Hazic Kel-Kalaar

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if they were opaque you couldn't understand them. If they are clear, you can't see them, but you can understand them perfectly.


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We will have to disagree, then.

Rangers are considered the most balanced of the martial classes..not overpowered, versatile, able to nova a bit, tailor daily a bit, grab a pet, fight well, but not win the DPR race.

Barbs are less versatile, but tend to make better tankers and damage soakers.

Paladins can also tank, and heal themselves and others much better.

None of these classes is overpowered.

The fighter should be raised up to the power of these classes. Those classes have to compete with spellcasters...they are NOT overpowered.

The idea that a ranger should be nerfed...is quite foreign to me. The fighter should be raised up to where the ranger is now. And your build just isn't doing that for me.

I comment on a lot of fighter threads, and I'm just not seeing a holistic view of the fighter here.

Seriously, you're adding FEAT CHAINS. Ugh. Feats are already underpowered, and you're adding niche chains, instead of working on the base class itself. Feats need to be consolidated and scale well for the fighter, not made more numerous via more chains and feats.

So, no, I don't agree on the direction you are heading.


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Well, the base job of a martial has to be the following:

1) Good at grapple range. (Good meaning can do excellent physical damage and hit reliably).
2) Good at melee/weaponless range
3) Good at reach.
4) Good at thrown weapon range.
5) Good at bow/missile weapon range.
6) Good at long range. (Siege weapons!)
7) Can overcome material DR
8) Can overcome damage type DR.
9) IS hard to kill with physical damage.
10) Can withstand magical assaults.
11) Can aid less combat adept companions.
12) Can recover from magical attacks.
13) Can move quickly to wherever needed in any environment.

The class features of Fighters make it very hard to do this. at 1-6, a fighter is good if it can do 2 of the combat ranges, 3 is exceptional.

The average fighter never gets DR to withstand damage, he just gets an ac boost he may or may not be able to make use of if his Dex isn't high enough.

He can't withstand magical assaults very well at all, nor does he have recovery options, or movement options.

In other words, he has to spend gold, and a LOT of it, to get these options.
The fighter is a tool user, and his tools are VERY expensive.

Casters have tools, too, but their tools are MUCH more flexible, and don't cost a thing.


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The reality of this situation is why Summoning was so hard in 1e.

In 1e, summons were always treated as hostile. You had to spend your entire action maintaining control of your summons, if you didn't, they turned on you! None of this summon-tell them to kill the enemy-keep casting. uh-uh. You summoned, and then you were stuck. If you got hit, you lost control of your summons that round, and that could be BAD. Summoners memorized Protection from Evil not to protect themselves from enemies, but to protect themselves from THEIR OWN SUMMONS.

A successful Dispel Magic could GRAB CONTROL of your summons and TURN THEM BACK ON YOU.

Now? Feh, summon up an army, no risk, all return.


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Just give them a feat every level, or 2 feats every level. 2 feats every other level is a head scratcher.

Your armor training is paper intensive. Just have the bonus grant DR and you're done.
armor training is a ONE LEVEL ability. Levels 7, 11, and 15 have NOTHING. The insanity of a +1 scaling of a low level ability counting as a class feature doesn't apply to spellcasters or even barbs, why is it applying to fighters?
Furthermore, change the +dex limit to a simple dodge bonus, so it always applies. Monks don't need a high dex to qualify for their class AC bonus, why do fighters?

Insert automatic AAT options there.

Your WT starts at 5. The fighter once again is the only melee class without a damage bonus at level 1.

Parry, as armor, paper intensive. Drop it. just give +1 Weapon groups and +1 to WT as a scaling bonus, and find something else to put in there at 9, 13, and 17. Find another way of soaking damage then having the fighter bleed gold for fixing his gear.

-------------------------------------------
Where are your movement options?
Skill points? Skill bonuses?
Out of combat options?
Recovery/healing options?
Any warlord/marshal options?
Leadership options?
Are your capstones equivalent to 9th level spells?
Defenses and immunities?
Do you have a feats update or rewrite?

These are the main fighter problems.


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Fighters spend all their time TRAINING. Skills are an aspect of training. Ask any soldier.

If it's all about fighting, then explain to me why:
Rangers get 6 skill points.
Rangers have to train a pet.
Rangers can wear any armor and use all the weapons a fighter can, with full BAB.
Rangers get a fighting style and get to entirely skip actually learning some fighting skills as they do!
They research a ton of enemies to learn how they fight and think, and gain massive skill bonuses on terrains they like.
AND They learn how to cast spells so, like, they don't need to have skills as high.

And then justify to me why a fighter, who:
Does not have a pet.
Does not have to learn spellcasting, and can't use spells, so NEEDS skills more...
Focuses on mundane use of TOOLS (arms and armor are tools, remember) and use of his own hands
and doesn't get to ignore feat pre-reqs

has the lowest amount of skills in the game.
It makes NO logical sense whatsoever.

You can't even justify why they have less then a barbarian. A barb just needs some survival skills...they don't train, they RAGE.

Fighters train. They have masters, they go to fighter schools. They TRAIN.

Rangers only have 6 skill points because people whined that they couldn't do all the things a ranger needed to do, so it go increased from 4 to 6 in 3.5 from 3e. Obviously, every Ranger needs Hide in Shadows, Move Silently, Survival, Knowledge (Nature), Handle Animal, Spot and Listen, or they just aren't a ranger! And you can't do that with just 4 skill points, and you're MAKING them bump Int!

Unfair!
A skill tax!

And then Paizo consolidates Spot and Listen to Perception, consolidates HS and MS to Stealth, gives them Concentration for free, and they still have 6 skill points per level.

Unreal.


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666bender wrote:
Das Bier wrote:

A battle cleric can replace a fighter in doing the fighter's job if they desire to. And then do other jobs if those are required.

Whereas the fighter can only do his own job, and doesn't have near the defenses a cleric does. Also, the fighter can't do near the damage a cleric can using his own class features. He MUST spend money, esp on consumables, to do so.

The cleric just casts them ahead of time.

Just, ugh.

The Dragon come near, roaring and charging the party.... Then.. A scream is shouted,!

STOP Mr dragon, said the cleric. " give me 15 casting rounds and than let's see who is the man ....."
The cleric return the fight, to see 3 dead party member and a dead Dragon next to the almost dead barbarian.
" well... " said the rightous giant cleric, " good thing I learned raise dead...

What you mean is:

The Dragon come near, roaring and charging the party.... Then.. A scream is shouted,!

"Buff up! We'll cover for you!" cries the party fighter nobly.

"No need!" said the Cleric, a quickened Righteous Might shooting him to giant size, and battle is joined.

After the fight, the party fighter looks at oversized cleric as he heals everyone in the party. "Don't you need time to buff?" he asks, as his burns and bruises are healed. He notes the cleric took MUCH less damage from the dragon's attacks then he did.

"Buffs? Oh, I cast most of those HOURS ago," the cleric says kindly.


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Yesssss...because extending stealth coverage against stuff able to sense the invisible to stuff able to sense footsteps and smell you is clearly overpowered.

Ah, feats.


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Grey Lensman wrote:
Kalshane wrote:
shadowkras wrote:


Quote:
But what if there are many opponents?

Yes, the GM realized that and started to drop a dozen of opponents at once, which regularly was overboard or dragged the session for too long without necessarily improving the game.

Even when we were outnumbered, it was a better option to attempt to go 2 on 1 (sometimes 3 on 1) than each one handle an enemy.
Even if we were outnumbered in those situations, its better to declare "full defense" while the others are finishing off their enemy so you avoid their flanking advantage.

This is pretty much the same as every other version of D&D/PF. Focus-fire is far more effective than spreading out your attacks because of the way HPs work. It's hardly unique to 5E.

Focus fire has been a part of how my group played D&D as far back as 1st edition, and it's how we play pretty much every game that doesn't take enemies from full to down in one hit - no matter the system. "Dead Men Make No To-Hit Rolls" has long been a maxim.

"Concentrate all firepower on that Super Star Destroyer!"

See, even Mon Calamari know that in a boss fight, you take out the boss.


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There was a feat that allowed Stealth to be used against ALL forms of senses in 3.5, Lords of Madness, since so many aberrations had alternate senses (blindsense, tremorsense, blindsight, mindsight, etc).

Considered a top tier feat, of course. Don't remember the name off the top of my head, however.

Edit; Remembered the name! Darkstalker. Great feat.


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The reason people bring up WBL restrictions is pretty simple. Martials are tool users...they get all their power from gear.

Casters are spell users...they get 99% of their power from themselves. A 9 level caster can get by just fine without a single stat buff, and at higher levels don't even need magical protective devices with the right spell set up. Clerics are a poster child for this.

So, yeah, WBL is a thing to look at, because martials need gear, always have, and casters didn't...they had spells.

It would be MORE appropriate to change the pricing on gear to favor martials. Cheaper magic armor and weapons, cheaper miscellaneous items, cheaper physical stat raising gear.

More expensive wands and scrolls; more expensive mental stat raising items; more expensive acquisition of spells; more expensive to cast and use such spells.


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Chess Pwn wrote:
1) Sit back and let the best mane for the job do it. .

My barber beats your barber! It's so ON, man!


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Ranishe wrote:
M1k31 wrote:

I've seen a lot of responses to making the fighter better at fighting to the line of "but that trivializes fighting encounters" and I always wonder "why does that matter? Shouldn't that be what a fighter is for?"

Couple of problems. If you increase the fighter's fighting power ( not combat versatility, power) you have a harder time granting them versatility elsewhere (which is what they need). Second is if a fighter becomes such a powerful combat force above other classes, they're more of a liability to the party. Now if they get dominated, you're looking at a tpk (was it 3.5 that had some kind of barbarian build that would literally kill a party in 1 round without them having a hope to stop it?). Or if they're cced for the fight, and non-fighters can't hope to resolve the situation, you've just created the same problem, but backwards (we need a fighter or we can't hope to win a combat against a meaningful enemy)

Yes, the Frenzied Berserker. Granted, he'd have to charge you, but a minimum 200 dmg with Supreme Cleave basically meant he'd wipe the weakest member of the party with his first swing, swat the next weakest with a cleave, maybe swat the next weakest, take his Hasted iterative on that, cleave again, and take his 3rd attack at -5 on the next, kill him, and cleave to the last, toughest one standing before hitting him. Unless everyone in the party had OVER 400 HP, they all died.


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but having anti-magical options is 'not fun', because shutting down spellcasters is badwrongfun, but shutting down martials is just business as usual...we call it 'crowd control'.


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Firewarrior44 wrote:
Das Bier wrote:
Those diving rules are 3party, from Cerulean Seas, Fire.
I disagree They are on the PRD

Ah, you are correct. My mistake.

MM..looks like Cerulean Sea just made a table out of what was just a paragraph, and expanded it out to 240 feet. d20 didn't doublecheck the source to see they were just using existing rules!


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Yeah, and most of those are 1/day or consumables. The Sniper's Helmet just repurposes True Strike's insight bonus to a competence bonus (probably to keep the cost down, and it's still 9k).

In 3e, for example, there were no upper limits on Competence, Insight, Luck, Morale or other bonuses. So, you could totally make a +100 Competence bonus item, if you had the money.
============
tactics,

Anyone can argue 'DM Following the rules.' However, those same DM's will definitely argue that letting Wishes go 'for free' or less then their material component cost, or whatever, is also not part of the rules. It's just considered an exploit.

As for the level behind rule...you had to be rules savvy to use it. And there was no problem sticking to just normal items, and not trying to minmax benefits. You were getting all your gear for half price, i.e. doubling your WBL. This only got stronger and stronger with time.

If you campaign had significant amounts of downtime, instead of 1-20 in 3 months like most AP's, time wasn't an issue at all. The casters taking a couple weeks to craft up gear for everyone was only a problem for those who couldn't craft. It was a logical and reasonable thing to do, and if you didn't have a time-sensitive campaign, the proper way to do things.
It also nicely got around the GM not liking magic item shops, and everything.

As for that guy...he had an 11th level mage with the gear of a 17th level character. +5 everything, consumables, every scroll and potion he could want, blah blah blah. Who was still level 11 so he could play any module. If there was travel time during module play, he made or improved magic items for the other players, too!

They eventually instituted a rule where you tracked ALL xp received, instead of retained, to figure your level, and he was forced into retirement.

You only have to look at the Epic Rules to see the limits for 3e. Those limits were NOT THERE before the Epic Rules...I think the only ones truly in effect were the +5 Inherent bonuses, because I think those were limited in the rules for Wishes.


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Those diving rules are 3party, from Cerulean Seas, Fire.


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No need to be snide. As long as they had fun, compliment him on a fun campaign, but just note that it doesn't hold for a campaign by the rules, which is the default on this forum.


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Link, Feats provide crap for defensive benefits. Paladins and Barbs are much better front liners because of better saves and DR/Self-healing.

Sword: If you use the 3p Cerulean Seas info, you can dive unharmed into water from 200 feet with a DC 35 acrobatics check (I'd probably use a Swim check myself...). So, it's a GM house rule that you could get away with that with no damage...


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level 7, eh.

And a 21k Wand of dimension door as loot? That caught my eye right there.

Sounds like you had a succubus BBEG. Who was played dumb...you got a bunch of people to kill her, and she charms the one with a good Will save and cute instead of the one that could save her life. Remember that high charisma does not mean good looking.

I call it GM softballing, but eh. If it was fun, that's fine, fun is good. But it's a 'my campaign' example for arguing, and so isn't going to have much weight here, Sword.

It's either TOZ or Kirth who likes to say that he didn't believe in the C/M disparity, either...until he got higher level in a campaign with skilled players, and saw it played out repeatedly in front of him, and that creeping feeling of uselessness started.

I will say a brawler should be more useful then a fighter, simply because they can access the combat feats they need 'on demand', and then get rid of the dead weight once done. Normal fighters can't do that. For instance, having Blind fighting can be a life saver in one encounter, and useless 99% of the time. A wizard could just go fishing for Detect Invis. A Brawler can grab it when needed, and ignore it otherwise, devoting her feats to things useful pretty much ALL the time...which is what a fighter is 'limited' to.

Paladins and Rangers can do this versatile thign with spells and better class abilities.
Barbs just get better class abilities, so they are better tanks while being just as good on offense.
Fighters just, eh. DPR.


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The Sword wrote:

There are 60 actions listed on the pfsrd with only 7 related to using spells. The list doesn't even include manoeuvres like grappling, tripping, disarming, bull rushing etc.

In our last session the brawler, killed a very respectable proportion of the enemies, battered down a barricade, successfully grappled the oracle when she failed a save against domination and dragged her from the room, he held and barred a door, he was able to absorb a lot of damage from the majority of enemies, as well as several poison attacks, whilst effectively defending the spell casters and having a nice role play moment with the BBEG who had been his nemesis.

In the same session but different encounter the party rogue won initiative by a comfortable margin; leapt onto the Demon BBEG's bed ignoring the difficult terrain pillows and silks in between; sneak attacked her before she acted; cast cure serious wounds with a wand twice - bringing back the unconscious brawler and then the magus; avoided all the fireball damage from the BBEG; ignored the sneak damage from two babu then killed one with full attack two weapon sneak damage from flanking; then when dimension door'ed out of the dungeon to 200ft up in the air by the BBEG, disarmed the demon of her wand of dimension door, swallow dived 200ft into a lagoon and then used the wand to dimension door back to the dungeon room.

There is a lack of imagination being displayed by people who claim Martials can only hit things with sticks.

On the flip side Casters that spend the first few rounds of an encounter casting spells to summon friends or raise their defences are not contributing to combat. When they are finally ready the encounter can be almost finished, then those powers are wasted. The multiple use abilities are generally neglibly effective and are mainly there to stop wizards needing to use crossbows and ruining their wizardly effect. Spell resistance, short ranges, threatening and saving throws can all put reasonable limits on the impact casters have on an encounter.

You forgot the most important information here...what level are these characters, and where's their gear?

Also, why was that oracle dominated instead of the Brawler? Stupid BBEG? GM softballing stuff?

Waht were the level of the foes they were facing?

I mean, sure, everyone gets to shine every once in a while. But you posted examples where the casters were totally useless and the martials all were shining suns. To most of us, that means you've got a game with martial bias and/or don't know how to play casters.

i.e. without knowing your campaign, we're going to say "Well, that's cool, but hardly representative of skilled players using casters."

As for 'wasting the first few rounds', I could say that about Haste. Prayer. Greater Heroism. You know...buff spells for the melees. They 'aren't contributing'. They should be ignoring the melees, dropping summons on the foes, Slow spells, Evard's tentacles, fireballing for 100 hp dmg, walling the enemy in, and so forth.

No more buffing from the casters. It just wastes time, you know!


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MeanMutton wrote:
Ssalarn wrote:
One of the other reasons the Fighter gets brought up so much, is that people want to like him. The Fighter was pretty much essential until the drastic nerfs he was hit with in 3rd edition (which have been preserved through 3.5 and into Pathfinder), but there's still books, movies, cartoons, etc. that feature characters people identify as "Fighters", but then they discover that the PF Fighter is arguably the worst class in the game for playing anything that resembles the character they want.

What nerf? The fighter was originally the class you kind of defaulted into when you rolled crappy and couldn't qualify for a real class.

In 1st edition, a ranger and a paladin were both subclasses of the fighter meaning they had every single ability the fighter had plus a bunch of special extra stuff.

In 2nd edition, they added a single thing fighters could do - weapon specialization which gave them a +1 to hit, +2 to damage, and an extra attack every other round. Rangers and paladins got everything else a fighter had plus lots of benefits.

Going from 2nd edition to third edition, a fighter gains proficiency with every single weapon in the game (which they did not previously have; they needed to spend their limited weapon proficiency slots) and they gained a ton of feats.

The only possible nerf was moving from the (entirely optional) non-weapon proficiency system to a more robust skill system. But that also gave them the ability to gain Move Silently, Hide in Shadows, etc., if they really wanted.

Minor Points:

As noted above, Weapon Specialization was a Fighter thing in 1e, as was Double Spec. In a game where easy bonuses from stats was NOT happening, double spec was huge.

2nd, fighters could use any weapon. rangers were restricted to ranger weapons...which admittedly were good enough it didn't matter.

3rd, Fighters were unlimited in armor choices. Rangers had to wear lighter armor or lose their skills.

4th, Paladins were restricted to 10 magic items, TOTAL.

5th, Rangers had to be Good, and Paladins Lawful Good.

6th, Rangers were restricted in race choices, and Paladins had to be human.
-------------

2e did nothing for fighters, but did give up the loot restriction for paladins.

3e is notable because it gave EVERYTHING AWAY. Multiple attacks. High stat bonuses. easy access to th/dmg numbers. Good defenses and saves. High DPR vs HP ratio.

It nerfed move and attack. It neutered weapon spec. Blah blah blah.


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master_marshmallow wrote:

So, everyone knows that fighters don't ever have to take versatile training or the armor master's one for skills right?

If needed, Warrior Spirit can nab you versatile training temporarily, and if you select a skill you already have trained, you immediately swap the ranks for another skill for free with no time or money spent [RAW].
On cue skills is a nice thing to have, unless it's one of those skills that requires a long time to use.

Fighters reward single weapon progression, this is well known. Switch hitting as a fighter is asking to be exactly one peg above mediocre at damage.

Yeah, but you should have at least one ranged and one melee option. And WT sucks at giving you those options.


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swoosh wrote:
More or less my experience too. I conceptually really like switch hitters, but actually building one is unnecessarily difficult and messy and has really, really bad returns....

Oh, I dunno. Works perfectly well with rangers and paladins.

Oh, right, Fighters! yes, fighters crash and burn the switch hitter idea. Bad bad fighters.


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I can't find them on the SRD's yet, I have a favor.

Could someone post the text of the Warrior's Spirit ability (the AWT that grants weapon bond), the Armor Materials Mastery, and, I think, the Advanced Armor Materials mastery? (the one allowed you to get an ability based on the material of your armor, and the second treated your armor like ALL materials, I think).

I'd like to keep them as a reference for build recommendations. I believe the Warrior Spirit is the best AWT to take at level 5. Bane when needed is too cool to pass up, and if you get Abundant Tactics at 9th with Gloves of Dueling, that's 8 times a day you can use it...


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Cevah wrote:

Sihedron Medallion goes for 3,500 gp.

It has two basic PC functions. +1 Resistance, and 1/day False Life. The cloak already covers the +1, and false life cast by you is more effective.

For spells to use, I favor Enervate. Knocking down levels and such can be very effective against bosses. Ray of Enfeeblement can also really hurt melee types as it lowers their hit % as well as damage per hit.

Just looked at your sheet. You list a lesser rod of extend (3K), a wand of CLW (150) [assumed 10 charges on it], and an amulet of natural armor +1 (2K) that you are not keeping.

You should sell the amulet and craft something with it, or better yet wear it as it improves your AC.

/cevah

** spoiler omitted **

Whoops, must have been thinking the rings. Forgot the levels he was talking about.


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You've cast Evard's Black Tentacles. Was it effective? Is the party fighter smart enough NOT to run into it, now? Is the party smart enough to pincushion anything caught into it?

It's considered one of the most effective 4th level spells. use it and keep using it. If the fighter is stupid enough to keep running into your crowd control, perhaps some wise advice that he not run into the spell that's helping slow down the enemy might be in order.

You are way, way undergeared. If the rest of the party has all that (those medallions EACH are worth more then EVERYTHING you have), then you need to point that out and start taking your fair share. You're being robbed.

As for 5th level spells - the iconic spells are Teleport, Telekinesis, and Overland Flight. M Summon V should be useful, too. If you had some potent low level spells, quicken might be nice, but you don't. If you want to nuke something, you could do Empowered Fireballs or Lightning bolts (not optimal, but certainly fun).

Note that Runelords has a LOT of Giants, and things like Charms and Holds and Dominates are VERY effective against Giants.


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Are you trying to pick another argument out of nothing?


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master_marshmallow wrote:
No seriously, who actually used more than one weapon group?

Anyone who wanted to be a switch hitter, I'd assume...it just took them too long to be good at it.


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ARGH GRAGOGHH.
Hates Klar threads.
Hates hates hates.
KOWTOW MORE, YOU!

Have the original source, not the mistyped revisions. If you want to refer to those revisions, and where they are in the books, I Promptly get on my English nitpick podium and DENY YOU, because you can't put armor spikes on a shield, and so your Klar is IMPOSSIBLE.

There. (&*(). HATES.

And Del Taco, you are absolutely wrong. People are arguing that Spiked Shields and Bashing are meant to stack by a variety of means. I personally let them stack. For shields.

IF you call the Klar's base d6 slashing dmg a shield bash, THEN you can say that spiking the shield increases it to d8, because that's what spikes do! THEN you can say that Bashing increases it by two sizes, from d8 to 2d6 to 3d6. Why? Because the base dmg is d6 instead of the d4 of a large shield. YAY.
The fact you are absolutely ignoring the fact that a light spiked dmg is d4 20/x2 is quickly shoved under the table and covered with the tablecloth of "Oh, Klars do base d6 19-20/x2 damage! Points points points! Table over text, table over text!" when the exact opposite of that is true.

Also, a light shield is treated as a light weapon when used to bash, so you can finesse it. YAY, not a one handed weapon. Text over table, text over table, points points!

and Darksol was bringing up the fact that since it's a weapon and a shield, that's two weapons, so you can treat it as a double weapon, and get TWF with one Klar with some more convoluted justifications and things that have come out since it was made.

And sure, you can use blinkback belts or feats or throwing to have Klars become throwing weapons and zip back to your hand. And they give dex to dmg with throwing weapons now, too! And because it doesn't say they don't, obviously that dex to throwing weapons applies when used in melee, too! Because if the rules don't say I can't do it, then obviously I can! Points somewhere, points somewhere!

()*&()*&*()&. HATES.

And to top it off, people are DISSING THE GUY WHO DESIGNED THE KLAR. Because what he meant to happen, due to poor English and attempting to exploit that, has metamorphasized into this gawdawful special snowflake that gets to take advantage of every applicable loophole and ignore all the other rules contradicting the way people want to see it, because 'the Klar is different!'

Aargh.

JJ wrote the only version of the Klar that is not outright impossible, the original one. And now people fall all over themselves to defend these impossible new rewrites that are in conflict with the english language, the rules, and the designer's intent, and think that Klars are just that special.

Or they know it, go "HEE HEE HEE! A loophole exploit they messed up on with crappy language! EXPLOIT EXPLOIT!" and try to defend that because it works according to their personalized re-interpretation of the rules, you have no right to argue with them, and KLARS ARE DE UBER.

It's against the spirit and intent of the game, and is just frustrating to no end.

It's the textbook special snowflake, perfect and untouchable despite all the rules to the contrary.

It makes me want to bang my head on the table. THe fact Paizo has repeatedly managed to mess up the Klar in reprints is putting more dents in my forehead.
--------------------
So, I'm just going to lay this out here.

Conservative Rules interpretation:
The Klar was designed as a kind of odd weapon, a sword with a buckler attached to it with some spikes around it (lizard skulls with horns, yada, yada). So, shortsword damage with +1 shield ac, all in one tool. Not bad, like getting a buckler for free.

It does damage exactly as a short sword, and had the special ability that if you want to shield bash, and so use shield feats, you could do so, resulting in it acting like a light, spiked shield, doing d4 20/x2, strictly inferior, but, hey, an option.

If you wanted to enhance the shield portion of it, that's fine, but they didn't apply to the weapon part of the Klar, because weapons can't have shield enhancements.
If you wanted to enhance it as a weapon, you could, and it would affect all attacks, because the shield portion of it is still a weapon.

Bang. That's it. Full stop. Goes no further.
That's the conservative interpretation of the rules.
IT satisfies all rules.
It satisfies all tables.
It meets the original language.
It meets the original designer intent.
It stops the Klar from being an obviously overpowered weapon.
It is not controversial in rules interpretation, Application of English, or interaction with other rules.

Deviating from this interpretation is the root cause of all Klar threads.
-----------------------------
Hates Klar threads. Hates hates hates.


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Covent wrote:
What is warriors spirit and training weapon? Not doubting just interested.

It uses the new Weapon Training options from Complete Intrigue?

New AWT: Weapon Bond: Gain +1 weapon bond/4 levels for 1 minute, WT times/day. Or Equivalent.

Training: Gain a combat feat, +1 Weapon Equiv. New weapon enhancement.

So, take AWT for 2 skills dependent on what your weapon is, or take AAT for a single skill (might be invalid cause I think you have to give up Armor Training to gain).

Big problem, takes at least 9th level to come online to do, and you must keep one of your AWT slots 'empty' to satisfy the max # of AWT feats you can have.

It's basically a Paragon Surge for combat feats that can be exploited. Even if it's nerfed, it doesn't address the issue well.


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The Shaman wrote:
Daniel Yeatman wrote:
I don't know, I've only ever played in one campaign where there was a Fighter and he did just fine, all the way up to level 16. I do always find it funny that so much effort is focused on one class, though. Imagine if there was this much debate about the Medium, or the Cavalier, hah.

The medium and even to a point the cavalier are generalists with wider areas of expertise. The medium is basically choose you own class every day (DM permission needed), and the generic cavalier is a sort of spellless paladin with a mount, pseudo-smite and team buffs. The fighter can just fight, and s/he isn't that great at it. You can be "decent" compared to barbarians, rangers, paladins or slayers, most of whom bring a heckof a lot more else. You do not even outclass them significantly at the one thing you do.

I really, really wish Unchained had put the fighter there instead of the barbarian or even the summoner.

They did put the fighter there. They introduced the stamina system, pointed it at the fighter, and wrote all those combat tricks. there you go, fighter is fixed.

As for dependable fighters, Lucy has it right. You might call off the advance if your fighters are hurting, but you're a bloody fool to keep going if your Novas are down. When the casters run out of juice, the party stops, even if the fighters are full. That's just smart play. And at higher levels, the fact is your casters are Novas for EVERY SINGLE FIGHT, for a long long time, which overshadows the fighters who can't Nova at all.


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Chess Pwn wrote:
haha, dang fighters. They truly do ruin everything ;)

They even ruined his how fighters ruin everything argument.

Truly, pheer the power of the fighter.


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Even worse, GM. The whole fighter thing isn't about flying or teleporting.

Fighter, historically, has been about being anti-magical. Overcoming will spells, cleaving through magic barriers, resisting magic.

Nope, can't have that. The sheer idea that you would need another fighter to deal with a fighter, and couldn't just take him out easily with a caster, is just not right.


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Armies, Ruiken. Aie, here comes 1000 arrows at me...all useless.


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?? you mean aboleths? Azatas are CG elvey outsiders.


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The problem here is 'realism' vs 'game' vs 'fun'.

Is it realistic to let your players rest between dungeon plunges, and the dungeon not change while an intelligent foe is within being besieged?

No.

This playstyle is often called 'Gygaxian'. Let the chips fall where they may. Encounter too tough for you? Too bad. Monsters act realistically, run away, come back, use their loot, have cunning tactics?
Yeah.
And it can be a TOTAL PITA for people who are raised on different expectations of what a fun game will involve.

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Are the players playing according to what the game allows?

Yes. The rules aren't set up to allow massive dungeon crawls. Primary factor, once the party's spells are used up, especially healing resources, they are courting death to keep going, and must retreat or face a TPK. After all, the enemies in front of them aren't being deprived of resources, are they?

To fight against this is to fight against the reality of the game. To compensate for this kind of thing requires either massive power to blow away minor encounters with no resource expenditure, OR to simply have massive amounts of non-expendable resources...both solutions of which trivialize encounters that are NOT siege-like.

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Thirdly, do your players LIKE being forced to keep fighting when low on resources? Is that kind of resource management and careful play 'fun' to them?
Is rewriting encounters and changing dungeons around to reflect counter-attacks and clever strategies fun for you, the GM? Because it takes time and work to do it right. You need to change spell lists, possibly consumables for NPCs, make up new encounter areas and tactics if you are going to attack the PC's, etc etc.
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These three points are why playing the game is different from a video game or from a book.

IN a video game, you are generally either given 'quick retreat' options to regain spells/health by sleeping so no time passes in safe areas, at which point you pick up the dungeon delve again, OR you have options to very rapidly regain both, by use of rapid regenerating health or mana systems, so you start out every fight at full strength. Furthermore, having access to lots of healing/restoral options is very common.

IN a novel, those things are 'glossed over'. Encounters are managed in discrete lots, and the issue of recovery is generally not fixated on at all, or is dropped down to a very mundane or simple level, generally healing magic. If the main character is in danger, you just write the story so he survives and gets his health back over a longer period of time, building time pressure to get things back on track.
Because in a novel, the GM and the player are the same thing. "Random" encounters in novels are dangerous, or travel time is a sentence, and a hundred battles are won with a stroke of the pen to get to the next main act and big fight.
You can't do that in a game easily

Look at the Pathfinder line of novels. How many of the main characters are spellcasters?
Answer...very few. Because spells wreck encounters, but if you run out of them, you are useless. You can always swing a sword and fight, and so the massive numbers of Novels are centered around martial characters. "Difficult' encounters are solved by cleverness and tactics, instead of having magic on hand. Even the series with the 'inquisitor' of Pharasma, the main character is a martial character who loathes using his magic, doesn't prepare magically, and so is constantly overmatched because he doesn't have the appropriate magic to solve problems. He's an idiot from a PC standpoint.


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Smilodan,

Funny you should post this.

I explictly did combine elements, but I didn't use Mythos races per se. I used Intellect Devourers and xenomorphs.

I altered the Aliens to be 'steeds' for the Devourers...they literally plug into the morphs' nervous systems and ride them around like disposable bodies. The long, sloped heads are actually flexible braincases with openings for the devourers to enter and plug into. They don't have the 'flavor' and fun of being intelligent beings, but they are hardy and very disposable, and are easily procreated by giving them host bodies that are about to wear out to face hug.

Larger morphs go to the stronger devourers, of course.


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the pressure differential is from the act of cooling, and the fact the default pressure of the cold air going out is higher then that of the hot air which is heading for the sky. You make it seem as if the two are pushing AGAINST one another. They are not. the cold air is always winning the contest, and making the hot air either follow it or get out of the way.

Hot air rises because cold air pushes it upwards, i.e the entire weight of the atmosphere makes it rise like a cork in water.

The main point is that hot air entering the bubble reduces in volume instantly, creating a vacuum and drawing in yet more hot air behind it. This creates wind motion which perpetuates through all the incoming and outgoing air. If it's going in, it has to be going out somewhere to get rid of inertia, if nothing else. It isn't violently sucked into the hemisphere to just stop moving instantly. That would be like saying wind sucked into a funnel stops moving the instant it leaves the funnel.

At the same time, cold air is continually being exuded from the base of the hemisphere as the rising hot air draws in cold air to replace its motion. we now have ingoing and outgoing actions.

Pressure differentials.


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1) same as alchemical silver, since all they will be good for is punching DR.

2) Medium armor. The only heavy 'natural' armor is dragonhide, and Druids basically have nothing that is penalized by ACP, anyways.


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mmm, spinning brown mold mummies! For science!


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Avoron, you're ignoring the movement implications.

yes, the hot air has its own pressure.

It's also GOING AWAY. As in, exiting upwards.

and as it does so, it's reaching out and grabbing for cooler air to come in below it.

And there happens to be an unending supply of cool air right in the middle of this thousand degree furnace to supply it all.

Imagine you have a door in front of you. On the other side of the door, the atmospheric pressure is 1/10th of that in front of you. This is a differential worse then going from the top of a mountain to the bottom...or being in most airplanes.

Now, Open that door.

What happens?

The air pressure behind you drives you into that opening. This is a pressure rupture, exactly like you'd get if you popped a hole in an airplane. The difference is, this pressure is NOT going to equalize. Why? Because on the other side of the room, there's a vent where a furnace is blowing hot air out. it's sucking the cold air out of the room, heating it up, and sending it skywards. Except the area of the furance is, say, a hundred times that of the cold air room. Its demand for cold air is huge and also unending.

So, in every direction from that hemisphere, hot air is screaming for the sky, and the cold air is being sucked out of the hemisphere to replace a huge volume of air. The draw will be strongest closest to the lava, and follow the natural flow of the heaviest, coldest air to flow out of the sphere.

at the top of the sphere, hot air is entering and instantly losing 90% of its volume, creating that massive vacuum as more air rushes in to fill the area...exactly like a breached airplane hull. Except, there's no end to incoming or outgoing demand.

Just watch a disaster movie where someone pops a hole in the hull of an airplane, and see how strong that draw can be.Airplanes have a fixed amount of air, and eventually pressure will equalize. That is not going to be the case here.

Cold air forces hot air up. gets heated up, draws more in behind it. Hot air hits the cooldown threshold, loses massive amounts of volume, creates a pressure differential of massive size.

Boom, you have an endless pressure cycle that requires no fuel but the temperature of the volcano.

You probably have the airflow OUT of the hemisphere occupying a greater area then the inflow, since incoming air is going to compress so significantly as it crosses the temperature threshold. But still, the masses of air movement are going to be pretty significant. Nature abhors those vacuums.


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I like the Millenium Falcon because it hits right on all the key points for a group ship - it has character, it has a unique design (wth, a cockpit at 2 o'clock instead of center?), it's big enough for multiple people and to carry cargo, but small enough for 1-2 people to run it...and it's a disconcertingly nimble 'fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy', with fairly impressive armaments even though its not a military vessel.

I mean, just look at the thing. 1/3 of that whole ship's mass is ENGINE. Woo hoo!@ It's a big honking RV in space that can engage in dogfights, yet take a beating like no fighter can. And then if you actually upgrade it to modern specs like they did in Yuzahn Vong books, with forward-firing cannon and missile launchers in the nacelles...yeah, just gotta love me some Falcon.


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What's causing the air motion? The pressure differentials.

The hot air is rising. Where is new air coming from to replace it?

Anywhere it can, nearby. generally, it would come from the edges of the caldera...but now we have a cold air source in the middle of the caldera - the Brown Mold Hemisphere.

The hemisphere's cold air is also being forced out by its own weight. It is descending from above as it cools and grows heavy, and naturally will flow out along the ground as it descends.

You seem to be saying it will be flowing out in all directions, including up. Not true. Hot air will be descending from above, as the cold air falls down and then moves sideways along the floor. The downward motion draws in more hot air from above.

The cold air leaves the hemisphere through pressure and diffusion, and hits the rising hot air around the sphere. The cold air is like a cold, heavy blanket, deflecting the course of the hot air. The temperature and pressure differential is extreme...the hot air is going to attempt to move past the cold air, losing energy as it does so...and pushes the cold air to one side even as it is sucked further out into the lava to replace the rising hot air.
That's sideways movement. There's more hot air at the new location, screaming for the sky, further moving the cold air sideways and up, and at the same time the hot air is being deflected past the cold air's weight as it rises as well.

Sideways movement of the air, endless and extreme pressure differentials...you're going to have a vortex forming. It's going to be very strong because there is NO LIMIT to the amount of air that brown mold can suck the heat out of. As fast as it enters the radius, it gets cold, gets heavy, and drops down to draw more hot air in at multiples of volume. I don't know how much negative pressure going from 1000+ degrees to 40 degrees would create, how much volume the air would lose. The faster the volcano heats the air and sends it drafting up, the faster new air is going to be sucked down into the hemisphere to replace it. The two systems can feed each other furiously.

The winds will be strong. As fast as the volcano can make something hot, the mold can make it cold even faster. The different volumes and weights of the air is going to be creating massive pressure differentials.


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The air coming up off a volcano is MOVING. It's not sitting there...it's a very strong thermal updraft.

You're trying to throw a wet blanket on top of it of cold air. The two streams are going to slide around one another as they get lifted up in the air, and form a convection current. In the middle of them, more air is going to be falling down/getting sucked into the dome of cold...that stream of air coming down is going to be even stronger then the one going up because of the pressure differentials, and the compression of the hot air.

Gonna have to ask some aerodynamic guys to model this to get a real answer!


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I've seen people make up a fire tornado/whirlwind just from burning buckets of gasoline.

You have a convection cycle here nearly an order of magnitude bigger.

Hot air outside the mold is moving skywards. That's a thermal. The thermal from a volcano is VERY strong. Grab a parachute, it'll launch you WAY up into the sky.

That 2000+ degree hot air hits the area of the mold and instantly cools down. THe effect is the exact same thing as if you blow up a ballon with hot air and throw it in the freezer...it's going to shrink in size tremendously.

This creates a vacuum effect on the surrounding air as the cold air collapses into a denser, cooler mass. The heavy air falls to the ground, spreads out in a 'pool' of heavier air as more air falls from above, driving out around it equally...into the very light, superheated air outside.
That cold air is going to act like a blanket, weighing down the hot air even as the hot air heats it up. The fast-rising hot air will push it aside, but the cold air still has to go SOMEWHERE as it is reheated, so it gets pushed to the side even as endless amounts more of it are being pushed out.
The cold air is moving sideways now, alternately being shoved to the side, and lifting itself as it gets warmer on a bed of fast-moving hotair, which it is still heavier then and so the hot air is also moving sideways as it goes around it.

Bingo, you have a vortex forming, a whirlwind. As the air spins, it grabs onto the air around it, inciting that into motion, as layers of hot and cold air begin to cycle and spin and move upwards, driven by the hot airs desire to rise and the cold air's desire to sink moving past one another.

In the center of the vortex, you still have a vaccuum as the light, hot air outside is being drawn in, turned into much denser, heavier cold air, and pushed out to the sides, forcing the vortex outside away from the cold center. However, friction is still grabbing the air, and so all the air is going to be spinning by now, building in velocity as the massive temperature differentials and air pressure differences drive the whole thing forwards like some perfect engine.

The resulting winds will rip apart the mold, break the temperature differential, scatter the mold, and return the volcano to its normal thermal cycle as the engine of change disappears.


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If you talk to Ed Greenwood, Elminster is just a mouthpiece in his home campaign, a way for the DM to give information to the PC's, and then just traipses off to do whatever old sages do. He's NEVER the star of the show.


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Minor differences in temperature, less then 20 degrees, are what drive tornadoes to form. Remember, Pressure = Volume x Temperature.

You have a difference of hundreds, if not THOUSANDS, here. The convection currents that would be set up would escalate very quickly. Superheated air hitting extremely cold air sets up convection currents VERY quickly, as the warm air tries to move past the heavy, cold air, and the whole mass starts to spinning very quickly. The pressure differentials of air going suddenly from one extreme to the other would generate a LOT of turbulence, and just start shredding the mold until there's not enough left to hold the cooling effect, and it would just collapse.

That's in the real world, tho.


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In a volcano, you'd have a literal tempest.

Because the amount of heat transfer is unlimited and instantaneous, you'd have a massive current of hot air hitting the radius, cooling down and increasing in weight, causing more hot air to fill in and follow the cold air, which would be pushed out to the sides, instantly reheat and be pushed back into the air.

In short order, you'd have a tornado forming, which would likely rip the mold to shreds and stop the effect entirely, no?

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