Reminds me of the Dire Goats I once had giants herd for feeding themselves...
Now I'm just waiting for stats for the Dire Rabbit, because, y'know, that rabbit's dynamite!
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I suppose it might work if the alchemist had a ballista crew to wind up the winch. I would still personally rule that attaching a bomb to any kind of projectile dramatically reduces that projectile's effectiveness to the point of something like a -8 penalty. It could still work, and it'd be nice if you were just trying to hit the broad side of a castle.
Sounds like a good candidate for a fighter-only feat. It would certainly help with the problem of fighters' damage not scaling up, especially if they move. Let's see... how would that work? Lightning Strike [Combat]
Prerequisites: Str 13, Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, 11th-level fighter. Benefit: While taking a standard action to make an attack action, you may make an additional attack at your second iterative attack bonus. You may choose a second target or maneuver (such as a trip attempt) for this attack. At 16th level, you make take an additional attack at your next highest iterative attack bonus.
pls share those stats here! Dear me! I got distracted and ended up not statting them up XD Stats to be posted tonight! I think I'll throw in a zombie swarm, too... mmm.... I mean, braaaaaains...
Hot diggity damn! Sign me up! I need to get my Pathfinder on!
I'm glad you like it. It feels a bit generic, unfortunately, but that's going to end up happening when you try and make it adaptable to multiple themes within a single class. Fighters always were generic anyhow, so it's no great loss. I think that more and beefier fighter-only feats could help differentiate different fighters.
Likey likey.
Sounds great. What would a brawler look like? I imagine that the "martial defense" might involve multifighting, like when fighting more than one opponent, the brawler identifies one opponent: against all other opponents, he gains a +1 AC (scales up to +2, +3, etc. etc.). Would that be balanced, do you reckon? And the brawler's "martial style" technique might involve grappling bull rush, and overrun attempts, perhaps. I have a great idea for a complicated (and higher prereq) technique where he would grab an opponent and throw him into a crowd, knocking the entire crowd down. Or being able to bull rush a crowd at one time. And then "style mastery" might be being able to grapple anything.
The red ones were old and looked like they had been beat a few thousand times with a car or something. Junk is putting it nicely I think calling those pieces of crap "junk" is an insult both to junk and crap. I had one of those red pallet jacks where the wheel was stuck, meaning you literally had to drag that sucker across the floor, even when there wasn't anything on it.
Mmmr. Talking about business models, the most successful haunted house here in li'l ol' Indianapolis is a place called "Necropolis," and they have a rather interesting business model. Haunted houses are generally high-revenue ventures, but the problem is that most of their revenues are eaten up by the seasonal rent, which typically skyrockets for the Halloween period. Furthermore, businesses have to rent out the location for longer than just October, as they have to both set up and tear down the props and scenery, which can take up quite a bit of time. It would make sense if they owned the building, since they wouldn't have to pay rent, but the problem is that haunted houses are seasonal in nature. So, what they did is that they set up a business model where they have something else take up the space during the other 9 months when Necropolis isn't in season -- a paintball place. Paintball is typically a low-profit margin venture, but it has extremely low set-up and tear-down costs, which means they can switch out of it pretty much as the situation requires. The point I'm trying to make is that gaming groups meet somewhat infrequently (once a week), but that their schedules can be complementary to many other business models. I know that there are many groups in my area, for example, that have incorporated as a university club at IUPUI and get free space (and AV equipment) as a result. I'm sure that another business could probably attract player groups by offering them free gaming space late at night, sell them Mountain Dew without having to make someone go out for a soda run. Maybe the "club" has a single copy of a bunch of AP's, and one group plays each one at a time, then passes it off to the next group when they're ready. I could also see a single "clubhouse" having a library of supplements for quick reference, or even for perusing throughout the day. I like the idea of a "club" with membership dues and what not, but I doubt it can work as its own business model. It could work quite well, however, with businesses with a lot of square footage and a concession stand. Some private sub-divisions would also be helpful, what with keeping the general noise level down. The only thing I can think of is a privately-owned non-profit clubhouse. Having a bunch of gamers have their own space they can come to without disturbing each other would have to be specially designed, I reckon. Maybe this is the future of the tabletop/miniatures gaming community -- as private clubs that people go to on Friday and Saturday nights, roll their dice, recite their favorite Monty Python quotes as they gore imaginary ogres, and fight for the hearts and minds of fictional kingdoms. I can see this being sustainable, but not as a for-profit venture. I can also see the "community library" aspect cutting down on a lot of redundant costs that gaming groups incur. Need a colossal red dragon miniature? Wait, let me go get that from the community chest. Uh, we're fighting how many skums? Let me go grab those real quick. We're fighting on a mountain? Well, good thing we picked up that extra-luxury 1"=5' scale mountain from our friendly neighborhood tablecrafter! Sorry if this seems a little bit cold -- "redundant costs" are kind of what pays the bills for FLGS's -- but maybe that's what the gaming community needs. I honestly don't know what the future of FLGS's is, but online purchases certainly aren't helping. We need to change the business model from being a distributor of roleplaying materials perhaps to being a bloc consumer which remains afloat through pooling resources and selling consumables (food, drink, dice, and miniatures) and dues (locker rentals, access to the community library, miniatures access, gaming space, gaming tables, and so on and so forth). I could also see "community days," when the club has open houses so that parents can come in and see what it's all about -- playing with little toys, rolling dice to see whether they hit, and making believe that you're Aragorn, Gimli, or Legolas.
Heh. Yep, just made a whole pot. Extra salty too, though the entertainment factor I was hoping for has yet to arrive. I was expecting a lot of back and forth on one of the subjects above and so far it seems to have dropped off. Too bad, I was really looking forward to it! This is where my Big Book of Random Trolling comes in handy. *rolls some dice* Your mother was an <aquatic troll> who <stole the prince's jewels> after <a fight on a goblin airship>! Also, <FATAL> is the worst roleplaying system in existence, and I bet you have to drink <lemonade> to get yourself to sleep at night!
So the original argument was that this was to powerful of a option because it was a free attack, now it is to powerful because you can shoot off a fireball into the area without hurting the summon? I still think that this is a good option and an interesting option. I should clarify -- I'm only really against the concept in general if it's at will, as it seemed to me that that was what the OP was describing.
ANYway... yeah, as Sean mentioned above, we'll DEFINATELY be at Gen Con. We've got several books debuting there, so it'll be helpful for us to be there to show them off! :) Crap nappit, James, why does Paizo have to release so many awesome books at once? It's like you're trying to get all my money all at once! Couldn't you tone down the awesome just this once, and spread it out over time? :P
I've seen Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader being heavily publicized in my local Barnes & Nobles's. They receive a much more prominent display than either D&D 4E or Pathfinder (which is completely absent at my B&N's here in Inddianapolis). Other game systems -- Conan, Serenity, Star Wars, Shadowrun -- are also doing fantastic in B&N. I've only seen PFRPG in the one specialty RPG shop in town, though. I'd love to see PF more in my B&N's.
Why thank you, vuron, that was an incredibly insightful post and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I sincerely hope that nobody is taking this thread too seriously, but my point was that high-level adventurers do many things that are more than heroic, but rather superheroic, and that any adventurer worth his salt is probably a millionaire. Not bad for a treasure-hunter constantly putting his life on the line, going to new places to meet interesting and exotic things -- and killing them.
You don't have to kill the target to get the extra swing. You just have to hit it. +1 In my opinion, it's more powerful at 1st-level, as it gives most fighters another attack, provided he hits on the first go.
The vital strike chain of feats will not, in the end, work with bombs. At least, I hope not! Because the next step after that is allowing vital strike to work with disintegrate. Isn't the big problem that fighters' damage doesn't scale across levels, and that this feat chain is part of what's supposed to fix that problem?
In any event (and it might be in the description of the fatigued or exhausted conditions), the standard is that creatures need 8 hours of sleep or they become fatigued (or exhausted if they're already fatigued). As far as I can reckon, though, there's no rules for staying up X number of hours before becoming fatigued or exhausted. The notion that elves don't sleep at all seems to be more of a Forgotten Realms thing, inspired by the fact that elves are immune to magical sleep. We've toned that bit of flavor down quite a bit in Pathfinder. There are still a few mentions of elves not sleeping in the rules, but they're more like evolutionary writing fragments; whether or not elves actually sleep or if they meditate or whatever is something we leave up to each individual GM. I seem to remember in the Lord of the Rings that elves don't sleep -- they sort of just wait. Of course, Tolkien isn't the end all be all of fantasy literature, and I applaud your efforts to leave minor stylistic choices to the hands of individual DMs.
I've always wondered what alternative interpretations people have about robots. I'd love to see robots constantly having existential crises -- "But if all I am is a bunch of bits of information floating around in a neural network, how am I to know whether any of this at all is true? I mean, I could actually be a brain floating in a jar! Or maybe I'm just part of some virtual reality simulation! Do you know how this all makes me feel, bursting into consciousness in pieces on a lab table?!"
After this line last year I can't imagine a scenario where Paizo wouldn't have a presence at GenCon. ;) Gross Goethe. I wonder what kind of foot traffic that generated? 5,000 people? If each bought just one copy, that's a quarter million dollars! :O
What's a Rune Giant? A rune giant is a different type of giant, from what I can tell first listed in PFAP #6, "Spires of Xin-Shalast." It's a CR 14 monster. Don't know about Beatific One, though.
I had a lot of fun with my group when they were traveling through the Astral Plane on a skiff, and being boarded by pirates. I like the feel of boarding actions, and there's nothing quite like the feel of having a couple hundred grappling hooks pulling your ships together... If anything, you can't take physics too seriously. Heavy cannon on flying ships would mean that the nice, flying, wooden corvettes get flung in the opposite direction from their target.
OK, but what is the difference between the summon appearing getting an attack and disappearing and the summon appearing getting an attack, the enemy acting and killing the creature at that point anyways. You do know that a summoned creature acts immediately right after it is summoned anyways right? The enemy doesn't get to react to the creatures attack either of the options. If the regular summon doesn't get attacked, then it has the potential to do damage each turn. Not a great deal, but it's at least as effective as, say, an extra attack while TWF. It's the difference between having paratroopers insert themselves into the battlefield and having cruise missiles shot at the target. They both wind up in the same general vicinity, but having a summon in a group of monsters, for example, might make one think twice about shooting off a couple fireballs where a durable bit of tied-down resources is.
Once I get the others who hate 4E, I'm sure Pathfinder will take root in our local gamer node.This is something I hope people will avoid on this thread... using words that carry a lot of emotional weight, such as 'hate' or 'disgust' and so on. I understand if someone says he prefers/like/doesn't like edition X or Y, but that's a matter of preference and choice. I like PF RPG, and although I prefer it to 4E, 4E does in my opinion have some mechanics that work better than their counterparts in 3E and PF RPG (hopefully some of them will end up eventually in PF RPG 2nd Edition). Quite right. I like some things that 4E did, and heck, if you include all the optional rules from the various 3.5, it's not that far of a stretch from 4E. Let me rephrase: all my friends are extremely displeased by the stylistic and mechanical choices of 4E, and prefer 3.5 instead by a large margin. Personally, I say more power to the people who prefer 4E.
*sigh* It's not just about it being "too advanced" (although it does fit outside the normal time frame of D&D stuff), it's also about it not fitting the assumptions of the game and rendering magic MUNDANE. Sorry about "shouting" mundane, but it deserves special note. If alchemy is non-magical why not have platoons of troops running around with bombs? Lets strap bombs to arrows. Lets create "guns". Why bother with magic? Overstating the issue I know, but hopefully making it plain to see.See, this is an argument I totally support, right up until you hit the "guns" part. That's when you delve into the slippery slope. I don't know... just because someone can do something doesn't mean that they should. It might be nice to build artillery shells, but feudal lords barely scrape anything off of subsistence farmers, and they might not be willing to pay 5,000 gp a year to have an alchemist on retainer. The Roman empire had steam engines, but the reason why they didn't use 'em was because they had plenty of cheap labor in the form of slaves. It made economic sense not to use the more expensive (but more productive) steam engines to move stuff.
All these still require a Craft roll. I can't imagine any player who would be able to craft silk from raw trees. Technically, it's still the "raw material," but that would be at a significantly higher DC than most people can make. I can imagine that a dressmaker, for example, might take some raw silk and make a beautiful dress from it. However, I can't imagine him chopping down some tree boughs and making the raw silk from that. All I'm saying is that magic follows its own internal rules, which makes some things to do extremely expensive and magic-intensive. This makes them prohibitively expensive from an economic standpoint.
Best I can find is the conditions Exhausted and Fatigued (p. 566). I can imagine a house-rule that 18 hours straight awake makes a person Fatigued, and that 24 hours makes a person Exhausted. So, at the end of a normal day, a person should get at least 8 hours of sleep. If they don't get that, then they're Fatigued for the day until they rest again.
I have recently come across this in a pbp game- setting grease spell area on fire. Is the grease flammable? I never thought so, but other players in the game say they have used it that way for years. There's nothing against it in the 3.5E or PF rules. I seem to recall that in 2nd ed grease is specifically said to not be flammable. If it is flammable, there'd be a Ref save to put out the fire.
I imagine that you could have the bard play the lyre of building while on a wagon. That way, the "range" moves as you do.Right, and I agree. But, what would that range which moves be? 500'? A quarter mile? Assuming the bard stands still and perfoms, how large an area would be affected? Hrm, now I'm thinking about all the evil exploits you could do. Could you send in 100 men's worth of combat? I imagine that whatever magical effects are working their way through a certain area could be used offensively. Or you could drop boulders on an invading army. Ho noes! This certainly seems like a Public Works project, and that seems to be what's intended by the spell description. I imagine that it's will-enabled, so that a bard has to know where he's building and what not. I'd say a fair range is... a quarter mile? What a bard can see? Hrm.
Wall of iron: 6th level spell. Min caster level: 11. Price per casting (i.e. from an NPC): 710 gp. At 11th level, it would create a wall which is 275 sq ft. x 1" (23 cubic feet). This would be about 11,250 lbs of iron or 1,125 gp worth. However, this is explicitly said to be useless for making anything. Might make a useful building material, but I reckon that the base building material would probably be heavily discounted, too. The problem with having a spellcaster-based economy is that spellcasters tend to need to be paid extremely well. I think I calculated out that a 1st-level wizard casting spells at the NPC premium would have to be paid 5,000 gp per year, which is tremendously more than unskilled labor. Edit: Oh, and with fabricate you need to either have the material on-hand, or pay the worth of the thing you're trying to make, plus you still have to make the Craft DC if it's anything hard to make (like, structural engineering).
Or you could check out the Standard Resource Document, which gives everything except the really awesometastic art.
So, do you think it would be fair to say that you have to provide the materials, but "provide" can mean using the lyre in a place where it can draw materials from the area? i.e., you could build stone walls and such on a mountain, but in the forest, you'd be limited either to wood walls from trees or whatever you brought with you? Thus my comment about "bricks." Like you said, techniques vary a bit and what not. My favorite method of building bricks is to build a pyramid of wet clay slugs, load it up with fuel, build a brick shell and light that sucker on fire. When you take down the brick shell, you have a biggun pile of bricks underneath. Good to know that great minds think alike :D
I imagine that you could have the bard play the lyre of building while on a wagon. That way, the "range" moves as you do.
4E has an "Athletics" skill, which is strength-based. You could probably add Swim in there for good measure, which is what they did.
That's... a bit wonky. I could make a potion of hold person, but not a potion of mage armor? What are some other spells that have a range of personal? Somehow, I think this is some sort of balance issue, and I'd like to figger out what they were trying to leave out.
About the argument of them not being able to be killed, well if they just disappeared at the end of turn then it would be like they were killed so I don't see a problem with this. The problem is that once they're summoned, they typically can't be killed before they get their attacks off. The whole point of killing something is to prevent it from doing damage or something else. Killing normal summons is significant because they aren't able to continue harassing your forces. One-round summoning means that you effectively get free attack attempt wherever you want it. You don't need reach -- you can just summon the thing you want into an adjacent square and let it maul to its heart's content (for this one round)!
I can imagine hitting someone in the face with a bomb is going to lead to a Really Bad Day. Personally, I would house-rule it as doing Vital Strike damage on the primary, but not on the splash. That seems reasonable.
I can't say how profoundly I like this setup. Thank you, and it's exactly what I was looking for! It also looks like it would fill up the same amount of space as, say, a sorcerer bloodline or a wizard's specialty school. I also really, really like the term "fighting style," and it seems about as modular as any other class specialization. The only problem I might have is that it somewhat overlaps with ranger's "fighting style," which we might want to distinguish it from. Would this mean that the typical fighter build is already a Weaponmaster?
So, do you think it would be fair to say that you have to provide the materials, but "provide" can mean using the lyre in a place where it can draw materials from the area? i.e., you could build stone walls and such on a mountain, but in the forest, you'd be limited either to wood walls from trees or whatever you brought with you? Couldn't you use some of this "labor" to haul stone from a quarry? /thoughts
Oh, come on -- you two are taking this entirely too seriously. This also relates to the old chestnut about a PC arguing with his DM that he could survive the falling damage from falling off a mountain. "I don't care how many hit points you have, you're not going to survive that!"
A bit out of line, I feel, considering the poster that I replied to asked for a real-world example of a LG nation. I completely agree. Asking for real-world examples of alignment is pointless, because D&D is cosmologically defined as being built on a framework of alignments. Saying something is "good," "evil," "lawful," or "chaotic" in such a world is about as relevant as saying that something has "weight," "density," or "temperature," and to what degree. I wonder what two LG societies' deities would think about a war between two LG civilizations. "Hey! Keep your dirty followers away from mine!" "No, you keep your followers away!" "Oh, now it's on, Moradin!"
I know this may seem obvious, but sometimes we forget this. Let me give you a sense of scale. A typical unskilled laborer in Pathfinder earns 1 sp per day. An unskilled laborer working in the modern day, real-life setting might be working two jobs a day, for 16 hours a day earning maybe $100 (which figures at around $6 for minimum wage, which isn't far off from the truth). So, for the "working poor" in Pathfinder, 1 sp = $100. As 10 sp = 1 gp, 1 gp = $1000. We'll use this as a conversion factor for our comparisons. A first-level adventurer typically starts out with about 150 gp on average. This would be $150,000 worth of gear. For people who regularly put their lives on the line for fame and fortune, this sounds like a fair amount. Let's move up the power level a bit. An 7th-level adventurer would have gear worth around 6,000 gp, or $6,000,000. This is about how much it costs for a modern M1/A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank. Moving up the power scale to 11th level, they have around 16,000 gp, or $16,000,000 in gear. This is comparable to an F-16 American jet fighter. A 20th-level fighter would command about 160,000 gp worth of gear, or $160,000,000 in modern terms. A group of six adventurers would have just about $1,000,000,000 in wealth, which is approximately the price tag of a space shuttle. Comparatively, a billion dollars is greater than the GDP (or entire national income) of any of the ten smallest countries in the world. However, to think about it there are many businesspeople who have more wealth than this -- Bill Gates has about $40 billion in wealth, and Warren Buffet has about $30 billion. This means that each of them could probably equip a couple dozen ultra-heroic adventurers in case the Tarrasque ever gets wished to Earth! There's also a fair chance that either of them probably have some pretty mondo-cool magical artifacts kicking around in their attics. ------- Now, let's talk about hit points. This discussion depends on a few assumptions about how hitpoints work -- namely that "hit points" represent the ability to absorb damage and wounds. This assumption may be off to many DMs and designers, but many people certainly interpret it in this way. Take a typical commoner, or in other words a run-of-the-mill common person running around today. Let's say that we stab them with, say, a dagger. Typically, they will fall on the ground and lose consciousness within a few seconds. This means that any serious attack with a dagger or a knife will result in all of a 1st-level commoner's hit points to become exhausted to the point of unconsciousness. Let's say that we're talking about 3 hp, which seems pretty reasonable. There certainly are some people who are stabbed and can run for help, or if they received only a flesh wound. Now, let's compare this to our 7th-level adventurer above. This fighter, let's say, has a +2 Con bonus, which would result in him getting 7d10+14 hp, or on average 49 hp. This means that a dagger (1d4 damage, average 2.5) could hit a fighter 20 times before he passes out from loss of blood. Or in other words, you could stab a fighter 20 times before he's in any serious danger. Now let's hit up our 20th-level superhero. He would receive 20d10+20 hp, or on average 120 hp. This means that our dagger-wielding thug could stab our hero 48 times before the fighter drops from blood loss. Let's suppose that we take our heroes and stab them in the eyes repeatedly (i.e. a crit each swing). A critting dagger does 2d4 damage, or on average 5. This means that you could repeatedly stab a 7th-level fighter in the face 10 times before the fighter is in any significantly worse shape than when he started our venture. Similarly, a 20th-level fighter could be stabbed in the face or in the chest 24 times before he starts to bleed out. Just imagine a PC exploring how long it'll take him to die if a peasant is stabbing him in the face. He thinks nothing of it, since his cleric best friend is standing right there to keep him from actually dying (or if he dies, to raise him right then and there). For the 7th-level fighter, this will take the commoner a full minute of stabbing him in the face to actually do that much damage. For our 20th-level friend, it'll take about two and a half minutes for our peasant friend to start killing the hero. Thoughts? Other things that show that adventurers are abnormal?
Pretty much every place has packed earth (which can be turned into bricks pretty easily). If they don't, there's plenty of stone or sand (turn it into glass!) that can be used to make roads pretty cheaply.
Well it does say that potions can be only of spells that "target one or more creatures", it doesnt really say you cant make spells with a 'personal' target - as that implies 'you' are the target, what it means is (from what some others have told me) is that you cant make potions from spells that dont have targets specifically such as 'Burning Hands' and other hazardous spells for straightforward and obvious reasons.. This would mean that potions couldn't be made of spells that affect areas, such as fireball. People have to specifically be the recipients, for example. Although that makes me wonder whether you could make a potion of magic missile...
I like all of them except Mage Killer. That one seems to be a corner case thing better saved for a prestige class, rather than a core branch of fighter. I see that, and I like it. If you were really wanting to play a Mage Killer, you would have to pick up at least some magic, if only for counterspelling / spell resistance and what not. I could also see the "magical fighter" or the "epic hero" as being a prestige class, as they're not necessarily a consummate fighter.
You know, this is all very useful feedback! Thank you. Now I'm thinking of whether Warlord would work better as a prestige class or as a martial-type fighter. Better to go off a standard PC class and see if we can modify it to meet our expectations, that's my strategy! Now... for a martial bard, it seems like the use of spells would be outside of the "core concept" of a warlord/general, so I'll pass on that. However, a fighter who rises through the ranks and distinguishes himself as a leader might take charge of an army, and through the course of training as a leader of men (hint, hint) he would add abilities to his repertoire that would be unavailable to other fighters of the same power level. So, I think we've come to the conclusion that we have a couple of "core concepts" of consummate fighters, out of which a fighter can take prestige classes to meet specific, super-heroic concepts. These prestige classes would be:
What do you think?
OK, I have some updates on the status 'round my parts. I hail from Indianapolis, the home of Gen-Con. However, it's generally a terrible place to find a FLGS. The one nearest to me, Games To Die For, specializes in board games, miniatures, and card games, and has only a tiny three-foot wire bookshelf with a dozen or so 4E books and three discounted Quintessential-line books from Mongoose Publishing. I asked the proprietor what he thought of Pathfinder months ago, and he told me then that I was the first person ever to ask him about it (this was when Pathfinder was being released and had quite a bit of hubbub about it). I went in last night to talk to him again, and he told me again that nobody had asked about Pathfinder since then, and he stated that he thought that the PDF sales would bite into his brick-and-mortar business. Although I'm mad that he doesn't stock PF, I understand that his core demographic is people who come in on Friday nights and play 6-hour Magic the Gathering tournaments, consuming $2-per-can Mountain Dew and $5-per-can Ramune. Selling gaming books just isn't part of the core business model. The only other gaming store I'm aware of in town, The Game Preserve, has a fairly serviceable two bookshelf section for tabletop RPGs, but again the main seller is board games and Magic the Gathering. Pathfinder takes up about the same space as 4E, but the vast majority of the shelf is devoted to other roleplaying systems (Call of Cthulhu, White Wolf, Serenity, Rogue Trader/Dark Heresy, Conan, et al.) What convinced me to buy Pathfinder, however, was being able to thumb through it in hard-copy beforehand. I ended up buying it as a PDF, but being able to look through it cinched the sale for me. Since then, I've been telling all my friends about Pathfinder, and at least one of them has gone out and bought it just because it carried on with the 3.5 tradition. Once I get the others who hate 4E, I'm sure Pathfinder will take root in our local gamer node.
Erm, I see this being somewhat of a problem, especially if it's not capped once per day. The new summons, if they last for only a round, cannot effectively be "killed." The only way to cut off these attacks is to kill the summoner. This effectively makes it a ranged attack for the summoner. Most summons typically have pretty strong melee attacks, which for a pseudo-ranged attack would be rather unbalancing. Especially if we're talking about summoning deities. Hoo boy.
On a side note, there did exist ancient societies in which commoners could get a great deal of practical military training. Training for a common legionary in Rome lasted than a conscript's whole term of service in several modern armies, for example. I don't think it would be at all unusual for a common legionary to have much more training in personal combat than his general. This kind of undermines the notion that young well-to-do Roman nobility had a very extensive military training as part of their education. A great example of what a Roman military commander should strive to be is Horatius Cocles at the Sublicius Bridge (or colloquially, "Horatius at the Bridge"). During the course of a war with the Etruscans, the Etruscans had pushed through their lines and were advancing on Rome itself. As commander of the forces at the bridge, Horatius was charged with dismantling the bridge so that the Etruscans couldn't cross. Standing alongside his two other generals, they held off the entire Etruscan army long enough for the bridge to be completely dismantled and then, leaping into the river in full armor and with a spear literally sticking out of his butt, he swam to the other side and safety. I can imagine kings that have champions who fight for them, but isn't it a pretty standard fantasy trope that killing the king/general (who gets his own "boss fight" sequence, complete with music) defeats the massive invading army? It's a somewhat hard question to answer, as those characters who may have been fighters but weren't Leaders of Men didn't get sagas and such written about them nearly as often. :P I think this is the real sticking point here, and also pointed about by A Man In Black. I'd definitely peg out fighter/leader as being at least one core archetype among many (but definitely not the only one!) Because there's no mechanic at all for any other character class to be able to do that.Bard? Ok, so let's say we have a 20th-level general. Is he more likely to have a +20 BAB, or a +15 BAB? Secondly, is he liable to sing someone to death on a regular basis? A "warlord" type fighter would certainly fill quite a bit of the same party role as a bard (buffer), but not the same stylistic niche. Fafhrd, Gimli, Paris (technically a leader, but notably bad at it), any version of adult Anakin Skywalker (sometimes a leader, never good at it) including Darth Vader, Miyamoto Musashi (arguable), Ogami Itto, Cloud (from FF7). Fafhrd -- he seems like he would be a Brawler-type fighter. Possibly the same with Gimli, only more of a focus on weapons. Anakin would be more of a "magical" fighter, a type that hasn't really been explored too heavily. Musashi would be a Duelist-type. I'd never heard of Ogami Itto before, but it seems like a wonderful build for a fighter -- maybe a Brawler or Weaponmaster, depending on how we define the different archetypes. And Cloud -- erm, I can't really peg him down as having a particular fighting style, as opposed to flying around and getting summons. So... Magical Fighter? So to conclude, here would be the various archetypes, any of which a "default fighter" could choose to specialize in (which can still be up for debate as to their form and function):
What do you think of this new list? We've got those specializing in fighting one enemy at a time, those specializing in fighting many at a time, those specializing in fighting wizards and the like, one specializing in protecting allies, and one that masters many weapons and many fighting styles. Just as it's more useful to talk about a 10th-level abjurer as different from a 10th-level enchanter, it's more useful to talk about a 10th-level duelist as opposed to a 10th-level mage killer. Is this what you'd like to see in the fighter class?
You know, these are legitimate complaints, and I retract most of my (overly ambitious) skill suggestions. I'd still like to keep Perform (oratory), however, as it's quite consistent with what I, at the very least, view as archetypal of a fighter as a leader of men. Of course, all this boils down to what people are viewing as the "archetypal" view of fighters. Not all people view a fighter as a person who keeps his nose to the grindstone to fight, only fight, and screw over every other skill. In such a case, very specific changes might add to flavor in view of a specific archetype. As another note I'd point out that non class skills are significantly less gimped in PF than in 3.5. In fact, I'm currently playing a fighter with full ranks in Bluff, Diplomacy, Sense Motive and Perception. He's good at all those things. He's not as good as someone with a class skill; the party rogue is better at bargaining (Sense Motive/Diplomacy) and lying (Bluff), as the party druid is better at noticing something just slightly off in the natural environment that indicates an attack is coming (Perception). All that is exactly as it should be. You know, I'm still getting used to this system, and that's what I'm going to end up blaming this whole snafu on XD At least what I view fighters as, they make up some of the best damn orators in all of known history. This may be due to literary spooks "livening up" endless chronicles and what not, but historical and dramatic fighters could inspire greatness by means of a rousing warrior's speech. This isn't in my view a "Oh, he's got a level in aristocrat," this is "Oh, he's a high-level fighter." But of course, Your Mileage May Vary so this is one suggestion that I'm leaving in place for those who think that fighters ought to inspire their followers, simply as an ancillary part of the class feature. I'll admit that I might have to put this under a separate heading, for "Leader of Men" options. A fine rant - (although you forgot that the fighter also gets weapon training, armor training, bravery, and his weapon/armor capstones over the Warrior) So the fighter class is slightly better than the warrior class. These are still complaints that the fighter is being buffed in something that another class does (like, Warrior) without adding any more interesting options. ... but you don't actually address my point, which is that the historical figures you quoted in support of fighters being great orators probably wouldn't actually be fighters. Again, it depends on what you view as the archetypal definition of fighter. In the classical world, to receive any kind of advanced training, you had to be of some kind of upper-class background. Those who decided the fates of nations would be those who lead armies. As part of the core archetypal view of fighters as eventually being not simply good at killing stuff but as being a badass leader of men, he would need some different skills (like oratory). This disagrees with your archetypal view of fighters as being consummate weaponmasters, and I'm okay with that. I'm certainly aware that Your Mileage May Vary, and you're free to take away whatever you find useful from this thread or any other discussion about what fighters should or shouldn't be. However, what I'm mostly concerned with in this thread is the degree to which DMs and designers are dissatisfied with that specific view that fighters just fight and should have no place (or an extremely limited place) in skill challenges and RPing. I gave an example of a character I did consider a fighter. Sigurd. Yet despite Sigurd being a great leader of men, the mightiest warrior of the North, intelligent, wise, and charismatic, he blew his Sense Motive checks royally. As he did the Diplomacy checks he tried to make to patch things up with Brynhild afterwards. Royally blown. He failed every Will save in the entire saga, unless it was a save against fear (which PF fighter gets a hefty bonus on, so we're cool there). Not a great record already for your high-Will save, Diplomacy, Sense Motive specialized fighter here. The Voelsungasaga always seemed like a campaign record of That One Campaign Where All We Rolled Was Ones. Considering the whole point of Norse epic sagas were that even badass, high-spec heroes could be easily pwn'd by the Norns and their damned fates for gods and men alike. Could you give me more examples of badass fighters who weren't Leaders of Men? All I'm thinking of is people like Achilles or Gilgamesh, who were pretty much the definition of having followers. Actually, the whole quest parts of either the Iliad or the Epic of Gilgamesh were started when each hero's Cohort got skewered. I'm trying to get more of a feel of what you think a 20th-level fighter should look like, forgoing things like leadership just to focus on combat. The only thing I'm coming up with -- killing demons, killing dragons -- can be better done by either a paladin (smiting evil, baby!) or a ranger (favored enemy: dragons). Personally, I just think that a 20th-level fighter being able to raise and inspire thousands of soldiers at a time just seems... a lot more epic? Special? Because there's no mechanic at all for any other character class to be able to do that. It's one idea, of course, and I'm sure there's other fighter archetypes to explore.
Hrm, well. The 3.0 WOTC book, "The Stronghold Builder's Guide," is all about building and pricing different bases of operations. In it, there's an example stronghold called the Cheap Keep, with enough space for 14 minions. I imagine that more of your followers might live in a nearby town, among the surrounding farms, and so forth. Listed price for this basic keep is 70,000 gp, which would give a nice bed to sleep in for you and everyone in your party, and people to make you dinner, stables to keep your horses, and a vault to stow your extra crap. In the book is a feat, "Landlord," which gives you extra money to spend on your keep and matches funds (which effectively cuts your stronghold's price in half). It's only available at 8th level, though. Hope that's helpful!
Granted fighters have the least special stuff inherently built into the class, and could probably use some more. The capstone abilities are good but not crowning moment of awesome good by any means. Agreed. I think that as of now, I'd add the ones I listed above (Diplomacy, Perform (oratory)) and Acrobatics, Heal, Knowledge (history), Knowledge (nobility), Perception, Sense Motive, and Stealth. I can imagine a fighter naturally training into any of these skills as part of training to be a knight or a brawler.I'd agree on Acrobatics, Diplomacy (I think...) and Heal. The others don't scream "fighter archetype" to me. Stealth? Perception? How are these classic fightery skills? Diplomacy: a fighter (or leader of fighters) needs to be able to parlay with enemy forces, and get what he wants out of the negotiations. Stealth: a fighter who is seeking every strategic advantage would from time to time engage in ambushing tactics. A guerrilla fighter comes to mind, and can be one of the most dangerous threats to a large army. Perception: a fighter is fundamentally a man surrounded by danger at all times, and as such he would be alert to the possible threats in the environment around him. On a more meta-game note, why the hell isn't Perception a class skill for everyone? Are clerics, fighters, paladins, sorcerers, and wizards particularly absent-minded? Knowledge (history): a fighter grows up hearing stories of epic battles, brave warrior-princes, the rise and fall of empires, kingdoms, and nations, and the tragic choices of foolish warriors. Knowledge (nobility): a skilled warrior would often feel the influence of nobility and royalty, for better or for worse. Sense Motive: a fighter in parlay needs to know whether an enemy is intending to betray an oath or violate the rules of parlay. Furthermore, to effectively negotiate a fighter needs to discern what his opponent wants. It's supposed to fit in with the leader of men archetype. Just about any legendary or historical leader worth his fighting chops (Alexander the Great, Arjuna, Julius Caesar, Scipio Africanus, Themistocles, Pyrrhus of Epirus, Barbarossa, King Arthur, Gawain, Aragorn, El Cid, Paladin) could rouse his men into a fevered pitch using lots o' them pretty words...I don't think I'd peg any of those men as fighters, though. A mix of aristocrats (mainly - Caesar, Alexander, Scipio, Themistocles, Pyrrhus - none of these men were greatly noted for skill in personal combat as opposed to skill in leading armies). The others are a mix of other classes. Aragorn is an archetypal ranger. Gawain is a paladin. Charlemagne's paladins are probably best in Paizo's new... Technically, all a fighter is is a warrior with extra feats. All of these don't even have to take Fighter class, they could just take Warrior instead. This is a sad state indeed when you can ignore the PC class entirely to model its archetypal inspiration. This is due mainly, I reckon, from the origins of D&D where "Fighting Men" were noticeably weaker than any of the "Hero" classes like Elf, Dwarf, Cleric, or Wizard.
In a wizard-poor setting, the economics of supply and demand would mean that few wizards would be available to do those things, and those that are available might not be willing, unless the price is ridiculously high. Why pay a wizard 10,000 gp to unload a ship and carry the goods across the city, when a team of porters will do the job for 50 gp? Remember that a first-level wizard casting a single 0-level spell will be paid 5 gp, which is 50 times the "minimum wage" of unskilled labor per day. If a first-level wizard is casting all of his spells per day as his employer wants it, he's getting paid 25 gp a day, or 250 times the minimum wage. This would mean that having a single wizard on retainer in today's job market would mean paying him something along the lines of $5 million a year. This is all based on the cost of spellcasting on the equipment list (PFCR p. 159), which may be a "consulting price" markup of maybe 400%. That still means that a wizard on retainer should be paid something like $1,000,000 per year in modern, real-world terms. Of course, you could just chalk this up to "Fantasy economics doesn't work," but I like to think of it more as "Adventurers work on a completely different economic scale as the rest of the world." So... in a wizard-rich setting, those unskilled in magic would be incapable of competing with wizards, so they would be reduced to beggary.
I think this could be a fun idea if you could pair with Spring Attack. Your damage would be relatively poor for a 20th level character, but you'd also be untouchable.I was thinking the same thing. All you'd need then was a red suit with a lightning bolt on the front. I wonder if you could set against a charge with a person who's spring attacking like that. They're moving even quicker than a person rushing in for a charge, and if you're expecting it and they're rushing in there should be some extra contact damage.
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