Bob Bob Bob's page

Honestly, I assumed magic items are made mad-libs style. So your "plain silver band" requires some crazy set of ingredients based on what kind of silver it is (or the time of year, or the caster, or some other incredibly variable thing). So "any possession from the home of a king", "anything stolen from a troll", "dry and brown earth", and "cheek of a carpenter". Considering the list that came from that was both tame and appropriate.

So the cost is more about obscurity or rarity than actual costs. Instead of a "gold coin" you need "a gold coin that won a longshot bet" or "a gold coin that was used to pay to kill a king". And the rest of the cost is finding or making that.

Sort of like the lich ritual. There's requirements, there's a cost, but everything else is "make up something personal to them".

I suppose making a side quest to get an item that can resurrect one dead person due to a character death at very low levels would be fiat as well?

If the item didn't exist until the GM needed it? Yes. Inventing items is fairly firmly GM fiat.

I'm not saying GM fiat is good or bad. I'm saying that you need to pick one (hard rules or fiat) and stick with it. If you create a formalized list of injuries you also need a formalized list of solutions. When a player loses a hand the answer can't be "make up something to fix it". That's a system for crippling players and nothing else.

Why I said fiat was better was simply because I don't think there can ever be a single table that covers every possible type of "death". It would make more sense and probably feel better for players if the damages were chosen based on the specific reason for their crippling. Rather than a table to roll on I would make a set of guidelines for conditions to apply. Like if they took only a little damage they're dazzled (face burned, eye cut) but if they took a lot of damage they're staggered (whole body burned, chest wound barely held closed). That's how I would do it though.

Again, very short version, if you really want a random crippling list then it should come with solutions. Written, detailed solutions. Otherwise it just seems like a punishment.

So how is the concern that I may be taking some of the authenticity and accuracy away from a people's culture political?

Because governments have (and still do) engage in genocide, cultural or otherwise. And one of the standard ways to do so is by "othering" those people, creating some description to make them seem fundamentally different from everyone else. And you can do that when you take part of someone's culture and exaggerate, amplify, or delete aspects of it and magnify and mainstream that version of the culture.

The person above me mentioned "third world countries" as more likely to have "pockets of true conflict and suffering exist". Third world country just means they did not support the US or USSR during the Cold War. Nothing about that implies that more conflict exists there. Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, all third world countries. The phrase has taken on negative connotations since its creation that the person's usage seems to imply. More violence, less wealth, etc. Which is then used as justification to exploit, invade, or otherwise treat them as lesser by other countries. Using the phrase that way continues to spread and reinforce those connotations and therefore allow more exploitation.

So the easiest answer if you can get Greater Create Demiplane is to create a demiplane that is Timeless with respect to magic.

If a plane is timeless with respect to magic, any spell cast with a noninstantaneous duration is permanent until dispelled.

Like, say, Create Demiplane. So you only need to make one demiplane permanent and cast every other spell on that plane. It will effectively become a keystone because if anyone ever manages to destroy that plane the duration on the other planes will probably run out instantly. Of course, as defenses you can basically just put any summon or spell you want since they last forever.

1. Assuming one cast a day, 200 ft by 200 ft times 365 days times 200 years... like 100 square miles? It's a good sized city, that's about it. You could probably do it faster with Miracle duplicating the spell (and skipping the casting time). That's not including any extra features you want to add. More casters would make it go faster.

2. No need for gold with a Timeless (magic) demiplane.

3. Trap planes, basically. Usually using dead magic planes. My favorite I've seen (or made, I forget) used objective directional gravity and an unsolvable, moving maze. So the whole plane was a floor to ceiling maze filled with golems who would move around the walls. The trick was that in the upper half of the room gravity went up and the only exit was a hidden trap door on the ceiling. Sprinkle in some fake portals to death planes and monsters to taste.

5&6. Honestly, every plane should be its own unique thing. There's probably an original plane where the survivors first settled in that's grown to some kind of hub but everything after that should be completely and utterly unique. Why would the Structure option exist if not for that exact reason? You can either pick the survivors and design a plane around them or pick a cool plane idea and figure out who would live there. Think of it like interior design, only with magic instantly making whatever you feel like. It's also mutable, maybe in a year you remove the desert and replace it with an ocean. And maybe there's trends, open concept no walled structures are the new hotness this year. Maybe last year it was only using wood for your plane. Stuff like that.

As for death, well, here's the rest of Timeless.

On planes with this trait, time still passes, but the effects of time are diminished. How the timeless trait affects certain activities or conditions such as hunger, thirst, aging, the effects of poison, and healing varies from plane to plane. The danger of a timeless plane is that once an individual leaves such a plane for one where time flows normally, conditions such as hunger and aging occur retroactively.

So no, nobody, caster or otherwise, need ever die of old age or lack of food, apparently. If they stay too long they might never be able to leave though, so potentially there's an elder class of people who live on this plane who are permanently stuck there because leaving would cause them to shrivel up from age, hunger, and thirst.

So I see two specific problems. First, you're using Huge+ monsters as bosses or mid-bosses (solo monsters of higher CR). Of course your players aren't going to have fun with Huge+ creatures if every one is a boss-level fight (unless they really love just the boss fights, I guess). Second, and somewhat tied into the first, you seem to favor a specific kind of scenario (giant monster surprises players) which is even more difficult for the players. That Croc has a Stealth of +8. It's not impossible it got the drop on the players but it is unlikely. The Giant Flytrap is explicitly designed to do just that. Turning characters into the stars of a horror movie is only fun if that's what the players want. Playing Strange Aeons? Sure. Playing Giantslayer? Probably not.

The Cetus is Paizo's fault though. Seriously, weak to petrification? Regeneration (petrification)? And here I thought we'd managed to move away from these kinds of stupid puzzle monsters. "And now hit its body parts in alphabetical order! Abdomen, buttocks, circulatory system..." This isn't meant to be a random encounter, it's meant to be something the players have time to research and study before fighting.

So there's a couple easy ways to fix this. One is to normalize giant monsters. Add them to other fights rather than making them the exclusive focus of the fight. Give a monster a couple giant minions. Giant Grizzlies are CR 5 and Huge, really easy to throw those in somewhere. Have a swarm (6-8) of Giant Giant Scorpions (CR 4 each). Animals and vermin are usually your best bet for low CR for their size (and rarely complicated). The other is to make Huge enemies obvious and preplanned fights. Have a village ask them to fight the monster threatening them. When they ask what monster, point to it poking out over the trees. So rather than a suprise attack it's something the PCs can plan for, knowing where it is at all times and being able to research how to fight it, make plans, try to lay traps, in general get the jump on it instead of vice-versa.

It's not folklore in Pathfinder. It's lore. Paizo has explicitly said that's how it works in the flavor text. And it still doesn't contradict the folklore. Instead of the rune bringing the golem to life itself it can bind the Elemental into the golem (therefore bringing it to life). I'm not aware of anywhere they actually specify those kind of details of the golem building process.

A critical hit is not a debilitating hit unless you take a feat to allow you to do that. A critical hit is just more damage. What that means is... well, complicated. HP is an abstraction, 20 damage is lethal to low levels and ignorable at high levels. Do high level people's eyes become immune to stabbings? I'd assume a golem's knee is just as vulnerable (compared to the rest of it) as a human knee. And you can whack them with a sword repeatedly and it somehow hurts them (ignoring DR, which even the Flesh Golem has despite exclusively being made of meat, wires, and staples) so presumably there's stronger and weaker bits.

...the Terbutje is a finesse weapon? The bunch of spiky stuff jammed into a club? Still 19-20 crit range. The Falchion, a weapon described as "better for chopping than stabbing"? Best crit range in the game. Crit ranges are a mechanical construct to add variety to weapon types. I think most high crit range weapons are piercing just because it's the least useful damage type (bypasses the least resistances).

Benefit: When using the Deflect Arrows feat you may choose to catch the weapon instead of just deflecting it.

Unusually massive ranged weapons (such as boulders or ballista bolts) and ranged attacks generated by natural attacks or spell effects can’t be deflected.

I'm pretty sure most instances of giants throwing rocks are "unusually massive ranged weapons". Maybe there's a Small giant with rock throwing but I can't think of one. Anyway, you can't use Snatch Arrows on something unless you can use Deflect Arrows on it and boulders are specifically called out as something you can't use it on.

If 3.5 is on the table just use Dragonfire Adept.

Linnorms are heavily inspired by Lindworms. Seriously, the Father of All Linnorms is Fafnheir. Now where the curse specifically comes from I don't know. The Wagner version of the Nibelungenleid has the ring that transformed Fafnir cursed to pass on misfortune to whoever had it. I think some versions might have the gold it made cursed as well. That's my best guess.

...so like a secret Necro? Everything they cite is from 2013. All happened around the same time, I think.

Honestly, I would have said that with time the martial options have gotten a lot better. Tagged magical (SU, usually) but at least they're available. CRB only martials were just sad.

As for why developers put weird restrictions on martials, it's a dearth of inspiration and imagination. King Arthur... is a man with a magic sword. His own abilities are subsumed into being a "magic item holder". Ditto LotR. Hercules is descended from gods (in game, probably a new race or template). The developers are not unique in this regard, I've seen my fair share of DMs and players who restrict martials because "realism". There's a lot of sociology stuff but it all basically boils down to "high level martials don't exist in reality" and "things which aren't real are explained by magic or the divine (gods)". The only time this wasn't true that I know of was essentially the American expansion into the West. Wild West legends, basically. Pecos Bill lassoed a tornado with a rattlesnake and shot out all the stars in the sky except one. No magic powers or magic gun, he was just that good. And then it has gone back and forth. Early James Bond movies he's a man with a bunch of magic items (spy gadgets), more recently they've tried to make it less gadgets and more the man. Doctor Who is just a science wizard. Superman is basically Hercules (granted power by not being fully human), Batman has magic items (science gadgets). Batman's another one that's gone from focus on the items to focus on the man (and maybe back? I haven't read it in a while).

Basically most of our stories of high level Fighting Men involve magic items, blessings, halfhumans or nonhumans, or some other excuse for their power beyond themselves. So people absorb that and make it so your Fighter sucks unless they get a sweet magic sword, then they're allowed to be good.

Yes, they are, but I didn't post here for that. When I want a critique, I ask for it.

Not really your choice. Once you post something other people get to decide how they respond (within the framework of the thread, of course). And if your post differs enough from other's expectations (say, Monk/Wizard multiclass breaking the game) then I would expect people to question it.

In your case your complaints all seem to boil down to "this character is the best at the most common stuff in the campaign". While it might be powergaming (depending on degree) it's definitely not game breaking. And while we can't really measure the degree (as you won't provide details) we can absolutely guess that the other players are wildly behind (as 40 DPR is what, a 6th level Fighter with a bow?). Other players being really bad is a problem (all game imbalance is) but it's not powergaming. One Fighter and three Commoners is a bad party but it's not the Fighter's fault.

If you think it's off-topic by all means flag and move on. But since people seem to be arguing it, I'm absolutely going to chime in with "A Paladin in a demon-heavy campaign isn't a powergamer". Because they're not. It's what their class is designed to do. It's the perfect time to play one.

Outside the game I have zero issues. My problem (if I’m GMing or not) is the ridiculous damage output. From how I was brought up the game should play more like dark souls and less like a hack ‘n’ slash on easy mode. If you don’t feel stressed, scared for survival or have that feeling of gone through some stuff it is too easy.

I’m not talking GM vs. player either as that is wrong.

So, in the politest terms, you're wrong.

D&D hasn't worked that way since AD&D 2e (and maybe not even that, I'm not as familiar with all the options). Power Attack was added in 3e, this system (Pathfinder) is two generations after that. And those were the Fighter numbers, the Wizard was throwing out uncapped fireballs and lightning bolts in AD&D. Also health numbers were much lower, a big bad Red Dragon had (I think) 77 HP. So while the Fighter slogged through, the Magic User could instantly fry it just with raw damage.

Dark Souls on the other hand has a plethora of glitch/gamist ways around the difficulty. Tricking people off cliffs, into holes, trapped in buildings, hit them through walls, shoot them before they activate, and my favorite, throwing poop at them until they die of poison. And those are the unintended ones, as at least one boss includes a way to instantly kill them with a flying leap down onto them. Might be the second or third game.

Anyway, my point is that I think you're playing the wrong game. D&D (and its offshoots) have gotten progressively more "easy hack and slash" because they have to. Levels being more tightly tied to power means you need to make higher level characters to keep up, higher level characters take longer to make. The options to avoid repeated lengthy character recreation sessions are either easy resurrection or less random deaths. They went with less random deaths. If you want a game where your character doesn't get a name until level 5 because "why bother", this isn't the game for you.

Bob Bob Bob wrote:

I'll preface this with the simple answer. Torture is an Evil act, one Evil act does not change your alignment. Torturing for some Good might balance to Neutral but that's a GM call.

You're right, making a singular mistake in a moment of desperation doesn't completely change your alignment; if an otherwise Good person starts to feel the pressure of the situation and commits to torture as a means to their ends, then that alone won't change their alignment completely. They will probably feel horrible about what they've done and seek to atone somehow - or perhaps they'll double down on justifying themselves, which would indicate an alignment shift.

That's not what the OP's character is doing though; torture as a means of gathering information is a defining character trait for him. Once it's a pattern of behavior rather than a single transgression it's absolutely indicative of being an evil person. It's the difference between a crime-of-passion murderer and a serial killer.

It was less about the torture for information but the actual tools I see many uses for for example thumbscrews remove a caster from casting unless they have a still spell, the Trephine can actually heal mental ability damage (or cause it if the heal check fails by 5 or more).

The torture he learned was less about interrogation more for stopping “evil magic users” from casting their spells when imprisoned. The why I only gave him the tools that prevent casting (Screws to remove somatic, Fork to prevent a good night sleep and the Trephine to not only help non magic heal mental ability damage of allies heal dc 25 but to potential lower a caster ability to cast)

It's not about interrogation, it's about preventing a captive from escaping. Which isn't inherently Evil (unless you think all prisons are).

Now, as I said in my other post, I think the methods they are suggesting (the torture implements) are absolutely torture. Thumbscrews might get a pass (in that you don't have to inflict pain with them) but the other two can only be used for their torture use and are almost textbook Evil.

But the main reason I qualified it based on individual acts is I don't think it's going to come up that often. I rarely see players take prisoners, the specific implements only work on certain types (SLAs don't have somatic components), and it really only matters for long-term containment. It doesn't matter if the player is built for it if they never actually do it. You'll notice Cook People, arguably the easiest example of Evil, still only says "Using this hex or knowingly eating its food is an evil act." Not taking the hex but actually using it. Not sure who would take it if they didn't intend to use it but merely having it doesn't count as Evil.

The biggest pro and the reason one of my players pitched this was to try to get characters that are a little more diverse then your standard fighter with dumped charisma or low str mages.

would help increase variety of characters.

I recognize this. What they actually meant was "my Han Solo knockoff should have 18 Cha but I don't want to spend any points on it". Rolling doesn't really lead to diversity. It mostly leads to casters (because you only got one good stat) or reckless disregard for life (since your Dex and Con sucked).

We also considered applying additional bonus's based on stats to help balance things out (under a certain point value maybe gets a bonus couple of d6's to pass around) to create more of a balanced group bell curve.

Thanks for all your input folks.

If you don't want the dice to be the final arbiter then don't roll dice. You can make all the fiddly modifications you want, there's always going to be disparity. That's what dice do.

Honestly, the best way I've seen to do diverse characters is simple. Let them pick their stats. Anything between 8 and 18. Lower if they really want it. Just pick a number you think fits the character. I think you'd be surprised what people make (except for the all 18 person, nobody is surprised by them).

For a one-shot it's moderate fun. Need a lot of system mastery to do anything useful with some rolls but there's always the old standby of Fighter (named "Bait"). It works much better with a campaign you can easily replace characters in. Skull and Shackles maybe? I don't know how often you put into port (get downtime in town) and how much fancy gear is given out (that you might want continuity for). You could also roll up multiple characters and let the party pick who to recruit for the ship (at low levels anyway).

The one time I did it for a full campaign was for Way of the Wicked, which gives you an 18, an 8, and 1d10+8 straight down. Some people got great rolls (average of 16, one was the Wizard, the other the Fighter). The Cleric didn't get above a 12... but was already planning to be a summoner. The last person got mediocre rolls, died, got better rolls, died, and is currently alive (but with worse rolls than the dead ones, weirdly enough).

Every other time someone says 3d6 or rolls in place and then one player gets somewhere between 12 and 14 for everything, another's best roll is a 6, and one guy is rocking two 16s and a 15. So we reroll, or the bad ones point buy, or some other change. I just rolled, got 9/8/10/12/8/6. Second round, 10/7/10/9/9/9. Sweet, finally got positive Str and Con! 13/9/14/8/12/11. Try it yourself.

Basicallly, most people don't actually want to roll dice for stats. They want to get good stats and don't know how math works. Or they do and think they're lucky/have lucky dice/have loaded dice/are just optimistic. Gamblers love to roll... rarely like keeping the rolls though.

So there's a couple thematic things you'd need to change and a whole host of little problems with actually running it but it's a decent twist on an old classic. The way I've seen it done (including an ancient module) is essentially starting with one-shot characters who die at the villain's birth/rebirth and then bring in new characters to stop them. This honestly sounds like a better version in that the players don't have to work on a character who is just going to disappear soon (though the old module avoided that by having them play pregens).

So on to the thematic stuff. First, souls aren't judged in mortal timeframes. If someone is revived then their soul never left the Boneyard. I think it can't, otherwise they couldn't be revived. So your players would land in Hell... 10,000 years later. Second, whatever acid wash they dump souls through to make petitioners would normally remove the player's levels. You'd need some explanation for that too. Likely the two would be solved by the same handwave. Hellfire Ray bypasses the line but leaves their abilities intact, or something similar. Might even let them find/fight the paladin later, depending on how they were killed.

Then all the little fiddly bits. If you're taking all their equipment then certain classes (alchemist, gunslinger) will need new stuff specific to them immediately. Others (wizard, fighter) will need new stuff specific to them very quickly. It's simpler to warn them ahead of time but if for some reason you don't want to you need to replace their gear quickly or allow them to retrain to use the new stuff for free. Similarly, certain classes (gunslinger and alchemist again) need the ability to resupply regularly. Some abilities are much stronger (anything that counts as silver), some much weaker (anything fire based). Oh, and because of your other thread, no environmental challenges will survive more than a level or two because there's usually a spell or feat they can take (or throw some points in survival) to deal with it. You're better off having the challenges scale by what part/layer of Hell they're in.

Short answer, players don't like spending time doing stuff only to have it fiated away. Either let them know what's going to happen or let them know circumstances might rapidly change and you should be fine. Tell them nothing and you might end up with some pissed off players whose time and effort was just made worthless.

So I've written and erased a much longer post pointing out some of the detailed problems I have with this. Things like the unwritten assumptions (kineticist banned, outsiders rare), the need for GM fiat (monsters don't chase, setting up ambushes is easy), and that it seems to lift spellcasters and crush fighters (melee combat more brutal, new special effects favor big hits).

After typing it all up I realized my problem is much simpler than that. You cannot mix "magic is complicated but powerful" with "melee combat sucks" as long as players can choose to play magicians and disposable minions exist (and those minions might be other players). If your Fighter regularly has to spend a few days healing the Druid definitely has time to get a new animal companion. And the Summoner laughs at both from behind their shield of monsters, all of whom are wildly overpowered for their level because they are "fantastical" creatures. You might be able to fix this with bans of some kind but until magic is dangerous and/or banned from player hands then magic will always be the best choice for players. Which is sort of the opposite of what I'd expect from a Conan game, personally.

Oh, and that Cloud Giant thing? It can break the Web with a Combat Manuever check, which it makes on a -3. It then either runs them down (50 feet a move) or blasts them with Chain Lightning (from 1000 feet away, 15d8 damage DC 27). Running is rarely an option in Pathfinder if something really wants to kill you.

Trip (Ex)

A creature with the trip special attack can attempt to trip its opponent as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity if it hits with the specified attack. If the attempt fails, the creature is not tripped in return.

So every time it hits with a chain it does damage normally and can choose to spend a free action to make a trip attempt against the target it hits.

In most circumstances this means that it gets a free trip against everything it hits with a chain. The only time it doesn't is if it's prevented from taking a free action for some reason.

The DCs in Mirrored Moon are absolutely not appropriate. Those hexes are 12 miles across, on a flat plane the average person sees something like 3 miles away. So like a quarter of the hex. Extra height (climb a tree, trivial DC) can easily extend that a mile or two. And we might as well treat it as a flat plane because two of the features are so obvious that you really can't miss them. The longhouse is both large and smoke is coming out of the chimney from the cooking fire. The village is explicitly intentionally very visible. Also, honestly, probably a lot of smoke from cooking fires there as well. So unless the grass is 30 feet tall it shouldn't be that hard to locate them.

For some the DC seems appropriate. To avoid spoilers, K in particular seems like it'd be difficult to find. The rest are more of a mixed bag but you can certainly fluff them one way or another. But unless the longhouse is buried in the ground it should be super obvious. Ditto the village. Anyone who can fly should literally be able to fly straight up at the middle of their hex and see either of them. From a quick calculation (no clue how accurate) you only need to be 25 feet off the ground to see six miles away. So not even flying, a monk with a good jump could do it.

Which is what I said before. Different things need different difficulty levels. The plains hexes should be much easier to search than either the mountain or forest. You can just see so much farther. Additionally, the longhouse and village should be even easier to find than other stuff in the plains because they're so large and glaringly obvious. Ditto the Moonmere, which explicitly says it's so obvious the players will see it well ahead of time. Yet, somehow, is just as hard to find as all the rest of the stuff.

That's a rather extreme interpretation of "at once". If I tell my daughter to go to bed "at once" I expect it to take her more than a picosecond to get there. So the SS has to a) crawl out, exactly as per the description, and then work out what PCs there are to attack and begin to do so. Unless they're within range when it emerges, it must use that 3rd action to move. And as it's no idiot (int +6) it probably won't just spend its last action sailing into melee range where the enemy can full-attack it.

If my parents had told me to go to bed "at once" and I'd just stood around for a while doing nothing, I would have caught an earful. I did just for dragging my feet even. Monster spawns and admires the flowers for a round sure doesn't sound like "at once".

so this chart is saying that a fighter does on average 16.5 damage at lv9 right? wow, let me tell you about this super OP damage build. It's magic missile. Like the full round action version does 10.5 average damage per heightening, and heightening happens at the same level that people are expected to have a magic weapon upgrade. So at lv9 MM is averaging 31.5 damage from your top tier spells and 21 damage from your second best slots.

These two tiers, lv5 and lv9 seem to be competitive and great for all levels. And the spell gets better from there. Super OP damage

While I understand this is a liiiitle sarcastic, at the same time you're not wrong. The spell is a huge advantage against bosses because it ignores the extra AC. The range (120 feet) means you can basically hit whatever you can see. Against the boss of Lost Star an all bard party can win in one round. Even Pale Mountain, which is probably the worst time for our traveling band (no heighten), they can win in three rounds against the hardiest TPKer (two rounds for the rest).

Given the 5 minute workday people are seeing... yes, Magic Missile is probably OP. All hail our new Arcane/Occult overlords, I guess. Pew pew pew.

arcaneArtisan wrote:

It sounds like maybe the difficulty level has indeed increased a bit, but nothing I've heard suggests the situations are unrealistically dangerous or dangerous to a degree that reduces the level of fun to be had in the game. It just sounds like some people are assuming they're as superhumanly tough as they were in First Edition and that's not the case any longer--and it means reckless tactics actually get you killed sometimes. Even then, I've seen very few descriptions of people suffering TPKs that they both blame on...

^^This. Exactly this. Pathfinder is a fantasy RPG, not a Superhero RPG.

How is PF2 less superhero than PF1? I associate "everyone is good at everything" (the Ostog the Untenured problem) with superheroes, not fantasy. The Wizard doesn't suddenly become an Olympic long jumper because they're high level... except in PF2 they do.

PF2 characters (on average) have more HP and more AC than PF1, as far as I can tell. The specialists could beat PF2 but people who didn't focus would be way behind PF2. The Barbarian skinny dipping in lava is easily possible in both. The Wizard doing the same thing in PF1 without magic, not so much (possible with enough Con, just difficult). In PF2 a level 20 Wizard with 10 Con has 120 HP and with 24d6 max for taking a dip in lava has a 99.99% chance of surviving (I think there's a few more 9s, actually). In PF1 with 10 Con it's basically the reverse (a 99.99% chance of dying). The naked frail Wizard taking a dip in lava without magic just screams superhero to me.

Also, a naked Fighter had an AC of 10+Dex in PF1 and could be killed in an ambush by peasants. In PF2 they have 10+level+Dex and whoever is ambushing them better be within a few levels of them if they want to hit at all. If I had to call one fantasy and one superhero it'd be first and second, respectively. The second one could also be fantasy but less "realistic" and more "demigod" (which isn't much of a stretch from superhero).

Seriously, why is PF1 the more superhero of the two? Because you can pile on a bunch of magic armor and doodads to make yourself super powerful? That's high fantasy. Superheros are about your innate powers. Or in this case, "proficiency".

I see post after post in the feedback about people having total party kills.

I'm wondering how many of the party deaths are from people making PF1 assumptions in their PF2 game.
When I ran part 1 of Doomsday Dawn, I lost count of how many times the players started to move their character's mini, then stopped and said, "Oh, wait... is that gonna incur an attack of opportunity?"
So, basically, they were doing or not doing things based on their perception of what would or wouldn't happen, because of what they were used to from the old rules.
I wonder if a fresh, clean slate of rules understanding would provide different outcomes?

The TPK in chief of Lost Star can get their attack bonus up to +12 for 8-22 damage on a crit, average 15. Shortbows are similar player killers at this level with a potential 3-22 damage on a crit but at least they crit less.

Then there's Pale Mountain and three encounters with +13 on their standard attack (to be fair, one isn't really meant to be fought) and one who can reach +15. Only instead of use that +15 attack it's meant to use its +12 attack.

In both adventures it appears the adventure designer's solution to these things that can one-shot players is "don't use them". That's... well, not great design.

As for overall, my experience so far says that it's not the old system causing these TPKs. It's the new system and inflated monster numbers (usually bosses). Strike/Stride/Strike instead of full attacks. Monster abilities that let them make two attacks with one action (and don't increase their MAP). I mean, this is basically the orc with an axe problem from PF1, just spread out to everything. Basically, a CR 1/3 creature (so send a few!) that deals 3d12+12 damage on a crit. If it rolls normally then no big deal, if it gets lucky someone's getting splatted. Oh, and no more confirm roll as a safety check.

Bob Bob Bob wrote:

So I can't speak for the OP but they've mentioned a couple times that the players had less than optimal Dex scores for their armor and/or weren't willing to go with a heavier armor for some reason (ACP, speed).

The vast majority of characters in parties have maxed out their AC, and by The Rose Street Revenge and onwards, all characters have maxed out their AC without exception.

Ah, missed a qualifier on my post. Sorry. You've mentioned a couple times that a player had less than optimal Dex scores for their armor. Specifically: "I think they made some poor defensive choices; they should have gone with Dexterity 16 and Constitution 12 instead of balancing the two scores, and they should have used a breastplate." and "I think that this character should have used hide armor rather than studded leather though.". Well, and any Monk period (always slightly behind a maximized armor user).

And yes, these are from the early runs. I would assume that after the multiple TPKs the party put a much heavier focus on defense. I would be interested in raw numbers if you have them but only out of curiosity. The ACs for my party for Pale Mountain ranged from 19-21 but they avoided three of the worst offenders (with some insanely lucky rolls on the relevant parts).

I also have no idea why your PCs are always dying. I've ran my group through the first 1.5 adventures and they have never been close to a TPK.*

All the critical hits people write about, how? The attack bonuses for Pale Mountain are +9 and +7; +9; +9 or 7 and +10 or 9; and +12. My PCs that took the most attacks had ACs of 20, 22 (w/shield), and 20 (or 22 once/round). So pretty much all of those attacks need a 20, or down to 18 with flat footed or who knows. That range of crits isn't out of control.

Or in Lost Star ACs were 15-17. With the impressive (and it is odd) +6 by most monsters that still leaves crits at the 19-20 range.

*note: they did not fight Drakus as it was late and one crazy PC thought he could take him on by himself. He couldn't.

So I can't speak for the OP but they've mentioned a couple times that the players had less than optimal Dex scores for their armor and/or weren't willing to go with a heavier armor for some reason (ACP, speed).

Also if you're going to list them for Pale Mountain, list them for Lost Star. +7, +6 (and easy flat-footed), +6 (and so very very many), +7 (again, easy flat-footed), +6 (again, whole bunch of them), and +10 (up to +12). +7 against 15 AC is an 18-20 crit range. Set up flanking or use Stealth and those +6s are more like +8s, now a possible 17-20 crit range. That's a 20% crit chance. Drops to 19-20 for the better ACs but mostly we're looking at every enemy packing a scimitar. Especially since they seem designed to get flat-footed on the players so easily.

Similarly for Pale Mountain, the OP mentions a Monk (so slightly lower AC even if you focus on it). The problematic encounters are +12/+15, +13, +13, and +13. Crit against AC 20 on an 18 for the worst one. Most crit on a 17, the best one crits on a 15. Some form of debuff (and a couple are designed to do that) and the weaker (hah) ones can also crit on a 15. So keen scimitars all around. No confirm either.

It also doesn't help that most monsters don't have anything else to do. The first one for Pale Mountain has four attacks in its stat block and nothing else. One of the +13s literally only has that attack and nothing else. The other has a lovely flavor ability and a reaction... neither of which are going to change its behavior from Stride/Strike/Strike. The last one at least has options. All the rest just spam attacks.

I'll quote my partner's description of our upcoming game as it seems to sum up the issue best. "Another four hours of yelling at the dice". Basically, feats, spells, weapons, and all other player choices are utterly irrelevant compared to how much the dice gods love you that day.

For full disclosure I'm running a party of six through Doomsday Dawn. We've completed Lost Star and are partway through Pale Mountain. This issue might disappear at higher levels but nothing I've seen indicates the party is ever going to catch up to monsters. In fact, it looks like monsters are always ahead (especially if they have +3 higher skills than they should). I'll try to scrub details from the encounters but apologies in advance if you're spoiled.

The problem started with the first encounter. It lined everyone up for its AoE and all but one saved. Then it attacked and almost downed someone with a crit (rolling high on both the attack and damage).

Then the next encounter, where the party ended it in a round with sneak attack criticals. The monsters whiffed almost every Strike (except a crit against the animal companion).

The party skipped the encounter room but did choose the investigation room. Nobody made the roll, period. I suggested the animal companion try (mostly because I thought it was amusing), it passed with flying colors.

Almost the entire party made the check for the hazard, the Cleric decided to try destroying it. Not happy to learn it had an actual TAC, rolled... a 3. Annoyed, decided to try one more time... rolled a 3 again.

The next parts were less swingy, then they got to the boss. The boss tried, it really did, but all the bonuses in the world can't help when you roll a 1. This was even against the animal companion, where a 2 would have hit. It was otherwise a decent fight and then the Fighter got a Greataxe crit and carved off like 3/4th of the boss' HP instantly.

Then we started Pale Mountain. I'm not going to cover all the skill check problems (suffice to say, I don't think a single "expert" ever got the highest result), just the combats. And actually, just the one combat. The one that led to the frustrated quote at the top. I have to spoiler it though, as I can't scrub out the important parts.

So my issue is that a hot dice hand appears to matter more than anything else in the game. The Ranger from the spoiler fight was built perfectly for that fight... didn't matter because they couldn't roll high enough. The Monk was literally the worst possible setup for it. Never rolled low enough for that to matter (well, once, on a second attack that would have needed a 20 to hit).

The DC table might be "here's what an opponent of this level should create for things which have a DC but not a fixed DC" but that's probably not how it's going to be used. It's a bit too long for that. As I already said, the worry is that GMs (or heaven forbid, developers) are either going to use it as a shortcut (so everything about the castle designed by a level 6 architect uses that DC, even climbing the outside) or everywhere the party goes is going to be designed by a <party level> architect/trapmaker/locksmith.

And (also again), this is exactly 4e's system. The DC to climb a rope in 4e is 10, +/- based on other conditions (as posted by Insight here). It doesn't scale. Scaling DCs were for opposed checks, unique level-appropriate challenges (usually skill challenges?), and monster special abilities. You know, exactly like an "obstacle created by an enemy of a certain level".

The problem arose when other things people thought should have a fixed DC (climbing a tree) would scale (because the tree was bigger/had less branches/whatever) because it was meant to pose a level-appropriate challenge. This is the exact worry I have with the scaling DC table, as one of the bard abilities says "The DC is usually a high-difficulty DC of a level equal to the highest-level target of your composition, but the GM can assign a different DC based on the circumstances." So the developers are already using it to scale the entire game. And remember those parts where the DC goes up 2 instead of 1? Better up how trained you are, level a stat, or pick up a better instrument or you're falling behind. You know, like a treadmill.

Perfect. Page 42: The Revenge. I understand that in trying to fix the problems of Pathfinder they're going to tread much the same ground as 4e but this one needs to die. At the very least they shouldn't be advertising it.

The system is literally 4e's. Static DCs for specific things and a series of DCs for ad-hoc GM calls. It's a great system for streamlining (the damage tables even let you use it in combat). Except, as someone has already accused other posters of, people look at the tables and don't notice there are static DCs (though they were refering to reading the post). Or (leveled at 4e) developers use the table as rules for adventure design. Both are the treadmill, where you gain a level, grow in power, and still need the exact same roll on the dice to succeed.

As a framework this sounds like a great idea. As a hard-coded set of rules... not so much. And make no mistake, some GMs are going to treat this as a strict rule set. Only now instead of needing to justify it or take responsibility themselves, "Paizo said so". It's also going to exacerbate the "socks for Christmas" problem, where players find a cool thing and then notice the requirements or limitations. Now that will include rarity.

Have they said somewhere else that totems give you free powers? Because the blog post says "These totems are a set of three thematically linked abilities the barbarian can choose, starting at 2nd level." Bolding mine. Since you already pick the totem at level one that "choose" has to be refering to something else. Picking abilities at level 2 sounds an awful lot like the old rage powers (would be called class feats now, I think?). So it seems possible (and even likely, depending how often you can take them) that characters could have most of their chosen class abilities tied up in totem powers. If that's true then there's no way it's "just as good as PF1 Barbarian" after violating its anathema.

Also I'm still not seeing any defense for "the GM can make you recreate Amiri's backstory, only without having to let you get lucky and not die". The dev says it's not a test of strength if it's grossly unfair but that's not how language works. There are plenty of unfair tests of strength. That's the entirety of the labors of Hercules, I think. The dev even ends that post with "if you expect bad actors and must play with them, go fury". That sounds an awful lot like confirmation anathema can be used to screw players.

I was with them up until the part where they seemed to think that players wanted all totems. I saw players take the full chain of Beast and Dragon (and one very specific build that used Hive). Everything else was a dip or not at all. Seriously, has anyone seen someone use World Serpent or Chaos totem? And let's not kid ourselves, they took them because they provided useful abilities (NA and pounce, energy resistance and flight).

The whole thing really seems like a solution in search of a problem. As far as I can tell you pick the totem at level one (which includes the restrictions) and then starting at level two you can start choosing the abilities. So... it's rage powers. It's rage powers you pick that lock you out of other rage powers. It's exactly what the last edition had, only with a level 9 ability and a restriction that starts before you can even pick up the abilities. Were people really clamoring for more restrictions on the Barbarian? Having to plan their build even farther ahead (since you can't just pick a totem power at later levels, you have to take the totem at level one)?

Then the anathema themselves. Allegedly they're "low impact" except for the ones that are "strict" but as people have already pointed out "low impact" can still mean "the GM can force you to lose your powers or do something suicidal". And that's with the one anathema we already know about. I bet given the rest we'll find similar "here's a situation where the Barbarian does something stupid/suicidal or loses their powers". All the fun of a Paladin with none of the power since these are the low impact ones that therefore don't give you the stronger powers. And nobody can say this won't happen since it's literally Amiri's backstory.

The rest I suppose comes down to the details. If there's only 40 abilities (there were only 28 in the Core before) and 24 of them are locked behind "must be this totem" then that's not a lot of choice. If totems got them for free, or access to them earlier, or they worked better for specific totems then I wouldn't have a problem. But right now it sounds like we're back to "forbidden schools" meaning "can never cast anything from this ever", a design Paizo explicitly got rid of for their Wizard. Why bring it back for a Barbarian?

Poor representation of the physical world... ish. Good game rules? Oh @#$% yes.

So you're absolutely right, objects should do more damage based on weight... and shape, and rigidity, and probably a dozen other factors. It might be worth modeling it but I can't imagine it comes up enough that it'd be worth the dozen pages you'd need for full rules. Their version (does damage for size, does more for denser, falling farther) is a nice quickie version. Now, that being said, it actually makes sense that people would take more damage from falling than from falling objects. "Falling" doesn't mean you jumped off and landed on your feet. It also includes compound fractures, neck and spine injuries, or just going head first into the ground. Honestly, those are probably all more damage than "large object falls on you". They'd probably also best be represented with separate conditions and not just damage but that's a different "realism" problem with HP. Oh, and if you're going to complain here then you also need to complain that a higher level "rolling boulder trap" doesn't actually have to use a larger or heavier boulder but still somehow does more damage.

Why they changed it was because of Hulking Hurler (and did it have any ilk?). If you can get infinitely scalable damage based on weight then Major Creation and an engineer is a tactical nuke. You could actually do the "rods from god" thing (make a giant heavy object in space, bombard planet) but hilariously it would only hurt the single target you aimed at (instead of destroying the entire area around it). Either way it was awful for game balance. I'm quite happy they did away with it even if it makes the game less realistic. Instakills are no fun for anyone.

I can't find the quote anymore but Gygax explicitly based the D&D economy on Gold Rush towns. So some goods are weirdly on point and others are obscenely expensive. This has been inherited down the line. You're never going to be able to do a one-to-one comparison with Pathfinder and the economy because it's not based on a functioning economy (or one that exists anymore?).

Let me see if I can collect all of the angry rants I've seen. They basically boil down to narrative problems and mechanical problems. Actually, after typing this all up, it all boils down to Cure Light Wounds being the most cost effective strategy. Try two!

Narratively, "Let's all stop for a few minutes to heal up" isn't necessarily a problem. The problem is that you're then burning multiple (especially at higher levels) consumables to do it. If it were potions nobody would have to explain this. The Hero chugging 20-30 potions after every battle has a drinking problem. Which is an acceptable choice but it has to be a choice, not the only sane and reasonable way to play.

Mechanically, wizards and other casters are based around having limited resources. In return they get stronger powers. Fighter's and... rogue's? (most other martials still have per-day abilities) only resource tends to be HP. However, because cheap healing is available this tends to be an all-or-nothing affair (either you die or you're back up to full next batttle). And this has been going on so long everything is designed assuming that's what's happening, meaning encounters and abilities will always assume the Fighter is at full strength but the Wizard is out half of their spells. So Fighter abilities won't be great without per-day limitations and Wizard abilities will either stay the same or get stronger.

As I've said, the largest problem is that CLW is the most cost effective way to go. I don't think anyone has a problem with "Fighter chugs a single potion to heal up before continuing". Similarly, using a higher level consumable to heal up would mean an actual resource expenditure after a battle instead of the trivial cost of the CLW wands at high level.

Now, as for the solution, who knows? The short answer is that healing has to get better as you get to higher levels, not worse. More +CL instead of random dice? Lower the cost for healing items specifically? Do the Starfinder/4e thing with short rests/long rests and recovery? In-class healing of some kind? Lots of options, Resonance is apparently their take. We'll have to see in totality what it ends up meaning.

unless the kyber crystal gets damaged(ie the light saber being cut were the crystal is) there is no changing them its one crystal for the entire life span of the weapon, and because its sci-fi there should be ways to keep the weapons powered for an absurdly long time

So current canon actually has a small power cell in the lightsaber powering it. Before you blame Disney, old canon had the exact same thing with an added "and the old ones used to have a giant power pack and a cord on the lightsaber". It just doesn't run out or get changed often because it only uses energy when the blade actually connects with something. To be fair, blasters are basically the same. A standard blaster pistol was good for 100 shots with the standard equipment. Other (usually stronger types) would have less shots, certain older (and usually weaker) ones never ran out at all.

But those are refined products, decades (centuries?) old. In order for Pathfinder to work the same way then everyone has to have been using laser swords (and exclusively laser swords) for pretty much the entire game's history, building on them, researching and perfecting new technologies. That's... well, Starfinder. Don't get your hopes up though, it still uses charges for your fire sword. It just has bigger and better fire swords. Anyway, the point being that Paizo wants Pathfinder to be a swords and sorcery setting which makes high technology: rare and exotic, found instead of made, kinda sucky, and broken a lot of the time. If any of those are changed the setting changes significantly. And while "Every king must pilgrimage to Numeria to find their Glow Belt to ensure their invulnerability to their enemies and their Fire Sword to cut down those who oppose them" can be a fine setting that's a world setting, not a local one. Since Paizo is going for fantasy kitchen sink (to offer as many settings as possible) one setting which completely overrides all of the others is a bad idea.

Ill Omen is a solid debuff. Limp Lash, any of the various swarm summons (saves still fail on a 1 and swarms can force it every round), Power Words, Scouring Winds, Source Severance (if you know what kind of caster they are), the various Whip of <swarm> spells, Volcanic Storm, Ice Storm, Solid Fog, Black Tentacles, all spells with no save that probably help against casters. You say touch AC 20 and "can't land consistently", how? You're looking at at least +7 BAB, +Dex (should be at least +3 or 4 by level 15, probably more like +6), and Heroism/Greater Heroism (+2 or +4). That's between +12 and +17, that seems like plenty.

I think this requires an obligatory "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." That is to say, I'm not sure fantasy-land would even notice. NASA will probably freak the @#$% out as people create matter and energy from nothing but NASA "shooting metal pellets or burning light beams" are already standard spells. So I guess what I'm saying is that this works best as a twist to the players, not the characters. It's certainly a fun one, especially if the first person to discover it can keep up the charade.

Cleave also requires that you declare it first (you can't declare it after hitting) and that the second enemy be adjacent to the first. That's a fairly heavy restriction. Original 3.5 Cleave (later brought back through yet another feat) let you keep making attacks as long as you dropped someone. Base Cleave basically just lets you hit two people standing next to each other (and only if you hit on the first attack and you take an AC penalty to do it).

TWF, by contrast, is just a free extra attack. Yes with penalties, but if you're counting something you need to take a feat to get (Cleave) then we have to assume you're taking the feat here too. Cleave can only double your damage by spreading it to a different target. TWF can just straight double your damage. And TWF doesn't harm "most" damage bonuses. Strength to damage and Power Attack and I think that's it? Favored Enemy, Sneak Attack, Weapon Training, Studied Target, Inspire Courage are all at full bonus. Heck, even the UBarb's Rage works just fine with TWF.

Then there's the mechanical/"realism" issues. TWF is "swinging both swords" (or whatever). Why can't we replace that with "swinging both claws"? If the rules started allowing TWF as a standard by default then how would we justify not getting all of your natural attacks as a standard as well? Natural Attack builds are strong enough without free pounce.

It sounds like you're trying to compare "big beefy warrior" to "big beefy warrior who we took away his greatsword and he's forced to use a couple daggers". Yes, the second one will be worse. By contrast compare "rogue with low str and two daggers flanking an opponent" and "rogue with low str and a greatsword flanking an opponent". Again, the second one is worse (unless that second target is also flanked) but now it's because Cleave is bad and TWF is good instead of vice-versa. Different characters benefit more or less from TWF and Cleave. Some quite significantly. Saying "Cleave is better than TWF" is always going to require "for this specific build".

Here we go again:

Lets assume we have 2 dwarves, Guflaf and Guflof. Both have ful ranks in Craft(weapons), Craft(armor) and Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat. The only difference is Guflaf have Master Craftsman (weapons) and Guflof have Master Craftsman (armor).
If they both have Cooperative Crafting, this means if they craft magic weapon/armor, the relevant dwarf can make the check and assisting one give him +2 to the check and item is crafted at double speed?

Benefit: You can assist another character in crafting mundane and magical items. You must both possess the relevant Craft skill or item creation feat, but either one of you can fulfill any other prerequisites for crafting the item. You provide a +2 circumstance bonus on any Craft or Spellcraft checks related to making an item, and your assistance doubles the gp value of items that can be crafted each day.

Yes, it appears to work. It doesn't even seem like they both need the skills (since it only requires "the relevant Craft skill or item creation feat", not both).

To create magic items, spellcasters use special feats which allow them to invest time and money in an item's creation. At the end of this process, the spellcaster must make a single skill check (usually Spellcraft, but sometimes another skill) to finish the item.

Skill Used in Creation: Spellcraft or Craft (armor).

Skill Used in Creation: Spellcraft, Craft (bows) (for magic bows and arrows), or Craft (weapons) (for all other weapons).

From this page.

Alright, so let's start with the cantrips.

The easiest to calculate is Mage Hand, 5 lbs moves 15 feet in 6 seconds. That's... well, just a reminder of how much I hate intro physics. @#$%ing Imperial. Hopefully someone else can do it.

The second easiest is Create Water however the scaling makes it more complicated. A 20th level caster can make 40 gallons of water from nothing. Every 6 seconds. That's... a @#$%load of energy. Like, devour a planet levels. So every high level Cleric is Galactus.

Everything else is too hard to calculate (a small glob doesn't have a decent definition) and anything with a duration potentially can be converted completely back to energy (minus lost energy). Fireball, for instance, only loses the transferred energy for what it hits. Presumably the excess energy is converted back.

The next one with an easy answer is Telekinetic Volley. You can launch bolts (1/10th a lb) 1,200 feet in 6 seconds. Maybe a sling-staff instead? 1/2 lbs goes 800 feet in 6 seconds, potentially better.

Next is Telekinetic Charge. Since it just says "willing creature", we're going to ask this monstrosity if we can pretty please shoot her at our enemies. That's 24,000 tons moving at least 40 feet in 6 seconds (and up to 75 feet at level 20). Normally we'd ask not!Godzilla but he only clocks in at 20,000 tons.

Last (because I'm lazy) is Telekinesis. This one is easy enough, 375 lbs moves 200 feet in 6 seconds. Alternatively, 375 lbs moves 20 feet in 6 seconds for 20 rounds (might be higher overall burn).

Caster level bonuses could raise some of these. The Cleric could easily get up to 50 gallons, Telekinetic Charge and Telekinesis would add a little more movement range.

In conclusion, all spellcasters are secretly Galactus. Seriously.

Great against animals and other big dumb bruisers (usually their weak save too)! Worthless against anything else of CR 8 or higher! Well, not worthless, just not that valuable. Too many things have SLAs or special attacks and I'm pretty sure the percentage goes up the higher in CR you go. So even if it fails the save it'll have a backup. And the limited range means the ones you want to shut down most (pure spellcasters) are probably not in range.

So, great against animals and other melee bruisers, not so much against everything else.

Basically, ask your GM. If you are the GM, well, do you want laser guns? A strict reading would imply no.

Guns Everywhere: Guns are commonplace. Early firearms are seen as antiques, and advanced firearms are widespread. Firearms are simple weapons, and early firearms, advanced guns, and their ammunition are bought or crafted for 10% of the cost listed in this chapter. The Gunslinger loses the gunsmith class feature and instead gains the gun training class feature at 1st level.

Some GMs may wish to replace Weapon Proficiency (firearms) with Weapon Proficiency (technological firearms) to further restrict access to these devices to player characters in their campaigns.

But either way this is entirely a GM call. The regular firearm rules were written in 2011. The Tech Guide was written in 2014. Guns Everywhere was written well before technological guns were created. And honestly, they really have nothing in common with the firearm rules. They don't misfire (glitches are from being timeworn, not part of the gun itself), they don't use ammo (they have an internal battery that needs to be charged from external batteries), they don't have differing targets (they either target regular or touch AC period, no change depending on range increment). They're just called guns because that's easiest for people to understand.

A non-Eldritch Guardian Fighter requires 3 general feats to get a familiar. That's not a small investment. If they go Eldritch Guardian then they give up Bravery (and Bravery in Action) and their first two combat feats. It's a nice trade in the long term, sure, but it's a pretty heavy hit at low levels.

And if you're using PFS as the standard for campaigns we need to look a lot harder at much lower levels. From what I remember the average (mean) level in PFS is something like level 3. The median is probably 1 or 2. At those levels the Fighter gets none of his initiative boosts (or flexibility, or almost anything beyond "pointy end goes in the other guy").

We had this thread already, Warrior Spirit gets you any weapon ability or even a feat when you use it.

You can use this and Barroom Brawler to multiple variable feat slots, and the AWT that grants Item Mastery allows you to bypass item prerequisites. Whatever silly niche things you want can be done basically for free whenever, considering you can take versatile training to play around with skills and retrain them on the fly.

This is not news.

Being able to switch your training up on the daily and manipulate your weapon to be whatever you need while retaining the best flat damage and AC is pretty solid narrative power. People need to stop sh*ting on the fighter.

Also, snub.

Warrior Spirit gets you a combat feat. Not just any feat you want. Very different. It can be used for AWT for Item Mastery, but the AWT for Item Mastery can only be taken once. If you want to flex into it you can never take it yourself and you can never flex more than one of them at a time.

Versatile Training will allow you to pick from Bluff, Intimidate, and the skills associated with your Weapon Training group. It's not "pick any skill you want". It's "pick from this very specific list of skills". As I already said, you're never getting any Knowledge but Engineering. No Spellcraft, no Heal, no Use Magic Device.

Teleport Tactician is exactly what I described when I said there's no way to follow a Plane Shifting Wizard. An AoO doesn't allow you to follow them. It allows you to hit them. That might allow you to stop them but it doesn't let you follow them. It also requires that you be threatening them in the first place. There's so many things that could stop either of those.

This is exactly what's wrong with C/MD. The Fighter can be flexible with their feats and skills. Their combat feats and a subset of skills (limited even further by their actual WT choices). It's also moderately high level (need two AWT to be able to use it more than once a day, earliest is level 9) and somewhat counterintuitive (as it requires not taking a very good feat so you can temporarily take it later). Druids don't have to pick a list of animals they can turn into and spend more resources to add another animal to the list. They get all of them. It scales up as they level up. Wizards don't pick a school to learn from and need to spend resources to unlock the others, they get the full set right from the start. But Fighters need to spend resources to unlock the ability to spend more resources to gain the flexibility we're talking about here. And they're locked out of choices to do so.

Unless your job is to not get hit so the paladin can soak the damage that he can just heal off?

I just don't get it, everything the class gets from being the class it is gets sh*t on by this forum.

And it gets a lot, like a lot.

Honestly, in a fighter vs mage fight where the fighter is built for taking down the wizard, there really isn't a contest.

They get the best AC and maneuverability in the game (this includes the fact they can Craft Magic Armor with their class features), the best initiative in the game, the most indiscriminate high damage, and the ability to have variable that other classes don't, like skills and feats they can change on the daily.

Why are we still complaining?

Like, I'm pretty sure the AM fighter is clinically better than the AM barbarian with the exception of maybe having less hoops to jump through to get "pounce" working.

AC doesn't matter? Really? What?
This is getting ridiculous, but that's to be expected since the juxtaposition of most fighter threads literally comes down to: "we haven't read the things that fix the fighter, and we shouldn't be expected to!!!"

Between Improved Initiative, Trained Initiative, Bravery in action, and stamina points, there's very little that stops fighters from killing initiative.

Literally everything else but the diviner abilities are just as available to fighters as they are to casters. Fighters get auto 20s on Initiative well before level 20.

This is not a debate.

Fighters can threaten and follow casters, negate the propensity of concentration, and that's assuming the fighter decided not to otherwise grapple or use whatever ability they have to inflict auto crits that stun/blind/hinder casters.

THIS IS NOT A DEBATE.

And yet here we are, disagreeing with you. Repeatedly. So unless you've conceded the point, clearly this is a debate.

Best AC is up for debate but I don't care enough to run the numbers (personally I think a Elf/Half-Orc druid will win).

Best maneuverability is just flat out wrong. The Fighter gets to move faster in heavy armor. That's it. A Travel Cleric in heavy armor would move just as fast. Item Mastery feats are not Fighter exclusive. Armor Mastery feats are but I saw none that raise maneuverability. Craft Magic Arms and Armor is available to every single caster. What other than Armor Training is the Fighter getting? What are they getting at all that's comparable to Wildshape?

Best initiative might be possible (again, too lazy to run the close ones) but required an Eldritch Guardian archer Fighter who dumped a @#$%load into it. Outside of that very specific build a Wizard who invests almost nothing (the school being the only big thing) wins.

The cavalier wins at condition free damage (which is I assume what you meant by indiscriminate). Period.

The Fighter ability to change their feats on the fly is literally just a weaker form of what the Brawler gets. There's also a very specific magic item that they can use to change their skills but only from a very specific list. They will never be flexing into any Knowledge but engineering, for instance.

AM Barbarian is clearly the greatest. He said so himself.

Yes, most (maybe all?) of the same initiative boosters are available to the Fighter as long as you spend resources on them. The familiar and the spells are provided to the Wizard for a significantly reduced cost (up to and including "free"). And, again, you're comparing max level. The Fighter can't afford some of those boosts at low level and others aren't nearly as powerful. You're not getting access to the benefits of a familiar at level 1 without giving up Bravery in Action later, for instance (and it takes three general feats to get the benefit, so you'd get it earliest at level 3 with Human or 5 for others).

A Wizard casts Plane Shift. What exactly does the Fighter do? Because the only thing I can find is "make an AoO" and that's absolutely nothing like "following". Disruptive is only a +4 to cast defensively and literally countered by Combat Casting. I didn't find any other ability that makes concentration harder. Grapple is negated by a Ring of Freedom of Movement (something only casters can make) or by the spell Freedom of Movement (and as you seem to be talking about level 20, I assume literally everyone has one of these). Automatic confirmed criticals. Very different thing. If you could trigger an automatic critical hit those feats would be much nicer. Also the Wizard cannot be in a form immune to critical hits (Ring of Continuation and Shapechange for Elemental Body IV, for instance). As I keep telling people, go with the Assault feats instead. Requires melee but at least you can trigger them on purpose instead of hoping for a lucky roll.

I believe the colloquialism is "put up or shut up". If you insist a Fighter can do these things, make the Fighter. I'm sure there's people happy to make the casters (or have an old build lying around somewhere). But right now you're insisting that you have secret knowledge no one else does (because they refuse to read it) and somehow we're expected to take you at your word. I'm pretty sure I've read almost everything you're talking about (only skimmed Stamina) and I don't see this "solution" you seem to think exists.

...if you tell the player immediately afterwards "you are poisoned" then why would you hide it at the "make a save" part? I don't think there's an explicit rule for this (nor do I think there should be) but I would not put it on the player to announce everything. I've got a half-elf with (I think) a +2 vs traps and hazards underground, a +2 versus enchantment, a +5 versus mind-affecting, and a +2 vs charms and compulsions. There's a lot of overlap but definitely some gaps and I don't want the player listing out 4 separate save results for every Will save. Way easier to say "this is a mind-affecting fear affect" and let them figure it out.

Automatic success and failure only apply to attack rolls and saving throws. Your GM can, as always, houserule otherwise, but by the rules the only things affected by a natural 1 or 20 are attack rolls and saving throws.

Tell me. How does the tiny animal Druid, Elemental, Familiar, or Arcane Eye unlock the chest that the secret plans are in? How do they bluff the manor servants to hand over information? Heck, without hands how do they open even UNlocked doors and windows? How well does a familiar, completely on its own, figure out what to do when unexpected obstacles come up? At that, how dysfunctional is this party that the Wizard can't cast the invisibility spell on the Rogue rather than his familiar? Last I checked, +37 stealth was better than +28.

If you think 'you need to use stealth' is creating a challenge then you're setting the bar very low indeed.

Smash it (the eye would have to squeeze through the keyhole), use the Bluff skill (same as everyone else), very carefully, familiars are actually pretty smart (and it only goes up), unknown (doesn't seem dysfunctional, I've definitely played with people who focus on self-buffs over party buffs and that's as valid a way as any to play).