on his arrow?
Reminds me of my wood element wizard. At first level I can magically create short spears and throw them using my inteligence modifier for attack and damage. And that's before I start using spells.
Or the earth wizard with his acid clouds that deal damage and can make opponents sickened.
WoTC made loads of marketing blunders. I actually want to do an article on it about how poor business decisions can murder your game.
Among the biggest blunders was killing PDF sales altogether in an effort to stop piracy.
God only knows how much money was lost out of that since it meant you could only get print copies out of blessedly few stores.
The best part was the moment they did that a bunch of other companies went out and ran big sales on their games.
Got a free copy of 2nd ed. Exalted out of that...
Those were the days...
But yeah, 4E's failure had much, much more to do with the fact that Hasbro didn't understand the TTRPG market than it did with anything else. 4E at its peak actually was selling in numbers that Paizo is only just recently starting to match, and was backed by a product name that is almost universally recognizable. If 4E had had a canny leader like Lisa Stevens at the helm and the ability to control and direct their own marketing and production decisions, 4E would probably still be in production today, and it's hard to say what Paizo might look like. Which is not to impugn Loren Greenwood or Greg Leeds (the CEOs of WotC during the 4E run) at all, but WotC has made some very foolish decisions that I'm given to understand were based primarily on Hasbro's unrealistic expectations for profitability.
...Really, if there were just a better core line selection of Fighter specific feats that did more than stack static bonuses on top of already sufficient static bonuses, you'd have far fewer complaints. That was something I really spent a lot of time thinking about when I wrote The Genius Guide to Bravery Feats, which has been pretty well received.[...]
That really is a nice product. My only complaint is that I really NEED to consolidate combat feats into scaling feats in order to leave room for feats that actually do something new like Bravery Feats.
I was tickled to see familiar names making
Announcing that you are going to make your product obsolete every five years does very little to encourage people to invest in the product. That is the main reason I have not purchased anything for 5th ed.
To me this is why I say they suck. I need a WHOLE feat to do this? I already have full BAB +4, what do I need more damage for? In Magic: the Gathering there's a concept of 'win-more' cards. This means that an effect is great but shows up when it stops being relevant. Its the equivolent of if you reduce a creature to 0 hp you can coup de grace them as a free action. Yeah its great but you don't need it anymore. If I'm one of the heaviest damage dealers in the game I don't need more damage. I need an ability that actually does something that I can't previously do. Weapon Focus/Specialization, barring Combat Expertise, is the worst kind of feat to me. A numerical bonus that otherwise does nothing but give you an edge that you likely already have in the first place.
I think this explains about 99% of the disagreements you and I have in this field HWalsh.In my opinion spending an entire feat for +2 damage is absolutely NOT 'really good.'
MAYBE if Weapon Specialization scaled at +1 damage per 2 points of BAB [which is the ratio it has when first available] it might actually be worth a feat. But Fighters already do damage pretty well, what they need is mobility, resilience and flexibility.
Well, if it's weapon spec, remember you won't have that edge.
Remember, Fighters - the only combat class that doesn't get a damage bonus until level 5!
==Aelryinth
Well if we go with stamina they also get an additional +5 to attacks occasionally.
One thing I'm wondering if people will accept (because people don't really use them at my table, is the concept of Rune feats.
Basically using te runes from SSG's Feats of Runic Might (tweaked a bit with house rules) you can spend a full round action to draw a rune, and you can have up to your Con mod runes active. When they are evoked you get a minor magic effect. This means you get a semi-at will minor magic ability, like gaining a immediate action boost against enchantment, a fly speed equal to your movement and so on. But the main question is what do people feel about martials having a few magic tricks instead of being 'purely' martial?
I had toyed around with the design concept for more powerful martial abilities but gave up because effectively taking a feat to gain a PoW maneuver is virtually the same thing.
Very cool, Malwing!
Back in old AD&D days I came up with a runic warrior. They were tattooed on and granted bonuses to saves, attack, AC, etc.
I can envision a sort of Viking with blue woad that suddenly glows as it activates, granting temporary perks.
I mean, we have the Tattooed Sorcerer and Wizard. Why not a Tattooed Warrior?
To me I feel like martials live in a world full of magical world so would naturally be capable of dabbling in mundane magic like runes as a defense. In regards to impressive physical prowess I think stamina is the appropriate entry point. Later I'll share what I made so far.
'Tattooed Warrior" is functionally VERY similar to how The Incarnum rules worked for 3.5. While there were some exceptions with binders, those were actually fairly decent overall.
==Aelryinth
I'm getting ready to start a high magic game with the idea of wiping out all the T1-T2 classes and things like fighter,rogue, monk, and barbarian as player options (still might possibly be npc options) and adding some 3pp material (PoW and SoP specifically) to see how it all works out.
We're doing a campaign set in Kobold Press' Southlands setting where the characters and races are almost exclusively drawn from Spheres of Power, Spheres of Power: Expanded Options, and Akashic Mysteries. We've got an Incanter, a Hedgewitch, a Daevic, a Guru, and a Sphere Oracle with the Life Mystery. It's been fantastic so far.
We're about book 4 into Mummy's Mask and we're thinking hard about doing the same in our next AP. Basically removing the top two and the bottom two tiers, and subbing in Dreamscarred material and Spheres of Power. I'd be very interested in seeing how it goes for you guys. :)
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"There's a feat for that" can very quickly turn into Schrodinger's Fighter. But unlike Scchrodinger's Wizard, once a fighter makes a choice, it can't be easily changed.
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Now casters are kings of the action economy, able to rewrite reality in the 6 seconds of their turn, after moving their full movement, and only interruptible by an AoO or someone sacrificing their action in advance to ready an action that they only get to take if the caster tries to cast, with the fighter (and all other martials) limited to a single attack if he moves more than 5 feet.
This right here is the poster child for martial/caster disparity.(for those who don't believe it exists)
#1 reason why I like the Unchained action economy, is that it helps to ease this action economy disparity a fair amount (any martial can move + 2 attacks, and casters in general are limited to either 1 spell per round or standing in place).
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Hurtful and cornugon smash are actually great martial feats, but if every fighter needs them it defeats the whole point of the whole class.
This is the disconnect with martials that really bugs me. If there are feats that every fighter should have or needs (power attack, etc.), it should just be part of the class.
yeah a wizard can break the game post lvl 10 but he'd never reach that lvl without the big bad fighter watching his back
I have a 10th level Conjurer from RoTRL whose party members were an Alchemist and two Rogues that would love to have a word with you about that.
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'Easy' being two feats, skill investment, and whatever Hurtful is.
As opposed to just having that be something all martial character do.
That's pretty much the crux of the situation, a Fighter/Martial character needs to delve into system mastery to do something that, frankly, should be fine with the system already. Has anyone tried just eliminating Full-Attack action altogether? Seems like an easy thing to do and one of the "fixes" I did for our E6 games. Works great IMO.
Which is pretty fair really, because Natural Attack Routines are outright better than BAB routines by virtue of no penalized iterative attacks.
Not strictly true. Secondary natural attacks are done at -5 to the attack roll (or -2 if the creature in question has the Multiattack feat). Secondary natural attacks also do only 1/2 Str mod to damage (and typically have a smaller weapon damage dice too).
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@HWalsh: I've seen full-attacking meleers like you're describing, they mauled the hell out of the AP. The thing is...not only were they decently optimized, they also didn't do that on their own. They had inspire courage and magical spell support to buff their accuracy and damage. They still missed fairly often (well, one of them did, the other has magic hands when it comes to rolling d20s). The aegis I played before that was able to move + full attack, but he had the aid of psionics to let him do it while ALSO buffing his attack/damage/AC/save numbers to let him do really well. Before THAT, my half-orc crusader with the aid of a word-casting bard to do accelerates on us was decently optimized and quite formidable, but nowhere near a omni-slaughter monster. Obviously YMMV, but it doesn't seem that the game will fall apart for everyone if move + full-attack is the default option.
Also, I'd be VERY interested to hear a play-by-play of how that steam-rolled APL+3 encounter went.