Do the Fighter / Sorcerer classes need unchained versions?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

151 to 187 of 187 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next > last >>
Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

I say bring on the unchained classes. The more the merrier.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I've said it before, in order to make proper progress "Unchained" needs to become the default setting, not just a set of possible rules.

Paizo needs to bite the bullet on this in order to move forwards IMO

Shadow Lodge

I don't understand this 'need'. Could you explain why having the Unchained module available rather than installed as 'Core' is not workable?


TOZ wrote:
I don't understand this 'need'. Could you explain why having the Unchained module available rather than installed as 'Core' is not workable?

Because its wishy-washy!

Why not have Unchained versions of every single class!?!?

"Unchained" came out for a very good reason - the classes in question needed it. Keeping both sets of rules is a bit silly I think.

Shadow Lodge

Why do you feel more options are bad?

The reason we don't have Unchained versions of all the classes is opportunity cost. They can't publish endlessly, so they focus on publishing what they consider the most important things.


I personally don't really care for Unchained. So I'm glad they took the approach they did.


Crag_Irons wrote:
Arakhor wrote:
I'm quite fond of the name "Sterner Stuff". :p
Yes, I borrowed that one from your build for a fighter I believe, but changed what it did. It is an awesome name for an ability.

Definitely. Shakespeare uses it in Julius Caesar, but I didn't realise that until now!


3 people marked this as a favorite.
captain yesterday wrote:
I personally don't really care for Unchained. So I'm glad they took the approach they did.

Yeah, I wasn't all that happy with how Unchained turned out. The only class that really struck me as improved from its core version did it by making the rest of the game worse. To break it down:

UnBarb: Rage is a bit simpler, but not really better and there were tons of stealth-nerfs to various rage powers to take away some of the best tricks of the "chained" Barbarian.

UnMonk: Better at punching, worse at everything else.

UnRogue: Improved, but by locking a lot of useful stuff everyone should have access to behind Rogue niche protection.

Unsummoner: More balanced, but with so many needless restrictions slathered on that it kills one of the most fun parts of the original summoner (Namely, the nigh-unlimited creative freedom).


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Chengar Qordath wrote:
captain yesterday wrote:
I personally don't really care for Unchained. So I'm glad they took the approach they did.

Yeah, I wasn't all that happy with how Unchained turned out. The only class that really struck me as improved from its core version did it by making the rest of the game worse. To break it down:

UnBarb: Rage is a bit simpler, but not really better and there were tons of stealth-nerfs to various rage powers to take away some of the best tricks of the "chained" Barbarian.

UnMonk: Better at punching, worse at everything else.

UnRogue: Improved, but by locking a lot of useful stuff everyone should have access to behind Rogue niche protection.

Unsummoner: More balanced, but with so many needless restrictions slathered on that it kills one of the most fun parts of the original summoner (Namely, the nigh-unlimited creative freedom).

Developers tend to be super conservative. Can't upset the oldsters who used to RP uphill both ways.

"In my day you were terrible, and liked it!"


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Or if you want organized "balance", you need to restrict things.
No silver bullet.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Trogdar wrote:
Chengar Qordath wrote:
captain yesterday wrote:
I personally don't really care for Unchained. So I'm glad they took the approach they did.

Yeah, I wasn't all that happy with how Unchained turned out. The only class that really struck me as improved from its core version did it by making the rest of the game worse. To break it down:

UnBarb: Rage is a bit simpler, but not really better and there were tons of stealth-nerfs to various rage powers to take away some of the best tricks of the "chained" Barbarian.

UnMonk: Better at punching, worse at everything else.

UnRogue: Improved, but by locking a lot of useful stuff everyone should have access to behind Rogue niche protection.

Unsummoner: More balanced, but with so many needless restrictions slathered on that it kills one of the most fun parts of the original summoner (Namely, the nigh-unlimited creative freedom).

Developers tend to be super conservative. Can't upset the oldsters who used to RP uphill both ways.

"In my day you were terrible, and liked it!"

Which is kind of a shame, since being conservative defeats the purpose of an experimental expansion that's supposed to tip over some sacred cows and think outside the box.

For the most part Unchained LOOKED outside the box, decided it was comfortable inside it, and threw out some decent subsystems but nothing really breaking the mold.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Crag_Irons wrote:

I have been working on "unchaining" the fighter for my games. This is what I am running with right now.

** spoiler omitted **...

Too much in the way of DPR, or combat buffs?

I assume the 5th level martial versatility keeps the feats changed until you change them again. Even if you upgrade it to multiple feats by level, only letting it be done 1/day with a timer is a good limiter on such things.

That is one HELL of a first level dip for feats.

By the reading of sterner stuff, he can suppress for one round, get a save by ending it, suppress for another round, get another save to end the effect, etc etc etc. that's a LOT of saves to get rid of any continuing effect. Might want to put in limits on it?

Ehhhh, standard weapon groups and still no att/dmg mod at level 1.

Weapon mastery cap at 20 should treat all weapons equally, not dependent on weapon type. I suggest treating it as the chosen weapon is considered 19-20/x4.

I'd go with a LOT less condition infliction, especially stuff that a save merely cuts in half, and more with versatility.

==Aelryinth

Paizo Employee Design Manager

Aelryinth wrote:

***

BUT, if we're turning into a bear at level 8 for a +6 size bonus for size L, that's +3/+3 th/dmg, for -1 th from size.
At level 8, the fighter gets +1/+1 for weapon training in one group of weapons.
Look at that, the druid as the +1/+2 dmg advantage.
And then you're summoning up a weapon focus feat out of nowhere. As if a wildshaping druid would NOT find it useful taking Weapon Focus (Bite or Claw). Okay, only a +0/+2 advantage.
That's great, how are you balancing the three natural attacks vs the two iteratives of the fighter, now? Because you know the primary bite is at full BAB, and the claws at -2.***

Actually, claws are a primary natural weapons, just like the bite. All three attacks are made at full attack bonus. Assuming I parsed the quote correctly and we're talking about Pathfinder. Seems to be the case since Weapon Training is referenced.

In Pathfinder, the "primary" and "secondary" designations are determined by the particular type of natural attack (you can see which attack forms are which here), with the occasional corner case, like secondary attacks being treated as primary if they're the only natural attack form you have, or primary attacks being treated as secondary if used in conjunction with a manufactured weapon.

So the difference in the druid's favor is actually even greater than posited, and that's before accounting for the fact that the bear gets a size bonus to CMB and has the grab special quality, making him quite likely a superior grappler to a Fighter who actually invested feats into being good at grappling. There are several other animal types that open up the door to free combat maneuver facilitators like trip and trample as well, so the druid is arguably not just better at beat-sticking than the Fighter, but is also better as a combat maneuver specialist for at least a few of the most useful maneuvers.


Chengar Qordath wrote:

{. . .}

UnMonk: Better at punching, worse at everything else.
{. . .}

Agreed with the other stuff you said, but Unchained Monk actually would have been okay if they would have left in the good Will Save and converted at least most of the archetypes to work with it. If they didn't have the room, they should have instead done one of the other classes they were thinking of doing Unchained (reportedly, Cavalier was next on the list).


UnArcaneElection wrote:
Chengar Qordath wrote:

{. . .}

UnMonk: Better at punching, worse at everything else.
{. . .}
Agreed with the other stuff you said, but Unchained Monk actually would have been okay if they would have left in the good Will Save and converted at least most of the archetypes to work with it. If they didn't have the room, they should have instead done one of the other classes they were thinking of doing Unchained (reportedly, Cavalier was next on the list).

I'm also not a fan of how they redid a lot of the Monk's passive defenses. Going from being immune to poison to "Spend ki to re-roll a save vs. poison" was not a change the monk needed. Keeping archetype support also would've been nice, yes.

What also irked me was the explanation we got for why UnMonk turned out the way it did. Namely, that they wanted to keep UnMonk (somewhat) balanced vs. the baseline monk. Which goes to show that the devs had some odd ideas about why the Monk needed unchaining in the first place.


This is rather sad, considering the reason people wanted the Unchained monk is because the baseline was not considered good.

TBH my biggest issue is the will save as a matter of principle, the rest I am fairly ok with.


My biggest problem with UnMonk was the loss of immunity to poison. Other then that I really liked it.


Trogdar wrote:
Chengar Qordath wrote:
captain yesterday wrote:
I personally don't really care for Unchained. So I'm glad they took the approach they did.

Yeah, I wasn't all that happy with how Unchained turned out. The only class that really struck me as improved from its core version did it by making the rest of the game worse. To break it down:

UnBarb: Rage is a bit simpler, but not really better and there were tons of stealth-nerfs to various rage powers to take away some of the best tricks of the "chained" Barbarian.

UnMonk: Better at punching, worse at everything else.

UnRogue: Improved, but by locking a lot of useful stuff everyone should have access to behind Rogue niche protection.

Unsummoner: More balanced, but with so many needless restrictions slathered on that it kills one of the most fun parts of the original summoner (Namely, the nigh-unlimited creative freedom).

Developers tend to be super conservative. Can't upset the oldsters who used to RP uphill both ways.

"In my day you were terrible, and liked it!"

As one of the oldsters (playing D&D since 79) I can honestly say the designers have never consulted me to see if I would be offended.

PF was a change from 3.5, so they couldn't have been too worried about change.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
thorin001 wrote:
Trogdar wrote:
Chengar Qordath wrote:
captain yesterday wrote:
I personally don't really care for Unchained. So I'm glad they took the approach they did.

Yeah, I wasn't all that happy with how Unchained turned out. The only class that really struck me as improved from its core version did it by making the rest of the game worse. To break it down:

UnBarb: Rage is a bit simpler, but not really better and there were tons of stealth-nerfs to various rage powers to take away some of the best tricks of the "chained" Barbarian.

UnMonk: Better at punching, worse at everything else.

UnRogue: Improved, but by locking a lot of useful stuff everyone should have access to behind Rogue niche protection.

Unsummoner: More balanced, but with so many needless restrictions slathered on that it kills one of the most fun parts of the original summoner (Namely, the nigh-unlimited creative freedom).

Developers tend to be super conservative. Can't upset the oldsters who used to RP uphill both ways.

"In my day you were terrible, and liked it!"

As one of the oldsters (playing D&D since 79) I can honestly say the designers have never consulted me to see if I would be offended.

PF was a change from 3.5, so they couldn't have been too worried about change.

Don't forget Pathfinder was born out displeasure with all the changes from 4 to 3.5. Hell, the initial marketing was pretty much "Did all the changes in 4e upset you? Play Pathfinder, and we can Make Roleplaying Great Again!"


The initial sales pitch is "3.5 edition lives thrives!"


TOZ wrote:
I don't understand this 'need'. Could you explain why having the Unchained module available rather than installed as 'Core' is not workable?

It would be interesting if they started releasing an unchained line of books meant to set a new balance point.

But that would would mean either an unchained wizard or just no unchained version of fullcasters.

The Exchange

I don't think any full caster needs to be unchained (for a buff). They have way more class options than every one else, spells.

Fighter need: combat stamina, 6+ skills per level and a few more class skills. The recent hand books help high level fighters decently, which is where they need it most. More neat options from lvl 1 would be nice though.

Sorcerer has a better spell list than Oracle. Maybe more options as feats or prestige classes to focus on their bloodline.


I want an Unchained Cavalier where the Orders provide as much fun selectable stuff as Oracle Mysteries or Shaman Spirits.

Relegate all the boring set-in-stone abilities to the Order of Being Mounted all the Time and the Order of Giving Away Teamwork Feats.


GeneticDrift wrote:

I don't think any full caster needs to be unchained (for a buff). They have way more class options than every one else, spells.

Sorcerer has a better spell list than Oracle. Maybe more options as feats or prestige classes to focus on their bloodline.

With sorcerers I suppose it depends on how you look at them - are you comparing them to all classes, or to other 9 level arcane casters? You get different answers based on what the question is.

The Exchange

Grey Lensman wrote:
GeneticDrift wrote:

I don't think any full caster needs to be unchained (for a buff). They have way more class options than every one else, spells.

Sorcerer has a better spell list than Oracle. Maybe more options as feats or prestige classes to focus on their bloodline.

With sorcerers I suppose it depends on how you look at them - are you comparing them to all classes, or to other 9 level arcane casters? You get different answers based on what the question is.

Yeah, prepared casters have an edge. But spontaneous are still top dogs.

To someone else's post, I almost said cavalier could use unchained treatment too.


well little red has an opinion on this.


Well, it seems almost everyone wants to fix fighter... or has given up on it and uses the PoW classes.

It's just sad :/ .


The Shaman wrote:

Well, it seems almost everyone wants to fix fighter... or has given up on it and uses the PoW classes.

It's just sad :/ .

I for one haven't given up on the fighter, Shaman!

Seriously, the fighter can do his job, although he takes more skill to build than it first appears. His damage output can equal the barbarian's and he gets other advantages too. Is he a weak class? Yes, insofar as he has more weaknesses, or weaknesses that take more care to cover, than other classes. But the fighter has only ever done one thing in the game, and that's fight. Unchained did the fighter some favours with the stamina feats, which were cool, but really the whole Unchained project lost out from a failure to actually address what class problems actually were before trying to fix them.

The fighter's problems are his weaknesses: poor saves, poor skills. Everything else works just fine. You can kind of get around these in the game, but it would be nice for the fighter to have good Will saves (all that training takes self-discipline!) and 4+Int skill ranks per level.

The sorcerer's issues are similar, although Paizo fixed a fair few of them from 3e. 4+Int skill ranks would be good, along with a few more class skills. The bloodlines could be improved with a few save bonuses as well.


Have read the Unchained book and felt it was a waste. All of the classes are well designed and easily playable as is. The Summoner's problem is lack of good spells, nothing else. The Spiritualist in Occult Adventures is a better class for that reason his Phantom essentially the same as an Eidolon. The spells a Spiritualist gets is what makes it superior to a Summoner. The Eidolon is powerful and admittedly cool but the spells a Summoner gets suck so badly. A specialist Wizard gets better spells then them.
I have played all the listed classes, save The Summoner before the unchained rules. Nothing about the listed classes save the summoner needed any adjustments at all.

Sovereign Court

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Derek Dalton wrote:

A specialist Wizard gets better spells then them [summoners].

What!? A 6-level caster with other major class abilities has spells which aren't as good as the most powerful and versatile 9-level caster in the game!? I'm shocked! They should get better spell-casting than the wizard!

And the eidolon should start with 30HD and tons of points so that I can ride a dragon at level 1!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

"Unchained fighter" is called "Path of War".


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Kirth Gersen wrote:
Aelryinth wrote:
Here's a small list of what fighters lost going from 2e to 3e.
Let me add one: WBL. In 1e, you generally couldn't buy items, you just found them. The ones you found were determined randomly. The random tables were heavily geared towards magic weapons, armor, and shields -- stuff the fighter can use. By 10th level or so, the fighter more than likely had an intelligent magic sword that could grant him powers, along with magic armor and a magic shield. His WBL naturally ended up being several times everyone else's.

And at the other end of the spectrum, things like potions, wands and scrolls were random, rare, and valuable, not things you could buy in every village. (And the rules for making them were difficult enough that scrounging for them in monster-infested caverns generally seemed like a less-stressful plan.)

Picture is relevant and possibly funny: Martial/Caster Disparity Bingo

Edit to add: One potentially good change to the game overall, not just the fighter: stop punishing players for trying interesting stunts in a fight without having invested in feats to allow them.


Dabbler wrote:
The Shaman wrote:

Well, it seems almost everyone wants to fix fighter... or has given up on it and uses the PoW classes.

It's just sad :/ .

I for one haven't given up on the fighter, Shaman!

Seriously, the fighter can do his job, although he takes more skill to build than it first appears. His damage output can equal the barbarian's and he gets other advantages too. Is he a weak class? Yes, insofar as he has more weaknesses, or weaknesses that take more care to cover, than other classes. But the fighter has only ever done one thing in the game, and that's fight.

Rather a circular argument, that. You take a game where Fighters could do a fair bit more than fight (and don't pretend that A/B-D&D didn't do that), change it so that's their only significant contribution, then declare that's all they can or should do because that's what it's been changed to.

You might also get some objection if no-one ever got any extra capabilities at all. Imagine no new spells or magic items or feats or <etc> ever.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Well, to be honest, I do not mind if fighters were geared more towards fighting than, say, rangers, paladins, cavaliers and others who are meant to be a warrior with another schtick. As I see it, the paladin is also part cleric, the ranger is part rogue and druid, the cavalier has all those teamwork tricks, and so on. I do not begrudge them that. However, I expect the fighter and to a point the barbarian to be that much better when it comes to, well, fighting.

That does not mean the fighter should not be a touch better at, say, skill use (and between background skills and skill groups from unchained and some of the advanced trainings, this is starting to look a bit better), but it is the class that advertises itself as the master of arms and combat, and it should deliver that. If you want to be the warrior who is also X,Y, or Z, that is fine, but it should come at a cost when the chips are down and you are having a one on one with the loser getting a date with Pharasma.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
The Shaman wrote:

Well, to be honest, I do not mind if fighters were geared more towards fighting than, say, rangers, paladins, cavaliers and others who are meant to be a warrior with another schtick. As I see it, the paladin is also part cleric, the ranger is part rogue and druid, the cavalier has all those teamwork tricks, and so on. I do not begrudge them that. However, I expect the fighter and to a point the barbarian to be that much better when it comes to, well, fighting.

That does not mean the fighter should not be a touch better at, say, skill use (and between background skills and skill groups from unchained and some of the advanced trainings, this is starting to look a bit better), but it is the class that advertises itself as the master of arms and combat, and it should deliver that. If you want to be the warrior who is also X,Y, or Z, that is fine, but it should come at a cost when the chips are down and you are having a one on one with the loser getting a date with Pharasma.

I think this is a bad line of thinking. What is the wizard's thing? Variety of spells. What is the sorcerer's thing? A select set of specific spells, but better application. What is the ranger's thing? Skills + Fighting styles + supporting spells. What is the Barbarian's thing? Rage. What is the fighter's thing? Fighting.

The problem is, out of that list, 4 of those classes have a style of problem solving listed, where as one (the fighter) has a specific solution listed as its domain. This is made worse because there's an assumption that everyone can fight to some extent (or they'd all get killed without a fighter). This is a game all about problem solving, and while everyone seems to get a toolbox labeled as some kind of game feature or combination thereof (spells, skills, class feature bonuses to the aforementioned), one class gets a mallet. It's not even a hammer, you can't pull up nails with it. And the end thought is "well but at least he's really good at hitting down nails!"

In a game where every class has versatility and the ability to approach at least a few different problems, you cannot have one with none and say it's okay. Geared more towards fighting than other classes? Sure. But if you have too much specialization, suddenly an encounter vs a few fighters becomes a lot scarier than it actually should be.


Dabbler wrote:
The Shaman wrote:

Well, it seems almost everyone wants to fix fighter... or has given up on it and uses the PoW classes.

It's just sad :/ .

I for one haven't given up on the fighter, Shaman!

Seriously, the fighter can do his job, although he takes more skill to build than it first appears. His damage output can equal the barbarian's and he gets other advantages too. Is he a weak class? Yes, insofar as he has more weaknesses, or weaknesses that take more care to cover, than other classes. But the fighter has only ever done one thing in the game, and that's fight.

Actually, back in the AD&D1 days, Fighters could do more than just fight, they could do anything a competent normal person could do. Pitch a tent, ride a horse, build a fort, sail a ship, cook a meal, etc, etc. This was before skills existed in the game - and once they did, they made everyone worse at everything they didn't allocate points to.

But somehow, the idea that Fighters should be dumb jocks seems to have soaked into D&D. (And derivatives.)


Grey Lensman wrote:

My wishlist for the sorcerer is...

Bloodline spells added to the spells known list at the level they can be cast
Roll similar bloodlines together and allow for a list of abilities similar to oracle mysteries.

A permanent moratorium on ways wizards can get spontaneous casting - seriously, if it's supposed to be as valuable an ability as is claimed, the presence of ways to hand it to prepared casters is like a big banner with the words "We were lying about that' in huge letters.

Ha! Totally agreed, it's crazy the sheer # of ways they can get it, there really is no trade-off because if you don't like one trade-off, you can get the same thing some other way. And the limitations like #/day are weak, just because they ignore the actual benefit of spontaneous is only useful a small #/day in the first place, the rest of the time having prepared the solid/broadlyuseful/powerful spells covers you just fine, it is just the few "oh s*++" moments when spontaneity really is any advantage. When wizards can trivially have multiple spontaneous options, the sorc just has no advantage there.

Ironically, probably the strongest Sorceror archetype (Varisian Tattooed) grants what are effectively prepared slots (and functionally increases your spells known because you can "offload" spells known into SLAs and then switch the spell known slot to a new spell).

For the Sorc themself, I do agree that the pre-reqs on BL Feats thing needs to be fixed, some of the lists are just broken

151 to 187 of 187 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / General Discussion / Do the Fighter / Sorcerer classes need unchained versions? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in General Discussion