In 5e I find that I make all of my meaningful character design choices at level 1. In Pathfinder I find that I make a meaningful choice at most levels.
That's odd. In Pathfinder, I find I make my meaningful choices once per level. In 5e, I make my most meaningful choices every game session.
But, then, that's the fundamental difference between the "rules as limits" design of most Pathfinder tables I've played at and the "rules as methods" that seems to describe the 5e (and 1e and 2e games 20+ years ago, for that matter) tables I've played at recently...
This thread is a perfect example of the reason the Stormwind fallacy exists. What happened to "mechanics and roleplaying are two unconnected things"? Yet here we are, privileging the mechanical rolls over the story aspects of the game.
There are different expectations in different groups. Some groups want to play battle chess, where every dice roll is sacred and the Rules must never be breached. That's ok. Some groups want to make an adventure story together, with the rules being quite flexible when story requires it. That's ok.
What is important is that the GM and players agree on what they want. That seems to be the OP's issue. If the numbers matter that much to you, then you need to let the GM know, and give him some help constructing adventures that will suit your desires. The players have a responsibility in this as well.
It's funny, actually. I have occasionally expressed my opinion on these boards that the more mechanics involved in a game, the hard it is to focus on the "story" of your character (or put another way, the more discrete and comprehensive the rules, the more characters are restricted in their abilities and play). I am often met with disagreement on this opinion. And yet, on this thread, the consensus seems to be that the mechanical, numerical, delineation of the character and his abilities is by far the most important thing. There's irony in there somewhere...
wizards don't keep going if they are out of spells.
That's your problem right there. If your playstyle is so that wizards can unload their most powerful spells each fight, then of *course* they're going to dominate.
If you're letting the helicopter rearm and the wizard re-prepare after every single bunker, no wonder you're seeing issues.
I play PFS rules. Every PFS module we play has between 2-5 encounters. Some are non-combat. Sometimes they are all combat. After 3-4 levels, wizards, sorcerers, and the like never run out of spells. Ever.
I am playing the game by the rules Paizo endorses and in adventures the Paizo created. And you are telling me that this is a problem with "playstyles"?
See, what you have done is called the either-or fallacy. The choices aren't between one encounter per day and ten encounters per day. In the range of encounters that exist in Paizo's own materials, the wizard does not degrade in power enought to have the fighters endurance equal out. It's that simple.
Well, there must be some nervousness about 5e cannibalizing sales. The new "core" PFS announcement and rationale echoes some of the language I've heard from friends who are switching from PF to 5e. Unfortunately, the Paizo understanding of "simpler" doesn't necessarily mesh with the players' reasons. At some point, a lot of the people who abandoned WotC as D&D moved away from its original flavor (especially the 3.5 - 4 issues) have become receptive to 5e's mechanics and flavor. They weren't necessarily fans of PF as they were not fans of WotC and 4e. So I'm not sure that "core" PFS is going to do much except appeal to those who were already not going anywhere.
Of course, no one has to play just one game. I'm presently in a long running PF game and running my own 5e game. I won't stop either in the foreseeable future. But I will be buying the next 5e adventure and materials, and it's likely that I won't be spending any more money on PF (as the ACG and the OA playtest convinced me that Paizo has lost its way... and entered the Land of the Bloat).
I've got to say that this thread is a perfect example of why several people I know are moving away from Pathfinder towards other game systems. Some of the responses here are... troubling... to say the least. When a player creates a "horrible build" the answer is to kill the character? When players don't use the "tactics" (an amusing idea considering there are no such things in PF in the first place) you desire, kill the characters over and over? Yeah, you guys are great ambassadors for this game.
Oh, I get it. You have your gaming groups that play the way you are comfortable, so who cares whether the gaming community grows? Who cares if someone online takes your back-patting bravado seriously (because your lethality and intolerance of other play-styles are the ultimate measure of your worth as a gamer and human being, right?) and drives a few more players out of PF? So long as everyone recognizes you are HARD CORE, that's all that matters, eh?
But no matter. Why should players be able to play in a way they are comfortable with, especially if it's not the way you play? Drive out those heretics who value concept over optimization! Slaughter the unbelievers who would dare choose a trap option! Let's get all of the noobs out of this game, so that only the holy few remain! Only they are allowed to have fun rolling dice!
But, hey, it's not your problem to grow the game. No single raindrop ever believes it's responsible for the flood...
If they are truly harkening back all the way to the first one or two versions of the game, then WotC and their supporters had better be prepare to fully explain this aspect every time this discussion comes up for the next several months, if not the next year or so. Considering that most people's first memories come from Baldur's Gate or 3rd edition, it is a major, major change to the baseline that many expect.
It's very dangerous to assume that your experiences are "most people's" experiences. Especially when (as far as I know) no one has ever done a comprehensive survey of all role-players. I will say that, considering the lengthy playtesting of 5e, there has been a lot of positive feedback based on the style of the game (and how it "feels" like earlier editions). You may not enjoy that feel. I might. Neither of us can use our preferences to establish what the "majority" of gamers actually think or want. WotC has some information that leads them to believe that their target audience is large enough to sustain this edition and that the flavor is what those people want. We'll see if they are correct. So far, so good...
From the sounds of it, they are going to be very different most if the tactics used in every previous version of D&D.
Not so sure of that. Most of my experience in 1e and 2e does not support the asserted "buff"-heavy or crowd-control magic user style. It wasn't until 3e that buffing or crowd control got their own classes; before that Bless, Haste, or Protection from Evil were pretty much the only party buffs I remember showing up regularly. If you look at 1e especially, casters were blasters, by and large.
So if you want to say tha 5e is going to be a dramatic change in tactics from 3e/Pathfinder, I'd say you were exactly right. But from earlier editions? So far, it's playing a lot more like the first couple of editions than anything since (at least at my table).
Sound to much like the 4e skill system. I hated the 4e skill system. Skills are one of the ways to make your character different from everyother character in the game, 4e threw that way.
We'll have to see how this newish skill system works by making a few characters when I get the PH.
No offense intended, but I think that this is exactly the mentality 5e is designed to shift the game away from. In 1e every fighter had exactly the same mechanics. All of them. What made your fighter different from the others was the way you played it. 1e focused on role-playing as the method of differentiating characters, not mechanics.
By the time 3.5/PF rolled around, the mechanics had been tasked with differentiating characters, which I think, paradoxically, made it harder to actual role-play the character you wanted. You can't have a character that does X unless you take ten levels of a skill or the four feat chain to make it possible. Then you have a game about building your character rather than playing your character.
5e harkens back to the older editions where mechanics wasn't used to get in the way of role-playing. I don't want a "robust" skill system... because all that does is tell me what my character can't do...
Player's Handbook (which is the same as the Basic Game), page 203: "Normal activity, such as moving and attacking, doesn't interfere with concentration. The following factors can break concentration:
Casting another spell that requires concentration. [].
Taking damage. [].
Being incapacitated or killed. []."
Concentration allows you to cast other spells that are immediate, such as attack spells.
Last time I was playing, I was a fighter, our wizard cast fly on me, and while I was flying and attacking (move part of movement/attack/move the rest of the movement), and the wizard was blasting things, the cleric was casting damage spells, and healing. Was a fun battle, until the draco lich showed up.. :) .... :(
I like to play a game to get the feel of a game, reading a thing really doesn't give a feel of the game. Buff magic is one of the things that I hated about 3.x.
Buff spells can be scaled as well. Fly for example: if cast as a 5th level spell, two characters can be affected. Having two characters bouncing around the battle field would be high fun.
Until someone hits the wizard and your ability to fly goes away.
That's a feature, not a bug.
If you start with the assumption that 3.5/PF levels of magic are standard, then there's no reason for 5e. In fact, 5e is impossible under those conditions (especially with folks opposed to what they call "wuxia" fighter powers). No non-superhero fighter can approach PF-levels of magical power. There can never be any balance; martials will always be an inferior choice.
So 5e dialed back the power level significantly. Now wizards have to make choices. They have to act strategically. They can't fulfill the roles of both caster and martial at the same time. They are both dangerous and vulnerable. The horrors!!!! Who would want that in their game?
It's less I really like where PF is power wise and more I really don't like WotC's solution any better. It just feels like they are trying to accomplish too many opposing goals; it would have worked a lot better if they had chosen one of the other earlier editions as a clear baseline and gone for there rather than this quite frankly disappointing mashup of a magic system. The application of when levels do and don't matter just seems uneven to me, the concentration mechanic/limiter is overused, and they may as well scrap the vancian system entirely and go with a pure point system if they are going to go with variable casting levels. I just feel they painted too broad of a stroke (or possibly not broad enough); pinpointing specific concerns and making smaller, easier to adjust fixes would have gotten them the same thing while better limiting the creation of brand new headaches. I am not sold on either the cantrips or the ritual spells, so they do nothing to counter any negative changes elsewhere. Cantrips, while nice, don't work all that well as replacements to normal spell slots. Neither, for that matter, does the concept of ritual spells; they didn't work out all that well before, and while this implementation is better, I still see it not really working all the well throughout the higher levels.
Out of curiosity, have you played it yet?
I have. First off, the new offensive cantrips provide far more utility than any low-level magic user had in 1e or 2e. A 1e magic user had one spell. After that, he rolled ranged attacks with little chance to hit for the rest of the adventure. The last 5e game I played (Saturday) had both clerics and wizards doing quite a bit to help offensively, with much of their utility preserved until needed. It's a good balance.
At higher-level (which I haven't done more than one-offs with pre-leveled characters), magic-using characters are not the gods they are in PF (due to fewer spells and lower powered spells), but this is also a good thing. Wizards and the like are much more fragile, the trade-off for having more narrative power than the martials. In PF, a magic user can buff himself to the point where he's hard to hit and roflstomps anyone who tries. That's not the 5e magic characters... and thankfully so. In 5e, a wizard needs to pick and choose his battles. It's almost like ... strategy...
So, in order to use this in PFS, I need to buy both the ACG and now another splat book? It's one thing to make an error when it comes to the way powers intertwine (perfectly understandable), but it annoys me when fixing these mistakes cost me more money...
DDN looks like a streamlined, intuitive, easy to learn system that, if properly supported (and it looks like the first two mega modules involving Tiamat would qualify), would be a lot of fun to play.
A few problems DDN has when compared to Pathfinder are:
1. PF has everything on PDF, which lends itself to easily printed art, maps and text excerpts I can bind, mark up and so on w/o damaging the original books; DDN does not.
2. Paizo's flip maps are simply awesome. I can't even imagine Wizards having the snap to produce something like The Emerald Spire with full maps of all sections.
3. Golarian >> Forgotten Realms. Not even close. Though the Realms are still cool, they are also pretty tired by now; Wizards needed a better game world. In short, Golarian is basically all of the old D&D game worlds and much more, all Pathfinderized.
4. Paizo has excellent customer service whenever a problem comes up (which is very rare). Relate to it, Wizards. The D&D branded franchise has seriously jerked me around many times throughout the years: AD&D 2nd, the short hop from 3.0 to 3.5, the whole 4E debacle, the recalled earlier edition PDFs after I paid for them online, a generally snobby & inattentive attitude, and so on. Screw that. In contrast, Paizo has been awesome since inception.
5. Paizo has a bazillion products, virtually all of them bad ass (and again, with maps, PDFs and customer service support). In view of points 1-4 above, tell me again why I want to trust Wizards to handle my gaming needs?
The bottom line: I don't think Wizards can lure me back at this point. Given the way Paizo has handled PF they deserve my business.
It's funny how variable different RPG tables can be! Almost everything you mentioned as a concern is a selling point to me.
I love the streamlined rules, especially the fact that focus has been removed a little from the "build" and is more on the "play." I never used minis when playing D&D growing up, so I am glad to get back to "theatre of the mind" where minis are an option, not requirement. So WotC support level for maps and minis are non-factors to me. Ditto that for other products, especially splat books (which have only seemed to make the mechanical issues in PF more pronounced with each one). And if the Crane Wing nerf counts as "customer support"...
Seriously, though, what I look for in an RPG is a solid rules framework to let me do my thing. Adventure content is nice... but not vital. Golarion is just as generic as FR... and I'm going to run my own hybrid worlds anyway. So sell me the system, and other options are nice... but not mandatory...
Removed an unhelpful post. This was pretty unnecessary.
3500 posts of back and forth watching people bash each other for preference is necessary? This isn't a healthy discussion.
Posting in thread where people are passionately discussing a game they love in an attempt to make it better and minimizing their thoughts and concerns with terms like "preference" is necessary? This isn't a healthy contribution to this discussion.
Back on topic, Ashiel's got a strong point. Relative to other classes, the fighter is at his peak at first level. HP and defenses of CR appropriate monsters scale faster than a fighter's ability to hit and do damage. So, without other narrative power, the fighter does get weaker as he grows, relative to the challenges he faces.
Sure it's low SR, but it shouldn't be higher. I don't think you should be able to buy "avoid spells".
While we're at it, armor enhancements and effects that cause concealment need to go away as well. I don't think you should be able to buy "avoid attacks."
Wait, that would put martials on a equal footing to mages! What was I thinking? We need to give mages lots of ways to avoid being hit and ignore anything that might let a martial avoid spells. Otherwise, what would this game come to....
His point was that the rogue was not chosen at the job that was designed for him.
I think that's what everyone is missing here. There is NO job designed for the rogue. It's the same reason the fighter has issues as well. There is a conflict between mechanics and flavor that is irreconcilable in the PF rogue.
Just about every other class in PF has a synergy between its flavor and mechanics that is lacking in the rogue. The mechanics of most classes are designed to implement the flavor in game. A barbarian's flavor (uncivilized brute that perseveres through hardships by force of strength and will) is supported by the mechanics (rage raising str and lowering AC, high hps, etc.). But a "rogue" has no flavor.
Look at the original thief class. What do you think of when you read "thief" (though I would argue that it would be better termed sneak-thief, but I understand why TSR didn't go with a compound word)? Someone who hides in the shadows and accomplishes his goals through stealth and trickery, and who will aviod a straight-up fight and fight dirty). And the D&D mechanics fit that flavor.
But what is a "rogue"? It's certainly not limited to a sneak-thief. Despite what the "flavor" text in the CRB says, the rogue flavor does not fit its mechanics at all (with sneak attack being a poor representation of even a sneak-thief's abilities). When I read Marthkus' defense of the rogue, it is built around the idea that his rogue "plays like" a rogue... which is a mechanical issue. But how can a class play like a rogue, when a rogue isn't anything itself? (The same issue arises with fighters. There are many ways someone can "fight," including with magic, but the fighter has no real solid flavor to ground its mechanics).
Combine this with the fact that, as the game has evolved, the sneak-thief's utility has declined, and you get the present problem. Many of the sneak-thief's skills are now open to everyone, and trap-finding is a joke in PF. Either a trap simply burns charges on your CLW wand before the next room, or it kills you outright (which is a good way to infuriate your players... so rocks fell and I died, huh?). In one scenario I played in PFS, the BBEG was on another level from the party as we entered, so we started to run up the stairs. The rogue was first, and the stairs were trapped to collapse and cause damage. Well, the rogue just ran up, as the damage was negligible in comparison to the BBEG's output, and you burn too much time removing the traps. When even a rogue is saying "I'll run right through the trap; it's too much trouble to disable it," you know you have a problem...
The only way to "fix" the rogue is to narrow him to a concept and flavor that is realizable within the mechanics (why is Ninja so much more successful that the generic rogue? It knows what it wants to do and then does it). Which would require a complete rewrite, which is why I'm not holding my breath...
OK, I've waded through the rest of this thread... and it saddens me. First of all, most of the arguing here is off-topic completely.
Rules Lawyers:
The fact is that it is a waste of time to argue specifics with rules lawyers, because they are, by definition, arguing in bad faith. It's a societal issue, not a gaming one (which is why Shakespeare envisioned a perfect world as having no lawyers in Henry VI Part II). When people rules-lawyer, they are not arguing a point... they are arguing to win. So they will twist anything to support their point, no matter how ridiculous their assertion is.
Judge: Your client answered the question "Are you in a sexual relationship with X?" by stating "There is no sexual relationship between us right now." Then I find out that your client had sex with her 3 days before the deposition and 2 days afterward! Why shouldn't I hold your client to have perjured himself?
Lawyer: You honor, it depends on what the definition of "is" is. To my client, "is" means at the present moment, because "is" is the present tense of the verb "to be." My client was obviously not having sex with X during the deposition; so in his mind, he "is" not in a sexual relationship in that very moment. So my client didn't commit perjury...
So stop arguing specifics with these people, as you will never get them to admit they are wrong (be it planar binding or spell lists or invisibility), because they aren't looking for the most logical interpretation. They are looking for the interpretation than makes them "win" the argument. And in this case, that interpretation will be the one that justifies their opinion that Pathfinder spellcasters are not over-powered... every time.
You don't need to argue a specific case to prove the answer to the original question is yes. All you need to do is look at the documented effects of fighter abilities versus spells. What do fighters' abilities do? They give a numerical and mechanical bonus. Period. Martial class abilities almost always do nothing but that (with very few exceptions). What do spells do? They change the actual physical reality of the game-world. Create pit creates an actual absence of matter at a location in the game world... it changes the circumstance of the story. Fly changes the movement of the characters from two dimensional to three dimensional; it adds an entire dimension to the operation of the game world during an encounter. Summoning spells actually add another being to the narrative (if only for a limited time).
The fact is that spellcasters have narrative power in addition to mechanical power, while martials have mostly mechanical power. This is why some forum-goers deride the "blaster" wizard... because it emphasizes mechanical advantage at the cost of narrative advantage. The only way to reconcile this is for:
A. the GM to ignore/houserule/deny the narrative power of spells
B. the players to implicitly agree to not use the full narrative power of their magic.
C. the GM to devise encounters that restrict or adapt away the narrative power of spells.
Which means that, without option B (which can be difficult to establish in constantly varying groups like with PFS), the GM must plan the adventures and rules around the spellcasters, not the martials. So yes, when you have a situation where one group of your players are always more important to your adventure designs than others, simply because of their class, then they are a big problem.
Recognizing this is not "bashing Pathfinder" or its developers. I'm sure the developers probably don't have as large a disparity as some of us see (because I would bet that their groups are so well established that "option B" is an unvoiced expectation at their tables, and their system mastery makes "option C" much easier). But that doesn't mean that the narrative issues with spellcasters don't exist.
Why? Isn't this the purpose of every D&D RPG (and derivative) ever written? What on earth do you think the term "Monty Haul" referred to?
Seriously, if you are going to pack your dungeons with valuable magic items, why wouldn't your players salvage them? Either get the job done with mundane items (glowing moss, regular torches, etc.), obscure or unique magic, (torches that have been enchanted to only burn when someone is 30' from them, etc.), or let your players provide their own lighting (my preferred option).
Seriously, it seems obvious that the players are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing. Trust me, if I found a golden door in a ruin somewhere, I'd be hauling that sucker out first thing!!! So you need to find a non-expensive way to reach your goals...
IMHO, yes, especially in PFS. In fact, I will go so far as to say that by the time you reach 5th-7th level, you cannot survive most modules without at least one competent caster. At which point the game devolves into one of three options:
A. Caster has exactly the right spell to trivialize the encounter.
B. Caster has a spell to make the encounter survivable, so that the rest of the party can kill the mobs without a severe chance of death.
C. TPK.
The only way non-casters can even begin to survive is to become like casters themselves. They must burn WPL on magic items that give them a chance not to be invalidated immediately (potions of fly, ways to combat magical darkness, ways to combat suggestion, etc.). The only non-casters that can hope to live to retirement are the ones who become casters (or their equals) via magic items or class abilities.
I spoke with the GM and he said the 'Nightmare' had to be 'cured' through a 'higher source'. It sounds like divine intervention to me. While this sounds enticing to me as a player I don't know how long my character will be out of commission. That irks me a little, but he also said I could use a 'temporary character' which allows me to keep playing in the group. While I enjoy playing my Wizard I enjoy the company of the people I game with more. So a solution has been found, albeit intervention of the divine variety is necessary to use my Wizard, at least I get to play. Thanks again for all the advice/suggestions to my dilemma and hopefully this thread might help other players who might suffer something similar in their game.
Ironically enough, despite suggesting you give your GM the benefit of the doubt above, what you just posted actually has changed my mind. Now I think this was a d**k move, and you should probably start shopping around for a new gaming group, or a new GM for the members of your old group that you can co-op. When a GM has no compunction about totally denying you the use of a character based on an arbitrary event you couldn't prevent, this GM doesn't care a bit about your fun. Mark my words, this will end in tears (figuratively speaking). You and/or others will get trampled again, perhaps more egregiously. Sadly, you may quickly find that the joy of playing with that group will pale beside the anger/resentment this GM will eventually create. Seriously, save yourself the pain and find an exit soon...
Actually, I have an answer to the question of why bloat matters. It increases the cost of learning the system, and thereby repels potential new players. Teaching someone to play PFS is fine if you have someone so novice that they are willing to play a pregen and just do what they are told. But as soon as they step beyond that in a desire to realize their own concepts, bloat makes their task exponentially more difficult. What the multitude of bad (or meaningless) choices do is confuse and frustrate folks without as much system mastery. And they'll quit (I've seen it happen).
Now, you (the internet reader) may not have any concern over this. You have the luxury (now) of saying, "Forget them, if they don't have the dedication to learn all the ins and outs of the system, they shouldn't be playing." But there is no such thing as a static system. Systems are either growing, or they are shrinking (and this is true in just about every area of life). So, without ease of entry, without expanding its player-base, PF will eventually shrivel away, and we'll all lose all of our options.
Meaningless choices are not choices, they are costs. And you should think long and hard before you advocate more costs become part of playing this game...
I don't think it do much being rude. Do much as going to a forum and expecting a echo chamber everytime one post something. For example if I posted is 2+2=5 then get proven wrong. Instead of admitting I made a mistake my response is "what it to you that I think that 2+2=5". As well posters forget that freedom of speech 100% without negative consequences works only on the safety of ones home. Outside or ins forum one is subject to the rules of the forum at least. As well I'm also seeing a lack of trying to acknowledge that posters viewpoints are different. Too much " I'm right your wrong" and vice versa.
Wait, 2+2 = 5 in vector math. Stop thinking one dimensionally in your math.
Incorrect. In Euclidean geometries, a vector 2 + vector 2 could range in magnitude from 0 to 4. It can never be larger than the two numbers added together. /math pedantry
Defending against the natural 20 is a large part of the point of crane wing. It's the martial's Misfortune/Ill Omen; get your AC/saves high enough that they can only be surpassed on a natural 20 and then block the natural 20. Congratulations, you have solved the ever-present problem of styles that rely on crippling an enemy rather than killing quickly (the ability to completely override your game plan through dumb luck because you've got the time to do it).
But only casters are allowed to cover their weaknesses, y'know.
True 'dat. I'm just irritated that, in this case, the game rule change seemed to be made based on financial concerns rather than mechanical ones. Let's face it, Paizo makes a ton o' green off of APs and Modules, with a big chunk of it coming from PFS players. I don't begrudge them a cent of it. But when the issue becomes a conflict between modules run as-is and a style feat, follow the money (rather than fix the mechanics)...
What is absolutely hilarious is that we also have this thread going on wherein a heaven's oracle build is discussed that is equally devastating to a particular type of PFS/AP mob. All of the same arguments used to defend Crane Wing are being used to justify this caster build... by some of the folks who have called for the crane wing nerf!
So when a caster wrecks an encounter, it's a crappy encounter. When crane wing could wreck an encounter... the problem is crane wing... The reason for the caster/martial disparity is on full display.
I agree, Pathfinder isn't completely fair. Which is all the more reason not to exacerbate the problem by giving the.wizard free levels that make him a better wizard, and giving everyone else free levels that make them a crappy wizard AND substantially delay their progress in the actual classes they want to play.
This is a legitimate argument, at least from the gameplay perspective. Four more levels of wizard would indeed make it harder for everyone to feature in the story. Personally, I'd give all of the martials caster levels and all of the casters martial levels. Now that's a roleplaying gold mine...
What is so hilarious here is that the very same arguments (that you could avoid the effects of the build by running different monsters, using different tactics, etc.) used to defend this caster build were the very same arguments used to defend the original Crane Wing. Yet, somehow, when it's a caster, there's no problem. But a monk can completely overpower everyone!
In PFS, this combo can ROFLSTOMP the vast majority of encounters, with no GM flexibility to prevent it. Exactly the same as was claimed about Crane Wing. So why are the usual suspects here not begging for this to be errata-ed or banned?
On topic, the mechanics of AD&D are completely different than d20. The sheer number of mechanical options in d20 opens alot of in play options for roleplay that are backed up by those mechanical options.
I dunno that one can get the feel of AD&D which was very limited in player options.
I don't think either has more merit than the other, either. Depends on what kind of a game you like.
What??? This is the thing I don't get. I think this is the perfect example of the cultural difference in today's players (as opposed to the players of yesteryear). How do mechanical options open roleplay options? In my experience, every rule closes many more opportunities than it opens. Things you might have tried based on the narrative, you won't try because the mechanics makes them unlikely to succeed. Having a rule limits you to only the interactions that are mechanically optimal.
I think this has something to do with the relative newness of RPGs back in the AD&D days. We were creating as we went, because nothing told us what couldn't be done. Heck, I don't know anyone who played back then who didn't try to write their own game. So lack of mechanics was an opportunity, not a drawback. We imagined the scene, then reacted accordingly, and invented the mechanics to do what we wanted to. Today, with computer games as a major influence on gaming culture (the circle is now complete </Vader>), gamers seem to be waiting to choose between options provided to them. If the mechanics don't expressly say it, it is forbidden. Whereas, I think the older attitude was more that if it wasn't expressly forbidden, then it was allowed (you just have to make it up).
I'm not trying to be dismissive of one style or the other, but there is one that I prefer, and I don't think I should have to pretend otherwise. I always found the limited mechanics freeing. Combined with the focus on building (pre-gaming work) characters to pre-plan your abilities, as opposed to a focus on in-game decisions in the older iterations, the feel of Pathfinder is fundamentally limiting, rather than freeing to me...
The more of this discussion that I read, the more and more I start to think that the issue here is the focus on the character before play, as opposed to during play for OD&D, AD&D, and derivatives. I truly think that many folks (or at least some of the ones that post regularly to the forums) spend more time building their characters than playing them. With more "options" comes less ability. I mean, in 2nd edition, if I wanted to try and trip an enemy, I tried. Now I need a preplanned "build" in order to have a good chance of it working. Pathfinder has become Buildfinder.
I think that, more than changes to the time it takes to cast spells, etc., the real fix needs to start with the skill/feat straitjacket. Players, conditioned by video game RPGs, expect to constantly get new powers and new stuff. In older editions, your fighter got a few more hit points, your thief got a higher percentage on their pick-locks, etc. when they leveled. What defined the characters was their actions during the session, not the feat they just got when they dinged the next level...
[If you're saying, "Brian the Black leaps forward clashing his axe to his shield roaring, 'Lamh-laidir abu. Let those omadhauns come! None shall pass the ax of this Dalcassian prince without tasting the whetted steel! Come, a ripe feast for the crows you'll be.'" You're doing it with the essence of old AD&D
If you say, "I'll move my character here to block the bridge it should slow any creature larger than small size unless they make a throw vs acrobatics to get past me. I'll brace my shield for defense. I should get a +3 to resist an contests of strength. You'll still have to watch for the reach weapons but since they'll be on a corner most won't be able to pass through the square." You're not in fact doing it with the old school essence of D&D.
This has so much epic in it that it almost hurts to look at it!
Ok, this thread has me really confused. I was under the impression that metagaming was a big no-no for most folks. Yet I've read circa-500 posts on a thread totally dedicated to players choosing specific magic items for their characters to use half-a-dozen levels in the future. Wha?
I mean, if I have to roll dungeoneering in order to recognize an Orc (or else I'm a bad player), how is it even the slightest bit logical for my character to know the contents of the Ultimate Equipment inside and out, so that he can be on the lookout for that agile vorpal bow of recall +3? This isn't metagaming? Of course it is!
I recognize that buildcrafting is one source of entertainment for some players, and to each his own. But please don't pretend that it isn't as much metagaming as buying silver weapons as soon as you find out you're going to be playing an AP with lycanthropes in it. If your GM is down with that, hope you all have fun. But if he isn't, I don't see how you have any more complaints than if he doesn't shower those gloves of dueling on you, either...
Immersion is the essence of AD&D. To me, too many rules can get in the way of that.
They can help it along, too. I remember too well having our wonderfully-immersive experience of In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords grind to a halt because there were no actual swimming rules, and the module itself printed a page of guidelines just to get you through that part. Given 3.X-style Swim rules, the module could simply have listed some DCs and conditions, and (assuming we're minimally conversant with the rules) the DM would have known how everything worked, and we would have known what to do to keep the game moving, and no one would have to break immersion to stop in the middle and learn a new sub-system.
And, yes, the module totally could have said "It's the DM's decision if anyone drowns or whatever; just make it up." But the whole thrust of that module was to present challanges to be solved, not just stories to be made up on the spot.
You have a very strong point. But I do disagree with one little part of it. It's not necessarily the number of rules (though that can be part of the problem... grapple, anyone?), but more what kind of additional rules are included.
Rules for swimming (especially if they are simple) can add to the ease of use. But the issue is feats and class skills directed towards swimming. Once you have a simple rule, if you begin to create corner cases with modifications for class X and then different rules and bonuses from feat Y, suddenly it's not so simple any more. You've added no "options" that didn't exist (unless you play that nothing can ever happen that isn't written in a rulebook); the GM could have given whatever abilities or modifiers fit the situation. Instead, you've made the rules more mechanical and complex. Add in other feats or abilities that modify movement, especially if it is unclear if the modifications might apply to swimming, and you have a jumbled mess. Now your focus is on putting together a "build" before play, rather than what happens during the game. I just don't see how this situation is more liberating than in the past...
I understand that this wasn't what you were advocating for, but it presented an opportunity to express what I've been trying narrow down.
The standard "kids these days are lazy and don't apply themselves" argument? Uh, huh... Sure... The same things your parents said about your generation (and their parents said about them, etc.).
No.
Eirikrautha wrote about the cost of information, memorization, how synthesis of background knowledge is part of creativity, and the preference for rearranging what is in front of you rather than innovating.
Your entire post mentions none of those four topics. You wrote a "straw man" reply.
You obviously skipped my entire paragraph about the four stages of proficiency. He's complaining that "todays kids" haven't (yet) attained the level of mastery that he spent years developing; his is the straw-man argument ("all kids" vs. "some specific kids").
I love it when people tell me what my argument is...
First, I was comparing my youth with their youth. The style of game I described was not what I played in my thirties, but in my TEENS. I had just as much time for system mastery as they do. The difference is the general culture. I think, with the number of kids raised by television (a large number of parents I know use the TV as a babysitter) and computer games (both of which are primarily passive activities... the fun is created and organized for you, no matter how much manual dexterity is required), that PF products more resemble a video game RPG than a traditional one. Most modules give you a script, a "problem," several branching paths that take you to the same resolution, binary success-failure conditions, etc. Quite a few PFS games I've played resemble Final Fantasy PF more than AD&D.
In fact, I think this is one reason for the complaints on the message boards about the Developers not understanding the "problems" with certain classes or abilities. Many of the devs have been around long enough that they are playing another game... one where their creativity isn't stifled by a slavish devotion to the rules. They're still telling stories, while some folks on the boards are playing WoW.
But back to my point. If YOU read my post, you'll note that I did not say that I was stating an absolute... there will obviously be variation. But I've got 20+ years of teaching and more than that of roleplaying gaming as support for my generalizations... so I'm not talking about corner-cases, either.
My argument is simple: More rules (driven by a culture in some people from the last few generations who are more comfortable being handed options and choices rather than being left in a creative vacuum) have led to less creative space for roleplaying. This has led to a very different RPG experience than in the past. And it's not going back.
I don't know if having a simpler ruleset could recapture the old school style, as someone who plays a new school approach with new school players, we'd just wind up going back to a medium we were more comfortable. I doesn't boil down to rules imo, it boils down to approach. I played with an old school GM recently who just switched to the PF rules and it had a very old school approach; newer players cried about bad stuff, the GM was stunned by their reaction. He tried pointing out that he ran his encounters as written, was impartial, they called it counter-punching. The stupid moves sometimes ended badly, while creativity had unexpected rewards. It definitely wasn't the way I ran (although my players love my high octane style), but it was legit. I actually have tried to bring a somewhat different approach after meeting this old school GM who made me realize just how much of a new schooler I was. I try to design more effectively, and fudge less often. Players have noticed, I actually asked them if they wanted me to play without the screen and they all cried "no!". They hated the old school approach, while I have a lot of fond memories of those old hat gamers.
Sorry, but I've got to disagree with you here. Mechanics creates the "flavor," or "approach." You cannot run a game with a certain flavor if the mechanics works against said flavor. At some point your players will rebel against what they see as arbitrary ignorance of the rules.
Sadly, not to get all fogey-ish, but I think the primary issue is generational. I teach for a living, and I can tell you that the way kids think has changed, just over the last 15-20 years. The teaching methods sure have. When I was learning, information was costly. If I need some fact or info, it required a trip to the library and poring over a limited selection of books to find that piece of information. It took lots of time and effort, so we had the incentive to remember that information, as we didn't want to repeatedly pay that cost for the same info over and over. Today, no information is important, because it has almost no cost. Need to know the mass of Mars? Google it on your phone. Ta-da, info in seconds. With this ease of information acquisition has come a different way of thinking about the world. Modern education isn't about memorization or informational storage, it's about "critical thinking" (which is just a different way of saying "drawing conclusions"). So much of modern education is spent telling kids what information "means" without them having to acquire the knowledge in the first place. It has led to a generation that is used to being told what to think/do about almost everything around them. For all of the emphasis on "creativity" in western societies, this is the least creative generation in the past two hundred years, primarily because they know so little (you can't put disparate ideas together in your head to make something new if those two ideas aren't already in your head). I watch students every day just passively wait for the next instructions. No one, not even the bright kids, experiments with the material or tries to move forward on their own. It's just, "Tell me what to do next..."
Now apply this to RPGs. Look at the original Monster Manuals. They had all kinds of information about the habitats and behaviors of the creatures. The idea was the monsters were organic challenges that you should overcome using cleverness and creativity, so you needed all kinds of information to help you innovate. Now, the monsters have "tactics," rote combinations of actions (based on pre-selected feats and skills) to perform in combat. Creativity in PF is limited to how you combine the actions you are given in the rulebooks ("Oooh, if I do this feat, then move here, then counter with this feat, I'll do twice the damage!"). It's the RPG equivalent of Legos... you're just putting your blocks together in a slightly different pattern, but you're still playing with the blocks you're given. Pathfinder has the same rigid quality as just about everything else in today's society: tell me the next step. Give me what to do: a b, c, and d. That's the limitation of mechanics. As PF has gotten more rules, it's gotten less creativity. And I don't think that it can change, because the number of people who want to play the original kind of game is slowly dying off (not too different from what you said above about your own experiences).
I've been playing D&D since the paperbacks, and I took a hiatus right after 3rd edition came out, so I can only give you the perspective of a gamer who spent most of his time in 1st and 2nd Ed. and recently came back to Pathfinder (though back then we did play everything else we could get our hands on, from Palladium to James Bond). I think the primary difference to me is the stifling effect of the rules.
Start with skills and feats. Previously, your class gave you a handful of abilities (many of which were either combat-based bonuses or absolute things that you could perform). The rest was role-play. As the game has increased the number of abilities/skills, it has constrained characters. Now, unless it is explicitly stated in the rules, many GMs restrict you from doing it. A player spends his time scouring the rulebook for abilities and changes the way his character plays by adding predetermined abilities at level-up (what a previous poster called "building"). Rather than your character choosing to try something new or different in order to meet a new challenge (such as deciding to disarm or tackle a powerful enemy) you must be "built" to do such things from the beginning. Instead of adding options, skills and feats have actually reduced the number available to an individual character. This is part of what exacerbated the martial/caster disparity. Once you limit characters to only predefined actions based on their build, the only way to gain flexibility is through magic.
These limits increase with the switch to grid-based combat. When combat was primarily mental, the immersion was better. In addition, your options were greater when you could describe what you were trying to do tactically, rather than having to move figurines a certain number of spaces. This game has gone from being mental to being mechanical.
The final nail in the coffin is the rise of organized play. Some of the requirements of organized play, especially the magic mart and need for standardization, have changed the general expectations of the game. When I played (and this may not be a universal experience, but it was common enough from who I played with over decades of time), characters did not get to "optimize" their items. Some items could be purchased (portable holes and bags of holding were popular), but many had to be found. When an early character of mine heard about vorpal blades, we had to seek out and kill a Githyanki to actually acquire one. Instead, because of the paperwork nightmare, simply buying a desired item is the default method of acquisition in PFS (and, by extension, many home games). Magic items are commodities now. It's the difference between Diablo II and Diablo III with its auction house. If I can just go buy it, why adventure for it? I'd be better off being a banker.
I do believe that some of these changes are the result of MMORPGs, but just as many are the evolution of the game in response to desires to expand it beyond its "limits." The irony is that the "expansions" have just limited it more...
There are roles that people play in the world by virtue of their character's appearance and participation, AND by people's perception of them, not just their character class.
Sure. There's more to a character than their class. But of course, a character's appearance and participation is up to the player, not due to their class. Not all fighters look the same. Not all bards look the same. Etc.
Owly wrote:
A narrow example: A fighter and a sorcerer walk into a town that is beset with monster problems. Which PC are the simple townsfolk likely to approach? The townspeople are looking for a hero. They don't even know what a "sorcerer" IS. If they realized it was someone with magic in their blood, they might be afraid of him/her and would be indifferent at best, suspicious and fearful at worst.
Why does a fighter look more a hero than a sorcerer? What does a hero even look like?
Owly wrote:
An extreme example: A group of adventurers (cleric, fighter and bard) is seated at an important dinner with the king and his general. The king wants to discuss a problem with bandits. He sees the fighter as the group's warrior leader, and the cleric as the group's spiritual heart. The bard? Well, to a king a bard is entertainment. The player playing the bard attempts diplomacy roll after diplomacy roll until the king announces "If this one opens his mouth again, take him to the dungeon."
That would just be bad GMing.
Agree with your third point whole-heartedly! I find it interesting that folks will so easily hand-wave social skills, but be absolute tyrants when it comes to combat feats. I mean, we'll just ignore that 7 charisma and let the fighter speak to the king, while nerfing the bard, who invested precious skill points and stats into his ability to speak well. Why? Well, it's a game,or something... so quit whining, Bard. If a GM told his table that the TWF rogue got the equivalent of Power Attack simply because he roleplayed his attack strategy well, despite not having the feat, the same people here would lose their minds!
I also love the reverence for acting among the "roleplaying" defenders. Uhhm, when your director tells you that the character you are portraying is a dour, pessimistic man, and you decide that you're going to act him out as a giggling, fun-loving, glib jokester, you're doing a lousy job of acting. And your stats in PF ARE the director! When you tell a player to roleplay a Chr 7 fighter as clever or persuasive, you're just ignoring the rules of the game. Period.
PS. And, additionally, you are condemning a person who is not very persuasive or articulate in real life from ever playing a high Chr character. I get angry when I see a GM tell a player (who we all know is not very articulate) to roleplay out what his bard says to persuade the mob, then penalizes him for what he actually says. If the bard has a higher Chr than the player does in real life, why should the player be expected to do something he can't? I'd like to see some of those GMs be forced to fight in full plate armor in order to say that the monster hit us...
By "overarching plot" I read "primary motivation for the players to group and adventure." Think of it in terms of Conan (the old one with Ahnnald in it) vs. Lord of the Rings. Both had a primary villain who became the ultimate test for the adventurers. But in LotR, every part of the plot, all of the parties actions, were directed towards defeating Sauron. The adventure was guided totally by "what do we have to do next to stop Sauron?" Conan, on the other hand, was wandering, trying to get rich. He continued to stumble upon the temples of Set (on his own, in his own time) until he was given the minor job to rescue the princess, which led to larger things. At any point Conan could have said "screw this!" and headed west.
What no overarching plot really means is that your adventures aren't determined by a unified, extended goal that define your parties' reason for existing ("You are the chosen, who must stop The Lord of Doom from conquering the world"). Instead, your travels create the motivations at that time and place. It's less Star Wars and more Star Trek.
In my experience (and I started playing D&D in 1980), the sandbox game was the normal setup for an RPG in the beginning, with little published modules dropped in where convenient. Some games might have been planned 1-20 levels with a singular focus, but they were rare. It's only been since the advent of computerized RPGs and organized play that players have expected "story that leads me from place to place with predetermined outcomes"...
To be fair, doing that with a dragon can be pretty prickish towards the party. A lone ranged character (most parties have one non-caster long range character) is going to have an awful hard time bringing down a dragon by itself, particularly when you consider that some of them have breath weapons that keep them outside even a longbow's first range increment. Then you've got SR, which dragons have in spades; the spell caster probably isn't bringing it down either. They have range to contend with (a lot of the most powerful spells of different types have a relatively short range) as well, though it doesn't limit them quite so much as other classes. Meanwhile, as this goes on, the rest of the party begins trying to nickle and dime it to death with whatever ranged weapon they have--odds are their classes suck at ranged combat to start with.
Rynjin made a statement that basically amounted to "If you respond to complaints with 'It's a legitimate strategy' then you're being cheap and lame, and should probably stop."
What I'm getting at is that the GM response to complaints of "It's a legitimate strategy" doesn't always mean you're using some cheap or lame tactic. Sometimes it's the truth. To illustrate that, I gave examples of situations in which I've had players complain about tactics that were 100% wholly legitimate for an intelligent opponent.
As regards the dragon, in my particular case it was a river drake against a level 3 party of 5, using its home lake as favorable ground. It would pop out of the water, use its caustic mucus ability, and then on its next turn it would pop back underwater until it was ready to spit again. It targeted the party alchemist first, because the alchemist hit it hard in the first round of combat, and managed to drop the character with a single use of its caustic mucus. The alchemist just failed all of his Reflex saves in a string of back luck, so he kept getting hit with acid damage every round. That was the only attack I threw in the alchemist's...
Out of curiosity, did the party have any hints that a "water" encounter was possible? We're they prepared for an enemy that could retreat underwater and escape their counter-attacks? Or were they just walking along, going someplace else, when they passed by a lake and got jumped? What is the level of system mastery at your table?
The answer to any of these questions could affect how the players perceive the encounter. It really doesn't matter if your tactics are "legitimate" or logical for the creature if your players feel otherwise.
Most players want a fair challenge. The issues arise when their definition of fair and the GM's differ. It amazes me how many of the problems at tables could be solved by a little communication. Because it doesn't matter how right you are if no one will play the game with you...
. The people most adamantly against any semblance of class balance ...
I like class balance. We mostly have class balance*. What I think he's against is YOUR idea of class balance, which is just adding a bunch of power to the classes as a small minority of posters scream for it. Just adding more power to classes as people claim they are underpowered does NOT in any way shape or from help 'class balance' and in fact makes things worse.
When a respected designer like JJ sez we have pretty good balance, and all my games show the same, then I tend to think the people screaming the loudest that "Pathfinder is teh suxxor!" are the ones with the problems, not the game as it is really played.
* please note I said "mostly". Some odd combos of campaign stuff or strained readings of RAW or unusual corner cases can be shown to have issues (and I am hoping for a few fixes on these). And, I still am waiting for those "cool new rogue talents" I was told were on the way, etc. So, by no means is PF perfect. It's way better balanced than 3.5 was, however.
Woah, woah, woah! Did you just seriously suggest that the groups that see a martial/caster disparity are playing the game wrong?!!?! Granted, you and JJ may have been playing D&D (and derivatives) for a long time, but that just means that you are more likely to have a different gaming culture and expectations than the average player. We might even have similar expectations (I started in 1980), based on longevity. But that actually proves the points of the complainants. If the "optimal" or "intended" playstyle is not achieved based on the RAW, then the issue is the RAW, not the players. If the martial/caster disparity is greater under RAW than your (or JJ's or my) RAI, then the RAW need to be adjusted.
There's no way to assert that a) the RAW are perfectly fine when it comes to class balance and b) other groups playing RAW but without your gaming tweaks experience a disparity they don't have to and be logically consistent...
I hear a lot about how worthless martial classes are compared to casters, but I'm just not seeing it. Damage remains pretty strong throughout their lifespan, and not having a limited number of spells per day seems to be a boon regardless of level. Sure, Wizards might not actually run out of spells, but if all they're using is a 5d6 Shocking Grasp attack, they may as well be out of spells compared to a martial, who can charge in and swing for something like 2d6+20 every round (if not far more), repeatedly, while dishing out multiple such attacks if they don't have to move.
I guess to refine my question, what is it that martial characters want to do that they are not currently doing?
How about "anything beyond DPS"? Note that this is the only this your post ever references. You assume martials are about DPS only (and just one way to generate said DPS), so of course this conversation must be confusing...
I argue that pathfinder made a smart move in attempting to shift away from the style of "certain people are very strong in certain situations and everyone else is next to useless." It shows in the rogue sneak attack, it shows in the treatment of cross class skills, and frankly it makes for a better gaming experience when certain players are not reduced to beneath standard commoner levels.
I'm sorry, but your games must be very different than mine. You've never seen a shocking grasp magus build? A color spray oracle? A burning hands or sleep wizard? A rage-pounce barbarian? A trip monk? ANY SUMMONER or GUNSLINGER? Seriously?
The entire focus of Pathfinder (and 99% of the PFS games I've played) anymore is about nothing BUT one-trick ponies and specialists. The entire game system does NOTHING but reward specialization! Unless you specialize in defense, of course...
I think Jason said they were expecting an outcry, just not as much or (more so in the immediate aftermath than now with a few nights to sleep on it) as bitter.
I have to say considering how bad the nerf was I could have seen how angry and unhappy those who liked Crane Wing could be from a mile away. As I said it's not always easy to gauge. Yet in this case it should have imo been obvious.
Yeah, confirmation bias at its best. When everyone around you says "Thank god you fixed that exploit; it was so popular!" And yet you never hear anyone who uses it explain why they like it (and why you shouldn't change it) you know you're only getting half of the story. Or at least you should know... But that's why confirmation bias is so insidious. It's not a "thing" you can look out for; it's the absence of a thing, which makes it really hard to see...
After having read (too) many posts in the threads about this errata, there's one thing I think almost every poster forgets to mention when stating their opinion: perspective.
Of course a person who believes PF has no major caster/mundane class disparity problems is much more likely to approve of the errata than a person who does. Or a person who only rarely play in levels beyond 10 in comparison to one who often does. Or someone who believes non-magic abilities, in general, simply should be less effective than magic ones (for reasons of "verisimilitude" or whatever), in comparison to someone who wishes for increased class balance. Or someone who often sees highly optimized melee PCs but has never seen an equally highly optimized caster in play, compared to someone who has. Or someone who mostly plays PFS in comparison to someone who mostly plays home games.
For example:
Cheapy wrote:
I can't speak to the masses out there, but as far as professional game designers for Pathfinder go, I've seen only very few who find the old version to be anything even approaching balanced. And I've talked about the feat with a lot of professional game designers.
Yes, of course most professional PF designers will say this, because they tend to have a similar perspective (being PF designers). That means they're highly likely to take certain parameters for granted, for example that potentially game breaking caster combos aren't as problematic as potentially game breaking mundane combos and that the imbalances between different types of player options are simply a part of the game. In short, what I believe most developers actually say is that Crane Wing is unbalanced in comparison to other melee related player options in PF, especially at early levels. If we were to ask specifically for their opinion on how balanced mundane PC's with Crane Wing are to, say, conjuration wizards at level 10, I guess the answer would be quite different.
Also, I'd bet that the developers that actually have a...
You bring up a good point. It's called "confirmation bias" and it's a big deal in organizational decision making. It's like the apocryphal story about Pauline Kael of The New Yorker, who supposedly was shocked when Nixon won the presidency, saying, "How could Nixon win? I don't know anyone who voted for him!"
Confirmation bias is the biggest danger to most organizations, despite the fact that it doesn't seem all that dangerous when compared to the day-to-day dangers a business faces. But look at the fall of any major (and many minor) corporations, and they always seem to be going full steam ahead in the wrong direction until their collapse. These people aren't stupid; they just all see things from the same shared viewpoint, and that's what does them in. I'm sure no one at Microsoft had anything bad to say about Windows 8...
That's why PFS is so dangerous for Paizo. It greatly grows the market, and so it is a big-time business asset. But there's no greater source of confirmation bias imaginable, as well....
The 2 level dip to MoMS was actually fine since the trade offs were significant to most classes.
This point is too often ignored in this debate. I have a magus that I originally considered the 2 level MoMS dip with. But he lost so much, I eventually went straight magus. I'd be willing to bet a lot of these "power builds" with the dip were not played from level one. The dip seems much better when you don't have six gaming sessions of suck before you actually get to play your character...
The job of the GM is to challenge the players in a game, and when they do hit the "min" of a minmaxer, they get accused of targeting weaknesses, even after many encounters of "Haha, I win, 'cos my build is perfect." It's a balancing act for GMs.
It's hard to challenge a group of players equaly: the creatures that can hit a defensive build will massacre an offensive build; and the creatures that can resist the offensive builds are near immune to the attack of defensive builds.
I didn't have a problem with Crane Wing as it were, and I still don't have a problem with it. I don't play PFS, and my players may choose either version, bacause I can throw the whole world at them.
But if the sole reason for taking a specific archetype is early access to this feat and that "build" is common enough that it's disrupting the fun of others, then I agree it should be open for change. Because it's a game, and it's supposed to be a challenge, not win-feat FTW at lvl 2.
The changing of this one feat should not be able to ruin the game for anyone, at most it changes some builds of one theme. Maybe try another type of character. There must be builds that work in PFS other than those revolving around Crane Wing.
Please post all of your present (that you are actively playing) characters and their levels. I will pick one that you may never play again (including making any more of that type or concept). Then you can talk about "trying another type of character."
Part of the anger here is based on the fact that many exclusive (or near-exclusive) GMs have no skin in this game. They get to play whatever kind of character they want every week. Banning a concept doesn't hurt them a bit. But when you play once a week in PFS it takes 3 months to get to 4th level. Now your character is ruined. And the GMs that say this is no big deal accuse players of being immature in their reaction? Where do empathy, the ability to see things from others' viewpoints, and humility fall on the "maturity" scale?
true on the whole comparison point, but you are also ignoring the reality of playstyle and tactics.
A Crane Wing player is motivated to gain a high AC. That reduces the risk from all melee attacks, PARTICULARLY secondary attacks.
The primary attack, the most likely to hit him, is the enemy's best and most damage, and 100% ineffective.
Next, a player with cunning can keep an enemy down to 1 attack, except perhaps a hydra. He can be out of charge lanes (flying does this nicely), he can single attack and move to a corner, he can force the enemy to move, and with very few exceptions, they are limited to one attack when following.
This is again a win for Crane Wing, and it's a problem because of what Melee is, and how to take advantage of it. Crane Wing totally destroys a one attack fighting style, and a cunning player can virtually force that style, particularly if the rest of the group backs him up.
Addendum, swarming a high AC character with mooks is not going to be effective. He has a high AC. They aren't going to hit much, and he's going to neutralize one of them, and his own offense is unabated. They are going to die, and die easily. Melee toons LOVE mook encounters.
Third, Crane Wing does not do inferior damage. The character and his class features determine that. As I've pointed out numerous times, you can use a 2h style with Crane wing...just take your hand off the one-handed weapon you are 2h'ing at the end of your turn. You can wear heavy armor. You can use Power attack and have a high Str score. There's nothing stopping you from doing that.
Players complaining about lack of damage from their Crane Wing users do NOT have an argument. Using a finesse single weapon with Crane Wing sucks because using a finesse 1H weapon sucks, it has nothing to do with Crane Wing. Crane Wing works perfectly with 2H style. The dex-fighter class is not done well in PF, period, for damage output. Crane Wing has NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT.
Riposte just doubles your damage output. You limit the enemy...
You are completely ignoring the feat and build costs of crane wing. You will not be doing the same damage with your 2H attack because you took dodge, ius, crane style, etc, instead of weapon focus, specialization, power attack, etc. If you dip MoMS, you lost BAB and class skills (the reason I didn't take the dip for my Magus).
Your argument is basically that x + y is better than x. No kidding. But your paladin or barbarian with crane wing has given up a lot of offensive feats to get it, so he is NOT equal to the paladin without it. Period. Otherwise EVERY class would take it. And they don't! The fact that I've never seen a paladin (or even heard of one) with crane wing pretty much answers this...
Does anyone actually get to play Pathfinder anymore? Threads as of late read like all GMs are the enemy. Which makes having an actual game tricky.
Sure. I haven't played as much PFS as usual lately, but the GMs are great. In fact, the "home game" I'm in is actually a PFS-legal game run by a VO who is an awesome GM. And the first words he said to me last game on this topic were "Did you see how they DESTROYED Crane Wing?!?" Come to think of it, maybe there's a connection between him being a good GM and ...
It's interesting to see that the Pathfinder DESIGNERS, RPG superstar top contestants, and highly experienced society GM's all come into agreement about Crane Wing, yet people without this intimate familiarity with Pathfinder design are the ones who disagree with the errata.
Oh, come on, dude, you really are serious with this nonsense, aren't you? A lot of us people who disagree with this ruling have been playing and tinkering with the 3.x edition for close to 14 years by now as players and GM's. I have a masters degree in socio-economic history. Cheap appeals to authority like yours are just as meaningless as me mentioning that title.
OgreBattle must have a max-out bluff, since he's gotten just about everyone on this thread at least once. He's anti-errata... He's just pointing out a commonality that most of us find very telling, but he's doing so in a way that won't get him banned or the post pulled. So he must have a high Int to go along with his Cha/Bluff...
The hysterical thing here is that, so far, every attempt to explain to the OP why he is wrong has further proved his point. In reality, the opposition to Crane Wing is based totally on a GM's unwillingness or inability to change his GMing style. Period.
In Pathfinder, offense and defense are often mutually exclusive (especially among martials). Being a defensive powerhouse requires choices that lower the offensive capabilities of a character. That's the natural trade-off of the system. But, thinking in terms of "how do I challenge a party where I can't hit one member?" is not as easy as standard "throw mobs at party." Hence the resistance of GMs to changing THEIR playstyle. What I find hysterical is that the argument boils down to GMs making players adapt to what they are comfortable with, while resisting adapting to players' desired playstyle.
An offensively-weak character can be minimized in any number of ways, even if he can't be hit. And intelligent enemies would do so (especially after the character had developed a reputation: "My God! It's Porthos the Pirate!" You might even find your player enjoys the reputation...). This doesn't mean that they might not waste a round before they moved on to easier prey, but that's a significant contribution in itself!
Even in PFS, where the GM is much more limited, communication and flexibility will help solve this problem. Where is it written you must play each scenario in order? If you know you have a MoMS that is unhittable, perhaps you could run a different scenario? Or talk to the player and say "This scenario was not built for that particular character, and it might not challenge him or the party. How about playing an alt this time?" Most times he will, and if not, you know exactly what you are dealing with (and the other players will regulate a person that is hurting their fun as well).
But such conversation is risky. You might have to admit that you are a group engaging in shared fun, rather than a superior being dictating fun to the lesser beings at your table. Not every ego can handle this...
