Frogsplosion's page

I'm hoping if they do implement upcasting that they actually make the higher level versions worth casting, because 5e's upcasting largely sucks.

bigger numbers are more fun, just saying.

Pathfinder is 3.5e but better (mostly), that's what makes it pathfinder.

Please Do:

bring martials up to the level of casters, not the other way around.

give martials active abilities ala path of war, don't make them boring one button meatheads again.

let us have actual good old shapeshifting back instead of your hilariously terrible version.

make better archetypes with less crappy flavor abilities that are obviously bad mechanically

Give ranged and finesse weapons dex to hit and damage and melee and large thrown weapons strength to hit and damage.

Let casters use their casting stat for more things like spell to hit and damage, or for a gish/arcane archer, their actual weapon

downscale martial damage, the only reason people played martials was because no other class could hit their crazy thousands of damage per round dps.

Make a class/es/ or class archetype/s that actually turns being MAD into a huge advantage, like giving ability score synergy buffs or something

~~~~~

Please Don't:

Gimp casters and make them as boring as martials are now

make martials just as boring as they are now

make shapeshifting even worse

make terrible archetypes full of minor situational bonuses especially ones that replace the best class abilities in return

make being a ranged weapon character MAD again

make MAD characters continue to suck

overcomplicate the 3.5e based ruleset more than necessary

more general archetypes than actual archetypes but:

1. Arcane Archer (preferably that doesn't suck massively)
2. Actual Good Shapeshifter
3. Blood Mage (plus the not sucking part)
4. Throwing Big Heavy Things While Angry barbarian
5. Drunken Master (also that doesn't suck massively)

honorable mentions: Cleric Archer, Angry Elemental Druid, Paladin with Holy Soulknife Equivalent, Spellsword, Menagerie/Summoner Mage (try not to break this one), Martial with Sick Baller Ninja Skills ala path of war.

Frogsplosion wrote:

continues to sound like you're not giving martial classes any active abilities to play with, just passive/conditional benefits, you need to give them cool combat tricks that open up a lot of options or it's going to result in PF2.0 the same problems PF1 has.

Wat

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/

I have to admit those previews made both classes sound basically the same as they are now, which is disheartening to say the least.

continues to sound like you're not giving martial classes any active abilities to play with, just passive/conditional benefits, you need to give them cool combat tricks that open up a lot of options or it's going to result in PF2.0 the same problems PF1 has.

Frogsplosion wrote:

So one thing people should realize is that nerfing casters isn't actually going to accomplish the goal of making martials more playable. 5e nerfed the crap out of casters, but guess what? martials are still boring and it comes down to the same issue as 3.X and pathfinder, a character whose gameplay comes down to a single roll in combat isn't going to be any less boring to play in any system.

5e martials gave a lot more narrative power, and they're able to get magic for even more narrative power with a single feat.

what are you even talking about, narrative power? rogues and fighters are the same as they've always been, I've played one for an entire campaign and your primary contribution to the party still comes down to an attack roll and the amount of damage you can put out. Stealth mechanics still basically don't exist so you're pretty much at the mercy of the DM for that and sneak attack is your only real damage.

Even the battlemaster archetype which has the most options is really only useful for the extra damage since most of it's save dcs get outscaled hard by enemies during high level play.

Frogsplosion wrote:

DND 5e just straight up gives dex to damage not just on finesse weapons but ranged weapons as well, I think as long as the number of attacks you can hit with such a character is no longer in crazytown territory that just flat giving it to those weapon types with no feat required is fine.

That is one of the worst things about 5e in my opinion. Outside of a few niche builds everyone can safely dump Str.

oh yeah totally, except that the highest dps build in the game is strength based and magic heavy armor being the best makes dex to ac basically irrelevant. Not to mention in 5e you can dump pretty much any stat you want because headbands and belts are replacement stats rather than buffs. Casters can use their casting stat to hit with spells, some like the warlock can even use them for atk/dmg on weapon attacks and it's not even that good, but clearly dex to damage is basically satan.

So one thing people should realize is that nerfing casters isn't actually going to accomplish the goal of making martials more playable. 5e nerfed the crap out of casters, but guess what? martials are still boring and it comes down to the same issue as 3.X and pathfinder, a character whose gameplay comes down to a single roll in combat isn't going to be any less boring to play in any system.

I'm also in the middle of a shadowrun game and despite having an amazing world and fantastic character creation, combat centric characters have the same issues unless you opt to be a magic character.

Giving martials cool path of war esque sick baller ninja skills on the other hand, is what you really need to do. Martials in pathfinder are actually insanely powerful, you can very easily smash the dev intended damage maximums, but it's lack of options that kill their playability. It's just not fun to play a guy whose only value to the party is hitting things really hard regardless of the system.

DND 5e just straight up gives dex to damage not just on finesse weapons but ranged weapons as well, I think as long as the number of attacks you can hit with such a character is no longer in crazytown territory that just flat giving it to those weapon types with no feat required is fine.

This is in 5e, but it's still fairly sadistic. One of our friends cast Wall of Force (in 5e you can make it a sphere around an enemy) around an enemy. The party barbarian cast Create Food and Water inside the sphere (because that works, also yeah, I said barbarian, don't worry about it) drowning the poor guy in oatmeal filled water.

The most fun I had was probably when I played my psion, the Lord of the Wub Wub Cannon. I was a lvl 10 psion with Concussive Onslaught in an area full of rooms with only one exit. Put onslaught in a room, stack dwarf fighter on the door and close it. Ten rounds later, open the door, the room is powder.

In general I love playing characters that are really good at dealing lots of damage, but I prefer those characters to also have a decent amount of versatility. I get bored of straight martials easily due to the lack of many interesting combat options beyond "hit it really hard"

Currently playing a lvl 20 mythic tier 10 cleric archer. Gotta say those last 3 levels were pretty disappointing, once you hit 17 as a cleric there really isn't anything else to look forward to. If I were to do it again I think I'd be most interested in picking a half-caster or Path of War class, there are so many interesting abilities to play with in PoW.

The solution to dealing with overpowered options is not "make everything else overpowered", it's fixing the obvious deficiencies.

actually, believe it or not this is a really good way to make things feel balanced. If everyone is doing something that feels powerful, no one gets left out.

if combat maneuver prcs are going to be playable they need to fix monsters having unhittable CMDs

So I bought the adventurer's guide the other day, and I liked the book a lot until I got to the Sanguine Angel. The class requires Improved Shield Bash and Iron Will (trash feats), plus weapon focus longsword and a gender requirement, so I wasn't particularly interested right off the bat.

Then I saw what it could pick up at level 2: Furious Huntress, which gives STRENGTH TO ATTACK ROLLS WITH BOWS.

This is the first instance of this ability which literally makes a bunch of brand new archery builds all by itself, AND YOU PUT IT ON A PRC WITH LITERALLY NO TIES TO ARCHERY AT ALL WITH A BUNCH OF UNRELATED FEAT REQUIREMENTS AND STUPID FLAVOR REQUIREMENTS!!!!!

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?!?!?!?!?!

You could have put this on an archery based barbarian prc or archetype and made my day, but instead you staple it onto a completely unusable PrC that has nothing to do with archery. WHY?!?!

I'm so sick of having to cherry pick abilities from behind pointless gating or places that make no sense to come from just to do something new and interesting. I'm tired of stupid inconsistent and illogical rules FAQs that change how rules should intuitively work to cut off what you percieve to be overpowered (Changing Dex to Dmg so you can only get 1.5x with 2handed on an Unchained rogue, but no 2x dex from other sources, this is a stupid ruling).

Why do you keep doing these things? Why do I need to jump through so many damn hoops just to get a basic uninteresting but otherwise ESSENTIAL STATS BUFF? If you're worried about power level, it's way too late, because the scaling in pathfinder is already way too out of control. It's far too easy to deal hundreds of damage in a round past level 9 or so.

I'm really tired of these stupid senseless choices, the unintuitive nature of classes and rulings that are only made to clearly cut off specific build paths.

they never had to do thousands, as none of my players ever managed to DO thousands (or even hundreds). maybe I lucked out and my players just never noticed these powers? who knows.

what i do know is that comparing 0-9 anything (caster, manifester, etc.) based on blasting ability is kind of dumb; if my encounters can be solved with nukes the majority of the time, then i have failed to design good encounters. what i mean is: damage shouldn't solve all problems. If it does, your DM is doing it wrong (or depending on group, just right, but that isn't my kind of group).

We've played 19 levels of Wrath of the Righteous, 4 levels of Giant slayer and 3 levels of Rise of the Runelords, thus far damage is the answer to everything. In a homebrew game absolutely, damage should only be part of the equation and you need a lot of varied kinds of situations to keep players on their toes, but my experience with paizo adventure paths is thus far that damage is the be all end all. Maybe that changes for something like Jade Regent or Curse of the Crimson Throne, but I don't know.

Effectively more dice isn't the same thing as actually using that many dice. it is unnecessarily deceiving. empower doesn't add dice, after all. If you were at my table and tried to roll extra dice because empower is 'effectively more dice' then I would only count your lowest resulting dice up to the correct amount as punishment.

I honestly don't see most of these numbers as terrible. Because experience has shown me first hand that this is generally not as bad as people like to make it out to be; in contrast I have seen druids, wizards, and clerics do far more damage to my games (in ways other than damage, though sometimes in that category too).

it was a practical approximation, it wasn't intended to be decieving, and I would love for you to tell me how a regular caster without mythic tiers can cast a single spell capable of doing thousands of damage.

Your math appears to be wrong (assuming you are NOT looking at chaotic surge wilder). at 19th level you could spend 19 Power Points to pull off 10d6, and it would last only 19 rounds. At that level? that math is fine, especially considering that power resistance (and thus spell resistance by default) applies AND you get a fortitude save for half damage. if you have stalwart or improved stalwart (or similar feature), you could be taking 0 damage.

Now, looking at a normal wilder, this COULD be pulled off at an earlier level, with the risk of enervation.

start with 3d6 per round for 5 power points. spend 10 pp to augment up to 8d6, spend 2 pp to empower to increase to an effective 12d6 force per round (missed that extra damage) for 17 rounds for a total of 17 PP at ML 17.

the broken part comes from lower levels. At level 10 you can augment to 5d6 and overchannel to empower it for 7d6 per round for 10 rounds. No other spell in pathfinder compares to this damage wise.

even here you math is wrong...
to get 22d6, you are going to need to get yourself 22 levels of psion. and if you ALSO want to empower it, you'll actually need to be a 24th level psion. on top of that evasion (or stalwart, depending on energy type chosen) could negate that damage entirely, and by those levels, likely will. AND you are stuck concentrating on the power every round, so getting hit could stop you power completely.
Technically a lower level with the wilder could pull this off, but again, enervation chance.

energy current costs 9 pp, spend 6 pp to get to 15d6, 2 pp for empower to get to 22d6 effective @ 17 pp. Crossblooded gives you +2 damage per die on fire spells, add another +1 for fire from current itself (forgot this last time) so your spell does 15d6+45, empower increases this to an effective 22d6+67 PER ROUND for 17+ rounds.

unless I'm missing something, my math is fine.

I was going over the math thinking those numbers seemed odd, but they all math out right. huh. not sure if empower power would effect both rays or just the original.

you built it solidly. but oh man those enervation chances or that chance of rolling 1 on that chaos surge roll could bite you pretty hard, but that is the risk with that surge type.

you were wondering what I meant when I said dreamscarred press had messed up damage scaling? basically this thread.

my personal favorite toy is Concussive Onslaught. Lock someone down and then for 17 power points drop them in an area that deals 14d6 force damage per round for 20 rounds. If they're locked down for the whole duration, average of 840 damage.

or if you want something even stupider, let's use Energy Current. would be a different build, but the power is still absurd. Crossblooded Sorc 1 / Psion or Wilder 19 for +2 dmg per die on fire spells. Wilder would need to pick up a feat @ 11th to actually learn energy current, but the results speak for themselves. augment 6 times then empower for 17 PP to deal 22d6+66 every round for 20 rounds, if you get hits in every round it averages out to 2760 damage.

yeah, psionic damage is pretty insane.

and some people say psyions are not broken...

honestly outside of their wonked out damage scaling, psionics are fine.

so yeah, item mastery feats aren't combat feats? that kinda makes them worthless. you can't brawler them out either.

Really the issue with martials is simple, all they do is damage and any time they get something that doesn't do damage, it's sub par compared to anything a caster can do. I kind of think this is a side effect of martials being able to do WAY too much damage. At 20th level martial focused characters can output hundreds upon hundreds of damage, killing almost any enemy in a single round.

This shrinks quite a bit as you go down farther in levels, but even at first level an orc barbarian with 22 strength and rage can deal 2d6+15 with power attack which can kill almost any CR 1 creature in one hit and even some CR 2s and 3s. Now, you might be thinking "not everyone is a dirty powergamer that only builds martials to do the most damage" which I take offense to, but I forgive you.

Realistically though, as a martial, why wouldn't you optimize your damage? It's literally the only reason anyone keeps you around, and if you don't do damage, then most enemies will just ignore you and kill the caster. You can be as tanky as you want, but if you can't impact the battlefield in any way, you're not a party member, you're scenery.

But wait, what about the almighty combat maneuver? Let's talk about that. Combat Maneuvers at the start of an adventurer's career are pretty sweet, as long as you're fighting things your size or smaller. Most of the time you have to be super specialized to make combat maneuvers work on things bigger than you. At 20th level, the average CMD of something large or larger tends to hover between a potentially doable 40 and grows to the "don't even try" status of 50-60 with CMBs to match. Oh yeah, and at 7th level, no one cares anymore anyway. Trip me? cool, dimension door. Grapple me? oh look permanent immunity to it. Disarm me? uhh, wizard. or just dueling gauntlets, or swashbuckler. Steal from me? cool, I'll have my fighter that does do damage murder your face.

Item mastery is a pretty neat idea, but it's really limited and essentially just gives fighters a super strict spell list, which sort of defeats the point. Really, I think the answer lies somewhere in the Path of War style of doing things. Giving mundane martials the idea that they're so well trained they can start to do preternatural "anime" things like wall run up a building, move so fast you basically teleport, leave after images, and so on.

The only problem I have with Path of War (and psionics, actually) is I find Dreamscarred Press doesn't understand how damage scaling works, because a lot of their classes, spells, feats and abilities boil down to or combine to become "do even more obscene damage than usual".

In the end, martials need more options out of and in combat that don't just make you a crappy spellcaster, but have their own unique "super warrior" flair.

Frogsplosion wrote:

Larkos wrote:

The half-casters usually have class features to help them along. Bards and Skalds have bard song to boost their attack and damage. Inquisitors have bane, judgments, teamwork feats, and possibly inquisitions. Summoners have their Eidolons which the player controls. Magi have their arcane talents and touch attacks. Hunters have their animal companions and teamwork feats.

Really the Warpriest is the only one who relies on his spells to boost attack and damage. They have fervor to make things easier. Their sacred weapon and armor does alleviate things but they're limited. However, after playing a Warpriest from lvls 12-16. I can say that I used spells outside self-buffing and had a fun time. I was valuable outside of combat.

but how many of them were offensive spells that required enemies to make saving throws? That's kind of the issue, there aren't any ways to make a viable offensive spell-using half-caster (except magus because they rarely use spells with saves) without potentially ignoring their physical combat focused abilities. The average half caster builds I see have a 14 in their casting stats, other than dex magus builds that try to split dex/int 18/18 or higher and dump str/cha. You're almost never going to get a failed save with that stat unless they're really bad at it.

This is niche, but it is quite effective.

I have a currently 10 Sanctified Slayer Inquisitor/2 Viking Fighter that is a nasty debuff machine.

He can move-action Intimidate for Shaken condition (with a +42 to Intimimdate)
He follows that up with a Swift Action attack from Hurtful on his Vicious Bardiche, inflicting Sickened.

where does the sickened come from? I checked vicious and hurtful, didnt see anything

does empower spell increase the number of rays fired, do the number of rays count as a variable numeric effect?

That being said, that doesn't mean 6/9 casters are not extremely useful in a party and a whole lot of fun to play.

certainly not going to debate that, if anything they were the most interesting classes I've had to theorycraft around

The half-casters usually have class features to help them along. Bards and Skalds have bard song to boost their attack and damage. Inquisitors have bane, judgments, teamwork feats, and possibly inquisitions. Summoners have their Eidolons which the player controls. Magi have their arcane talents and touch attacks. Hunters have their animal companions and teamwork feats.

Really the Warpriest is the only one who relies on his spells to boost attack and damage. They have fervor to make things easier. Their sacred weapon and armor does alleviate things but they're limited. However, after playing a Warpriest from lvls 12-16. I can say that I used spells outside self-buffing and had a fun time. I was valuable outside of combat.

but how many of them were offensive spells that required enemies to make saving throws? That's kind of the issue, there aren't any ways to make a viable offensive spell-using half-caster (except magus because they rarely use spells with saves) without potentially ignoring their physical combat focused abilities. The average half caster builds I see have a 14 in their casting stats, other than dex magus builds that try to split dex/int 18/18 or higher and dump str/cha. You're almost never going to get a failed save with that stat unless they're really bad at it.

After trying really hard to build a bunch of different half-caster classes, I noticed a fairly annoying trend:

Half Casters like to hit things, but in order to hit things well, they need to sacrifice their spellcasting stat to the point where the only spells worth casting are usually self or party buffs, movement/utility spells or spells that have no saves attached. You could choose to max your casting stat and sacrifice your offense, but at that point you are failing to leverage one of the biggest advantages of your class in order to still be a sub-par spellcaster compared to full casters, it sort of feels like that path is a trap.

Some classes might be able to get away with it more than others, the bard in particular due to inspire courage might be in the best position to sacrifice physical stats, but the bard's spell list isn't really built for being a battle-caster unless you take the Arrowsong Minstrel archetype, which gives up a lot of it's utility.

But the question is, is this a solvable problem? Giving Half-Casters their casting stat to hit and damage would let them use their spells to full effect, but also force them into the realm of SAD full casters inhabit and probably make them too strong. Smaller things like giving casting stat based health bumps, adding it to AC instead of dex or changing some saves to a casting stat might alleviate some of the MADness, but it's a delicate balance.

Or perhaps people think this isn't a problem at all, but simply how half-casters need to function in order to be balanced, I'm genuinely curious what people think about this issue and if there is a good solution to it.

This was a very fun and effective build.

I didn't mean to say that half casters using traditional feat chains were bad, just that they eat a lot of feat slots. 8 of 13 feats dedicated to archery is quite a lot, and there were more good archery feats you could have taken if you wanted to.

I suppose you could pose the question "but what else are you doing with those feat slots" and that's kind of the question I had hoped to get an answer for, given my inexperience in this area.

I'm not super knowledgeable when it comes to playing the half-caster classes, but I do know that a lot of the traditional fighting styles (two weapon fighting, archery) tend to suck up a lot of feat slots and on a half caster using his early feats to do class or ability score related shenanigans, like an Eldritch Scion Magus taking Noble Scion and Desna's Shooting Star, or taking weapon finesse/focus into piercing or slashing grace, or a bard taking flagbearer and lingering performance.

What do people find to the best, or at least most efficient and useful combat feats to be picking up as a half caster?

Obviously this varies greatly by build, but I'm not really sure where I'd want my half casting class to go later on in terms of combat options, or when I don't necessarily need them. For example, If you're a magus and plan on using spell combat or spellstrike all the time, is it best just to take things that modify basic attacks, or do you branch out and look for a secondary option to use when you're not spell-swording?

is there a feat for multiclassed monks that increases your stunning fist attempts per day? I know there used to be a similar thing in 3.5, but i'm not sure if pathfinder ever made one.

So ever since I bought the Divine Anthology I've wanted to use Desna's Shooting Star as a Skeletal Champion LG Paladin of Desna. The whole concept was essentially to be a master of all things charisma, and the character despite his "condition" was a chipper, goofy knight named Fortescue (nod to MediEvil if anyone's played it) who in my head sounds a lot like John Cleese. He lost most of his memories and was "adopted" by an order of paladins. All he knew was that they found him with a symbol of desna and has taken desna as his goddess, since he feels lucky to have been given a second chance, despite having to constantly struggle with the dark urges of his undead nature.

I've found it rather difficult however to get my DM to consider the character due to the template. I can understand why, undead have a lot of really powerful immunities, and the Everything Charisma route while heavy on multiclassing leads to being serviceable to powerful at almost everything.

On the other hand, my current character is a big dumb brick of a barbarian that has one-shot pretty much everything it hits. So far I dislike the character because it has no RP value at all and exists purely because I'm not fond of starting at level 1 and couldn't make up my mind on a character.

To the question at hand though, do any other DMs allow or have allowed in the past characters to take templates? If so which ones? have any of them added to your games instead of detracting from them? Have they been a good source of roleplaying fodder?

So the concept of these builds exists purely for the purpose of showing off the exponential effect of having a large pool of stacking bonuses available for use, but the result is still pretty absurd even though these builds really aren't that well optimized.

So those are just two examples of how pathfinder can become a game of layering stacking bonuses as much as possible. While these two builds aren't really playable, you can see the thought process that goes into creating any other character with an absurdly high stat in them. Other builds are far more practical, but those tiny bonuses are still there, adding up and up and up until suddenly you have an unhittable monster that deals hundreds of damage, or has a spell or crowd control ability save DC of 46.

I'm beginning to think this might be a serious problem lurking under the hood of the basic pathfinder game mechanics, and I'm curious if others feel the same way

Right now, fighter level requirements identify the feats that stand in for fighter class features. You wouldn't allow a rogue to take rage powers in place of their rogue talents, why is this appropriate?

feats that require fighter level are some of the most generic feats in the game. They do things any other martial should absolutely be capable of. I've hated fighter feats from the beginning and I don't see that changing for me.

So a Slayer gets their Studied Target bonus and can also pick up Greater Weapon Focus and (Greater) Weapon Specialization?

Power Attack and friends are dramatic increases in damage per round. Doing this will make combat more swingy, especially because a bunch of monsters that used to not have them will now be doing insane damage. Two Weapon Fighting chain should probably be reduced to just one feat, but should still need that feat to be selected.

I'd remove point blank shot entirely rather than making precise shot insanely good. Ranged attacking builds could use a bit of reining in, and this is an elegant way to both make the combat style easier to get into while also slightly lowering the power level.

After having played 5th edition, I'm beginning to see this as an issue with pathfinder as a whole. The massive number of small bonuses the game allows become an exponential snowball of death. This is a separate issue that I think might need an entirely different fix. When Dodge, Power Attack or Point Blank Shot are valued far higher over a feat that makes a huge difference in combat style or completely changes how you use a skill, that's a serious problem.

I'm not a fan of the basic combat changes. Make them perks of the fighter class or any full Bab classes instead. A character without power attack swings harder by rolling high on the damage die or criting and none of the other freebees make sense to hand out unless your motive is to ban the fighter.

restricting basic things like PA to full bab classes would just screw over 3/4s classes, which is not what I want. The fighter's purpose in 3.X systems has pretty much always been as a 2 level dip anyway. The only thing pathfinder changes about that is that some fighter archetypes, like Two Handed Fighter, actually give you good abilities that are a REAL reason to stick with the class as opposed to forced feat exclusivity that isn't necessary.

Toughness Giving Endurance and Diehard is too good. My Fast Healer Bloodrager builds would have a hard on for these rules.

What I did with Mobility is I roll it into Dodge. Making Dodge much more appealing and also making the Spring Attack and other Mobility feats a little easier to obtain.

Hit points aren't the only player resource I can attack, specialize in one thing too hard and the DM always finds a chink in the armor. I'm still on the fence about this one though.

I thought about dodge rolling into mobility, but I was hesitant to make a single feat basically invalidate low level opportunity attacks.

I do not give archers anything. I just do not want to give them an easier time.

archers do a lot of damage, sure, but if they're spending all their feats on archery, do they really get room to do anything else? We're back to my main issue with martials, it's all or nothing, build for max damage or be garbage with them.

Only free feats I give are Power attack, Weapon Finesse (As a weapon Property) and Combat Expertise. The PC needs a +1 BaB and that is it (no score requirements). Which lets me remove Piranha Strike so they can't 2x PA damage.

I wouldn't let them stack obviously, I'd just make -1 for +2 (increasing with BAB as PA) a rule across the board for all weapons, then throw in the 50% for two-handed.

I do make my players Take TWF BUT I merge GTWF with ITWF. Once the PC reaches +11 BaB they can take the 3rd attack like GTWF. This shortens the chain and I feel GTWF is a trap feat anyways which hardly ever hits so I just give it away.

works either way then, makes sense.

I do not give mounted combat away because I do want them to have to work up to Spirited Charge when they already are getting Power attack for free. I know...

really? our rise of the runelords campaign has a small cavalier riding a wolf, and even then he hasn't charged once in an entire dungeon because the spacing is just too restrictive. Sure if you want to fight a mounted lance charger in an open field you're going to get wrecked, but if you're dumb enough to do so, you kinda deserve to die at that point.

I like the skill boost feats.

• Persuasive and Skill Focus (Intimidate) for a Dazzling Display build is fantastic.
• Prodigy for a Bard (with Versatile Performance) is similarly awesome
• (skill improvement feat) for a (skill exploitation build choice) is good stuff

1) If you combine some feats but leave others alone, the others will become relatively weaker. To the point where previously solid feats (e.g. Ironhide) suddenly become mostly irrelevant - something you actually want to fight.

I don't really want to remove options, but I also want to make sure that there aren't a bunch of feats that just give flat bonuses roadblocking other feat chains. What I'm thinking might be best is just to take Dodge, Mobility, Critical Focus, and the +2 to two skills feats and +2 to a save feats away only as prerequisites for feat chains but allow my players to still take them if they want them.

This way the balance and integrity of "small bonus" feats stay relatively the same, but they aren't serving as gatekeepers for cooler, more interactive feats.

2) Classes with bonus feats will profit more than others. Yes, there are only so many really fitting feats for a concept, but stockpiling more on top of it might show surprising synergy.

3) Monsters will profit too, adding unexpected power - and bookkeeping.

4) To a lesser extent, the additional bookkeeping also affects the players. Endurance comes to my mind - noting and remembering all these very situational +4 bonuses is more chore than fun. As a player, I'd probably ask to just get the original Toughness.

I'm willing to experiment with the bonus feat classes to see how dumb it can get, but honestly I'm not sure anything will make me like martials more than spellcasters in pathfinder. Straight martials are usually only good for doing damage, and if that changes, I'm cool with it. If it makes the situation worse, I'll have to look at the reasons why, but I won't be able to find those reasons without playtesting anyway.

the monster part is on my end, and I'll probably just edit them during prep time and ignore the ones I don't use. For actual pathfinder adaptation, yeah it would be a ridiculous amount of work.

As far as the player part goes I've never had book-keeping be an issue when it comes to feats, so that's another thing I'll have to play with to see the extent of. If my players come back reporting issues keeping track of things, I can always switch stuff around.

so I've been thinking on the scaling, it seems like a good idea but I'm not quite sure how to word it.

I was thinking something like: If a feat you possess has an improved or greater version, you gain that feat when you meet it's prerequisites unless it's only prerequisite is the base feat.

Would that work, or are there feats out there that would break such a simple fix? My biggest concern with most of these ideas is ending up having to rewrite a bunch of feats on a case by case basis because of the changes, but I can't think of any issues off the top of my head.

I included the last bit because spell focus and spell penetration both have prereqs of simply having the base feat, so it made sense to exclude those cases.

Quote:

Power Attack/Deadly Aim/Piranha Strike, Combat Expertise, Mounted Combat and Two-Weapon Fighting: become basic combat mechanics.

Agree on this list, but Weapon Finesse should be added to it.

yeah, I was considering that. I also intended to combine the existing Dex to Damage feats into a single one that isn't unnecessarily complicated or restrictive.

Quote:

Point Blank Shot: rolled into precise shot, feats that required point blank shot no longer do.

Lots of ways to handle this one, since Point Blank Shot on its own is a decent (if boring) effect. This approach looks fine, although it does make Precise Shot a ridiculous good feat.

having played an archer cleric from levels 13 to 18 now, I've found myself having to really put myself in harms way to activate PBS, honestly I just avoid it most of the time. At low levels it's far less risky since you don't need to worry about large reach weapon wielding demons one-shotting you.

Quote:

Mobility: removed for being terrible.

Personally I'd roll it in with another feat, but it's bad enough that it probably won't be missed anyways.

I thought about rolling it into dodge, but I figured it would make AoOs worthless.

Quote:

Dodge & Combat Reflexes: dodge is rolled into combat reflexes, any feat that required dodge requires combat reflexes instead. I wanted to make combat reflexes a basic game mechanic originally, but I thought that might change the combat dynamic too much if everyone could possibly have 2 or more opportunity attacks each round.

Combat Reflexes is really good, but not so good as to be necessary on every build in the same way that Power Attack and Deadly Aim are for full BAB characters. I personally would leave it alone and roll Dodge in with something else.

hmm. I was also considering just ditching dodge as a requirement for feats, I've never liked feats that boil down to "+1 to a thing".

Quote:

Endurance & Diehard: rolled into Toughness for being kinda boring

Toughness looks incredibly attractive with this change, right up there with Improved Initiative in terms of general-purpose feats you pick up after covering all your bases.

That was kind of the intent. I might decide to go back and just roll endurance in and leave diehard alone, but I still feel like no one's ever felt good about picking up diehard...

I'd leave these alone. The skill feats are generally NPC material, and I use them frequently on NPC builds who need to be low-level but meet high skill DC's. Not everything needs to be PC material. The save feats are genuinely useful for shoring up a character with a weak save and I'd definitely leave them alone or fold them in with their greater variant.

I wouldn't straight up remove them, I just figured they shouldn't be a roadblock for PCs who want to take an interesting skill based feat, or something like Ready for Action, other feats or having ranks should be enough.

Other suggestions off the top of my head:

* Weapon Finesse should be a standard game mechanic, or possibly fold it in with a general dex-to-damage effect.
* Improved Counterspell should be a standard game mechanic
* Combine the Vital Strike feat chain into a single feat (automatically progressing with BAB)
* Combine Craft Staff and Craft Rod (even combined it's still the worst crafting feat in the game)

I'm beginning to agree with finesse, and WOW I never realized how jank improved counterspell is, that's definitely getting added. I'm still considering feat scaling so doing that to vital strike is an option, but speaking from experience, vital strike can be bloody terrifying. Honestly, I almost feel like all magical item crafting should be one feat, because either your DM is going to allow it, or they may as well not exist.

I was also thinking about combining Weapon Focus and Weapon Spec into one feat that gives +1 Attack and Damage instead of +1 and +2 respectively.

Have you considered making some of the Feats scale up with levels instead of needing Improved/Greater versions?

Also, the "need" for some feats is more a result of the game mechanics.

scaling was definitely a thought, although trickier to implement from a balance perspective as some improved and greater versions of feats are insanely powerful.

I don't want to derail your thread or anything, so feel free not to reply, but out of curiosity what's wrong with Mobility (relatively new player/GM)?

two reasons, the first is that it pretty much gets thrown at everything movement related as a prerequisite. The second is that it's a feat that from a balance perspective, is insanely strong at doing the one thing it's designed to do, and in all other situations it does literally nothing. When such a feat is used as a gateway to other feats that are actually useful in a variety of ways without being too strong at any one thing, it becomes "bloat". It's a passive feat you don't really care about, it doesn't really add anything to your build, it's just there because you needed to take it to get to something better. Sure it's nice when it's relevant, but it's not interesting or game changing which is what a good feat should be.

Adding Endurance to Toughness seems good. Adding Die Hard as well seems a little too good.

my reasoning basically came down to asking myself when was the last time anyone was happy about taking any of toughness, endurance or diehard. The answer to that question was honestly just about never. I fully admit that all three feats give you very useful things, but they aren't things you WANT to need. They're feats that only benefit you when you're already in a losing situation, and the best way to mitigate those situations is to not get placed in them to start with.

Burning a feat slot of those three feats has always been akin to ripping off a bandaid for me because there are so many better uses for that feat slot that once you decide you need one, you just pull the trigger and block all the other options out of your mind. Even mashed together, I still think there are far better uses for a feat slot than getting all three benefits at once.

Looks good! This is pretty much what I recommend and roll with as well. One suggestion (if you weren't already going to do this) is to still require the ability score prerequisites to do the feats that have become combat mechanics. So you would still need 13 Str to Power Attack, or 15 Dex to use TWF.

I was most likely going to keep those going, it makes sense to do so.

Honestly I never saw why ITWF and GTWF had those insane dex prereqs. Keeping that to 15 seems very reasonable to me.

yeah, especially when twf builds are almost exclusively STR to damage, they dont have too many options for other stats with how many feats they already need.

This might actually be more appropriate in the homebrew section, I wasn't sure which it should go in. I was thinking about taking a weed whacker to the feat system the next time I DM'd a pathfinder campaign and I was looking for some advice on whether or not my ideas are sound or might lead to catastrophic results as far as power level goes. I've always hated having a bunch of filler feats required to get to really cool stuff, it basically means only the fighter gets to play with a lot of them. On top of that I've never accepted the idea that the fighter's exclusive feats were somehow vital to the integrity to the class, they just take away from options other classes should have access to, fighters are always going to be terrible, feat exclusivity won't change that.

Below are the changes I was thinking about, let me know if you think I've torn a hole in the space time continuum somehow or opened pandora's munchkin box of game ruining. Or if you like the idea and think I've missed something else bloaty, let me know.

~~~~~

Fighter level requirements become BAB requirements

Power Attack/Deadly Aim/Piranha Strike, Combat Expertise, Mounted Combat and Two-Weapon Fighting: become basic combat mechanics.

Point Blank Shot: rolled into precise shot, feats that required point blank shot no longer do.

Critical Focus: removed for being terrible

Mobility: removed for being terrible.

Dodge & Combat Reflexes: dodge is rolled into combat reflexes, any feat that required dodge requires combat reflexes instead. I wanted to make combat reflexes a basic game mechanic originally, but I thought that might change the combat dynamic too much if everyone could possibly have 2 or more opportunity attacks each round.

Endurance & Diehard: rolled into Toughness for being kinda boring

Spell Focus: no longer a requirement for any feats. While spell focus was thematically appropriate for most feats, mechanically speaking it didn't make much sense for those schools who didn't rely on bumping spell DCs.

+2 to two skills and +2 to a save feats: removed as prerequisites for being pure unadulterated bloaty garbage, with the exception of the improved +2 saves feats.

~~~~~

So I've been doing some theorycrafting on builds for our Rise of the Runelords campaign, and the more I build I seem to feel like multiclassing is almost never worth it compared to whatever the appropriate archetype is for your build. For example, looking at a two handed fighter at 20th level, versus Bloodrager 1 / Twohanded Fighter 5 / Sentinel 6 / Furious Guardian 8, while my flat damage is higher, I lose out on the 19th level capstone of 2H fighter which pretty much guarantees automatic crits, plus a bunch of extra feats. The only real benefit it seems is having higher reflex and will saves.

When I built a mythic vital striker for our wrath of the righteous campaign, I originally built it as Ora 1 / Pal 2 / Rngr 1 / 2H Fighter 6 so I could capitalize on having a high charisma and massive strength score, but the build actually ended up better as a straight Swashbuckler since I could both defend and hit everything with dex, keep a little charisma reliance and still had a lot of really good class features to back it up.

I wanted to replace the same character with a Magus (Eldritch Archer) / Arcane Archer so I wasn't just a damage machine. The split between dex, int and str was too much of a burden, my spellcasting took a hit and demons were resistant or immune to all my damage, so instead I rolled up a straight cleric, got wisdom to hit/damage with mythic guided hand, and still had fantastic spell power to back it up with on the utility front.

So far my experience in pathfinder is that there is almost always a better option than multiclassing to do what you want to do, unless what you want to do is explicitly done by multiclassing (Mystic Theurge, for example). The rules inherently punish it with the exception of a few things like the half-elf's multitalented trait and the Magical Knack trait.

So I have to ask, when is it actually worth it to multiclass?

Frogsplosion wrote:

So I built an orc bloodrager recently, my DM allowed me to have a badger familiar and I've basically used to to bust up the character. I gave it the valet archetype, took Amplified Rage so I could hit 30 strength while raging (The badger holds a permanent readied action to cut himself upon combat starting). I also took ranks in ride, so my badger is intelligent, also gets my ranks in ride, and rides me, so he can use the ride skill to negate hits (lol).

I don't get how the badger gets rage, even with an injury. He isn't a bloodrager, and valet doesn't share class features. What am I missing?

badgers have the blood rage ability, they take damage in combat, they fly into a rage. valet gives the familiar all your teamwork feats, in this case amplified rage.

So I built an orc bloodrager recently, my DM allowed me to have a badger familiar and I've basically used to to bust up the character. I gave it the valet archetype, took Amplified Rage so I could hit 30 strength while raging (The badger holds a permanent readied action to cut himself upon combat starting). I also took ranks in ride, so my badger is intelligent, also gets my ranks in ride, and rides me, so he can use the ride skill to negate hits (lol).

My other group broke the game because the DM messed up. He gave us a version of potion of love that has no save and "dominates" things (by making them obsessed with the user). So naturally the party barbarian throws it at an elder brain and ends up making the entire illithid hive his love slaves (the amount of tentacle hentai jokes that followed were the icing on the cake).

we just recently split the party and it worked out just fine. Ignore the fact that we were level 18 mythic tier 9, I'm sure that had nothing to do with it...nothing at all.

Frogsplosion wrote:

is there any way to get a style feat like dragon style that works on unarmed strikes, to work with a weapon or monk weapon? I was disappointed to find that monk weapons aren't naturally interchangeable with abilities requiring unarmed strikes.

You want Ascetic Style (and possibly also its sequels Ascetic Form and Ascetic Strike).

that's serviceable. I'm annoyed by how unnecessarily specific it is though. It couldn't just say "monk weapon" so I could take crusaders flurry and dragon style people to death with a greatsword, grr.

is there any way to get a style feat like dragon style that works on unarmed strikes, to work with a weapon or monk weapon? I was disappointed to find that monk weapons aren't naturally interchangeable with abilities requiring unarmed strikes.