Felix Gaunt's page

Yeah.... that's not surprising to be honest. The combination of COVID and PF2E had a large impact on PFS in Philly. Used to play a lot with people there, I only know of like 1 person who stuck it out with PF2E and not even sure if they are still playing.

Bonkers to me how a company like Paizo wouldn't be at PAX. D&D is everywhere here just noming things up.

I heard through the grapevine that Paizo won't be doing PFS due to delayed response from the PAX Team. That is unfortunate, been years since I've gotten in a good game of PFS 1E and was really looking forward to dusting off some old characters!

Does 0 count? lol 2E+Pandemic killed our Lodge. I do dream of PFS1 though.

Wondering if there's any chance of having PFS1 tables at PAX Unplugged this year, a substantial portion of my lodge and friends have passed on 2E but I know a lot of us would love to play some PFS1. I miss Society games! :-(

Sadly this does not help me, now if they somehow brought back PFS1 that'd be great. I guess one can dream! lol

Quote:

Now Paizo is [creating a new edition] in what, 1 year?

No, they created it over however long they took and then playtested it for 1 year to do exactly what you claim they're not doing--engage the PF1 community.

lol I'm sure they internally tested, I meant external feedback. The community is who they are selling to, not themselves. They should allow for more time, but that's just my crazy opinion! ;-)

Slyme wrote:

Everything I am seeing happen with Paizo and PF1 vs PF2 I have seen before.

I have a similar history with RPGs and I don't see the current concern over PF2E as any different than virtually every edition of every RPG I've ever seen. The exception might be DnD5E since 4E was soo universally disliked that they could have done almost anything with 5E and it would have been readily accepted. Otherwise, even DnD has experienced the same vitriol about their newest system going all the way back to when OD&D was "replaced" in the last 70's. I can more easily understand the gripes from the younger or less experienced players who have not gone through this process before, but for those of us who have seen this phenomenon countless times before, there is no reason for all the "grrr."

What surprises me is that I'm not sure anything has been learned from the past. 3.5 was popular but had issues, so they created 4th which...crashed and burned. PF1 rose out of the ashes of 3.5 and has been doing well. Then 5E came and people flocked to it, partially because it wasn't 4th (I agree there) but also for it's clean simplicity.

Now Paizo is taking a well liked game (ala 3.5) and creating one in what, 1 year? I want to say that 5E took waaay longer than 1 year to "perfect". Why is Paizo rushing this so much? Why not engage the PF1/PFS1 community more instead of leaving them behind? I think if they took another year to refine PF2 and also come up with better compensation for PFS1 people that they'd be far far better off. This all feels quite rushed and like PF1/PFS1 is being left at the altar, very perplexing... I REALLY hope I'm wrong on all this, but I'm not feeling great (and I want to). :-/

I honestly feel like in 2-3 years we might either be seeing Pathfinder 3.0, or the death of Paizo as a company. Based on what I have seen voiced here on the forums, over on reddit, facebook, in person, etc. A large portion of the PF1 community is vastly dissatisfied with PF2. Nothing about it is groundbreaking enough to steal a meaningful share of the market away from D&D5E, and they are going likely to lose a lot of loyal PF1 customers.

If I am wrong...great...I'll either play PF1 home games, or move on to a different system.

I'll be honest, I am a little worried about PF2 going the way of 4th. :-/ I am hoping that they can keep enough PFS1 players in PFS2 to help build PF2 into something great, cause lets be honest the likelihood of people leaving 5E (given its current popularity) for PF2 is probably not all that high. Losing even some of your PFS1 base would most definitely not be good, which is why I'm hoping they recognize as much as reasonably possible the commitment their PFS1 base put in when designing PFS2, i.e. Stars, Boons, etc. *cross fingers*

So I read through all the posts in this thread and one of the things that stuck out to me is people are lets just say "less than enthused" with the decision to effectively scrap good permanent boons for temp ones. There were some who were in favor (not vociferously so) and some who were ambivalent (perhaps new players?), but overall I'd say the response hasn't exactly been a full-throated endorsement of the decision.

So rather than put anyone else through the same pain that I just went through I've curated those "less than enthused" sentiments below. Enjoy! ;-)

While I like the prize table approach I think if you sacrifice permanent (race) boons you should get a permanent benefit in PF2.

Boons - it's been said a few times but what makes a boon fun is that it makes a character different - a permanent fun boon is waaaay better than a mechanical benefit.

Even if there's little or no mechanical benefit I'd far rather have a flavor boon.

Also, spending boons for one off bonuses (no matter how powerful) would be pretty soul destroying (bye bye vanarra, dhampir, ganzi - hello minor benefit on rolls).

GM boons are a thank you for the time effort and often money that GMs have put into making conventions fun. Printing, buying maps, buying minis etc... quite often you'll look round a convention hall and see GMs have scratch-built 3D terrain or created unique minis for important foes... We do it to make the gaming experience as fabulous as possible for our players, GM boons have always been really important to me in feeling that Paizo values that effort and investment.

I'm also in agreement that trading in a race boon should have some sort of permanent effect.

Boon Table: Ultimately, OP has to do what they believe is best for OP, but the described system doesn't really inspire me to volunteer to GM PFS 1 scenarios going forward. Specials, online, as long as some form of indefinite replay is going to be supported, probably. Running 3-5 tables of the same scenario over and over for PFS 1? No, that doesn't interest me.

I very much like the idea of trading in boons with a prize table methodology, but if I spend a race boon, I would want a similar type of benefit, something long-lasting and flavorful without being overpowered. Obviously, trading race boon for race boon would be nice (if not feasible at the start of PF2 content being released).

Honestly, I would like some promises about this sort of thing because I think it would help keep people engaged in 1e.

I'm not a big fan of the boon table for reasons mentioned by several other people already: some specialty boons are more far-reaching or permanent in v1, especially those for convention attendance and/or GMing (not to mention auctions) - boons which, essentially, had a cost in both money and time (either travel, admission to the event, and/or time preparing scenarios for GMing) and - forgive me if I'm misunderstanding this - they are being reduced to one-off number crunches? It sounds like expediency is taking precedence over respecting the previous playerbase, which might be necessary by logistics, but I wish there was another way to integrate those older boons into v2 play in a way that feels more 'fair.' Understanding that it's not feasible for the transition team given the complexity of the process doesn't make it sting less on the receiving end ^_^;

I'm not happy with the boon table scheme. Only getting weak temporary bonuses from sacrificing valuable 1st Edition boons that do cool stuff for your character would feel more like a slap in the face to most players who invested in 1st Edition.

My assumption is Paizo WANTS people to play PFS2, so anything they do that encourages that should be a direction they move towards. So why wouldn't they allow some sort of permanent star/boon carry over? I literally have never in my life been at a table and heard someone complain that someone else has a cool boon, like EVER. Usually it's like "Wow you got a character with wings? Cool! Welcome! Oh you're some sort of construct, awesome, tell me more!". Generally the players are pretty mature and recognize that these people probably put in the time and effort to get said boons.

Look I don't think anyone is asking for a 1:1 boon transfer (that's just crazy lol), but something more than temp boons seems quite reasonable IMHO. I suspect you'll net more PFS2 players by rewarding PFS1 than you would if you did not reward them (or reward them minimally). Paizo has a good dedicated player-base, a base that they probably don't want to take for granted less they lose them to another system (or even their own previous system). Anyone remember 3.5->4th and what came out of that? :-P

Boons: Frankly, this is the worst bit. What was mentioned earlier about "Legacy" boons that are things that remind us of our characters are far more what I expect. Trading in a race boon, something that I worked hard for and gives lots of flavorful and storytelling benefits, for a one time mediocre mechanical benefit is just coo coo bird. At the very least, race boons should be traded in for something of equivalent status, either a race boon for 2e or a item or something permanent that let's us give flavor and love to the new character. Like a "Scion of the Grand Lodge" sort of boon.

As far as Boons?

Something with flavor or history versus some random 'one-off' reroll or die bonus, please. A lot of resources were devoted to earning those in some cases, so turning them from Guinness to Miller Lite is not the solution...

Not super keen on the proposed means to deal with boons, from what I've seen "Check a box to get this one-time benefit" boons tend to either end up forgotten or deliberately held back "for when I REALLY need it." I'd rather see something similar tacked on to the PFS2 equivalent of those boons, in line with how some of this past year's con boons were able to scale by spending other boons (Such as the aquatic elf/gillman/merfolk boon)

As for boons... I'm not a fan of the proposed system, personally, because of what I value about boons. My favorite boons were always those that offered a new character option or design choice. Turning something that let me create a character I couldn't otherwise create, into a boring power-boosting numbers benefit, isn't especially valuable to me.

As far as the boon trade in or whatever, I also believe that if I turn in a GM race boon that I had to GM 5+ tables at GenCon to earn I ought to get one of comparable value, NOT a one or however many time mechanical value benefit!

As an aside, I have found that after the announcement of PF2 I have been GMing less PF1 and more Starfinder and I will continue to do so as I believe we are now in a time of diminishing returns for PF1. I also almost always take a SFS boon over a PFS boon if give the choice unless it is a race boon or something that I can use on a current PF1 character immediately. That's just my YMMV.

I also want to say that flavor boons, even if they give little no mechanical bonus are much preferred to anything that is one time use or boons that are only useful in very specific circumstances.

Permanent, thematic boons are something I am vastly more interested, rather than turning my collection of PF1 boons into a blank currency.

In terms of the 1e to 2e boon conversion. Your suggested change sounds lack luster and disappointing. Why can't you just let people trade in a race boon for a race boon? Your likely going to have season 1 or season 2 early race access boons anyways. So where is the harm in just letting them be exchanged. Those races generally get added a year later to the greater public anyways (e.g., legacy races in starfinder) so why are we splitting hairs about the 'long term' power gains here turning off new players. Its just silly if you ask me. To swap a character defining choice type boon that is 'no more powerful than any other for a extremely short term one off buff boon just sucks. Why bother at all. I have hundreds of normal chronicle sheets filled with that kind of 'boon' and 90% of them sit there unused. The 10% used are only for the bonekeep type...

I will also second (third? fourth?) the notion that _flavor_ boons are the best boons. I absolutely loath boons that offer one time benefits, or that can be only used in extremely limited situations. I am never going to remember that I get +1 to hit vs kobolds from cheliax on the third wednesday of the month.

Here's the thing, I've heard people say they don't care if Stars or Boons carry (not a lot of people), heard people say they would prefer them to not carry (even less people), and A LOT of people say they should transfer in some capacity. This capacity being as some sort of Star recognition as well as permanent boons versus temporary, since most people hand-wave temporary and really focus on permanent as a way to add variety and create even more "unique" characters.

My assumption is Paizo WANTS people to play PFS2, so anything they do that encourages that should be a direction they move towards. So why wouldn't they allow some sort of permanent star/boon carry over? I literally have never in my life been at a table and heard someone complain that someone else has a cool boon, like EVER. Usually it's like "Wow you got a character with wings? Cool! Welcome! Oh you're some sort of construct, awesome, tell me more!". Generally the players are pretty mature and recognize that these people probably put in the time and effort to get said boons.

Look I don't think anyone is asking for a 1:1 boon transfer (that's just crazy lol), but something more than temp boons seems quite reasonable IMHO. I suspect you'll net more PFS2 players by rewarding PFS1 than you would if you did not reward them (or reward them minimally). Paizo has a good dedicated player-base, a base that they probably don't want to take for granted less they lose them to another system (or even their own previous system). Anyone remember 3.5->4th and what came out of that? :-P

In conclusion it's probably no surprise to anyone but my local lodge has been crushed hard by the announcement of PF2. This is partly due to people liking PF1 and therefore not being super excited about PF2, but also because it's just wildly unclear what sort of recognition will be given to PFS1 in PFS2. I have spoken with quite a few people and pretty much to the person they've all said if there was some sort of "permanent" recognition of PFS2 in PFS1 that they'be be more willing to try it. Which at the end of the day isn't this what Paizo wants, more people trying/playing PF(S)2?

And that's my 2 cents, cheers! :-)

As the one lone GM showing up on the Warhorn, I can tell you that someone else assigned me those slots. So no, I did not pull rank and sign up to GM... and I really have no idea what's going on! I gather that someone else should be assigning GMs to games, though.

Weird, I would have thought there would be some communication to prospective GM's. I also volunteered to GM and have not heard anything, so I guess this means I to could be assigned to GM a game? Surprise you're GMing every night till midnight! lol

I'd just ask that they announce both a new day and time, versus opening it without sufficient warning.

Steven Schopmeyer wrote:

My lodge is definitely in decline, but the main factor I have seen is lack of GMs. Without GMs signing up, players don't sign up for tables on our Warhorn, and even when they do, it's a question of if the table will fire when everyone shows up. I can't tell how much 2E is affecting us, but I'm sure it has something to do with it.

My personal theory is that with the "end" of the PF1 campaign on the horizon, GMs find it harder to justify giving up their time to GM for GM boons they are hardly ever going to be able to use, while they still have scenarios to play.

Of course, these days I have started to see it as a problem, that some people don't GM at all.

I agree, I think the vacuum that Paizo has created with PF2 has had a substantial impact on PFS. We have a local Con that has always had really good turn-out, now we can barely fill even a handful of tables. I also think it's not just GM's not wanting to invest GM time but also Players not interested in progressing their characters knowing they all have a rapidly approaching end-of-life. Throw in the lack of knowledge of GM Star/Boon carry-over that just leaves everything in limbo.

To me the stars show how many times you GM'd PF, it's irrelevant if it's PFS1 or PFS2. You've invested a lot of time prepping and running games, given that PFS1 will fade away and PFS2 will be the replacement it seems somewhat disingenuous to pretend your PFS1 games never happened. If someone wants to GM a PFS1 game while PFS2 is out, good for them, and good for PFS.

PFS will be like a see-saw for a little bit, with PFS2 slowly taking over as more people become familiar with the rules and transition over. Ignoring PFS1 GM'ing (or even playing via unused Boon rewards) is probably not a great idea IMHO, because eventually there will be a PF 3.0, so it'll be advantageous for Paizo to make the PFS1->PFS2 as fair and balanced as possible for both Players and GMs.

Hmmm, has there been any update on this? I've seen a precipitous drop-off of interest once 2.0 was announced. I think if we had a firm grasp of what would carry from 1.0 to 2.0 (in this case boons) it would probably help keep 1.0 going while we transition to 2.0. Given a vacuum people just assume the worst.

Just ran this last night, party consisted of one 1st level Lem, three brand-new 1st levels and one 2nd. They did fine up till Shinri came in and punched the four 1st levels to death, luckily the one with the most to lose (2nd) was able to run away.

Anyone play with a party that low, if so how'd it go? I think the issue was she went first in initiative and with her movement she just ran up and pretty much one-shotted everyone (granted I did roll well). :-/

Yeah I figured the first year is tough, not sure what kinda demand you'll get, what the space is like, etc. PAX-U was good but I'd definitely say the RPG area needed more room, hopefully next year it'll be bigger (for all RPG's, not just Paizo's). Crossing my fingers!

Hmmm, so this may be somewhat premature but do we know if we'll get more representation from Paizo next year at PAX-U? As was said above if Benn, Robyn (and Tim S.) hadn't stepped up we would have been twiddling our thumbs with virtually no (or at least minimal) PFS\SFS. I've heard PFS at GenCon is run pretty well so maybe PAX-U and Paizo can adopt something similar to that model? Just a thought!

I thought it was very good also, haven't been to many conventions so don't really have a basis for comparison, but I thought it had a lot to offer with the Vendors, Boardgame\RPG Freeplay, Panels, etc. If I could change anything next year I'd say it'd be nice to have a more organized\larger RP area. There were definitely more people than there were tables for RP, whereas Boardgaming it appeared about right size wise. I definitely expect next year to be bigger based on the success of this year, really nice to have something in Philly for once! :-)

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone at Redcap's who were able make PFS happen at PAX-U, special shout-out to Robyn, Tim and Benn for going above and beyond. I know it wasn't easy to get everything done last minute and I really appreciate them (and everyone else who helped out) stepping up and making it happen. Hopefully given the success and obvious demand of this year Paizo will become more involved at PAX-U 2018 so PFS can have a larger and more organized presence, something akin to what's done at GenCon perhaps.

David knott 242 wrote:

But if you are allowing successive swapping, the "Round Ears" alternate racial trait gives you the Human "Skilled" racial trait, and humans have a bunch of alternate racial traits that they can trade Skilled for.

I for one would not allow successive swapping. You can't swap something you don't have to begin with (this isn't the stock market).

lol Yeah I agree, chain swapping seems like a bit of a stretch. It's amusing to think about, but I can't see Paizo or most GMs blessing it. I think if we ever want an "official" ruling on this it's probably best to stick with the 1-for-1 approach. That's just my 2¢.

No, Half-Elves can't take Dreamspeaker because it is an Elven Racial Trait. The FAQ lets them select Elven Race Traits, but despite the similarity in the names those are two very different things.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah I knew that part (on Racial vs Race Traits), but I figured all things being equal that the "and so on" mentioned in the FAQ would cover it, what with the aforementioned Racial Trait being exactly the same for each. It also then goes on to mention rules elements, etc.

If the wording wasn't verbatim identical I wouldn't have even asked the question. This reminds me of a favorite saying at our table, "ambiguity rules". lol

I had this same question and since this thread is super old and this FAQ has come out since, does this mean they can in fact take Dreamspeaker by swapping out their Elven Immunities since both the Elf and Half-Elf have it (with exactly the same wording)?

Obviously they wouldn't also be able to swap out Elven Immunities for say Memories Beyond Death since Memories requires a swap of both Elven Immunities and Elven Magic which Half-Elves don't have.

I've recently heard A LOT of weird rulings on how Pregens should be used when determining APL. I've heard that you simply don't count them AT ALL, you just pick a Pregen for the tier and play. I've also heard that since you're not counting them APL wise that if you have a party of 4 + a Pregen that you play with the 4 player adjustment. Is ANY of this true? I've looked through the guide, FAQ and searched the forums and couldn't find anything to corroborate this. Usually I'm pretty good at finding stuff so I'm kinda questioning these assumptions. If they are true (which is fine by me) can someone point me to where to find said rulings. Thanks!

Hmmm, that's too bad. I'd take the Prestige hit to give them the check but I don't want to lose my Prestige Boon/Awards from my previous Factions. :-/ Thanks for the info.

So I haven't played a character for a while, was Lantern Lodge which became Qadira and now apparently is The Exchange? So not overly thrilled with this on her and a Dark Archive player has a boon that lets me switch to DA for 1 Prestige per Character Level. My question is if I do this do I lose all my Lantern Lodge and Qadira Prestige granted boons (ones I spent Prestige on), or just any Exchange Prestige granted awards?

Well Wild Empathy uses Diplomancy rules.

But since you're actually having a conversation with the critter it and it understands you it uses Diplomancy rather than Wild Empathy.

Specific trumps general, so the obvious conclusion is that Dhampir with this ability are an exception to the general rule. Note that the ability includes a "speak to animals" effect which gets rid of the "I can't understand you" problem.

Cool, thanks for the input. I was thinking that way as well but wanted other's thoughts since Paizo isn't always clear with their writing. As we like to say at our table, "Ambiguity Rules!" lol

I'm very confused reading the trait above, see description:

Though dhampirs often relate poorly to humanoids, some share an affinity with baser creatures. These dhampirs gain the ability to communicate with bats, rats, and wolves as if under the effects of a speak with animals spell (caster level equal to 1/2 the dhampir's Hit Dice). In addition, they gain a +2 racial bonus on Diplomacy checks when dealing with these animals. Whenever these dhampirs initiate an exchange, animals begin with a starting attitude of indifferent. This is a supernatural ability. This racial trait replaces manipulative.

So here is where my confusion comes in, Diplomacy then says this:

You cannot use Diplomacy against a creature that does not understand you or has an Intelligence of 3 or less.

Then when I look at Wolves, Rats and Bats their Int is all 2.

So my question is...what the heck? Why do they get a Diplomacy bonus against something they can't use Diplomacy against? Should the word Diplomacy be replaced with Wild Empathy? Should the trait give them Wild Empathy against those animals? Should Diplomacy work in this instance even though the animals Int is 2?

Skill Ranks: 5pp : Way too high.

Racial trait: 20pp: way too high . Should be more in line with a feat.
Feat: 5pp Just right
Class level: 5-7pp Just right
Class feature: 5pp: Just right
Archetype class feature: 5pp The archetype is far too expensive to retrain> It needs to cap out at 3 pp per level or something
Ability Score Increase: 5pp seems right
Spells Known (spontaneous caster): 2pp seems right
HP: 3pp (and unclear if legal in PFS) Seems right.

Hahaha, holy crap yeah the Racial Trait retrain cost is insanely expensive. I understand where they are coming from with that cost, but it's so exorbitantly high that it's painful to even consider it. lol

It also reads that it gives the recipient an aura of good (assuming due to the good outsider [subtype] blood), which can actually be kinda nice.

Yeah I read that already, but it only mentions favored class. Says nothing about feats, traits, spells, items, etc. Why is it so hard for PFS to spell things out clearly? Can't they just say that the rules in PF (see the link in the first post) apply now? I read that entire thread and no Dev came out and clearly stated that, everyone seemed super fixated on the the Oracle FCB thing. Can I as a Half-Elf take the Blend spell, that's the kind of question I'm looking for an answer on. Can I become that Magus archetype that's Elf only. Etc, etc.

Sooooo, what is the deal with this? Someone said PFS finally got on board with regular PF and half-elves could now take elf (and human) archetypes, traits, feats, spells, items, etc. But I've poured over the forums and FAQ for PFS and haven't found this definitively mentioned as the case by a Dev. If it IS the case can the Dev's please update the PFS FAQ and indicate as such?

Can also drink a Shield Potion for +4, and spend some Ki for +4 Dodge during one round.

There are no such things as Potions of Shield...

So I'm curious, this thread is approaching 2,000 posts and I don't see it stopping. Have they provided any other guidance or insight on how they are going to adjust CW to address the issues people have with it? There has been a prolific amount of good ideas on here, so coming up with a solution hopefully shouldn't be overly difficult. Although after the blow-up from the last one they probably want to make sure they get the next change right, which is quite wise. lol

There are many things far more powerful than Crane Wing was in this game, some of which have been problems for far longer. Despite this, they haven't been changed, nor are they likely to be changed to the same degree that Crane Wing was.

The Development team says they prefer to issue small changes over a period of time to achieve the right balance. Where was this policy with Crane Wing? This wasn't a small change, it was a complete and total re-write of the feat and fundamentally changed how it worked and operated.

Yeeeeahh, I agree with everything you said but I just wanted to call out the above. The severe beat-down that CW got was definitely uncalled for and a bit extreme to say the least. I am hoping that whatever compromise Paizo comes up with is reasonable and in keeping with the original usefulness of the feat. Did it need a change? Probably (2 MoMS was probably the biggest offender), but this? Wow...so no.

Yeah....fixing Crane Riposte is not a fix for Crane Wing, it just fixes what CW inadvertently broke with the errata. Yes Jiggy that would definitely help (+4 after the roll), although I think it'd be better if they just left it and made it Monk only (with a higher level requirement), and maybe let 20's hit. Possibly also add if they roll a 20 that you CAN use CW but it'll still hit, they just they won't be able to confirm the critical. The options are numerous on how to fix CW, it's just a matter of picking one. Given Jason's response I'm hopeful that they'll have a good solution by the end of the week. :-)

Felix Gaunt wrote:

Also P.S. Snake Style >(defensively) than Crane Style by an insanely large margin. lol

Now anyways. Before they seemed to be about on par with one another. (Crane wing and snake style I mean).

True.

This fixes Crane Riposte (which CW errata broke), but it in no way address the whole CW issue which 95% of the posts are about. Jason did say though that it's just a bit of progress and they don't consider it a closed issue yet, so that's good.

Also P.S. Snake Style >(defensively) than Crane Style by an insanely large margin. lol

lol This thread is becoming a repeat of the same old stuff and moderately painful to read. Which I think is because it's soooo long that people aren't reading the whole thing and thus keep repeating what's already been said like a million times. :-/

It's pretty simple, Paizo listened to PFS and made a change that was in the end a bad call. PFS is <> Pathfinder, every day it moves further and further away. I play PFS and I play regular Pathfinder, comparing the two and making global Pathfinder decisions on mostly (if not all) PFS (probably PFS GM) feedback is a recipe for disaster. They've probably done it before and gotten away with it, this time though it was a perfect storm of issues resulting in 'cranegate'. PFS Scenarios are easy, always have been and probably always will be, that's intentional. They are also structured in such a way to make CW appear (and probably be) more powerful than it really is, that's not a Pathfinder issue, that's a PFS issue.

Finally all that being said yes CW was very good and probably needed a tweak, but did it need such a heavy-handed beat down? No, there are dozens of other solutions they could of come up with such as limiting to Monk's, preventing the MoMS dip by requiring a higher level, etc etc. As has been said dozens and dozens of times on here, pretty much everyone could see this response coming from a mile away. I'm actually quite surprised that Paizo didn't, which I suspect is because PFS had been so vocal that they didn't think to wonder how it would be received by the Pathfinder community as a whole. I really don't know what happened, I have a lot of respect for Paizo leadership but this decision really flummoxes me.

So yeah I'm going to stop reading this thread now, I've said all I can think of and I've read enough to expect some sort of response from Paizo on this. Hopefully they come up with a compromise, if not...well that's very unfortunate and I hope it doesn't come back to bite them in the *ss later. :-/

There is a case to be made that customers who are quite literally threatening to quit over the errata to one feat in a non-core book aren't worth trying to keep.

I don't think people are going to quit over one feat, although they may threaten it and be upset, I doubt they'll leave. But it won't sit well with them and they will remember, and I doubt Paizo wants that. Also I highly doubt they are upset because about the specific feat in question, it's the how and why it was done that is bothersome to them. Anyone who reads the copious amount of posts can see and feel that, even those who agree that CW needed a nerf have been honest enough to say that this was heavy-handed and went way way too far. As has been said many times, I guess martials can't have nice things. lol

Change not needed. But then again, monks did have something cool, so I guess that had to be taken away.

Hahaha, this made me laugh. So true, so true. lol

Human fighter 5. Crane Style, Crane Wing, Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (longsword), Weapon Specialization (longsword). Assuming Dex 14, +1 full plate and a ring of protection +1, has AC 28 when fighting defensively. So... yeah. Not a MoMS problem.

Yeah....it's mostly a MMoS problem (although kudos to your build ;-) ), the 2 level dip is really the issue. Make CW Monk Only and require MoMS 4 or Monk 6, walla. I don't consider 4 levels in a Class a dip, especially in PFS where the issue seems to have arisen from. Fighters get all those fancy exclusive feats, I see no reason why Monk's shouldn't get some love also. :-)

Also, and this is the most amusing part. People seem to think that being able to avoid one melee attack a round is like...OMG the most amazing and all-powerful thing ever. I've gotten by CW so many times, and been hit by stuff (while using it) on numerous occasions. You also have spells to contend with, ranged, flat-footed, invisible, stealth, the list goes on and on. I fail to see where the strong distaste for CW comes from, maybe people just hate Monk's? lol

This appears to be mostly a PFS issue and they should of addressed it themselves, having it trickle into Pathfinder was a mistake. What's done is done though, we can only hope that somehow it's re-balanced so as not to trash an entire feat chain. :-/ I've heard a lot of good options on here on how to fix it, pretty much anything is better than the way it is now.

I think some people are excluding bonus feats, I think there was a build on here that had CW without taking MoMS (or even Monk). That was a ton of feats! lol Yes MoMS is probably the culprit, so if they just made it min 4th for MoMS and CW, and level 6 Monk for it normally then that'd solve a lot of the complaints. You want to dip 4 levels into Monk to get CW? More power to you! Given that PFS were the ones with the biggest issue (still unclear why, never seen it as an issue in PFS), and the regular level cap there is 11th, I really don't see a lot of people "dipping" for 4 levels. lol

Shield is an always on, it nullifies Magic Missiles. There are a bazillion "always on" things, just because Crane Wing is good to have on doesn't mean it should be effectively removed from the game. Also like others said, melee is the most dangerous place to be. If someone wants to invest potentially half their feats to prevent one attack in melee, good for them. Just fix the two-level MoMS dip and make it so you need to like be MoMS 4 and Monk 6, problem solved. You keep good feats in the game and give players more options, instead of taking stuff out (especially for martials).

memorax wrote:

Felix Gaunt wrote:

[It doesn't take a precog to know that this wasn't going to go over well. :-/

I guess this is what bothers me with how the devs design errata. Sometimes it's impossible to gauge the reaction on a ruling change or errats. In this case it should have been obvious from the start. For them to act surprised and shocked at the negative reaction to Crane Wing is to me at least unbeleivable.

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 saw that the original Crane Wing thread had a lot of posts, so I was curious to see how it rated against past threads. So I did a sort, and guess what? I think it's 13th, that's pretty friggin high given this is only a few days old. If you include this thread in it then it's easily in the Top 10, I think about 6th. Then I noticed the top thread titles, 6 of which are about Martial hate and 2 of those are Monk-centric. So yeah, the data is there that this was going to explode. Anyone who plays the game with any frequency would of said "Yeah, you're going to do what? The fit is so going to hit the shan!" lol

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....

PFS is so far removed from normal Pathfinder as to be almost totally different games. The fact that PFS complaints (and I've GM'd\Played PFS a lot) have affected Pathfinder as a whole is....just inconceivable. The PFS Coordinators should of nipped this in the bud with Paizo, or if a change really was needed then fix the root of the problem, the 2 level MoMS dip. Make CW only available to Monk's, say MoMS at 4 and a normal Monk at 5 or 6. Something like that, happy medium. Not this, this was just misguided and heavy-handed. I am sure the intention was good, but (imho) it was a mistake and it's unfortunate that they waited till the new edition is getting released to notify everyone. It doesn't take a precog to know that this wasn't going to go over well. :-/

One can make an extremely tanky AC character. This is entirely possible. The issue is that, by and large, the options for defensive feats/magic items/class features are no where near as strong as the options for offensive feats/magic items/class features.

Crane Wing was a bit much at very low level, but that has a simple solution - make it impossible to take below 6th or so level.

What frustrates and confuses me is how Crane Wing can be looked at, and decided that it's just too good of defense. Yet we look at pounce, firearms touch AC, bombs touch AC, signature deed + up close and deadly carnage, clustered shots, and whole host of other offensive feats and powers and believe it's all just fine. I just cannot understand that.

So true, so true. There is a reason PFS has no (at least as far as I've seen) Gunslinger NPC's in their Scenarios. :-P Oh and I don't want to hear that's because they are rare, that's a crock. lol

Again, my problem is not "man, it sucks having to modify encounters." It's the fact that I feel like one player has forced me into what is essentially an arms race to continually scale up monsters, while ensuring that those monsters don't outshine the rest of the party.

And while a lot of things can break APs, its usually a combination of spells, feats, or somesuch that breaks it, rather than a single feat (even if the feat is part of a feat chain).

I've read/skimmed through AP's and they seem pretty easy, much like PFS Scenarios (possibly why they are sanctioned for PFS). If you're not running it for PFS and you have a player that min-maxes/twinks/metagames/whatever, then that's your problem, not CW. I don't have enough fingers or toes to count the amount of times I've heard this issue from GM's, and you know what most of them do? They say nicely to the person "Look, you need to scale it back. No one else here is making PC's as powerful as you." If they can't or don't do that they are politely asked to leave, no harm no foul. I've also GM'd where one player has a much firmer grasp of the rules than the others (possibly like mentioned above), and you run into the same thing, and yes you gotta adjust, but that's not the fault of CW.

CW is not not the issue, the Scenarios's\AP's that put GM's in that situation are. How many times have people run a Scenario\AP where there is one BBEG, heaven forbid you have to fight a whole diverse group! Yeah I've seen that happen, but it's an extreme rarity and generally just a mid-game encounter and not the end. I've GM'd and played for a long time, I would never in a million years design my home game like an AP or Scenario. Ever ever ever, and I've played in enough home games to say other GM's don't either. Scenario\AP's are a different breed, not bad, just different. They are meant to accomplish a different task, to appeal and be playable by the average player. They are not in any way shape or form difficult. I've heard soooo many times about people one-shotting the final boss (singular) in PFS, heck I hear this happen in the final high-tier of Season 4 (well that wasn't a one shot, but he died the first round).

Also again I've GM'd numerous CW characters as well as played one myself, there are ways around it, it's really not that big a deal. If you're in a home game there are even more ways around it. You know what sucks? When someone has a nigh indestructible Eidolon that sets off and destroys all traps, poor poor Rogue! The list of game-breaking mechanics are a mile long and CW is at the veeeerrrry end, if on it at all.

I understand people's pain with the feat, I just think it's misplaced and this misplacement has taken yet another good feat (and for Monk's at that) and tossed it in the trash. Want to avoid that 2 level MMoS dip and keep the feat intact? Make it Monk only and have a higher level requirement, possibly 4 for MoMS and 5 or 6 for regular Monk. If someone wants to spend 4 levels of Monk to get a single Feat, more power to them! ;-)

Hmmmm, anyone heard an update on this? It's been....well a while. :-/

How do we solve this?

Easy, it's solved by how the PFS Organizers are doing it now, they make exceptions and adjustments specifically for PFS play. The issue here is (apparently) mostly a PFS issue, and sadly seems to have trickled into global Pathfinder and caused a ruckus. PFS banned Synthesist, it wasn't banned in Pathfinder. If PFS has such an extreme issue with CW then they should take steps themselves to address it (hopefully not as drastic as what Paizo did), instituting a Monk req and higher level min, etc. Usually PFS is very good with this stuff, I'm kinda surprised that this kinda change made it all the way into Pathfinder as a whole.

It is somewhat depressing that there were so many GMs that were against it. That just tells me there are a lot of GMs that need to learn the combat rules better.

I concur.