Daron Farina's page

So, I have a pretty comprehensive Wealth Tool for 3.5, and it occurred to me that it would probably only be a few clicks to make it a Pathfinder Wealth Tool. So I have a couple questions:

1) Since I know the people in charge frequent these boards, would there be any issues with me making such a tool? To get a better idea, just take a look at what I already have.

2) Is there a simple conversion list for the 3.5 core magic items to pathfinder core magic items? I know a grand majority of it is the same, but I don't want to miss important differences.

Thanks in advance!

Yes, character optimization is horrible. We should, under no circumstances, push the limits of game mechanics and examine the reason why a collection of relevant abilities to a character concept has such a fundamental conflict. Instead of worrying about why the feats we take get weaker as we gain class abilities, we should just take Alertness and sweep it under the rug (or better yet, start house ruling before it's even out of the box).

Well, if Arcane Strike isn't for a gish, then who is it for?

My point is, if you take two core feats that are obviously directed at gish builds, and then take 10 levels in the core prestige class that defines what a gish is, you end up having to jump through hoops to use your capstone ability. It's not like I'm pointing at material scattered throughout multiple sources, this is all right in core.

No one sees a problem with this? Maybe a little?

I addressed this very problem close to 9 months ago, and it was obviously ignored, or not seen as a problem.

If you are playing your gish properly, you would have taken the (new) Arcane Strike feat, which I notice is neatly avoided in the posted build, even though this 20th-level melee character's melee damage is a pathetic 1d8+7.

If you're attacking, your swift action is sucked up by Arcane Strike. If you're casting, your swift action is sucked up to avoid arcane spell failure. So, if you're doing anything that you're supposed to be doing as a gish, then you'll never be able to use Eldritch Knight's capstone ability.

I am seriously disappointed nothing was done about this, as I am a huge fan of gish characters. I don't know why I'm not allowed to have a useful swift action because I decided to play an optimal gish.

Well, many of the questions are still unanswered, but this begs the questions, how is forcecage better than wall of stone anymore? If I can leave an arbitrary hole in the wall of stone that the captives could conceivably escape from, then I effectively have a no save spell.

The only advantage forcecage has over wall of stone is that you need a disintegrate to get out of it, but then again you can save your way out of a forcecage now. The being said, I don't think a two spell level difference is remotely fair anymore, unless the text of wall of stone is changed.

Honestly, I fail to see why forcecage was changed at all. In epic level play, it's one of the only options a caster has to disable opponents, and even then it doesn't do any harm to the subject(s).

tricky bob wrote:

Just an idea, why not limit the number of buffs a player can have

Several have suggested this. I personally do not like limiting players, due to the possible abuse by a few players.

How could you possibly abuse a system that limits you more than a system that does not?

Also, the idea of a buff limit stretches in-game logic a bit. A fighter who's never cast a spell in his life has no magical ability at all... Until someone casts buff number seven on him, and then he can suddenly and instantaneously control what magical effects do and do not apply to him.

You're making the assumption that a solution like that would allow the player to switch his "buffs" in and out as he pleases. It could be that once you have X number of "buffs", you simply don't get anymore.

A "buff" limit would entail a lot of meta-game thinking, but then again, so does resolving dispel magic in the first place.

One undeniable aspect of imposing a buff limit is that things will necessarily become more simple, and I'm a big fan of simple.

Also, there is no game definition of "buff spell." So what exactly are we going to limit, and why do only those magical effects have limits? Why can you be affected by unlimited harmful spell effects but only a limited number of beneficial ones?

A "buff" spell is a spell that provides a direct benefit to the player, and has duration. Honestly, I think it's extremely straight-forward to determine what is and is not a "buff".

While I would advocate such an idea, I guarantee that it would never implemented. We're either going to see things stay the same, or invite an unnecessary complication into dispel magic.

Still, I don't see why keeping two separate sheets is such a big deal. It seemed to be largely dismissed, but isn't it necessary to have the "unbuffed" sheet before the "buffed" sheet anyway?

Plus, with the "1024 combinations" argument, there is a very good chance that if you are running upwards of ten buffs, many of them will have no (or negligible) effect on calculations. For example, freedom of movement, death ward, contingency, stoneskin, etc. require no modification to any bonuses.

As I've said before though, if you're going to run around with magic flying out of your %^$ then expect to do the book-keeping.

For example, you might change the spell so that its casting time varies. The targeted dispel might remain a standard action to cast, but the area dispel might take 1 minute.

A targeted dispel is just as disruptive as an area dispel. Unless I'm missing something fundamental, I don't really see what this modification offers other than removing the option of area dispel from players in a combat situation.

Far too many things have darkvision to make darkness a viable spell if you can beat it with darkvision. Darkness should shut out any light source below third level spells, and give a 20% miss chance if you have darkvision. Deeper darkness should be complete darkness, even with darkvision.

Honestly, other than the odd bit of how darkness actually created light, I thought the spell was fine.

As it stands, darkness effectively failing when cast outside during the day is totally unacceptable. I would be hard pressed to find any situation where one would even notice the spell effect.

Both spells say that one can avoid entrapment with a reflex save. Forcecage is explicit so that if it cast around you, you are entitled a reflex save.

However, wall of stone is still ambigious. Let's say for example, the caster creates a wall 25 ft. x 25 ft. x 5 ft. Is every person inside that area allowed a reflex save? Where do they end up if they succeed?

What if a caster just creates a wall to separate the group? Are reflex saves allowed to choose which side of the wall you're on?

What if a caster creates a wall the surrounds someone except for a 5 ft. opening? Are they allowed a saving throw?

E.g.

XXXXX
X......X
X..O..X
X......X
X......X
XX...XX

X = wall, O = character.

I usually model my high level campaigns around requiring the PCs to divine information, so this is never an issue for me. As for non-magical information gathering, there will always be things you cannot find with magic.

Teleportation magic is a little more tricky, as I have always been a fan of requiring some kind of attunement, physical familiarity with the place, or teleporting "docks" that have the correct kind of energy that allows teleportation.

This is something that really only needs to be addressed in epic play. Saves from 1-20 scale fine. Or at least, it definitely seems that way after playing in an epic game. When you're browsing for spells after 20, if its anything other than "Saving Throw: none" you generally skip over it entirely.

The spells I can think of in this group are:

sleep
deep slumber
cause fear
scare
daze

I think doing this would only add to the SoD problem, as these spells are effectively that if the save is failed.

Though, I do agree that it's unfortunate to see these spells completely disappear by even mid level play.

Why don't we limit the number of spells that can affect a character at once? Five seems like a decent number. In my epic game, between the two casters we end up with something around 14 buffs per person that run all day long, and only shows signs of getting worse. Depending on how low we set the limit, this can also make Persistent Spell playable.

I don't believe dispel magic is the problem, in fact, I think dispel magic must stay the way it is. If we start limiting how many things it can bring down, it completely loses its usefulness in high level play (where if you don't have a myriad buffs, you get laughed at).

As for recalculating everything on the NPC/monster/PC, you don't deserve any sympathy. If you're going to tromp around with 10 buffs running, you're responsible for carrying a "buff sheet" and a "base sheet". If dispel magic takes too long to resolve, it's just a result of poor prep work (on either side of the table).

Another point, if we decrease the power of dispel magic, mage's disjunction will be virtually required to even step in the ring against casting opponents at CR 17+.

If we impose an artificial limit, we will decrease the power of mage's disjunction (and while this is one of the best changes in PFRPG, I think it could still use a bit of toning down), and make things simpler in every aspect to run on both sides of the table.

Krome wrote:

I just want to step in for a second. I have to say it seems a shame fantasy RPGs must oppress women sexually. It is far more acceptable to just kill them, splatter their guts everywhere and show it all over prime time TV, rather than promote natural sexuality.

I tell you why that is: It's because of them damn feminists. Wanna know why? All the violence and splatter and stuff is usually against men. Women are conveniently spared because it's not sporting to attack women and children - but an unarmed salesclerk is fair game. Funny that they don't run around and demand that women are killed as brutally. About that, they're conveniently silent! But they love to see men brutally murdered. Because they hate men. Pass me the salt shakress.

So we're saying that the ONLY two ways to depict women in fantasy is being slaughtered or by promoting "naturally sexuality"? Who's thinking in black and white again?

It is extremely closed minded to offer such an alternative when someone points out the sexism inherent in marketing. I won't go into feminist issues because they won't be appreciated by this audience, but keep in mind that women do, in fact, have more options than being a model or fat, stabbed, ugly, blood covered pile of mess.

Daron Farina wrote:

While this thread is specifically about the requirements of arcane archer, I think arrow of death needs to be discussed. It's absolutely awful.

No argument, although it's (somewhat) better than a slaying arrow. Even in 3.5, I usually don't bother with the 10th arcane archer level. Maybe it needs to be:

Arrow of Death (Sp): At 10th level, an arcane archer can create an arrow of death that forces the target, if damaged by the arrow's attack, to make a DC (15 + the arcane archer's caster level)* Fortitude save or be slain immediately; the target still takes +1d6 extra damage per caster level* on a successful save. Note that even creatures normally exempt from Fortitude saves (undead and constructs) are subject to this attack. When the target is a living creature, this is a death effect (and a death ward protects against it). It takes one day to make an arrow of death, and the arrow only functions for the arcane archer who created it. The arrow of death lasts no longer than one year, and the archer can only have one such arrow in existence at a time.

*-assuming that the arcane archer grants spellcasting progression every other level.

Giving 1/2 spellcasting progression also helps with your other complaint, giving a wizard 6/fighter 4/arcane archer 10 a CL of 11 with 6th level spells and a wizard 8/fighter 2/arcane archer 10 a CL 13 with 7th level spells. Or, if combat is more your cup of tea, a ranger 2/bard 8/arcane archer 10 has a +18 BAB and casts spells (in light armor) as a 13th level bard (5th level spells).

Basing that on caster levels will have huge ramifications in play beyond 20th level.

Honestly, I think Arcane Archer should get a progression similar to Eldritch Knight's. But that's just me.

Unfortunately, we're way over the discussion time for prestige classes, so there will probably be nothing done at all about Arcane Archer.

1. Mage Armor or some spell that improves beyond that

2. Shield spell.

3. Bracers of Deflection (as opposed to Armor) or some other deflection bonus.

4. Insight bonus from.... somewhere. I think there are spells that will manage.
5. Dodge feat

6. Natural Armor item

Get enough of the right packages and you can pass on Arcane failure type armor entirely.

Numbers 4, 5, and 6 are all available to Fighters.

Mage armor is absolutely necessary if you aren't wearing armor, and I was already considering this spell in my "melee-optimized" build. Shield is great and all, but you can't always do nothing for a round just so you can have a slightly less chance of getting plastered to the wall.

#3... I'm not sure what you mean. Ring of Protection or Bracers of Armor? At any rate, Bracers of Armor will only get you 4 more AC than your mage armor spell, and you sacrifice a good portion of your wealth for it. For example, Bracers of Armor +5 costs 25,000g, which is the same price as a +5 [anything] armor, which will offer as much or more AC than Bracers of Armor +8 (64,000g), unless its leather armor.

wizard > EldKt >> fighter.

Actually, if you build a melee-optimized Eldritch Knight, you are so far behind the Fighter in your attack rolls (by about 10) by 15th level that it's not even worth meleeing. Aside from the occasional greater invisibiliy or other obscure personal buff available to you, a Fighter will outclass you as an Eldritch Knight every single time. While I agree that a Fighter should outclass Eldritch Knights in melee, the gap is a lot bigger than one would think. And this isn't even mentioning the horrifyingly low AC Eldritch Knights have compared to fighters.

Spell critical is also great, as your guy will probably have Improved Crit by then... so take Spell Critical with rays/ranged touch weapons (whatever is now focusable/specializable in PRPG) and the way you go! when you crit with that ray spell, you get to cast another spell as a swift action (if you cast a ray and crit AGAIN, you can deal a LOT of damage at high caster levels... disintegrate critical, swift disintegrate critical... OUCH!)

Actually, spell critical is completely useless, and I'm going to explain why.

This class is built around Arcane Strike and Arcane Armor Training, BOTH of which suck up your swift action every single round (hope the designers are listening, this is a major oversight).

So if you decide to cast your ray spell free of spell failure chance (via Arcane Armor Training), you won't have a swift action left to use your spell critical.

Similarly, taking a full attack and getting your damage bonus from Arcane Strike makes you sacrifice any possibility of using spell critical.

Unless you aren't in armor and casting (which is pretty suicidal if you ever plan on meleeing) and don't care about your damage bonus from Arcane Strike (which you really should since your melee attacks are far worse than a fighter's), then this issue doesn't apply to you.

Even if Pathfinder doesn't patch up Eldritch Knight, I'm still interested in discussing possible houserules that make the class effective.

Comparing an Animated shield to a Ring of Protection is one thing, but if you bring Magic Vestment into the picture, you've gotta account for Shield of Faith as well.

Just to save face, the reason I neglected to mention shield of faith was it is not a viable "all-day" buff, whereas greater magic vestment is, and shield of faith won't stack with your Ring of Protection.

Except armor does impede your ability to take more effective in up to three ways: Base movement being reduced, Armor check penalty, and run speed reduction. If your movement is reduced you aren't moving as far with a move action or charge meaning you might not get an attack in on a given round... the armor check penalty could make you fail an important balance check making you fall, lose an action, etc.

Light armor doesn't decrease movement, and if you buy medium armor in mithril (depending on changes of course), you still get your full movement. I'm sort of glazing over the armor check penalty, because I feel the movement penalty is infinitely more important.

Beyond that a shield is not useless in pathfinder, and a bonus of anywhere from 2~9 points to your AC is not insubstantial, the only things that even give you a shield bonus besides actual shields are a ring of force shielding and the actual shield spell... the bonus of the first is a "mere" +2 and eats up a ring slot, while the second is generally not available to fighters, rangers, clerics, et. al.

Still, most people have to choose between having better attacks or a better AC when thinking about a shield. Even if you're wearing a buckler, you're still getting a penalty to hit. If you're actually holding a shield, you're limited to a one-handed weapon.

Again I would point out the viability of using a shield is much greater now thanks to shield mastery too, even if it's not available until level 11, especially if you want more combat options other than swing, swing, swing.

I do agree with you that these feats make shield more attractive. As far as fighters are concerned, I think using a shield is a viable option with feats. Shield Mastery should be available sooner, probably more like 6th level.

In summary, giving the shield's AC bonus to touch AC is generally good. If you give it to fighters with all the shield feats, it could possibly be too good.

As a side note, where are the rules for shield bashing? Why aren't they in the special attacks section of the Combat chapter?

Don't mean to double post, but I wanted to add something here.

Thematically, requiring some sort of spellcasting makes sense for the magical abilities of the class. The issue that the spellcasting is not used for anything else (apart from Imbue Arrow) is a problem.

It does make sense, but there have been plenty of prestige classes in the past that don't require any casting, and they hand over their own spell progression.

I agree that it makes "sense" for our arcane archer to have some kind of magical capability, but we would be justified in giving him magical abilities from nothing.

Imbue Arrow

I just want to point out that, assuming a conservative entry into the class of Fighter 5/Wizard 2, and riding out Arcane Archer, the typical Arcane Archer won't be able to attach a fireball to his arrow until 20th level (Fighter 5/Wizard 5/Arcane Archer 10). If you're a Sorceror, well, you're just gonna have to settle for glitterdust.

A "casting focused" Arcane Archer might look like:
Entry: Wizard 4/Fighter 4.
Full progression: Wizard 6/Fighter 4/Arcane Archer 10.

You're still only getting 3rd level spells by 20th level, with a caster level of 6. So, unless you're using spells that ignore spell resistance and require no save (since your Int probably isn't too hot), you're boned.

If you don't mind waiting forever to get into the class in favor of spellcasting:
Entry: Wizard 8/Fighter 2
Full progression: Wizard 8/Fighter 2/Arcane Archer 10.

This gets you 4th level spells, caster level 8. By the time level 20 rolls around, you still better be throwing no SR/no save spells.

Daron Farina wrote:

2. Keep the requirement and improve the qualifying caster levels.

3. Keep the requirement and grant spellcasting increases every other level (either even or odd)

I meant for this third option to be a part of my second option. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify what I meant.

As far as every other level is concerned, I don't think that is nearly enough because there are too many things wrong with the class. If we come up with a (useful) capstone ability, I might be able to consider a 1/2 casting progression.

While this thread is specifically about the requirements of arcane archer, I think arrow of death needs to be discussed. It's absolutely awful. Seriously. It's forcing the old "massive damage save" with +5 to the DC, except it cannot effect anything with immunity to death effects. This makes the arcane archer's capstone ability arguably worse than massive damage saves (since it can still effect death immune characters).

The best case scenario with this ability is your target rolls a 1 and tanks the save. Total waste of a standard action.

I'm honestly not seeing how adding a shield bonus to "touch attacks" overvalues it at all... Currently no one is using shields, period.

How do you "overvalue" something that has NO value?

You are absolutely right about shields being underused. Giving up your off-hand is a lot to ask for a few points in flat-footed AC. In this innocent case, I think adding the bonus to touch AC would be fine.

Here is the case some people can justifiably be worried about...

A +1 animated heavy steel (or wooden) shield costs 9150g and gives a +3 shield bonus to AC, while allowing the user to freely use both hands. Make it 10,150g, and the armor check penalty disappears.

A ring of protection +2 costs 8000g, and +3 runs 18,000g.

So, if you have shield proficiency and around 10,000g to spend on a shield (probably around 10th level), using an animated shield will be the most efficient way to improve your touch AC without suffering any penalties normally associated with shields.

Is this a problem? I don't think so. I always thought Parrying Shield was a must-have for any front-liner able to use a shield.

Is this a problem when your cleric casts greater magic vestment on your shield? Maybe. But I still don't think so.

These are the worst core abuses that I can think of. Jason, you need to remember, a shield's bonus being a little better than an armor's bonus makes sense in a way, since armor doesn't impede your ability to take more effective actions (e.g. two weapon fighting, two-handed strength bonus).

1 Normal

2 Broken (when suffered damage)
3 Sundered (when hit points equal 0) item is uesless; but can be repaired via a craft skill - then Make Whole spell will restore the magical property
4 Destroyed - disintigrated or completely destroyed objects. Not repairable - magic is gone.

100% agreed. I thought about this same exact thing myself.

Detailing that using a reach weapon in adjacent squares changes the weapon to a club and you get a -2 penalty is a little much as far as penalties go, and complexity. Just give a flat -4 penalty to attack rolls and be done. It's simple, sufficient, and mechanically fair.

Alternatively, we can just add Short Haft into core and be done.

Parrying Shield from LoM really does solve this problem in it's entirety. If we really want to talk about abusive shield use, we need to talk about animated shields.

At any rate, we don't have to change anything really. Generally touch spells aren't even used because it requires a caster to be right next to you, which is generally a terrible idea for the caster. Most ranged touch spells simply deal damage, or at least don't kill you without a save.

I wouldn't be opposed to globally increasing the damage by one step for exotic weapons. Abraham presents a fantastic idea though, it makes exotic weapon proficiency an attractive feat, and it'd give non-fighters a great way to do something interesting in melee.

Why can't Medium Armour reduce movement by 5ft.?

Light -- no change
Medium -- reduce movement by 5ft.
Heavy -- reduce movement by 10ft.

It's not "X ft.," it's a movement category. I think we should ditch the movement penalty for medium armor to be honest. Armor check penalty and arcane spell failure are enough motivation to stay away from.

For what its worth, I don't think I've ever seen a PC wear anything other than a mithril full plate, mithril breastplate, mithril chain shirt, and hide (druids). I suspect this to be the case even with the coming changes to mithril.

Mithril makes studded leather, leather, and padded armor totally obsolete as soon as a PC is able to spend 1100g on armor.

As soon as a PC can afford a set of full plate (1650g), all heavy armor except for full plate becomes blatantly sub-optimal, even foolish to use.

A similar case exists for medium armor, as scale mail and chain mail are useless as soon as the PC can afford breastplate (200g!).

This isn't a problem for me honestly. Though, if nothing is done about armor, we should at least consider saving some page space.

I seriously considered what there was in core to offer Eldritch Knight. I have to agree it's sort of lacking. AC will tend to be low, and to hit bonus will suffer a lot (fighters will have about +5 more to hit by 12th level and 5-6 more AC).

Here's an idea I've been mulling around. Note that if you follow the fighter's progression assuming entry with Wizard 5/Fighter 1 you'll see the pattern.

1: Channel 1/day (as for spellsword)
2: 10% ignore arcane spell failure
3: Channel 2/day
4: Weapon training (as fighters)
5: Channel 3/day
6: 20% ignore arcane spell failure
7: Channel 4/day
8: Weapon training
9: Channel 5/day
10: Spell critical

Same casting progression, saves and all that.

In the grand scheme of things, I don't think Diverse Training offers much. I can't find anything that has prerequisites of raw wizard or sorceror levels, and I have mixed feelings on access to fighter-only feats.

If we wanted to go a very spellsword direction...

Change the requirements to include Weapon Focus (any martial weapon)

1: Channel 1/day, weapon specialization
2: 10% ignore arcane spell failure
3: Channel 2/day
4: Weapon training
5: Channel 3/day
6: 20% ignore arcane spell failure
7: Channel 4/day
8: Weapon training
9: Channel 5/day
10: Spell critical

[u]Weapon Specialization[/u]: Gain Weapon Specialization with the martial weapon you chose with Weapon Focus, channeling can only be performed with this type of weapon.

C on principle, but I can definitely live with B. Option D would probably result in a bonfire in my yard.

Though, I would like to see mithril weapons do something interesting. It may be a bit powerful, but how about increasing crit range by 1? So far the only thing weapon material does for us is bypass DR, and that isn't even very useful anymore.

*points to his suggestion*

Heh. It's what inspired me mention Ultimate Magus. Your suggestion approaches the problem from a different direction, increasing the power of the MT's standard actions, where UM effectively allows more standard actions.

Maybe if we said the MT can sacrifice a number of spells who's summed spell levels equal the desired spell level (kind of like a reverse mnemonic enhancer). Though, you'd have to have some way to reign this ability in. I'd hate to see MT's use this to spontaneously cast spells of levels they already have instead of what it's meant for. From what I can tell though, you can only access cleric spells that are higher level?

Along these lines, I had a greatsword wielding cleric who wore a spiked gauntlet for the sole purpose of having a light weapon "in hand" in case of grappling.

-Skeld

Heh, which is very smart. =)

A lot like how it makes little sense for an arcane caster not to invest in a mithril buckler. I never understood why people neglect to do that...

Vampires don't have to drop their greatswords to slam attack.

Actually... I believe they do.

Properly weilding a weapon (natural or manufactured) assumes that you are focusing on weilding that weapon. If something interferes with it in any way, you're at least subject to a penalty. This is exactly why a greataxe weilding troll can still bite when he full attacks with his greataxe, but not get his claw attacks. The same kind of idea applies to not being able to two-hand weapons while holding a shield. In theory, you would be able to swing a two-handed weapon with a shield (hold the shield strap and the greatsword at the same time), but you cannot do it properly.

Though, this is getting nitpicky about the rules. As a DM, I would give the following advice about this:

If there isn't a problem in your game regarding abuse of spiked gauntlets, than just continue allowing it (remember, the point of the game is to have fun!). If you wanted to be conservative, impose a -2 or -4 penalty to attacks made with it if you want to keep your longspear in hand. If this situation is disrupting the game however, a DM would be justified in disallowing it without use of rule 0.

Compare to wizard 7, cleric 7: ...

This is really a great analysis. Something interesting about it is using this same method will show us how MT will become extremely powerful in epic play (consider the example, except with Wizard 5/Cleric 5/MT 15 vs. a 25th level pure caster). However, the concerns here for 1-20 are completely valid, and couldn't have voiced my concerns better than Jess already has.

I don't know if we're technically allowed to discuss it at length, but there were some great ideas from Ultimate Magus in Complete Mage. Using an ability similar to Augmented Metamagics with Quicken Spell would allow them to burn more spells in a shorter amount of time. Also, since the requirements are more lax than MT, it makes entry more bearable.

In high-powered games, your party demands a tremendous amount of patchwork from you. If someone falls over and dies, not only is it your responsibility to get him back up, but it's also your fault. The fact is, your spell list is everyone's business, and therefore offers very little control over your own character. I mean seriously, if someone is low on hit points, are you going to charge and hope you tickle the enemy or just roll a cure X wounds spell?

Player A: "Oh man, I'm at -13. Want to toss me a close wounds Mr. Cleric?"

Player B (Cleric): "Uh... yeah, about that. I only memorized 2 today, and I already used them on Bob."

Player A: "Now I have to re-roll because you can't play your character? Great. What did you memorize instead?"

Player B: "...searing light..."

And the s*$^ hits the fan.

Though, a very serious concern about cleric spells known is the power creep. Every sourcebook released means that you know close to 30-50 more spells, depending on the nature of the book. This arguably gives you greater versatility than the wizard, since all you have to do in order to memorize a spell is know of its existence. If anything is done with cleric spells known, it should do something about this phenomenon.

Just want to point out:

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil characters simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

If we're going to talk about good and evil, we may as well remind ourselves of their definition (as far as Pathfinder is concerned). Personally, with that definition of "good", I can't even fathom how tromping through a cave killing trolls is even remotely "good". My point is, when you're saying "good" as it applies to Pathfinder paladins and clerics, remember that you mean the above definition. There is no "good-er" or "evil-er". You're one, the other, or neither.

I'd also like to add that arguing over whether a paladin or a cleric is the faith's holy warrior seems kind of silly to me. To me, paladins (and blackguards) are the executors of the faith, and clerics are the proselytizers. Either can act as the other, but this is the case that makes the most sense.

As far as how Blackguard should be represented by the rules, I always found it very odd that every single blackguard ever conceived of had rogue levels, knew how to cleave, and required knowing more about how to hide than he knew about his own religion, despite usually wearing heavy armor.

If the blackguard exists as a PrC, it needs to be a fighter/cleric hybrid, not a fighter/rogue hybrid. I would personally rather see it as a base class, because there's really no reason not to with paladin being a base class. But remember, you don't have to have levels in blackguard to be a foil for a paladin. There's nothing stopping a regular ol' fighter from being a beacon of evil (except of course, he doesn't radiate an aura of evil).

A 9th-level rogue with max ranks in Use Magic Device, a +5 Use Magic Device item, and a wand of scorching ray (wand of acid splash if you're cheap) has an 85% chance to do exactly what an Arcane Trickster does. Add two levels, a positive charisma modifier, or a bigger item, and you'll have a 95% chance. Before that, use acid flasks or *gasp* daggers.

Missing out on other spells? Get more wands. Want invisibility? Buy scrolls. In exchange for buying this stuff, you get a boatload of Rogue Talents, better skills and no Int dependency.

Besides, this isn't even close to achieving optimal damage for a rogue. The best damage you're going to do as a rogue is with Two-Weapon Fighting and flanking something with the party's fighter.

Even if I wanted to do something sub-optimal to bring a character concept home, I would much rather spend a little wealth to do it rather than more than half my class levels. This class fails at what it does best (damage) and it was already shown that it woefully fails at anything other than combat.

Eldritch Knight is a PrC that can take advantage of a great amount of previous 3.5 material. Simple things like the twilight enhancement, greater mage armor, and the old Arcane Strike feat go a long way with the character concept.

If we wanted to improve Eldritch Knight to be as effective as we want it to be in core, we would have to do so very carefully, or it can get out of hand when non-core material is introduced.

I enjoyed seeing Jess' write up. I would seriously consider house-ruling it into my games if there were no changes made to MT on release.

An endeavor to make this class more bearable before and the few levels after entry without effecting the end result is exactly what this class needs.

So... I don't have anything particularly useful to contribute at the moment, but I encourage all of you contributing to continue doing so! Good work everyone. =D

I don't really think it's a valid complaint that this PrC doesn't result in as much power as a pure prep arcane caster. This class is extremely effective, it just requires that you have a firm grip on how arcanists work (spell failure, armor class, saves, spells to take, etc.). Not only that, you will be extremely happy to have one of these in epic play.

Though, I think Arcane Strike brought a lot to this class, and now that's gone. And no, the Pathfinder version doesn't count, because its awful (sorry guys, but it's true).

Speaking of 3.5, Eldritch Knight served largely as a filler class for "gish" builds. There's nothing particularly wrong with that as long as people actually use the class, as opposed to Arcane Archer, Dragon Disciple, Shadowdancer, and Hierophant which just sucked up the page count.

Anyone take the time to compare Arcane Archer and Eldritch Knight? It's quite hilarious really.

Here's what I think...

Knock the BAB requirement down to +4.

Given the class, requiring class levels that the PrC does absolutely nothing with (wizard, sorceror, bard) doesn't make any sense. From a purely mechanical standpoint, you could require 1st-level divine spells and it would have no impact on the class at all.

That being said, the casting requirement has to go, or the class needs to have some kind of casting. So here we are on two paths:

1. Remove the casting requirement

1a. Give the class its own spell progression.

I do not support this option, because as soon as your spell progression stops, it becomes useless.

1b. Significantly increase the power of its class features.

I believe this to be the best option, because "+1 existing arcane" will only make it feel like a wanna-be Eldritch Knight, which is far superior to this class.

As far as beefing up the class features, Arrow of Death is a joke. Currently, the earliest one can get into this class is as an 8th level character, and achieve 10 levels of Arcane Archer by 17th level. At 17th level, a DC20 fort save will barely tickle a rogue, and that's if he isn't already immune to death effects. Other than that, this is a waste of a standard action at 17th level when wizards are throwing mage's disjunction and fighters are doing well over 150 damage with a full attack (and a better AC!).

2. Keep the requirement and improve the qualifying caster levels.

If this route is taken, we should slap the Eldritch Knight's casting progression on the class and go from there.

OPTION:

Create several feats takable at 1st level only, like:

...

This is a great idea, but I think the example is off a little. If the feat required that you one are of the current race/class combinations and you get the favored class bonus (choice of 1 HP or 1 skill point every level), I think it would be an excellent option and a great middle ground. However, if we made it a feat, we should throw in an extra 3 HP so it is decidedly better Toughness, since the choice to get an extra skill point is there.

I could converge on something similar to this... what does the pro-FC side say to this?

As a very interesting tidbit that isn't a part of this topic, if we adopted this rule and forced the human bonus feat to be this feat, it may level the playing field between humans and the other races. I have no intention for this to be discussed at length though, it's just a thought. =D

... it's a lot easier for a published mechanic to be houseruled out than it is for someone who never sees the mechanic (as it's been left out) to houserule it in.

This is a valid concern for DMs that (would) like the rule, but we have already seen the beta to include alternative house rules for hit points. If the design team decided to remove favored class rules from core, I have full confidence that it will at least make a sidebar.

However, as far as houseruling goes, it is completely backwards to houserule "out". The core rules should be as lean as possible because it makes the game easier to balance, and there are fewer rules to contend with.

Lolly Analogy

Here is another way to consider this abstractly.

Let us continue with the following assumptions and talk about game balance in terms of symbols.

1. Favored Class is removed as an intrinsic racial feature from all races and made a meta-rule.

2. All races are balanced against eachother, and all classes are balanced against eachother so that any race/class combination is theoretically balanced. *Note that this is not quite the case in reality, but it is surely an ultimate goal of the rules to achieve this.

Suppose there are race/class combinations R1+C1 and R2+C2. We can say that R1+C1 = R2+C2, or more generally, that Ra+Cb = Rx+Cy for any a, b, x, y. (Valid because of assumption 2)

Here is where we introduce the favored class meta-rule. Since C1 is a favored class of R1, the R1/C1 combination gets +F, where +F denotes the bonus from favored class rules. Now the equation looks like R1+C1+F = R2+C2. The resulting equation is obviously not equivalent if we already concluded that R1+C1 = R2+C2. This is how the favored class rule compromises game balance. There is no mechanical justification for the rule and therefore mechanically arbitrary. Is it really fair that Rx+Cy+F where x = 3 and y = 8, 10?

While I agree that the favored class rules don't make a very large impact on game balance, it still disrupts it.

For those that say "since dwarves get +2 Constitution they get +1 HP so they get something extra that other classes do not get", consider a similar case as above, except replace Assumption 1 with:

1. All races lose their ability score modifiers and is instead a meta-rule.

It would follow that R1+C1 = R2+C2. When the ability score meta-rule is applied, the equation turns into R1+A(R1)+C1 = R2+A(R2)+C2, where A(Rx) are the ability scores of race x. Since every race has ability score modifiers, as long as A(R1) is balanced with A(R2) the game remains balanced.

Favor? ... is it actually a factor that contributes to unbalancing the game?

I don't see how it's balanced. From a pure mechanical point of view, you're giving someone an arbitrary bonus for making one of few specific choices in character creation.

Daron Farina wrote:

Not everyone considers this a problem.

Conversely, not everyone considers this 1SP/1HP rule to be a problem.

Well, we can't exactly keep adding rules just because some think it isn't problematic. I still fail to see what this rule brings to the game aside from encouraging specific race/class combinations, which can be done in ways that have no impact on game balance.

The other half of Favored class people seem to be missing out is Incentive to Keep following the main class and not multi-classing.

I could write a dissertation on how this would be one of the worst ways to discourage multi-classing. The function of favored classes should not, and is not, to discourage multi-classing. If the designers want to attack multi-classing and prestige classes, then they can and should do so directly, or not release prestige classes at all (which they did). A much, much better way to keep PCs in their core classes is to make the core classes good enough to warrant staying in, which Pathfinder has done an excellent job of already. Seriously, who really wanted to stay in Sorceror for 19 dead levels? That's not fun at all.

Aside from the issue of encouragement, I would still like to stress that the favored class mechanic works against the primary design goal, backwards compatibility. It only adds to the work needed to be done in order to convert NPCs and PCs.

It is still an extraneous rule. Even if everyone in the world thought it would be great to encourage classic race/class combinations, it would still be better as a house rule.

To avoid this turning into a series of individual discussions, can the designers please direct us to discuss the issues they are concerned with if any? At least let us know you're listening. =)

I hope no one takes my posts to be aggressive or offensive, as that is not my intention. I am extremely verbose on this matter more than any other because I feel very strongly about it, and will fight it to the bitter end (unless I am offered solid reasons for keeping the rule). So put away your greatsword and bring out the falchion! (That was horrible but I'm leaving it! xD)

There's lots of cases where the stats can work for a number of classes, some even better than the favoured ones (halflings make better sorcerers than bards, half-orcs are as good with clerics as with druids, dwarves are probably better druids than clerics because of the charisma....), but they don't quite fit into the picture.

Any of a race's favored classes would be a mechanically viable choice. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at. I think elven rangers would be fine without the favored class bonus, as well as halfling bards, half-orc druids, etc. Besides, favored classes weren't decided based on mechanical considerations alone, much of it is fluff.

Nothing wrong with playing stereotypes. Someone's got to. If the elven wizard and ranger weren't the norm, those rebels who like to play something completely different like a paladin/sorcerer coudln't play it and be extraordinary, because ordinary wouldn't exist.

And I would argue that, if anything, the extraordinary should be rewarded, not the ordinary. And how do favored classes make dwarven fighters "ordinary" other than explicitly saying "Hey guys, this is ordinary!"? I've always thought and always will think that is ordinary.

The usual drow is supposed to be an evil, scheming bastard. Remember what happened there? Forgotten Realms Episode III: Attack of the Drizzt Clones. The extraordinary became the norm. Everyone cried about it. A lot of people to this day hate drow with a passion because...

I have absolutely nothing good to say about Drizz't, but why can't DMs just say "no" when people want to roll drow rangers with panthers (or whatever that was supposed to be) as companions? Do we really need a rule for it?

The real question is, does the bonus of the extra skill point or hit point truly unbalance the game in favor of the player with the bonus?

It doesn't unbalance the whole game, but it does favor the player over others.

If it's not unbalancing (and it's not), then leave it in the rules, and houserule it out.

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -- Antoine de Saint-Exuper

I've got to be perfectly honest with you - anything that encourages folks to play the base races/base classes/favored classes is a plus to me. I'm getting sick and tired of the "I want to be different just to be different" mentality that a lot of people have.

Not everyone considers this a problem. If you want to encourage your players to stick with stereotypical race/class combos, then don't allow them to take anything outside of core, except for a case-by-case basis. I had to do this when everyone in my gaming circle decided goliaths were the coolest thing ever.

Playing a Half-Illithid Yuan-Ti Vampire Soulknife/Blackguard/Dread Necromancer isn't creative.

Not to pick, but that build wouldn't be powerful at all.

You're not creative because you play something outside of the base races/classes. You're creative in HOW you play.

I still firmly hold that the favored class rules stifle race/class choice. Let me make an example...

Suppose one is choosing between two universities to attend. University A offers a better degree and education, but man, University B has the most awesome weather ever, and the guy:girl ratio is sick! Now, if the government awarded one an extra $5000 grant just to set foot in University A, it would undoubtedly skew one's choice towards A, even though A is the most optimal choice to begin with.

A more efficient way for a high level caster to do this is open an upside-down gate to the elemental plane of water. This idea is very much like the plot of Final Fantasy Legend III.

I always have my high level Assassin NPCs carrying thinuan (sp?) weapons, so they can get around that silly true ressurection thing.

I would much rather see a mechanic that traps a soul so they can at least be rescued still (or the possibility exists at least), to the point where I wouldn't mind throwing a real soul-stealing assassin at my PCs.

On the other hand, if throwing an Assassin in the mix means that one of my high level PCs (that has been played for quite some time) has a X% chance to never get back up again, no matter what, I don't think I would do it. Plus, it leaves room for creativity on how to permanently wipe someone or something. If the answer was always "Oh, let's have a 10th level assassin stab it until it dies dead," then that isn't very much fun.

Maybe add on to the poison mechanic an ability to use weapons that will steal souls... without mistakenly sealing yourself in a jar.

Though, I do remember one of the biggest problems presented to me when I did throw soul-stealing Assassins at my PCs in 3.5, was delay death. There was an Assassin spell that prevented the target from being healed for minutes per level (which outlasted delay death). Anyway, I digress.

Leave the destruction of souls to deities!

I wholeheartedly agree. Making Arcane Trickster accessible by 7th level is a house rule I use regularly. When you compare this to other rogue/arcane classes like Daggerspell Mage, Arcane Trickster really does pale in comparison.

The BAB increase is a good suggestion though. With how the way things are going with power, I think that is the only way to make it a desirable PrC.