Felyndiira's page

Softballing.

Retraining is optional and costs gold
gold on "cheap" items starts to add up pretty quick.
The ability to perform other actions is the primary strength/versatility of summons which makes summons you dont communicate with sub optimal.

Aquan, Terran, Celestial, Abyssal, Infernal is enough for most summoners. So, 2 from INT and three ranks in linguistics. Not in any way a major investment.

If we're talking about costs adding up, we should be bringing up the snowballing cost of things like fly and see invis potions for the fighter, not a one-time purchase that gets you every language you need.

There is a big difference between fiat and playstyle. The point is that there are certain playstyles that help an already powerful class, and there are other playstyles that curb their power.

Basically the two side are "The wizard is broken and nothing the gm can do will make it not broken" and "the wizard being broken is a sign that there may be an issue with your gm style". I side with the latter.

Your very first argument in this entire thread suggests three things:

• Have more fights (which people have debated with you about, but is a fair argument).
  
• Have most fights specifically target the wizard player with multiple counters.
  
• Literally bend plot to screw players (you even mentioned killing their loved ones!) who dared commit the travesty of not killing the golem in that cave.

For the second point, I assume that you don't think that just having some grappled enemies or readied actions archers will solve the problem all the time, that there are powerful SR:NO conjurations that even affect golems, and that you understand that spells like contingency and EFS exists that forces you to have multiple counters in place in order to have a chance of checking anything.

Don't put a strawman in our mouths. None of us ever said "there's nothing the GM can do will make it not broken". The GM is literally god. He can do anything with any of the player characters and invent a justification. Unless if a class can break rule 0, no one is more powerful than the GM.

Instead, I - at least - am simply saying that most of what you are arguing actually are GM fiat. Tailoring all encounters specifically to counter wizard and especially

*Have logical in-game repercussions for using certain tactics (enemies that the party teleports past [...] kill a beloved NPC, or otherwise disrupt the game)

are, in fact, fiat. You even literally mentioned focusing the wizard in this very post.

There is an actual setting idea called "Tippyverse" tbat explores this idea. Basically, powerful wizards rule the world and build magic systems that drastically improve peoples' lives.

Golarion, though, requires some base suspension of belief to maintain setting fidelity.

I assume that I'm the only person with these powers, so I don't have to defend myself against the other super-powered wizards that dominated powerful heads-of-states and is on the prowl to eliminate potential rivals to their iron fist.

I also assume that I don't want flashy powers that draw too much attention, since the intelligence agencies if the world might not take too kindly to solar summonings in the middle of the US capital.

0: Prestidigitation
1: Endure Elements
2: Invisibility
3: Create Food and Water
4: Dominate Person
5: Fabricate
6: Heal
7: Greater Teleport
8: Moment of Prescience
9: Shapechange

Am I really the only person who took dominate? ...I guess I'm a horrible person.

There's a lot of mention of "but the GM can fiat" as a counter-argument, it seems.

Let's assume we have a super fighter as a class. She could literally think hard enough about someone and a sky laser would insta-gib the target, no save or immunities. This obviously breaks the game, but there are still many ways for the GM or player to make this class not disruptive. For instance, she might be a pacifist with the player only using this lowerin high RP situations. People can send assassins against her all the time or use special mind EMP fields or something like that. The fact that an all-powerful GM can mitigate the inherit power of a class does not in any way mean that balance is achieved.

In fact, if you very obviously target the wizard player every session without working it out with her beforehand, you run into the issue of just pissing off the player and increasing the chance of her going full paranoia caster, or other high disruptive tactics just to fight back against the GM.

Many thanks for the replies.

I think that given all the suggestions, the best (easiest) way would probably be to bluff+sleight of hand it off, since I have high bonuses in all of them. She could go around carrying a bunch of wooden boxes and "bump" into her targets by accident, or fake weakness and play it off. The other methods are a bit too conditional (or require 3.5e stuff that might not be approved).

Many thanks!

You shouldn't worry that much about Driz'zt. Rather, just make a character that YOU want to play and don't worry about conventions. If it ends up sharing X and Y similarities with Driz'zt, it doesn't actually matter. You are not any less of a roleplayer just for playing an overly-popular concept.

Dreamscarred Press's Bloodforge introduced the Mixed Blood feat. their latest release, Bloodforge Infusions: esoteric energy introduced the same concept as a trait (though i notice some differences).

Is the trait a form of retcon of the feat, or are they both intended to exist alongside each other?

The PDF states that the trait supercedes the feat, being changed to a trait after extensive feedback. In fact, if you redownload the Bloodforge pdf, you'll see that Mixed Blood has been re-errata'd into a trait there.

Cellion wrote:

deuxhero wrote:

There was one feat in a module that did nothing but let you commit suicide easier and make it impossible to resurrect you.

I forget what it was called though. It at least did what I assume (haven't read the module it was from) it was meant to: give the bad guys in the module proof against interrogation mundane and magical. That likely means its better than some of the other feats that make you worse.

I came across the feat you're talking about a few weeks ago and had to read it three or four times to believe it. Even now I'm stunned at how overwhelmingly bad it is at the cost of effectively deleting your character.

Troth of the Forgotten Pharaoh

This is hilarious, not only does this feat turn your character into a suicide bomb, but it's an extraordinarily weak suicide bomb as well.

A fellow player in one of my games has a Reincarnated Druid that uses this feat to good effect alongside a Blade of the Rising Sun.

It's basically his limit breaker move: he declares a sacrificial strike, discharges sunburst+the troth's effect, and destroys his body so that it can't be messed with. 24 hours later, he comes back either via the sword's effect (50% chance) or via the reincarnated druid's reincarnation (in case if the sword didn't proc) as a different person. The feat also allows him to commit suicide risk-free when he's at a high risk of dying and there are potential casters with death spells in the enemy ranks.

It's not super-powerful, of course, but it's decently useful for a character that weaponizes deaths - both to prevent Death Knell from ruining his day and as a bit of a bonus on a sacrificial strike. Even without the added fire damage, being able to kill yourself when your biggest concern is death effects (rather than dying itself) is a pretty big boon.

As for your question, I replaced the hat with my "preferred" item that I had to choose to skip because a "required" item was in that slot. For my current melee character who is diplomatic, that item is the Circlet of Persuasion.

So, are there any plans on nerfing the big six? What about Power Attack and Quicken Spell? Haste?

I don't think you can make the "required item" argument until some of the biggest offenders of item slot dominance is resolved.

@Felyndiira: While I can somewhat agree, using Deeds class feature, BAB +11 instead of Gunslinger 11 means that someone with 1 level in Gunslinger can fulfill the prerequisite. And a 3/4 BAB class at level 11 with the Deeds class feature can't (even if they use their levels as Gunslinger levels in regards to fulfilling prerequisits).

To be honest, I consider a Gunslinger 1/Fighter 10 able to take the feat to be a good thing. The main reason why, say, Signature Deed has such a requirement is to mark it as an end-game feat, and a GS1/Ftr10 will generally appear at the same point of the game as a GS11. Feats are supposed to be modular rather than class features in disguise, so letting more different class combinations take it is a good thing.

As for the latter, if you need to make a 3/4 class have the same progression, you can just add "this class counts as full BAB for the purpose of meeting prerequisites of grit feats" and be no worse off than before.

Alternatively, use something else as the prerequisite. While I don't necessarily like it, even "11 levels of a deed-using class" is more future-proofed than "Gunslinger 11".

Rather than a rule, I'll instead list a trend that irks me:

Constantly hard-coding classes (like Gunslinger 11) and casting stats (such as Wisdom) rather than class features and other things like BAB. This has already caused multiple problems and forced archetypes to constantly carry additional wording baggage ("the archetype also counts as a X level other class for meeting prerequisites"), but Paizo keeps on doing it with every new class released when even the homebrew D&D 3.5 community realized its problems five years prior to PF's release.

It's much more future-proof'd to have prerequisites of "Deeds class feature, BAB +11" rather than "Gunslinger 11", and much more friendly to homebrew and 3rd party designers that want to take advantage of the OGL...not to mention future Paizo releases themselves.

Paladin: I finally found you, pretender. How dare you use the sacred name 'paladin' to help people, save lives, and slay demons - when the orb of paladinness would not even glow in your presence? Well, no more! Today, I shall end your charity and kindness with my own blade! For desecrating my order's sacred name with your illegally represented good acts!

Somehow, I can't imagine any paladin saying something like this. I know that if I was playing a pally, and saw a magus or something helping impoverished people while calling himself a paladin, I would be overjoyed at finding a fellow comrade rather than being peeved that he's claiming some undeserved privilidge.

I mean, did you become a paladin to actually do good deeds and help fight evil, or did you do it so that you could parade your status around and sneer at people that do the same things you do, but just can't make the Sacred Avenger glow?

If I were to be honest, I like Pathfinder where it stands.

The thing about the disparity is - wizards are tier 1 primarily because of their day-to-day versatility, not just in the cases that allow them to be prepared for far more situations than a prepared caster should be able to muster. Even if you removed scrolls, removed narrative-changing spells (Find the Path, Magic Jar, Simulacrum, Contingency, Planar Binding/Ally) and the highly versatile ones (Image spells, Summon Monster), and take away stuff like Shift/Divination Initiative Bonus/Fast Study, as long as they still have a large portion of their breadth of spells, wizards will still be 3 tiers higher due to simply having more options than, say, a barbarian.

I'm in support of options that bring the martials higher in the tier system. I enjoy building mystical fighters with awesome supernatural abilities (ala Dreamscarred Press), but we all know that even those do not fully bridge the tier gap between a full-caster and a martial. Sure, my three-level Aegis Dip Warlord can do awesome things like fly through walls, teleport short steps, and sword-beam things that can never escape from me, but she's never going to mind control anyone, see the future, or summon angels at my side. And when those are necessary, usually the only other substitute is UMD or the obligatory "GM-approved quest chain".

The only way to achieve absolute balance, then, is to bring casters down a notch, but I've never really encountered a method to do so that also preserves the options that made me enjoy playing a full caster in the first place. I've seen options like making magic harder to cast to compensate (like multi-round casting times, which, in a more simulation-favoring GM, is just plainly not fun anymore) or supplements like Spheres of Power, which constrains casters to far narrower focuses. Even in the case of Spheres of Power, the limit is constricting enough (especially in some of my favorite schools, like Illusion) that it won't really replace the same feel that I had with a full-caster.

tl;dr: I like tier 1 casters, and am resist to any change that would make them less versatile (or ridiculous to use) because it would be less fun for me.

Even my Core only Cleric took all 5 levels of Thaumaturgist and was taking the rest of their levels as Loremaster. Because I mean seriously... have you seen all the abilities Clerics *don't* get (even in Pathfinder, but *especially* in 3.5).

Sorry about deleting my post. I did it because I thought it was too argumentative about a minor point.

It's definitely true that a lot of (somewhat optimizing) players dipped or took prestige classes for even the really powerful classes, though. Wizards also did this in core-only games, except with Archmage rather than Loremaster.

Even classes with powerful features, like Beguiler and Incarnum classes, are often victims of multi-classing. Druid's pretty much the only exception (assuming no Planar Shepherd).

Rogue - A strong choice as a first level multiclass in 3.5; in Pathfinder, skills are calculated differently so the advantage was much watered down. Trapfinding is now a perception boost to traps, rather than a feature needed in order not to autofail a spot DC over 15. This means the two strongest reasons to take a rogue class in 3.5 are gone or watered down. The bard unintentionally became the best skill monkey with its Pathfinder class features (performance versatility, and the new bardic lore). Unchained did much to fix it.

Just wanted to add something about rogues. While their mastery of skills was definitely a major reason why they are much more highly rated in 3.5, it's not the only reason - sneak attack is strong in those days due to splatbook support.

First of all, there were many feats and features that makes sneak attack much easier to land without the need for positioning. One of my favorites was Gloom Razor; the feat gives you considerable tactical advantage and multiple ways to use Stealth (Hide) to make the target flat-footed. It helps that the per-requisite feat for this is Shadow Blade, which gives you DEX to damage (if you are in a shadow blade stance, which you can get with a Crown of Assassin's Stance).

Second of all, DEX to damage was more plentiful. One of the characters I made for a Eastern campaign - a martial artist girl with eldritch-enhanced attacks re-fluffed as Ki strikes - had quadruple DEX to damage: Shadow Blade, Skirmish (Drow) Fighter, doubled by Eldritch Claw+Beast Claw. Since sneak attackers tend to depend on dexterity for TWF, it makes them much more powerful. Even if you don't want Warlock levels or Skirmish Fighter, Shadow Blade still offers you very easy DEX to damage for little cost.

Third, sneak attack had powerful support. Craven is the big one here - any time you sneak attack, deal damage equal to your class level (non-precision). Added to this are the sneak attack feats that allow you to sacrifice a few die for effects like ability damage, and you have versatility bundled in as well.

I apologize beforehand for the opinion that I am about to express.

First, I do believe in the martial-caster parity. There's no way for me to espouse any equivalence between a class with as much versatility as the wizard with anything else.

Second, I am a believer of the Snowbluff principle (from GitP), wherein imbalances in a system is not necessarily a bug - sometimes, it's a feature to give flavor and uniqueness to the system in question. I typically use Exalted 2.0 as an example - even without mentioning the unintended silliness like Sidereal Martial Arts, by design, there is absolutely no equivalence between the different exalt types. Lunars are flatly supposed to be weaker than solars; Sidereals weaker than both when not using intrigue, and DB at the bottom of the barrel. It is nonetheless possible to run a fun game with a potpourri mix of all the different kinds of Exalts without giving extra XP to anyone.

Third, Pathfinder is not Pathfinder for me anymore without the Omni-casters. Rather than trying to achieve some form of "balance" with the system, I would rather just play something like D&D 5e when I actually want balance, and play Pathfinder for the same reason that I originally got into it - because it is the closest and most popular system that plays significantly like the D&D 3.5e that got me into Tabletops in the first place.

Any "fix" that I make to Pathfinder is always going to be with the aim of bringing martials to T3 or high T4 instead of trying to achieve some form of total balance (or at least give options for players that wish to do so). Systems like the Unchained Action Economy is a bit too drastic of a change as well, and I am not really willing to implement too many of them into the game.

Thus:

• Allow all of Path of War, and most of Path of War:Expanded. Encourage martial players to use PoW classes if at all possible.
  
• Allow Psionics in its entirety.
  
• Allow most of Kobold Press's really cool classes.
  
• Allow other third party and homebrew, though only after an extensive audit.
  
• Include Background Skills (Unchained) and Stamina System in full for non-caster classes. Initiators and Four-Level Casters/Manifesters can use a trait to get Stamina.
  
• Make sure players understand the tier system, and push players toward higher tier classes. If a player wants to play a fighter, suggest Barbarian or Warlord instead. If a player wants to play monk, suggest Unarmed Stalker.
  
• If a player expresses concern about falling behind, work with that player to possibly rebuild their character into something stronger while maintaining flavor.
  
• Conditional ban on some of the very strong spells, like Magic Jar and Simulacrum. Restrictions on others, like Blood Money to spells Level 6 or less.

It doesn't even come close to resolving the disparity, but I really don't mind, since doing any more than that would make Pathfinder...well, not 3.5e Pathfinder anymore for me.

This is my interpretation:

Feats do not just get "applied" and become otherwise inert. If you have a feat that applies to "all creatures except goblins" and another feat that turns you into a goblin, the first feat won't function anymore once you are a goblin.

With this in mind, Boon Companion reads thus:

The abilities of your animal companion or familiar are calculated as though your class were 4 levels higher, to a maximum effective druid level equal to your character level.

So, if you applied Boon Companion first, the following would happen.

• Sylvan gives you an animal companion of CL - 3.
  
• Boon Companion increases your animal companion level by 4, to a maximum of your character level. This increases your animal companion to CL.
  
• Robes of Arcane Heritage treats you as a sorcerer of CL + 4. This increases your animal companion level to CL + 4.
  
• Boon Companion has now increased your animal companion level to above your character level. Thus, Boon Companion no longer applies, dropping your animal companion back to CL + 1.
  

Thus, you end up with CL + 1. Nowhere in the rules does it say that you can ignore all of a feat's rules and special conditions after you apply it. In fact, multiple examples state just the opposite, as if you take STR drain that puts you below STR 13, you don't get to still apply Power Attack before the STR drain.

I agree... domain mastery is the one big thing.

But I still maintain that too much is given up for not much in return.... the removal of AC not only makes the ECC massively squishy, but it also removes another role from the traditional party, that of the cleric helping out in martial combat..... so now not only cant the cleric assist in any damage absorbance/distraction capacity (aka Tanking) but theres no way he can assist as a secondary fighter either!

Leaving now a caster without the spell list to really pull it off AND the BAB and HD of someone who should be able to fight but cant!

Then you and I will just have to disagree on this issue :). And I would venture to say that an archetype with so many people disagreeing with you can't be an objectively bad archetype; it's just merely an archetype that doesn't resonate with you.

I maintain that the Ecclesitheurge is a well-designed, thematic archetype. It makes considerable sacrifices for a considerable benefit in Domain Mastery, which leaves you with a caster cleric that is far more dependent on his domain spells than a normal cleric, but with domain spells that actually matter a lot instead of just a 1/day slot. Compare this to, say, a heaven oracle or a flame oracle, whose bread and butter spells are supplied by her mystery instead of the core cleric list. The other two are just side bonuses (though arcane bond is pretty nice).

Worst comes to worst, you also have sacred summons.

It certainly plays very differently from a normal cleric, but the trade-off is fair for what the archetype gains - you can't just trade a few channel dice for something as powerful as Domain Mastery. Compare this to an actually poor cleric archetype (e.g. the Cloistered Cleric).

Also, just to address the AC argument: as what is effectively a caster-oriented cloistered cleric, you can safely dump STR and invest those points into DEX instead. Add Protection from Evil (or mage armor if you can get it) and you're okay for the low levels - you CAN survive with 15~17 AC as a back-line caster early in the game.

You shouldn't be wading into the front lines as an Ecclesitheurge - that's not what the archetype is designed for, so you don't need a front-line warrior's AC. The archetype, instead, gives you enough tools to do other things; if you are really tempted to do some melee and still want the archetype, just take the Feather subdomain + Boon Companion and buff an AC to do it instead.

I think the primary draw of ECC is domain mastery. Being able to prepare domain spells (which are often outside the cleric list) more than just once per day, even if only for one domain, goes a long way towards making the cleric a better pure caster, especially without powerful 3.5 options like Divine Magician or Spontaneous Domain Casting.

Blessing of the Faithful is just a minor thing that gets used occasionally at early levels (it's beaten by alternate channeling + channel feats anyhow).

There's a very good reason that the ability is named "Ghost Rager" and specifically calls out "Touch AC" rather than, say, deflection (which would apply to both touch and regular).

Reddit's answer to this question was correct when you asked over there.

And as Lost in Limbo is saying, the logical way to "errata" this ability, if you think that it's printed in error, would be a nerf (to let it only apply to incorporeal touch attacks). I'm not sure if that would be the best option for you, though.

It might help to make a character sheet with all of the bonuses already summed, so the player only has to add two numbers (the die + the modifier). Don't make him track any temporary effects like buffs; instead, the GM can tracked these and add them to this result afterwords.

Something like this:

Greatsword Hit: +8

Brad: I rolled...uh, 7. I have a +8 to hit. So that's...7 + 8. Um, 78.

GM: Okay. Kate's inspire courage gives you a +4 to hit. Annie's haste gives you another +1. 78 + 4 + 1 = 83. Wow, the enemy only has 17 AC. You hit the crap out of that guy. Roll damage.

Greatsword Damage: +7

Brad: Uh, it's two dice, right. Let's see, my damage is +7. The rolls are...um, 4 and 2. That's 7 + 4 + 2 = 742.

GM: Adding in Katie's inspire courage of +4, that gives you a total damage of 746. The enemy only has 32 HP. You atomized him with your sword.

Brad: Yay, I'm glad I pretended to be worse than the GM in math!

This is the first question that I always ask myself before building any of my characters:

What is the character's defining philosophy? What is the one viewpoint that encapsulates how the character views the broader world around him/her?

I don't really care too much about talents or backstory at first; I've found that those tend to write themselves once I get a clear sense of who the character truly is, and I feel that for me, there's nothing more defining about a character than his central world view.

All simple and composite blasts. As well as all modified versions of simple and composite blasts.

At least, that's from my reading. I don't remember any utility wild talents that have the word "blast" in their name.

EDIT: Infusions, "Aether Boost", and Metakinesis all modify blasts, so they should be counted as a part of a blast. A empowered, quickened composite blast with two infusions in it is still a "blast", so Gather Power will reduce the burn of that entire thing by 2.

If he'd come to me with that character now I'd just hand him Path of War and bookmark the Warlord. It's astonishingly hard to make a useless PoW martial. Pick whatever class, discipline and maneuvers appeals, odds are it'll turn out all right.

Challenge accepted :p.

(Kidding, of course. I don't think it proves anything if I make a 100% iron tortoise initiator with no shield proficiencies.)

Well, if 51% of your actions are putting the needs of others first (including basic self care to enable you to meet the needs of others), you are of good alignment. If 51% or more are selfish, you are of evil alignment. To truly be neutral, it would have to be 50% of each.

Neutral is as much a gradient as Good and Evil are. It's not this fine balance that can be tipped by the smallest actions.

Usually, Good and Evil are defined by a strong commitment. If you occasionally donate to charity/the homeless to make yourself happier, that doesn't automatically make you good. Similarly, a bit of selfishness doesn't make you evil.

This extends to Pathfinder characters, as well, or you'll get ridiculous stuff like this:

Druid: After getting out of that prison, I take a moment to appreciate my freedom and lie down under the gentle embrace of nature.
GM: You expressed a love for freedom, which is chaotic. Shift your alignment from NG to CG. You fall as a druid.
Druid: What?

First of all, I do like Pathfinder. 3.5 was my first foray into the Tabletop RPG world, and it was very fun learning about all of its little niches. It was fun learning about the weird stuff people come up with, whether it's the Twice-Betrayer, silly things like the Peasant Railgun, harmless shenanigans like the Sandwich Psion, or an Allip beating the Tarrasque.

I'm an ardent believer in the Snowbluff Principle - in that I really don't care about how "balanced" the system is as long as the rules are fun and there are people playing it. In fact, I recognize that Pathfinder is as imbalanced as 3.5 is; that doesn't mean I can't have fun in a party of new people by playing a wizard, and that's enough for me.

Pathfinder isn't the only system I like, of course. Just recently, I discovered Eclipse Phase, and the sheer otherworldly thinking required for that system is amazing. I would have loved to play more games in EP with all sorts of character philosophies only possible in a trans-human society, but it's rare to find a group that even plays EP in the first place...let alone actually explore the setting right down to its deepest, most horrible elements.

I love Exalted as well. If you ever thought Pathfinder is unbalanced, Eclipsed 2.0 was like a cluster**** of bad design choices. You discover this first hand when you spend a huge amount of your power on this really awesome finishing move, and the enemy just perfect defends it all without a scratch; that's not even mentioning all the silliness that is Sidereal Martial Arts or Ebon Lightning Prana. Nonetheless, it had one of the best settings I've seen in an RPG. The characters in the world were mostly terrible people, but all of them understandably so. And the questions about what you would do with so much power fits right up my alley. Once again, it's rare to find a group that plays Exalted, and now with 3.0, I basically have to learn another system in order to play with the few that might.

I loved Golden Sun Stories and how unique it is, though finding anyone willing to play that is like finding a needle in a haystack. I loved Mage, but anyone who plays World of Darkness tend to drift toward Vampires instead. There are plenty of other systems that I'm willing to try, as well, but there's very few that are as prominent as Pathfinder or D&D 5e.

Ultimately, the system doesn't actually matter. The thing I look for the most is the ability to express a character - complete with his philosophy on life - to the other players. I do derive quite a bit of enjoyment with optimizing a character in Pathfinder and seeing the results play out on the mat, but I can also work with attrition warfare back in the days of Exalted 2.0, or the highly lethal combat in the old World of Darkness. Looking at it in that regard, Pathfinder also happens to be one of the most popular systems out there, so it's another plus to the system.

Maths

You can get closer, though.

We'll use a Composite Blast again. Same kineticist with the 20 PB that you described, so she has 24 CON and 20 DEX. We'll add the following:

Lesser Kineticist's Diadem
Flurry of Blasts (3 blasts at level 11)
Overflowing Rod

Overflow's bonus damage is actually double the attack bonus. In the case of our kineticist, she has an attack bonus of +3, with an additional +1 due to the overflowing rod. This gives her a CON bonus to damage of 3, PBS of 1, and a overflow bonus of 8, for a grand total of +12.

Flurry of Blasts gives us three blasts:

Blast 1 Damage: 2*3.5 (blast) + 3.5 (diadem) + 12 (con and comp) = 22.5
Blast 2 Damage: 22.5 + 95% * 3.5 = 25.825
Blast 3 Damage: 22.5 + (1 - 5% * 5%) * 3.5 = 25.99125

Each blast has a 95% chance to hit and threatens on a 20. We take the diadem's bonus damage out of the critical damage bonus and end up with:

Blast 1 DPR: 95% * 22.5 + 5% * 95% * 19 = 22.28
Blast 2 DPR: 25.59
Blast 3 DPR: 25.76

Total DPR: 73.63

If we empower this, we go up to 110.44 DPR for a point of burn with one free infusion burn left over. If we want to go for maximum DPS, we can go with burning infusion for another guaranteed 3.5 DPR. The best thing about this is: if the kineticist gets hit with a haste spell, she gets another blast, and her individual flurry attacks deal more damage than the fighter's average hits.

If the kineticist somehow manages to get a normal kineticist's diadem (via a friendly crafter - it's normally 50k and thus out of the budget for a level 11 character), this goes up to 125.41 DPR empowered.

If we ever end up taking 5 points of burn, we can add around 6 more DPR by using overflow to increase our CON by another 4 (and our DEX by 2).

Strangely enough, the kineticist can get a hit bonus of 8 (BAB) + 7 (DEX) + 4 (Overflow with Rod) + 1 (Weapon Focus) + 2 (Size to DEX from 5 burn) = 22 hit rate even with a physical blast, so if we can manage a few more bonuses to hit, going physical with deadly aim might actually be worth it for the extra damage (and the extra diadem damage).

Regardless, with some finessing, I think the kineticist can be made to do a respectable amount of damage. Flexibility also has to be taken into account, since the kineticist can change his blast shape if he's facing multiple targets.

Zhangar wrote:

For example, for every person on these boards that endlessly complains about casters, there's easily another that thinks casters are pretty rad, and is happy with how they work.

For the record, this is me!

*hides as several people throw the disparity at me*

I'm trying to throw it, but it's over my encumbrance limit. Paizo, gib Titan Mauler plz.

Add the following ability to the Arcanist, Cleric, Druid, Oracle, Shaman, Sorcerer, Witch, and Wizard:

Balancing Patch (Ex): Upon reaching level 9 of this class, the PC must, upon entering every gaming session, donate at least $10 worth of food (converted to other currencies, as appropriate) to share with other players on the table. If the game occurs over the internet, phone, mail, or any other source where physically bringing food is not possible, the player of the character must send an appropriate amount of money worth of gifts to the GM using an online shopping/delivery service of his choice.

This ability overrides Rule 0.

More seriously, though, you have to take away the caster's versatility. This pretty much means that you have to use limited spontaneous casting for every caster class, or take away their wide range of options using some other method.

Sphere of Power is a very good example of this.

Of course it's a travesty for any race to have a better FCB for Oracles than humans.

Ask your GM if he will approve refluffing the name of "Blessing of Fervor" into "Cure Laziness".

To be fair, Steadfast Personality is now absolutely wonderful for Sorcerers, Oracles, and other CHA casters save for Paladin, who can now dump their Wisdom scores into the nethers. Even if it still counts against their will saves, a -2 WILL offset by a +5 WILL (or more) from their casting stat is a solid plus for any caster. That saves up a bunch of points to be placed in STR (for Oracles), DEX, CON, or what have you.

Once again, casters win :).

For a buckler, you get its AC bonus by RAW if you:

• Are equipped with it.
  
• Do not attack or do something else with that hand that would deny you the bonus (like attack with a two-handed weapon, two-weapon fight, use a wand, etc).

So no, you don't need to "ready" it every turn.

Perhaps we can think of it in another fashion. Instead of a Cleric that doesn't believe, say, Desna and Lamashtu exists, what if the Cleric is simply dedicated to the idea that the gods aren't some special unique existence, but are - in reality - just a bunch of humanoids who somehow achieved 30 levels of super-wizard and has some permanent Wish++ level buffs cast on them?

The Cleric could be sustained by isolated fragments of divine power somehow given to him by bitter (fallen?) outsiders who share his sympathies and want to kick the Gods down a notch. He goes around spreading this idea, and thinks that his divine power is proof that the universe agrees with him, while his secret patrons hope that he would spread significant amounts of mistrust in the Gods, which might perhaps weaken the Gods' power.

@Felyndiira,

Could you repost the link? It seems to be broken. I can't get the link to work.

Sure.

Guide to Monster Summoning

Well, I would argue that those people aren't actually hurt by giving fighters more "nice things." If I want to be a druid without an animal companion, or a wizard who only casts fire spells, or a slayer who has sworn only to use his father's ancestral corkscrew as a weapon,... I can do that. It's much easier not to use class abilities that you have than it is to use ones that you don't have.

This is very true.

I guess, as long as there's a simple path among the choices that someone can use to build a character that's very good at the standard "Thog Smash", it would appease most of the players that like playing Martials now. As long as we can find a way to get around the (imo silly) "it's too anime/wuxia" reaction, at least.

You should get Quick Study as quickly as you can. This would allow you to switch out a spell for a utility spell (say, Scrying) for a exploit point whenever you need it. Make sure to carry backup spellbooks.

As for your questions:

Rings of Summon Affinity are extremely powerful. Aeon is a particularly awesome choice for mid levels, and angel at high levels if you don't have the summon good monsters feat.

Summon Good Monster is highly recommended. It adds a ton of great options for Summon Monster - for example, the Foo Lion. Summon Neutral is good as well, if not as good as Summon Good.

Expanded Summon Monster can also be nice for getting additional options into your list. With Summon Monster, diversity is king, so having more summons to choose from never really hurts if you have the feats to spare.

Evolved Summon Monster can give your summons more options. If you regularly choose to summon single monsters for simplicity, another set of claws or a swim speed could mean a lot.

The Monster Summoner's Handbook adds quite a few options for summoning. See if your GM allows you to use the Rod of Giant Summoning with your SLA, and if he does, use it wisely so he doesn't regret his decision :p.

Finally, this might be helpful if you're going Occultist:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16dZ5SBQMS1Yi6531tXOkKE_rmXEwn4VFacOEQKi HA5E/edit?pli=1

**

As an arcanist, you are a 9th level full caster - as such, I recommend taking Potent Magic as your first exploit at level 3 so that you can increase the DC of your save-or-suck spells, or increasing the CL of your other ones.

What you focus on with the rest of your feats is really up to you. You can do a bit of crafting as an arcanist, or take lots of metamagic and metamix it into your spells. Even without explicit feat investment, you can still perform admirably in other areas without focusing on them with just your exploits alone.

If what you want is a simple combat brute, how would you feel about a 'Juggernaut' class that received Full BAB, All Good Saves, Full Movement in Armor, a dodge bonus to AC instead of an increased max dex for armor, Weapon Training, Damage Reduction, Energy Resistance, a built in Resistance Bonus to Saves and a limited per day d20 reroll mechanic?

That's a simple brute. The Fighter is far far more complicated.

I have no issues with that, ultimately (and in fact, I would add 4+INT skills to it). What I gathered that most people meant when they "give martials nice things" is to add combat options to literally everything (aka making everything T3), and I'm simply proposing that having a class remain relatively a simple and straightforward brute (aka low T4-high T5) is a good thing, too.

And yes, I do play with GMs that act differently than you do. I'm assuming you play with optimized and highly tactical players so they'll scout and snipe the caster as early as level 1, so you can go all-out on them? Most of the parties I've been with would TPK if the GM liberally pulls out color spray at that level, so wizards simply do not show up at level 1. Most of my GMs adjust the encounters they use to the party's optimization level anyhow, so if there is no spellcasters in the party, they won't design challenges that require spells we don't have.

That is the main reason we're playing an organic tabletop game, after all.

Felyndiira wrote:

To answer the OP's question - I don't really feel that they do. Sure, the fighter is disadvantaged compared to the wizard, but there are people who simply want to play a simple, brutish class that can be plug-and-played without too much trouble, and it's totally okay to offer the option to these people.

So, why do you think they want to play a "simple, brutish class" anyway? It sounds from the description like someone who doesn't want to think too hard after a long day/week at work, but simply go in and smack some things around. That seems a sensible reason, yes?

Now, why is the PF approach bad for that? Grease, Charm Person, Colour Spray, and there's a lot more as levels go up. Now the skills and saving throws the Fighter has are nowhere near good enough for them to reliably bypass these and get to the smacking things around but that they enjoy. How very frustrating for them.

You know, I have yet to see a GM use Color Spray against the players at level 1. Tossing out save-or-fail level 1 spells like they are actually commonplace in campaigns, just because they exist on the rulebooks, proves absolutely nothing.

The fact that the fighter can be countered by 7 million things doesn't mean the GM necessarily have to pull all of them on every single battle. Pathfinder is an organic game; a GM isn't supposed to make the game un-fun for the fighter by throwing will saves at him every other turn in the same way that a GM isn't supposed to fiat out everything that a wizard can do. A GM isn't blind, after all, and if things turn out unfairly for the fighter, usually a discussion will occur and the GM will adjust his combat tactics later on.

GMs that are inexperienced enough to not be able to adjust his monsters tend also not to be experienced enough to use monsters to their full capabilities.

A fighter can be easy-baked to just deal damage with no trouble whatsoever. Grab a greatsword, get the relevant +X numerical items, dueling gloves, and maybe winged boots at level 9 and you now have enough damage to do your role. Even if it's not fully optimized, you can perform your role competently with just the standard power attack and the weapon focus/specialization line.

The point that I'm trying to make is, there are people who like playing fighters despite knowing how weak they are. Therefore, there's justification for it to continue to exist.

To answer the OP's question - I don't really feel that they do. Sure, the fighter is disadvantaged compared to the wizard, but there are people who simply want to play a simple, brutish class that can be plug-and-played without too much trouble, and it's totally okay to offer the option to these people.

Snowbluff's principle applies here, in my opinion. As long as there are varied martials with options available in the game (like Magus and Inquisitor - and some of the more well-known 3pp classes), and as long as the people who want to play awesome fighters with cool tricks are able to do so by means of a Tier 3/4 class, then all is right with the Pathfinder world.

Does this make me a double-traitor =p?

mplindustries wrote:

oh, right,magic is fair because magic can beat magic...is this a serious argument?

No. I'm pointing out that there are ways to deal with all of those problems and if the GM uses them, where appropriate, then the behavior of spellcasters change.

I guest-GM'ed a session once where I pulled out Teleport Trap.

The PC's were down to about 1/3 of their spells and the Wizard went, "I teleport!"

I called for Will saves.

The Wizard suddenly found himself trapped in a very small, airless, stone box next to a corpse. He would have died, right then and there, were it not for the Fighter and the Paladin (who both made their saves) who heard him banging on a wall from the inside.

The Wizard really didn't know what to do. He wasn't used to having to camp inside a dungeon. The next day his spell list was considerably different and he was casting spells with less dramatic effects, but with far longer duration. Usually buffing up the Pally and Fighter.

None of us are arguing that you can't reign in wizards. In fact, many of the oldest PF players came from D&D 3.5, where wizards are far more powerful than they are here, and the DM still could (and had to) build challenging adventures for them. We're talking about much stronger transmutations that lets the wizard be outright better than any fighter. We're talking about immediate actions that gives you a standard. We're talking about feats and classes that can make metamagic cost negative spell levels, among other stuff that makes Sacred Geometry sound like a kid's toy, and as a GM, it's still manageable because you can do anything, regardless of whether it's actually published in a sourcebook or not.

But the thing you're arguing in this thread is that Martials and Casters are not imbalanced, not that GMs can wing things specifically in disfavor of wizards. The reason that many of the long-time, experienced players and GMs on this board state the disparity is because a wizard can flatly affect the narrative in ways that a fighter never can do (or can only do in a specific way after buying an expensive item).

By the way, just for completeness - in that scenario, I would have slots left open at that point. Since I can hold my breath for at least a minute, I would cast light, immediately memorize Ethreal Jaunt or Beast Shape into one of the slots I purposely left open for these kinds of things (because of course I have fast study), and ghosted/dug myself out of there. Can you shut all of this down? Of course - you can just keep making barriers after barriers until the wizard runs out, just by your sheer power as a GM.

However, the fact that you needed a seventh level spell and a contrived situation just to slow down an (inexperienced, judging from his reactions) wizard shows you exactly what we've been talking about - that casters and martials are not balanced against each other. The fact that you can invent situations specifically against the wizard does not change the fact that the wizard can invis and phase through a wall to spy on the lord while the fighter can just stand there looking dumb in the process, and a million other things.

Sorry to come in completely from the cold, but why the Diplomacy prereq.? I mean both in terms of flavor and mechanics.

You need to be able to bond with your allies diplomatically/politically/socially? It is an honorable style practised by the genteel?

Or is it an artificial level prereq.?

Diplomacy is the discipline skill of Golden Lion, so it is listed as a prereq in place of a level/BAB bonus.

All of the other discipline style feats follow the same tradition of requiring X ranks of their respective discipline skills.

My apologies for my participation in that argument. I agree that 1/round per ally is a good fix for the feat, and makes it still powerful while not overwhelming so.

... And what exactly is the point of that maths? Show how that if Golden Lion Style is focused by the entire party, its a powerful feat?

Read my second example again. It only assumes that you have another melee Warlord in the party with no additional tricks, no coordinated builds, no purposeful missing or any other building specifically to take advantage of the feat.

It then calculates the DPR that you gain solely by covering the rare instances that the build misses on its iterative attacks. The warlord isn't missing on purpose just to fuel the feat. He's attacking as usual, and the DPR added considers only the amount of DPR that the feat adds from the Warder covering the times the Warlord does miss. From a completely unoptimized warder.

THAT DPR comes out to two times what power attack gives you.

There's no teamwork build or anything in this case. It just assumes that you have a party in the first place. You can repeat this calculation with a bunch of other classes. Try it out with a barbarian in place of a warlord - you'll end up get pretty similar, drastic DPR boosts on a per-ally basis.

*

By the way, the AM Barbarian is a heavily optimized damage build. Being able to do 1.75x his damage is easily worth more than a single standard action spent on a Summon Monster SLA or Sacred Summons, and even more so for a familiar's actions whild UMDing a wand.

Heck, limiting the style to 1/round is STILL equal or more DPR than power attack when used normally with melee that are fond of iterative attacks.

You know, you guys are mostly arguing back and forth right now without any actual proof. Instead, maybe we could give some math instead, and give a few scenarios to verify how powerful the feat really is. I'll start off with both examples at level 12, using the level 12 AM barbarian (DPR 161) as a comparison point.

We'll assume a party containing an initiator and a full caster, or at least someone capable of casting Summon Monster without much investment to summon multiple celestial eagles. We'll make the initiator a Zweihander sentinel, quite a bit under-optimized, with to-hit values and damage on AoOs as follows:

Hit: +12 BAB, +6 STR, +3 Weapon, +2 Flanking, -4 Power Attack = +19 Hit
Damage: 7 (Greatsword) + 7 (Punishing Defenses) + 12 (PA) + 9 (Str) + 3 (Weapon) = 38 Avg Damage
6 Attacks of Opportunity per round
Critical Threatens at 19-20, Adds 31 Damage

We assume no bonuses to hit or damage from boosts, stances, or anything else for the sake of simplicity, and no additional buffs other than weapon enhancement level. Against AC 27, this gives the warder a crappy hit rate of 65% on attacks of opportunity against targets of equal CR, since we didn't optimize him at all.

The wizard's familiar or something casts summon monster II from a wand, summoning two eagles. The eagles do their full attack sequence and miss with all of them, allowing the Zweihander Sentinel 6 AoOs against that target. Each hit adds the following DPR:

65% * 38 + (10% * 65% * 31) = 26.7 DPR

Multiply this by 6, and you end up with an additional 160.25 DPR for the 6 AoO sequence. This is in addition to what the warder can do on his turn, which means that a single casting of summon monster and one feat adds about as much DPS than an entire AM Barbarian at equal levels. And this is with a warder with no full-round boosts, no bonuses from stances, no buffs, and a terrible to-hit rate.

Optimize the warder just a bit more and this DPR goes up significantly. For instance, if we optimized for this trick and added Night's Knife (Boost), Discipline Focus, and Enlarge, while adding another +2 STR and +1 Weapon Enhancement, this increases to 281.45 DPR at level 12, which is almost the same as adding 1.75 AM Barbarians to the party. This is in addition to what the warder can normally do on his turn.

*

Let's now do the calculations for a less calculated scenario. Assume that we have a dual-wielding rogue TWF Warlord in the party alongside the aforementioned Zweihander Sentinel. We're going to optimize the warlord so that he has a really darned good hit rate (instead of lots of weapon enhancement), so:

TWF Warlord Hit Rates:

+12(BAB) + 7(DEX) + 3(Weapon) + 6(Flank) + 2(BattleProwess) = 30
Attack Bonuses +30/+30/+25/+25/+20/+20

This gives a miss chance of 5%/5%/5%/5%/30%/30% against a CR-equivalent enemy at AC 27. We don't actually need to calculate his damage or DPR - we only need to worry about what the Warder adds to this DPR with the Golden Lion Style feat. Since Tactical Flanker benefits the Warder as well, the amount of DPR added per AoO is:

95% * 38 + (10% * 95% * 31) = 39 DPR

Then, the Warder adds the following DPR to the warlord:

5% * 39 * 4 + 30% * 39 * 2 = 31 DPR

This is the DPR added by a single feat, above and beyond what the warder can normally do and without any real coordination of builds between the players. The warlord's flanking bonus helped us in this case, but without it the warlord himself will miss more often, which means that the DPR that we end up adding will remain around 20-30.

Add in another secondary melee, like a Oracle or Inquisitor, and this number easily jumps up to around 40-60. Of course, our Warder himself is still pretty unoptimized, so this goes up drastically when you add in boosts, buffs, and such.

For comparison, Power Attack only adds ~13-20 DPR at level 12 for a normal THF melee class (calculating in the increased miss chances).

First of all, Puna, I just want to say that I really respect you for the phenomenal attempt to both balance the RAE and re-balance all of the classes and feats at the same time. Even if you describe it as a simple revision, I think it's a monumental project that I, myself, certainly would not have been able to complete.

Even if we disagree on the issue of swift actions and a few PF/3.5 design philosophies, I have tremendous respect for your work on this and wish you the best of luck in its completion, as well as in your achievements in real life.

That being said, though, I feel like I need to explain my own points in why I wanted to preserve swift actions as-is.

Swift, in my opinion, serves as a perfect middle point between a move/standard action and a free action (which does exist in pathfinder). The intention of limiting Swift actions are not meant to be balanced just by not stacking on themselves; it makes sure that a character cannot acquire too many of these "extra actions" and does too much in one turn. More importantly, it's something that Pathfinder was designed around - entire feats were created with swift actions as the chassis. Entire class abilities utilized this, starting from as early as the Core Rulebook (or 3.5, if you go that far).

Swift was also a very easy thing to explain and work into the game. You get one swift action per round - that's it. Nothing to keep track of, and no way to gain additional swift actions from anything (at least not in first-party Pathfinder) so you don't have to do additional paperwork. It seems like a perfectly elegant system, and

I also do not see how recovering "swift" actions somehow defeats the point of the RAE system, unless if the point of the system is to somehow imbalance a huge swath of the Pathfinder material to the point that they would require a rewrite. RAE, to me, helps with two major problems with pathfinder - melee mobility and caster dominance. It certainly does not solve them, but these are the major benefits that people are seeing with the system.

Adding swift actions back into RAE doesn't change this at all. Instead, it allows you to keep the spirit of the RAE system while ensuring that it causes the least disruption to the

Puma, one of the things I disagree with you the most is that there's a universal "vision" of balance that everyone could agree with. From my time on the GitP forums, one of the first things I've noticed is that people with very high levels of system mastery often disagree on what seem to be trivial balance issues. You and I disagreeing on this point is further proof, in fact.

Your vision for PF design is broken down into a simple system of "Striker", "Buffer", and "Caster". I feel that this classification is heavily limiting and shoehorns each class into a set role, limiting their customization in favor of a more simplified design philosophy. Oracles, for instance, can be built in multiple different ways, including with a focus on non-combat (Lore); attempting to agglomerate them into any role (buffer or caster) overlooks at least a large number of builds with other focuses.

For that matter, even a cleric (major caster) falls into this, since the Cleric is expected to perform competently as a melee character. Stuffing them in a "caster" role will greatly depreciate their melee, while stuffing a tier 1 caster in the "buffer" role makes that role a bit useless. Trying to tie entire classes down into a narrow set of rules is, in my opinion, doing a disservice to the vast customization that is possible with pathfinder.

You also mentioned that "once you look at an ability sideways you can see whether or not it should be 0, 0*, 1, 2, or 3 actions". My experiences say that this tends to be extremely subjective, even within an audience of all experienced players/DMs. One of my current DMs, for instance, thinks spellcasters are perfectly balanced at lower than level ~13 and would probably up all divine caster swift abilities to free 1/round to reflect this. People think differently of summoners, of gunslingers, and even of monks and rogues; if you asked a group of 200 random GMs their opinons on any swift ability, you'll probably get a wide range of opinions for almost anything.

Most DMs do actually go through a lot more than just "four classes that their players will play." Players do change their decisions before committing on an idea or ask about rulings on multiple abilities before making a selection; imagine if you, as a DM, presented a player with this:

With one use of this ability, a paladin can heal 1d6 hit points of damage for every two paladin levels she possesses. Using this ability is a standard action, unless the paladin targets herself, in which case you should ask the DM how he wants to do this.

Your player will see that, and will probably come back and ask you for a ruling as soon as he sees this. Opening up swift actions to GM interpretation is basically also opening yourself to all of these questions, since oftentimes a player will need to know the specifics of a class before he makes a choice on it. For example, will you rule that an Inquisitor's Bane is a free action 1/round, 1 action, or two actions? What about judgement/multiple judgements? Brawler's flexibility? It's difficult to choose as a player without knowing all of these details off-hand (and especially knowing that your DM doesn't think, say, inquisitors are OP and chooses the worst of his options), and you'll get questions about a lot more questions that just the final classes the players decided to stick with.

Finally, this:

Also, I have to say again, if there are concerns about 3PP stuff or other houserule stuff (like Gestalt) not working, this is basically a houserule action economy. 3PP is Hombrew in a nicer format, with better editing than what you'll find on a messageboard, but that's really what it is. A lot of those classes and abilities are designed to break or work around the old action economy, and so they don't really translate well. It's like complaining that your new horse is made obsolete by a car.

I feel that this basically boils down to "who cares about 3PP? They're just homebrew anyway." That is a bit insulting to the publishers, to be honest. One of the design choices that Paizo made when they made their entire game OGL was to encourage third-party publishers to create their own expansions to the pathfinder rules. Implying that it's okay to toss them aside is going against this very design philosophy, especially since there's many 3PP with very excellent works, like Kobold Press or Dreamscarred.

A system change that requires huge rewrites to function is a system with major inherit weaknesses. If the entire PF board agrees that swift actions as standard are a universally good thing, nothing would require a rewrite and it would be good design (like the lengthened casting). However, as your efforts showed, major rewrites are needed for the system to work with classes that use swift actions. This means that every third-party you want to use with the system will need the same type of rewrites, which majorly compounds the work. Some of these very 3PP stuff are very well-received by the community, and just dismissing them with the system is a huge mistake, in my opinion.

The major reason that I proposed keeping swift actions is that existing materials can be used with minimal changes. I do recognize that PF itself is not balanced (though I'm also a supporter of the Snowbluff principle), though I don't think it's wise to attempt to correct this and balance a new system at the same time. Except for complete revisions, a system should strive to serve its purpose while impacting the current state of the game as little as possible otherwise. Most of the other Unchained systems do exactly this - altering a small portion of the rules while making sure that it doesn't propagate to other areas. RAE is the only one that affects the entire system this broadly.

This may be a leap, but could you use Stamina Points to boost Combat Maneuvers? Since they add to your attack rolls, I figured you would be able to apply them to CMB

When you attempt to perform a combat maneuver, make an attack roll and add your CMB in place of your normal attack bonus. Add any bonuses you currently have on attack rolls due to spells, feats, and other effects.

Yep :).

I'm rather curious - what if you were to make the following changes to the system:

• You get 3.5 actions per round.
  
• Most of the abilities that cost swift actions costs 0.5 actions, but can only be used once per round.
  
• Quickened Spells still cost one action. Swift action spells (most of the paladin list, for instance) will still cost the swift action as described above. Cold Ice Strike is modified to 1 action.
  
• Addendum: You cannot cast more than two quickened spells per round.

This change would still keep the (very excellent, in my opinion) attempt to nerf casters and increase fighter mobility, while still making most swift-action abilities relevant and not making sweeping changes to half of the published abilities out there. Classes like Bard are balanced around, for example, their performances not taking the place of a whole attack to perform after a certain level - and would continue under that assumed balance in the new system.

Also, this system is difficult to balance with Path of War, and that makes me a sad panda.

I will now proceed to explain why Monkey Grip is 100% pure, unadulterated cheddar:

Monkey Grip allows you to wield BFS like an anime character.
Anime characters have big eyes.
Eyes fit inside holes.
Cheese has holes.
Ergo, Monkey Grip is made of cheese.

Nope, initiator level and maneuver level are different things. Your initiator level is equal to your levels in an initiator class plus 1/2 your levels in non-initiator classes (rounded down), so if you are a level 5 warder, your initiator level is 5.

There's a table for the maximum maneuver level that you can learn at each initiator lever here, under Table: Highest Level Maneuvers Known. This is very similar to the levels where wizards get new spells. Basically, if you are a 5th level Warder, you only get third level maneuvers.

Otherwise it would be quite overpowered =p.