Asteldian Caliskan's page

I'd allow it, it's hardly game breaking. I'd allow it if it was Heirloom weapon as well. What differencedoes it make? A Fighter recreating his trust family sword seems a whole lot better RPwise tan just buying another. Also doing it himself seems more personal than saying 'Is there a caster in town? I want to hire his services to make my mundane weapon masterwork'.

Personally, I hate the Trap Spotter ability... It is WAY too easily abused, and simply just another way for players to get everything handed to them on the result of a die roll, instead of having to work for it. (And especially one that they can just pound skill points into to basically make the check an automatic success...) (Example: 6th Level Half-Elf Rouge with Trap Spotter - 6 Ranks + 3 Class Skill Points + 4 Sharp Senses Feat + 3 Skill Focus (Perception) + 3 Trapfinding Skill + 4 Canny Observer + 2 Alertness + 1 Pilgrim Trait = + 26 Perception, and given a continuation of skill points it will be + 35 at 10th level! Given a Glyph of Warding is a DC 28, this 6th level character has a 90% chance of finding this trap,and its automatic at 10th! Furthermore, at 10th level, this character could find this same trap 10% of the time in complete magical darkness with his hands tied behind his back!!! (Invisible +20 DC, Horrible Conditions +5 DC = 53 DC) At 10th level this character stands a chance of making this??? Just by passively being near it? What, did the rogue hear the glyph whispering to him or something? Or maybe he felt a disturbance in the force and Admiral Akbar appeared and warned him that it was a trap? I'm calling b***s**t...

As far as I am concerned if a Rogue has wasted that much of his abilities to find traps he damn well better beable to smell a trap wherever he goes. In fact he should be able to find them when asleep or dead. If not then I am having to carry one pretty worthles party member around, which I am doing anyway if there is not a trap every 5ft.

I think all this thread does is reinforce some very clear facts:

Archer Paladins are filthy disgusting abominations and should be shamed into death by their teammates for prancing aorund with a bow when they could be getting in the thick of things being all dashing and heroic.

Face it people, mechanically Paladin Archer may be 'where it's at' but you should be too ashamed of yourselves to ever be seen in public. :)

I always wonder about the really bad feats. I mean, some are so bad that it has to be a really, REALLY specific situation, which if you are lucky happens once in the campaign.

I am all for diverstiy and Feats for flavour and Roleplay. But as usual, I can't help but get the feeling that 'concept' and 'roleplay' gets punished by having te flavorsome feats really lousy. As if a concious effort is made to seperate optimisers and roleplayers.

While it does not help for PFS, when we play campaigns we actually allow Feats to be adjusted. So for example, if running an AP, after each book the chance to revist your choices is given - so if you picked what you thought would be cool but ended up being useless you can erase your mistake and find something else. It helps those who did not have a clear goal with their char when first created, it helps those not experienced at identifying the 'trap' feats and it also gives us the opportunity to be brave enough to experiment with feats that look interesting but may be a lot worse or possibly better than expected.

The arguments about ignoring the Monk don't work if the Crane is a fighter...nor if its one of the new Monks, who can really lay a smack down.

=======
Keep in mind I'm not at all worried about this being used in the hands of enemies. Enemies are pretty standardized, and the party will take them out.

I'm more worried about it being used in the hands of PC's to make them basically invulnerable to the big bad melee machine. basically, for -1 to hit, the PC gets a +4 AC bonus, cancels out the BBEG's best attack (and...

The monk is ponsing around like a ballet dancer, you are damn right I can ignore him as the BBEG. It's not about ignoring the player because he is a monk, I am ingnoring him beause he is attacking me once a round with hs scary bare hands. Tempting though it is to waste my time on him, the Paladin attacking with Smite, the TWF full attacking me, the Rogue stabbing me in the back, the Barbarian Rage, the Wizard blowing me away or trying to control me - THOSE are the guys that scare me. A monk that has used all his Feats to leap around is a whole lot less of a threat.

So, even at lvl 5 before people start getting multiple attacks (the only time where Spring Atk Monk is almost similar in threat to the others) the build is a nifty one. But really, the least of my problems

Bullsh*t is still bullsh*t no matter how you dress it up. The fact that the Guard believes the story does not change the fact it is utter crap. When he retells the tall tale to his captain it is a Bluff check because the same nonsense story is being used on the captain and despite the guard believing it to be true it is still a lie (though as others have pointed out, the Bluff modifier is used but no claim is made that it is actually a bluff check)

I meet the Guard 'Excuse me old chap, I am Humperdink, cousin to the Queen, I need to quickly pop in to give her a message but I am in a rush because I have double parked my Kangeroo. Would you mind telling me exactly how I get to her room?'

The Guard may believe that story, but it is BS of the BSiest kind. When telling the Captain this tale a Bluff modifier makes sense.

---------------------------

As for the Utility Shot issue. Are you kidding? This is an ability all about style and flare. How can it be crap? Party is in a room, it's a trap! the bad guy slams the door shut and locks it, the ambush is set, you are fighting for your lives. You don't have time to get to the door and start hacking at the lock (also very uncool) enter The Jerusalem Man - the party run for the door, he pulls out his pistol and shoots the lock off and the party escape. Awesome.

Is the ability mechanically amazing? Nope. There is more to the game and abilities than their power.

Brian Bachman wrote:

-- Design more social interactions, actually dangerous traps and useful stealth situations into your adventures and campaigns.

-- Design adventures and campaigns to encourage longer adventuring days, so substituting for a rogue's skills with spells becomes less practical.
-- Use larger party sizes. A six, seven or eight person party can more easily afford to have specialists who aren't combat gods.
-- I do like the idea of giving the rogue tools to counter scent, tremorsense, blindsense, etc. These make sense to me. A good rogue who makes the proper choices should be able to be stealthy, against all senses.

There's only one problem. Rogues aren't the only skill class.

etc.

This. Those who argue the Rogue is fine have a habit of saying 'you can't compae to a FIghter, of course the Rogue will suck in combat compared to them' the problem is, it is not the Fighter we compare the Rogue to - they are existing in entirely different circles.

It's Rangers and Bards in particular that highlight the inadequacy of the Rogue.

Larger parties don't help the Rogue either - I play a 6 man campaign and with a Bard, Ranger and Rogue in the group there really is nothing the Rogue can do to shine - his perception is inferior to both, the Bard is better with social skills, the Ranger matches him with the other skill....lucky for him neither bothered taking an archtype to detect magic traps.

The simple sad fact is that a 4, 6 or 8 man party are better off without a Rogue.

As for those who complain about the Ninja being overpowered, the only people who believe this are those die hard Rogue fans - they are overpowered compared to the Rogue because the Rogue falls short - they are much more in line power wise with Rangers, Bards and the other classes which is where they should be, as should the Rogue.

What I do not understand is why people get so defensive about their beloved Rogue, if you enjoy the ROgue so much then why are you bothered that so many people want them to be improved?

The big problem is not the Ninja or its abilities, it is that it is a variant of a crap class and made better.

You cannot balance the Ninja against the Rogue without making it a crappy class that few people want to play. Before the Ninja came about there are plenty of threads talking about the Rogue lacking in combat. Making a Ninja based on the Rogue and making him crap as well is just a silly idea.

As someone who spends his work life staring at a spreadsheet editing and updating and producing mini sheets from the work, I know exactly how easy it is to miss things. When you are staring at something day in, day out, you start to miss things that are glaringly obvious to others who pick it up for a first time and read it.

Not that I am saying a load of spelling mistakes etc. are acceptable, but I understand why it happens even when carefully editted. Most novels I read also have errors dotted throughout them which again seem careless to a first time reader, but when you are staring at the work and reading and rereading you do miss things

I have nothing against a 20+ book coming out some time in the future. I would never use it myself because I find that like DnD the game starts sucking from about 15 onwards.

Not sure what a 20+ book is needed for, by then its a case of 'your char walks onto the battlefield, gives the army an Angry Monkey stare, they all die'

but if its what enough people want then it should be produced..but not yet, valuable resources shouldn't be used on stuff that very few will use, but in time it will be a good addition, as long as they don't focus too much on producing a load of AP content and stuff for it when they could be making the mainstream APs