Favorite and least favorite class features


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


What's your favorite and least favorite class features in the game? Please explain why its your preferred or least favorite mechanic too.

My favorite mechanic is the implements for the occultist. It reminds me of a more streamlined version of incarnum with the investment mechanic. I also think that the mechanic can be made broad enough that a class can use that base mechanic as their main feature without spellcasting with slightly different rules and a couple more focus powers(which would be a cool homebrew come to think of it).

My least favorite is burn for kineticists. It just feels terrible to spend your hp to cast your abilities of buff your attack and damage and it negates the advantage of getting a high con. To me its like if a wizard lost skill ranks based on their highest prepared spell. I would be fine if they got a con based point pool for their abilities but 1 damage per level per point of burn is just harsh.


My favorite are Investigator Talents like effortless aid and other things I can use to boost the party's attack rolls and AC.

My least favorite is sneak attack for fooling new players that rogues are super damage dealers that just need a little thought when they really are smacking things with paper fans and need brain surgery to get any damage off.


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Least favorite class feature is 9th level progression spell casting. It destroys the game unless you have a player who understands how terribly disruptive it is and chooses not to use it to it to that extent.

Not sure I have one favorite mechanic. There are a lot of really great ones out there. I just finished playing an Inquisitor and I really got a lot of mileage out of Greater Bane, Solo Tactics, and Stalwart. I love all three. I'm currently playing a thrown weapon Warpriest and swift action self buffing with Fervor is damn awesome too. There are so many good mechanics I'm afraid I can't choose just one.


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Studied Target or Studied Combat. Because they're based on consuming action economy rather than consuming an arbitrarily limited pool that can only be replenished by sleeping for the night that exists solely to @#$% up the pacing of dungeon crawls by forcing the party to leave and regroup every few rooms.

Least favorite is every single ability that has a fixed per diem pool. @#$% the per diem paradigm. It's a pox upon the game system and completely at odds with the genre conventions.


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My least favorite class feature is wild empathy since I can rarely find a time were it is usable due to it taking a minute and since its cha based and I would have at best a 10 in cha. My favorite would have to be the alchemist discoveries because I enjoy the ways they let you change bombs.


First let me get least favorite out of the way: Monk of the Healing Hand's capstone ability -- you self-destruct so hard that no one can even remember your sacrifice, and break memory of yourself for the whole world so hard that even deities can't fix it. It would be better to have no capstone at all.

Favorite class feature: Fighter's Weapon Training after the Weapon Master's Handbook came out -- making the Fighter great again. Wait . . . Somehow that doesn't sound right . . . .


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Least favorite during character building is probably full spellcasting. Its extremely uninteresting from a character design standpoint as there is no reason not to learn the same handful of effective spells at each level up no matter what your specialization is. There ends up being little differentiation or flavor between individual arcane spellcasters or divine spellcasters.
In game, full spellcasting stops bothering me as much. While playing, my least favorite are probably the Oracle curses. Way too many of them either bog down normal play or make it impossible (requiring the game to be tailored to the oracle player). Clouded Vision is a nightmare to keep track of, Tounges forces the rest of your party to take your language, Hunger causes new players to become suicidal, Site-bound makes some games just not work, Deaf makes your allies hate you (and forces them to learn sign language), etc. I like the idea behind the curses (the flavor is fantastic), but too many of them just play out badly once you're trying to use them.

Most favorite is difficult to say, but I like sneak attack from a character building perspective as it really makes character building into a puzzle. You want to work out an effective way to have sneaks when you need them (or even 24/7 if possible) without gimping the rest of your character too badly.
In game though, I think I like the "pick-a-weapon-enhancement" abilities (Divine Bond, Arcane Pool, Warrior Spirit(AWT)) for getting you out of tough situations (ie. getting around enemy invulnerabilities/regeneration/etc) and that sweet payoff when you or your allies manage to predict enemy weaknesses in advance.

Dark Archive

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My least favorite mechanic.... does 2 + Int skill points count?because there are several classes that I just can't bring myself to play because of that. Otherwise, I'm going with the Ranger's Bond. On one hand, you have a somewhat inefficient way to share your situational Favored Enemy by using a move action that might be a net loss for he party when you deny yourself a full attack. Alternatively, you can gain an animal companion from a very limited list that pretty much requires you to take Boon Companion if you want it to fight alongside you. The obvious (if feat taxed) power of an extra body almost invalidates the alternative, which undercuts the whole idea that you get to choose a benefit.

My favorite feature in the game is the Summoner's Aspect ability. Customizing an Eidolon is great fun, but adding evolution points to your character? The possibilities are grand and plentiful. Greater Aspect allows for some amazing combinations (like turning yourself into a LAVA SHARK!) and even the basic version allows you to play with things like Flight, extra natural attacks, or the ever useful Skilled. I consider it to be the true capstone of the Summoner class, and the level 10 version can serve as a great endgame power in PFS.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

FAVORITE
- Spell combat and spellstrike: Really fun and flavorful ways of combining fighting and spellcasting

- 9-level spellcasting - I know I'm the minority and I agree it's not balanced, but I like the kind of flavorful things high level spellcasting. I enjoy doing things like building demiplanes and animating objects even if it's not practical. I also GM in a way that takes advantage of high level magic to create fun adventures rather than seeing the magic as disruptions.

- Psionic focus: Brilliant way of using action economy to create "once per encounter" abilities without resorting to metagame concepts

- Gather power: Flavorful and interesting way to reduce an ability cost at the expense of action economy

LEAST FAVORITES
- Kineticist wild talents and burn: I love the idea behind this class but the game mechanics are waaaaaaaaay more compllcated than they need to be. I think the idea behind burn is fine but there's so much baggage in bookkeeping the nonlethal damage, keeping track of what talents can be reduced in cost, and other stuff. Statting an NPC with this class is a nightmare

- eidolon: I love the flavor of a monster pet you can customize, but the game mecanics make it extremely difficult for a GM to meaningfully interact with them. There's also the problem where the summoner feels like a one-man party in a game all about teamwork.

- polymorph spells: I love the flavor of polymorphing and transformation, but the selection of polymorph spells in the game is terrible and makes no sense (why can't I permanently turn a man into an elf at the level i can turn a dragon into a chicken?). It's impossible to have any fun with the concept unless you're a druid or some class that can get a class feature like wildshape.


Favorite: Judgement. Customize your bonuses to the situation at hand while only using a swift action.

Least Favorite: Trapfinding. Oh look, a situational 1/2 level bonus to perception that's used over and over as the reason you need a rogue in the party/game.


Favorite: Animal Companion

Least: Does the withdraw action count? I hate it with a vehement passion that knows no bounds.


Poison Dusk wrote:
Least: Does the withdraw action count? I hate it with a vehement passion that knows no bounds.

Step Up is nice to counter it, actually. It also counters 5-foot steps of casters, ranged foes and reach martials.


My favorite are spells

And least favorite are any ability that can only be used once per day

Silver Crusade

For my favorite class feature, I was going to say inspiration on an investigator because I just love rolling 2 dice for most of my skill checks. But then I remembered inquisitor bane. Swift action to get bane to everything? yessssss

Least favorite is vigilante dual identity. I just cannot even. I find the whole concept disruptive and ill-suited for a cooperative activity. The vigilante makes me finally understand why people hate paladins. I want the cool class abilities without the unpalatable role-play baggage.


Favorite:
Barbarian Rage.
That's how a combatant should be. Bold, courageous, direct, unstoppable.

Least Favorite:
Swift Tracker (slayer). What. Seriously? At LV 11?


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My favourite class feature is probably the Medium's shared seance. It's just such a useful ability when building a dungeon to give every intelligent inhabitant of the place an extra kick (especially if a medium uses a Marshal spirit to let the inhabitants each pick the most appropriate seance boon for them).

My least-favourite... Probably the Mesmerist's spell list. I hate building a Mesmerist and needing to choose spells for them. It's such a repetitive list filled with so many options that make me think "Oh, that'd be a great choice if I wanted to lose a friendship with every player simultaneously".

One of my players who happens to be with me in the room right now says his favourite is the Brawler's martial flexibility. He likes being able to grab the Improved [Maneuver] feats for whatever the situation warrants without needing to permanently spend a feat on them.

His choice for least-favourite is the Fighter's bravery, for being the most boring class feature he has ever seen.


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Hm. Honestly, the 2+Int skill points is among my more disliked features. It helps reinforce the dumb fighter/paladin trope (and clerics I don't think get much better off either).

As far as favourite? Martial Flexibility looks like it'd be fun. I'm also liking the Invulnerable Rager's DR progression.


Favourite is probably wildshape. So many options and different play styles open up. You really do need to be prepped before hand and know what you are going to turn into for a given situation and what you can and cannot do.

Least favourite is any class feature (solo tactics and the cavalier one) that uses teamwork feats. The feats are so terrible and taxing and situational that they had to give 2 classes whole abilities that turn them into something that you could also do but still not great. I use any archetype that trades out these abilities.


Favorite is probably the Archivist's Naturalist ability. Love the flavor and the bonuses.
Least favorite is Rage. Aaron Allston's 2E version is far, far superior.


Favorite is definitely ninja tricks, the majority of them are just awesome
Least Favorite most likely Grit, I just ugh.. the entire concept

Sovereign Court

Favorite is evasion. It's very evocative of what I picture a rogue being capable of.

Least favorite is limited use per day rogue talents. Most of these are total stinkers that should just be all the time abilities like evasion.


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Qaianna wrote:

Hm. Honestly, the 2+Int skill points is among my more disliked features. It helps reinforce the dumb fighter/paladin trope (and clerics I don't think get much better off either).

As far as favourite? Martial Flexibility looks like it'd be fun. I'm also liking the Invulnerable Rager's DR progression.

I have to agree with the skill thing. Skills aren't something that a dumb fighter can't take. A normal fighter should be really good and bluffing, survival, and intimating. A paladin should be top tier on diplomacy, knowledge religion, and sense motive. There are way too many skills in the game to seriously have 2+int even on good int classes like wizard. A decent idea might be to bump up skill points but have certain classes give anti-class skills which each skill point only gives a half rank in or something.

I think my favorite is just skills. Tailoring each character to be vastly different in non-combat scenarios.


My least favorite is tied:
* 2+Int skills per level really bog down some classes, but also roleplay. It reinforces the dumb fighter stereotype, and can unintentionally encourage 'outside of combat, I will sit here and do nothing'.
* The rogue's sneak attack. This might be an issue with the rogue in general--which is themed as a solo class, but teamwork is a teamwork mechanic. It is a case of mechanics not matching flavor. Investigator's approach to this is much nicer.

Favorite is also tied:
* I love the new smite. So nice!
* 4 level and 6 level casting classes are great.


Favourite: Vigilante talents. These are what Fighter should have gotten from the start instead of Combat Feats. They allow for a more modular approach to the character and what you want them to be capable of, while still being highly effective.

Least Favourite: Domains. They are completely underwhelming, and their existence means fun and interesting class features were not developed or implemented, as well as interfering with archetype ideas.


Favorite:

Atarlost wrote:
Studied Target or Studied Combat. Because they're based on consuming action economy rather than consuming an arbitrarily limited pool that can only be replenished by sleeping for the night that exists solely to @#$% up the pacing of dungeon crawls by forcing the party to leave and regroup every few rooms.

I agree on this. That's why I made my inquisitor a sanctified slayer. Just so that using the class ability is a move action rather than an 'x' times per day.

Least Favorite: The magic system in Pathfinder. For 'x' times a day, you can reshape reality with your mind. There is never any chance that anything will go wrong with this. If you use your spells too much you are now drained until you rest. It's boring. It's too powerful. It trivializes something that should be miraculous.

What I want is this:

(1) On levels where you get stat increases (starting at lvl 1) you get a power die (a d10).
(2) Each spell has a difficulty rating, which you need to roll equal to or above to cast it successfully.
(3) Each power die you have is one that you are allowed to roll when attempting to cast a spell. You take your roll and add your spellcraft skill to it.
(4) If you roll a double, then you miscast. If you roll a triple, you miscast twice, etc etc.

With a d10, rolling doubles isn't that likely. Triples, even less so. And with a high spellcraft, casters should be able to reliably cast low level spells (and eventually never have the chance of failing to cast one one die).

But for higher level spells, the caster then needs to think about the risk/reward.

Do I roll just one die and have no chance of miscasting, but risk not casting the spell? Roll one or more dice to ensure that the spell is cast, but risk the miscast? Or even decide that the encounter isn't worth the risk and go for a less powerful spell.

So spell caster classes still unlock spell slots and learn new spells like they do now...only they aren't limited to 'x' times per day, and are instead limited by their aversion to risk.

Also, how is it not fun when the spellcaster has to tell the party that the AoE spell he tried to throw is now centered on himself?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Favorites:

* Grit/Panache. A daily 'do cool stuff' pool that actually refreshes. Finally, we are moving beyond the 15 minute adventuring day.

* Opportune parry and riposte (Swashbuckler). Killing things off-turn is fun. Pity it's attached to such a rubbish class.

* Finesse Training (Unchained Rogue). Still doesn't catch dex up to str in damage terms, but certainly helps close the gap.

* Shared seance (Medium). All day buffs!

* 6-level spellcasting (Bard, Mesmerist, Skald). Adds a lot of utility to classes that also have worthwhile class features.

Least Favorite:

* Burn damage (Kineticist). Episode 5: The 15 minute adventuring day strikes back, and takes half your hitpoints with it.

* Charmed life (Swashbuckler). Episode 3: Revenge of the 15 minute adventuring day. Too few uses/day, prevents riposting.

* Wild empathy (Druid, Ranger, Hunter). Takes a minute, requires cha, but none of the classes that get it are likely to have cha.

* Raging song (Skald). So it's inspire courage, except it doesn't benefit archers or finesse builds.

* 9-level spellcasting (Arcanist, Wizard, Witch, CODZilla). Often a class's only redeeming feature, and breaks the game in half should you use it to full potential. Limited by our old friend the 15 minute adventuring day at low levels.


As a player, I love spells+ design like the Witch with hexes and the Alchemist with bombs. I never hold the party back by running out of things to do.

Worst class abilities... feat taxes like the need for Alchemists to have infusions.


SquirrelyOgre wrote:

My least favorite is tied:

* The rogue's sneak attack. This might be an issue with the rogue in general--which is themed as a solo class, but teamwork is a teamwork mechanic. It is a case of mechanics not matching flavor.

Oh god yes, so very much. I hate that the Pathfinder Rogue is pretty much the opposite of a rogue. A rogue is a bit of a loner, stealthy, good at many things, and a master fo precice, deadly attacks. A Pathfinder Rogue is extermly dependent on teamwork *, is not particular good at skills (and especially not at the stuff you want to use skills for) **, way worse at stealth than almost any arcane caster, and can't hit the broad side of a barn without an ally on the other side of it saying "strike this way" ***.

*) Flanking is the best way to get Sneak Attack, and Unchained Rogue's main Debilitating Injury is only really a good thing if others profit from it.
**) Sure, a Rogue has a lot of skill ranks, but I presume that a big number in "total skill points" in the character sheet is not the ultimate goal - the ultimate goal is to be good at many things. Yes, he has more skill points to put in climb, stealth etc. than a Sorcerer, but that guy can simply use Spider Climb/Fly and Invisibility. Also, he doesn't have the attributes for a good charisma without crippling his combat capability, so he'll never be as good a suave, charismatic guy as for instance a bard.
***) Despite the main damage source being "precision damage", the rogue is extremly geared towards many inaccurate attacks. Even more so for Unchained Rogue (which is a straight upgrade but doesn't really fix the problems).

Favourite class feature? Eidolon. So much potential for flavor while still being mechanically strong. Viking with valkyrie eidolon? Sure. Eqyptian temple guard with sphinx eidolon? Go ahead! And if you really want to reenact My Neighbor Totoro, you can do that too.

Liberty's Edge

Call me a lunatic, but I actually love prepared spellcasting and limited resource abilities to ration over the day, though 1/day ability and sorceror bloodline claws can get out.

Favourite Class feature overall? Probably Occultist Implements/Focus. The balance is not at all there, but I like the spell progression and combination of managing resources for self-buffs and fuelling pretty powerful psuedo-spells.

Honorable mention goes to Panache, for being a resource that does come back through the day but still requires a degree of planning. If only the swashbuckler and panache were further diversified I'd do more than take a one level dip, but I guess there's 3PP and Homebrew to look into for that.

-

Least favourite feature... I want to say a lot of fighter things. The bonus feats they get mess with feat design in general in this game and cause a lot of cool combat options to become impossible for the majority of classes. Made worse by the effectively fighter-exclusive Advanced Weapon Training which patches a bunch of other martial problems... but only for them. Vigilantes do so much of this better, but the Zealot archetype makes me a sad panda.

I'm just glad the Warpriest exists, which can do practically anything. Except...

Ah, right. That's my least favourite class feature. 2+ Int skills/level. Thank god all the home groups I play in have the background skills rule in effect by default.


Favorite: Kinetic Blast, because it's an at-will weapon like the Eldritch Blast.

Least Favorite: Weapon Training...
1) A typical fighter will have a melee weapon, a ranged weapon and a backup melee weapon, not one weapon per group it has.

2) The bonuses are minor.

3) It should be reworked so you can either pick a weapon group or pick a special feature with one of your current groups. The archetypes present various features for fighting styles. For instance, if you pick the spear or polearm group, you should be able to pick either another group or "Phalanx Fighting" as a feature.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

my favorite, spells.

my least favorite, also spells.

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