John John's page

The size of the fighter's numbers was never the problem,

Nitpicking a bit here, but in 3.5 the fighters numbers were a bit to low mainly due not being able to deal with many damage reduction at high level, but also because he generally was a bit lackluster. To add insult to injury the cleric could reach his damage numbers (without using spaltbooks). All of these problems were mostly fixed in pathfinder.

The problem I have with batman and this short of comic book characters in general is that their powers and abilities aren't really consistent. When being with his JLA friends batman becomes essentially superhuman but when ambushed from some thugs in gotham he actually faces the danger of getting knocked out. Contrary to that dnd pc's are pretty consistent in what they can do.
I believe the new rules do require some short of explanation for pc's higher than 7th level. At the very least you can say their constant struggle against monsters and use of magic equipment is rubbing of on them and pushing the beyond their human limits. For pc's higher than 15 level you can say they are awakened to fundamental and essential nature of reality and conciousness within them which allows them to perform tasks clearly impossible to mortal men. This can be different from your typical arcane magic since its something much more fundamental.

Another option could be to say they only get their level bonuses above 6th level to attack, ac and saves if they have an appropriate armor or weapon. You could say only if the have at least a +4 armor or weapon can they enjoy the full 20th level bonus. Though this makes them more dependant on their equipement, its also essentially makes them awesome human beings that can perform godlike tasks only because of the excellence with which they use their powerful magic items.

John John wrote:

Malthraz wrote:

It is also partly about the strange coincidence that adventures always seems to be lucky enough to face encounters +/-3 the level. With the +1 scaling, an encounter 3 levels above you now is very dangerous, whereas with less extreme scaling it is not so dangerous.

With reduced scaling there are far more encounters that could be considered challenging. With the standard +1 scaling things have to be far more fine tuned for the party, which I find breaks the suspension of disbelief.

Sorry, I don't want to spam your posts and say the same thing to boot, but isn't this the case with pathfinder 1.0?

Actually I guess it depends on the level as a 1st level party will find a cr 4 encounter super deadly. While a 20th level party will propably find it a 23 cr encounter normal.
However level+4 encounters are theoretically at least deadly since 3rd edition dnd and I am not certain an encounter 3 level higher than you will be deadlier for a party of 4 pcs's in pathfinder 2 than it was in pathfinder 1.

Just had to laugh there for a second. Cr 4 at level 1 is by no means deadly. You can take down Cr 5s and 6s at level 1 if you play right and optimize. Cr 4 is if you don't optimize.

Maybe if you have a witch or sth? I haven't experimeted that much with running multiple scenarios for level 1 pc's. I remember a kind of chance encounter with a barghest causing huge problems for 1st level party of 4 and it wasn't like the barghest was especially lucky or that the fighter didn't have magic weapon oil. Even a giant phantom armor could end up being really dangerous at these levels. As for CR 6 I am really having trouble imagining a mudlord losing from a 1st level party.

The issue with that is the +level to everything requires everyone to be at least at the batman level. If you want to play a different character (such as someone who has more weaknesses) you're out of luck/stuck at low level/forced to not roll dice for certain checks/have to create houserules in PF2e. That's a problem for people who don't want to always play Batman or better.

I actually agree with you, but I also understand why Paizo is doing this.

Also now can easily play the typical sword and sorcery hero, who is good at everything, which in former editions wasn't that easy and for some classes impossible.

For me ultimately, only playing the game multiple times, will allow me to decide if Paizos decision was a smart one.

I did wonder on what the different proficiency levels would grant you, apart from the bonus, since skill feats must also be doing something AND certain class features affect skill usage too from what I remember about the rogue.
It will be interesting to see how all of this shakes out.

But I think they only have two actions whether obeying commands or not.

I didn't say so in my post, but that's also kinda weird to me. I can see it maybe working if they need less than 3 action to do certain things, like full attacking for example.

So if you dont spend a command action they do nothing?
I mean I can see the logic balance wise, but otherwise I don't see how this makes any sense.

Dragon78 wrote:

So undead are no longer immune to energy drain?

It's too early to say. If something like negative levels exists, it might contain rules text saying that it bolsters undead, and then provide an alternate effect for them.

Or maybe being immune to death effects means you are immune to energy drain?

Heh its funny I find myself calculating its racial bonuses to saving throws. They are +5 fortitude, +4 reflex, +9 will. Pretty obvious the are trying to make up for the differences in his abilities.

Also its interesting that now the enervated is permanent of a critical failure, I think stuff like that will make people really care about their rolls. (Which is a good thing as far as I am concerned).

John John wrote:

Die pools instead of static modifiers add more variance. For example if my attack roll is 1d20+1d10 instead of 1d20+5 it means I can hit ac 26-30 without a natural 20 and I can miss ac 5. So I can see a certain design it could be useful (aka orcs can still threaten you at high levels).

Now you are propably talking about +5 greataxes doing 5d12 damage? That's easy to translate to 1d12+26 damage (or 3d20+1 damage :P).

The general thing is swingy dice rolls are kind of part of the fun of dnd, though I do understand that some people (including my past self) are annoyed by that swinginess and are glad that the high levels minimize this short of thing.

Variance is necessary to a point; I don't think most people would respond well to completely deterministic outcomes. Larger dice pools are actually more likely to give results closer to their average than smaller dice pools with fixed modifiers, but they have more variance in what results they can produce. This means that in practice there isn't much difference between 5d12 and 1d12+26 with respect to outcomes, super high and super low results are very marginal. You are correct, it is very easy to translate a dice pool to an average modifier plus a single die, but since that's the case why use a dice pool at all? Its not any quicker to add up than a single dice plus modifier, and save for the extreme end results, a dice pool produces about the same results. So the extreme end results are what the determining factor is. (I know I'm just retreading ground here but bear with me.)

I think it just that its the most direct way to say that a +1 multiplies the base weapon damage.

My concern is that extreme end results have a poor track record with regards to player enjoyment. You need only take a look at all the different gripes that the firearms rules for 1e produces and how controversial critical failure and critical hit charts are.

It may be pavlovian but my experience is that the possibility of extreme results actually keeps the players engaged, its a balancing act really make it too swingy and it looses its tactical interest make it not swingy enough and it becomes like chess.

This is a game with levels. High level characters are the equivalent of high level monsters, more or less.

If Fafhrd is the equivalent of CR 25, then Fafhrd is the equivalent of the Tarrasque. I don't think that's anything close to the way those characters are portrayed in the books. Or close to a Balor, or a great wyrm.

Now, I can see Fingolfin, Finarfin and Feanor, who could defeat platoons of Balors in Silmarillion, to be lvl 20. Or Beowulf, who killed a giant with bare hands. Or Cu Chulainn, who destroyed an army. I don't see Fafhrd doing things like that.

To be fair high level characters with the high level magic items are equivalent to high level monsters.

I don't think the example with grey mouser is supposed to stack levels its basically adnd multiclassing so that character was sth like level 18 in adnd(which is even less in pathfinder).

Also there is a difference between tolkien Balor and dnd Balor. As there is a difference between adnd balor and pathfinder balor. In any case the tolkien balor can't cast greater teleport or cast implosion and proprable could be assigned an ac lower than 36.

But in any case, semantics aside the main point of your post stands. Fafhrd wouldn't be able to deal with a pathfinder balor head on.

thflame wrote:

What does bug me is that the wizard can beat the level 1 fighter in an arm wrestling match.

This is sort of my worry as well...but to be honest, there's enough tricks to winning an arm wrestling match with somebody stronger that I'm not sure arm wrestling specifically is a deal breaker.

Wow i was going to respond to thflame that arm wrestling is propably just a strength check and actually strength is weird ability and many times the results shouldn't even be random. Like a 20 strength dude should just win vs a 10 strength dude.

Out of seer curiousty what tricks can you pull in an arm wrestling match?

I was always a believer in monsters following the same rules as pc's and I disliked 4th editions treatment of the matter.
Nowdays though I think the whole matter is a false dichotomy. What really matters is monsters following rules that make narrative sense. For example fire elementals being immune to fire, dragons flying etc. Stuff that narratively or storywise the monsters should be able to do.
I still like for the monster to have ability scores to get a feel for what its capable of, but no need for the monster to follow class levels progression and abilties.
What I still don't like are arbitrary abilities, like a boss monsters gets extra actions just because its a "boss" monster. Again I am ok with a marilith using an action to make multiple attacks because it has multiple arms and can tactically use them, but I don't like arbitrary abilities.
Or a monster having magic items that it can use but is not using them because they are "loot". Again if there is a story/roleplay reason for why its not using an item I am ok with it.

What path does PF 2.0 seem to be following?

Count me in against encounter powers, though I don't see stances as encounter powers. They should last as long as a fighter holds them and require some kind of effort.
And any kind of effort should induce some kind of fatigue. People shoudn't be able to be alert for hours upon hours or run at top speed for minutes. I don't know how you can make a balanced but playable and fun system for the various kinds of fatigue in pathfinder though, hope paizo has some good ideas though.

Barator wrote:

Not a fan of monsters following different setup than the PCs. Miss seeing feats associated with the monsters, Ability Mods versus Ability Scores are not my thing.

They said in discussion in an earlier blog that monsters can still have feats, and if they do those will get summarized like any other ability. But they're not going to fill out monsters with the full number of feats a character of that level would get just to tick the boxes, unless the creature in question is actually built like a full N/PC.

Mandatory feats for monsters or better said for racial hd (vs class hd) has been one of the worst ideas for 3.5. 3.0 had no feats for monsters. I think I mentioned this in two different threads of old.

I am all about monsters following the rules that make sense. The absence of feats can be rationalized as the difference between hd that have a racial source and hd that have a class source.
I have a problem with monsters following abritrary "this is a boss monster and therefore can take an extra turn" rules not with "this monster doesn't follow a 100% the procedure for creating pc's" rules.

John John wrote:

Actually without having knowledge of the whole games context I can't say. For example though pure Vancian casting is kinda of a hassle if you only have max 3 spells per level, it kinda isn't.

Having only three spells per level makes the problem with Vancian casting worse, not better.

It seems we have different ideas of what the "problem" is.

I think the problem is the bookkeeping of managing the spellslots and writing down what spell you have memorized for each slot. Spontaneous casters just need to know the spells they know and the slots, so there is much less bookkeeping. Having less slots mitigates that.

My guess is you think the problem is, vancian spellcasting not being effective because you memorized spells that ended up being useless or spent all the same slots memorizing a spell you believe will most likely be useful, but that ends up being repetitive.

The thing is your problem is also a feature since it promotes resource management and making/guessing the right choice.

Fuzzypaws wrote:

My one, big, huge gripe is still the Vancian spellcasting. That needs to DIE IN A FREAKING FIRE. Make the prepared spellcasters Arcanist neo!Vancian casting, give the sorcerer etc more options, just finally freaking ditch ye olde terrible og!Vancian system that everyone hates. Then I really will be all on board, and will happily call this take on the cleric superior to the original.

I love vancian spellcasting, many others love vancian spellcasting. Stop pretending that you speak for everybody. You don't.

I like Vancian spellcasting too, but isn't arcanist also Vancian? From what I know about Vance's books arcanist spellcasting is a closer fit. Or not? (I am not sure)

Why are they going away?

By that I mean, if Paizo still makes flat number bonuses, err, why not use them? Oh because this other thing might be useful if we happen to possibly end up in a certain situation? I mean a plus 10 is nice but having plus 14 is better.

And even if they do ditch them, err, so? I have no hopes that outside of a small pool of items will see use. Because the new math says this is better and this is the way to play.

This is the forum that at least at one time seemed to think Spellcasters to carring Dueling weapons is a given. I fully expect PF 2 to be Min/Maxed into the ground as well.

I guess they are going away because having straight up bonuses to your attack, saves and ac is hust too useful to pass up. In 3rd edition the dm was forced to grant such items to keep players able to numerically keep up with the monsters.

If you do away with this you can have items that grant you choices or different tactics or allow for different approaches and strategies and still be prefered over the straight up bigger bonuses stuff. Having more choices and cool power is fun or at least more fun than having big bonuses on your stat (unless those bonuses actually mean sth).

This actually makes it easier that more than a small pool of items will see use, it doesn't make it a certainty and I am sure there will be some ones that are prefered, but there is a difference between a "no brainer" and "slightly more useful".

First of all sorry for not replying, I got a cold and have been sick for 4 days now.

Generally I like a mix of about 1/3 items the party might craft or commission themselves, 1/3 items tailored to or chosen for the party by me, and 1/3 items that are totally random rolls. I don't make it easy to sell items, so they can't just readily trade the stuff I roll or give them for whatever specific super custom thing they want, but they do get components and money and favors and so on to get at least some of what they want directly. If the Big Six are gone, this will be even easier on me, and I won't have to remember to factor them into the stuff I make or tweak the stuff I roll.

Some of my favorite game moments have come from rolled items like a Wand of Wonder, and I don't want that to just be something that is easily turned in at the pawn shop to go order a replacement item on Golamazon~

Yeah, I too have found it very enjoyable in a game to roll random treasure, it really is something people need to experience to understand. The great thing is, that it seems it will be much easier to do this in this edition.

It does seem that the big six are almost gone. Recently it has been said the cloak of resistance and ring of protection won't be in the core, propably.

John John wrote:

It mentions spells... then again I am sure i read a Mark Seifter posts that says that spell level sets the dc. I can't find it though.

You are misremembering- it's the opposite. Spell DCs are the same for all your spells.

Your spell DC should be be 10 + your level + proficiency + ability score mod, based on what we've seen.

Yeah I searched for the quote but coudn't find it.

I guess this means even low level spells have a chance at success now. I am inclined to believe this is a good thing.

I know I am making A LOT of assumptions, but as an example:
So a wizard with dominate 10+20 level +12 intelliegence=42 dc and a fighter 20level+ 4 wisdom+ 5 resistance=29 needs a 13 to resist a 5th (or Xth) level spell.

Also I like the fact that you can break realistical limit's at level 7 (the absolutely earliest), because it reminds me of the E6 limit.

My first impression was " It's 4th edition you gain your level or half your level to everything, bleh not for me"
Marks posts though made it clear that the trained-legendary distinctions easily fix this and more than that, solve the fighters don't get nice things "problem" that has plagued 3rd edition from its inception.
This is the first time since hearing about Pathfinder 2.0 my intrigued/excited meters are spiking.

Finally! This has been a long time coming.
Paizo is taking the right steps with the new companions, the erratas and this new feature.
I actually have been constantly using MonsterDB, but maybe I will try this now.

So this is the last part of my tough monster posts.

Pixie CR4 between its stealth +16, constant invisibility and range its really hard to even know the direction of its charm monster, sleep or memory loss attacks. So glitterdusting it, will be problematic and see invisibility will be the better solution and despite it having dispel magic 1/day at caster level 8 it has no spellcraft to know what you casted. Ofcourse it still flies, has dr 10 cold iron, sr 15 and can cast shield for an ac of 22. Its also has entangle and persisten image 1/day. The balancing factor is that it has 18 hp. (Also see the will o wisp.)

Purple worm CR 12 I would actually claim this is perfect for its CR. Its countered with freedom of movement and a delay poison. Its poison needs 3 consecutive saves but a person with +14 fortitude save will take an average of 7,5 strength damage during the 6 rounds, so its not that impressive.
Its bite is affected by improved critical, critical focus and staggering critical. It has +18 perception, tremoresense and burrow, but party should roll perception DC 25 to notice sth approaching from the ground and it has a -2 initiative. So for a normal party the hard part will be protecting members not under freedom of movement and delay poison, but since the worm has no way of knowing who is protected it shouldn't be that hard.
It also has an extremely low will save and no immunity to mind affecting. All in all its a well designed monster.

Raksasha CR 10 mentioned only for its use as a spy manipulator. Its has dr 15/piercing and good, sr 25 and can cast mage armor and shield. Offensively its really really weak. However its not supposed to fight the pc's, its supposed to use its +24 disguise, +20 bluff, +18 stealth, change shape and supernatural free action fast detect thoughts to gain as much info on the pc's as possible for the big bad. In that role its very good.

Remorharz CR 7 Has burrow, tremorsense 60 ft and perception +16. I assume its bite deals no fire damage since it isn't included in statblock and the description specifically states “contact with its body”. +2 one handed weapons can withstand 5-6 hits which should be enough. Its impressively immune to both fire and cold. Getting bitten grabbed and then swallowed whole can deal a total of 63,5 damage vs non fire resistant opponents. The fact that it makes animal companions, shapeshifted druids and monks cry catapults it to tough monster category. It has int 5 so it can understand stuff.
If a dm assumes that getting grabbed or bitten deals to you fire damage then it becomes very hard to deal with.

Rertriever CR 11 +7 initiative, fast healing 5, construct traits, 50 ft speed, 5 attacks at +19 and a 6th +16 touch attack each round that can deal 12d6 (or 6d6) elemental damage or petrify, dc 19. It has to use a different ray each round. It also has discern location at will and is under the constant effects of spider climb and water walk.

Rhinoceros, Wooly CR 6 pretty good trample(2d6+13, dc 23) and diehard. Still not very impressive, but I think its worth mentioning.

Rust Monster CR 3 mostly annoying since it can relatively easily destroy treasure

Satyr CR 4 Main feature is his 60 ft aoe suggestion for a dc 18. If you save you cannot be targeted again. Then he can cast fear at dc 18. Also has suggestion at will (dc 17). Has +18 perception and +17 stealth. DR 5/cold iron. Again its all balanced by his abysmal full attack.
Note that if you can penetrate his dr he can reliably cast SM III.

Sea serpent CR 12 Oh my a higher cr behir. Again it attacks (with its 20ft reach), hits, grabs and constricts. Next round it rolls it +35 grapple, deals bite and constrict damage and then swallows whole. If only its bite hits it totals an average of 153 damage(with swallow whole damage). All of this is stopped by freedom of movement, but then again at this level the whole party wont be protected. Has immunity to cold, fire resistance 30 and a weird ability that allows it to run 300 ft in water and gain a +40 on its stealth check.
Also has a 20th caster level non detection effect when not in combat.

Shadow CR 3 A swarm of shadows is a typical party killer. Their touch attacks deal str damage without any save, as you level your hp increase faster than your strength or touch ac. A cleric can kill them with channel energy and protect people with death ward. It also has perception and stealth +8.

Shark dire CR 9 20 ft reach bite +17 (4d10+15/19-20), grabs at +29, has critical focus, bleeding critical and swallows whole. Perception +25, keen scent and blindsense 30ft.

Spectre CR 7 not as bad as the shadows or wraiths in my opinion but generally dangerous for the same reasons.

Stirge CR ½ Especially good in being annoying. Has a +7 touch attack and if it hits it deals 1 con damage in the end of the round. Easy to kill and escape from, but they will leave the party constitution lower than normal. Even at 3rd level where lesser restoration is available 8 stirges could put a serious dent in the partys resources.

Tiger/Dire tiger CR 4/8 it pounces, grabs and rakes. Also has respectable stealth in tall grass.

Treant CR 8 seems average but has some interesting and tactics. It can create two new treants albeit with only 1 slam attack and 10ft move. It can also sunder stuff very effectively as can its other treants. I can imagine a situation where if its brought to less than half its hp it can start using full defense while making the other treants inflict the broken condition to the partys weapons (not destroying them though).

Wasp swarm CR 3 A flying swarm.

Wight CR 3 Has very high perception(+11) and stealth(+16!). I don't see how they get to such high stealth. It can deal 1 negative level per slam and anything it kills becomes its spawn. Still it barely belongs in this list since its slam attack is only +4 (1d4+1).

Will o wisp CR 6 Natural invisibility, immunity to magic, flight, ranged attack and +25 stealth makes them almost impossible to deal with. However their fluff suggests other wise. “Will-o'- wisps only use their electric shock ability under extreme duress, preferring to let other creatures or hazards claim their victims while they float nearby and feast." So it seems their main stick is luring travelers to natural (or unatural) hazards, so they can feed from their fear.
If however they are forced in combat a normal party has to essentially run for it and find cover in a closed space or sth. Glitterdust can work if you make a DC 20 perception check after it attacked. Since it attacked it cannot use stealth, the pin point dc becomes from DC40 DC 20 and if it moves even at half speed the dc takes a further -5. The only problem that is the range from which it made the attack that can add +1 to the dc per 10 ft. Also for some reason I can't find the range increment for it.

Wraith CR 5 Like the shadow or the spectre its an incorporeal creature whose touch attacks target a resource other than hp. Unlike the shadow or the spectre it allows a save and deathward doesn't stop it. However since it deals con drain the fortitude save to resist it becomes ever smaller and since it deals a little damage you can actually drop from hp loss.
Perhaps the worst of its horrible kind in the core bestiary.

Yeth Hound CR 3 high initiative, perception and stealth. Its 300 radius dc 12 bay causes people to become panicked. Its bite attack is solid and alsocan cause the shaken condition(or cower people if they are already panicked). To top it off it has dr 5/silver.

Zombie, Human CR ½ Has dr and 12 hp. The fast variety is scarier.

Things I didn't include:

Erinyes already many devils and unholy blight and 1 person fear didn't impress me much.

Dretch already many demons, it might be worth mentioning for being able to cast stinking cloud.

Shadow demon. I guess I should have included it since its really hard to deal with and it will reliably deal 22 damage per round.

Medusa she can disguise and trick the party into not averting their eyes, but even so her disguise modifier isn't that big compared to the party's. She can also use full defense but her ac will still be low.

I also didn't include templates, since they have to be evaluated in a case by case basis (made a small exception fro zombies for no reason :P).

My picks for MMI for monsters strong for their cr. I reached B and also did dragons.

Aboleth CR 7 with project image at will, programmed image at will, and a dc 22 dominate monster.

Angel, Planetar CR16 true seeing, perception +27, regen 10 (evil), at will invisibility, stealth +20, spell like abilities like dispel magic, blade barrier, flame strike, power word stun, waves of fatigue and 1 per day waves of exhaustion. level 16 cleric with holy word, greater dispel magic, heal, righteous might, death ward, wind wall, shield of faith.

Archon, Trumpet cr14, stealth +20, 10/evil, 14 level cleric with notables like heal, divine power and shield of faith

Assassin vine CR 3 Grab, Constrict, needs a 20 perception check to notice it and has free action entangle.

Azata, Bralani CR 6 perception +15, stealth +14, dr 10/cold iron or evil,sr, weak attacks, at will blur and mirror image, 2/day lightning bolt and cure serious

Azata, Ghaele CR 13 see invisibility, stealth +17, greater! invisibility at will, dr 10/cold iron and evil, holy aura, at will dispel magic, major image and cure light, no power attack!, CR 13 cleric with holy word, heal, flame strike, death ward, divine power, divine favor.
The thing with Ghaele is it can use its incorporeal form to withstand big amounts of damage and use chain lightning and prismatic spray, or sink in the floor and heal with cure light wounds while rolling perception to hear and follow the party. Even if it fights while incorporeal its hard to deal with an invisible incorporeal ranged opponent that can be good at dispelling see invisibility and glitterdust.
All in all one of the most dangerous monsters for its cr, ofcourse most players will never face it.

Basilisk CR 5 dc 15 flesh to stone gaze, perception/stealth +10, thankfully it has int 2, initiative -1 and you can use its flesh to unpetrify companions.

Bat swarm your introduction to the most annoying type of monster

Bebilith CR 10 dr 10 good, huge creature with +16 stealth, can easily players armor, has web, intelligent and inflicts one of the worst rot effects in the game. DC 23 fortitude save, needs two saves to remove, last for 5 rounds and deals 2 con damage on each fail. Perhaps balanced by roleplay since its made to hunt demons and like to chew on demon flesh.

Behir CR 8 can easily charge bite, grab and constrict for 32 damage. In the 2nd round it can easily deal 34 damage after swallowing whole the target.

Dragons all of them have high numbers and some stat blocks have good spell picks. Notable among them.

Ancient Black Dragon has acid pool which could mean 40d6 damage on the whole party. Has heroism and mage armor

Blue dragon great wyrms get Sandstorm, which IF remains centered on the dragon can be a tactical nightmare for even optimized parties. Visibility is 5-50 feet, a range smaller than what the dragons spells and breath weapon need to function. Damage per round is 2d6 which is annoying for everything withour dr, range is 1200 feet and the ability has infinite amount of uses and 1 hour duration.

Ancient white dragon maybe not worth mentioning but his heavy snow conditions forces the party to fly and also poses a problem of dealing with a 50 ft fog like area in which the dragon can see.

Young brass dragon just for his annoying sleep breath.
Adult brass dragon between desert wind blindness and sleep breath things can go bad a fast
Ancient brass dragon has sandstorm+windstrom effect, 1 per day, 1 mile! radius with 10 minutes duration. Shuts down archers but since the dragon doesn't seem to be able to see in it not especially impressive.

Young copper dragon slow breath for enough rounds to last the whole combat, uncanny dodge and grease at will.
Ancient copper dragon main joke is the fricking 10 foot range aura of slowness(1 round). Note I consider antimagic field on any monster such a cheesy tactic that I don't consider it improtant at all.

Ancient gold dragon his breath weapon s strength damage can one shot the party's arcane caster and thief/slayer, while reducing archers and melee fighters dpr. Also has a generally solid spell selection.

Young silver dragon just because of his paralyzing breath. DC 18 is low for CR 10 though.

(I actually created this thread about a week ago but for some reason it was deleted. Did I do sth wrong?)

So

In 3rd+ edition there are several problems with dnd's fantasy economy. I think older editions never bothered enough to have problems with it, it was just stuff happens make sense of it.

I any case the problems are:
Set prices: Real economy has supply and demand, while dnd has set prices. Set prices unless they are enforced by anyone are pretty insane.
Magic items: Magic items require gold to create but the components required in their creation are never explained. We have no idea what people need to create magic items, just that it costs X amount of gold.
Selling stuff: You can arbitrarely sell stuff ONLY at half price. (gems etc are the exception)
Some people are intrinsically than others(unlike in the real world): A level 20 wizard or even fighter in a metropolis of commoners is beyond the economy, he essentially lives in an alternate world.

So magic items are weird in that they have arbitrary set prices AND in that they have arbitrary set cost AND in that people buy them only at half price AND in that the people interested in them are beyond the normal world.

In any case the only two reasons for magic items to cost gold are so that adventurers have something to do with the gold they find plus incentive to find it (that' s tradition) and the fact that baldurs gate had items which costed gold.

To answer the original post. Money is never an end to itself, adventurers don't have more money than their locality because no commoner or even noble would want a +5 sword in his hands, and their is no money or amount of magic items they should have, wealth by level is drawn from encounters and monsters also are under not deific law to each have its challenge ratings treasure.

All that doesn't annoy me because the whole game is an abstraction. A realistic economy, no scrap that, a realistic world doesn't work like that.
But you know what? I don't care. I don't want Golarion or any fantasy world to make absolute sense in close inspection. I prefer ease of play.

Creating a functional banlist is pretty time consuming. I have one in 3.5 combined with some small houserules.

I have't played and researched pathfinder enough to create a good banlist. This is what I have so far. Most of it is subject to change and beyond that, it has relative not absolute power. If somebody has a concept he really loves and is ready to work with me bans may be ignored.

BANNED

Core
Leadership
Item creation

Advanced Players Guide
Zen archer*
Guide ranger archetype*

Dazing spell
Persistent spell
Point Blank Master*

Ultimate magic
Synthetist, Master Summoner, Vivisectionist

Empyreal and Sage wildblooded bloodlines

Eldrich heritage

Euphoric Tranquility

Ultimate combat
Oath of vengeance

Antagonize (unsure about wether the errata fixed it)

Snap shot line*

Litany of Righteousness

Double barrled pistol (maybe)

Falcatas threat range never increases (so no improved critical etc.)

ARG

Paragon Surge
Samsarans mystic past life
Wild caller (maybe, not sure)
Scared witch doctor

*Archery stuff, I am undecided about the power of archery in pathfinder. I prolly would like to see it in my games before deciding what to do with it.

Other sources
By default all are banned.
Maybe I will allow sth through discussion.
A few exceptions:
Agile enchantment
Juju oracle
Spellscared oracle
Hellcat invisibility
more to come...

Also I haven't looked carefully at the spells, so I might have missed many gems there.

Note that I do have a few houserules to go with this ban list. So things might be different than one would expect.

Optimization and roleplay are not mutually exclusive, but neither are they totally unrelated.

You generally choose which one you wish to lead with.

Lets say person A wishes to play a elven fey bloodline sorcerer. He finds out that half-elves get an awesome favored class bonus while elves don't, so he decides to change his race to half-elf.
Person B on the other hand just plays his elven fey sorcerer.

Now person A1 during the game roleplays his half elven pc awesomely, gets totally in character and is great fun to have at the table. He reads half elven rp advice on the net and applies in the game any ideas he finds internet. Ofcourse what he really wanted to play was an elf so not everything flows perfectly, but still he is grea fun to have around. Not to mention he seems to have all these spells handy.

Person B1 on the other hand roleplays his character awesomely and because he does what he really wanted is actually better at it than person A1. That said he doesn't like being a push over, so he reads some guides in the net about which spells and feats are good to choose from. He goes with what fits his pc concept and easily pulls his weight in the game.

On the other side person A2 doesn't care about how his pc views the world. He cares about winning. Gaining levels as fast and as easy as possible, minimizing his chance to die and squashing the oposition. His decisions depend only on what gives him the biggest advantage in game. He may even craft his roleplaying story to eliminate any chance of being "forced" to do stuff that put him at a tactical disadvantage, so he has no siblings or parents or anything. If someone tells him that his pc is too powerful he may say that he wont use his awesome power but only in times of Great Need or that he could totally have made something soooo much worse. He changes his bloodline to arcane(sage) and his race to human. He tries to get his hands on dazing and persistent metamagic rods as quickly as possible.

Similarly person B2 is pretty fun to have around until at somepoint he decides that he wants to be able to wield a greatsword, because its cool. So he grabs a level in fighter. At another point he wants to be able to be more sneaky so he gets a level of rogue. He imagines himself as a very subtle charismatic type of dude so as his first level 2 spell he gets detect thoughts, because what's better than knowing what other people are thinking? Knowledge is power after all. With a sorcerer4/thief1/fighter1 party member who casts detect thoughts, the teams resident straight up fighter dies against a hard encounter, hoping that next time he will play with a sorcerer who casts haste.

I don't think anyone will have a problem with 1s and I do think almost everyone will have a problem with 2s.
Yes A1 might be a little worse at roleplaying than B1, and B1 slightly worse as a teamate, but noone really cares.

So to sum up, most likely you will have to choose with which, optimization or roleplay, you will lead with, and at which point you will stop catering to them. But that doesn't mean you can't be good at both.

Me? I always lead with optimization, I try to roleplay and never metagame as much as I can and see, when I am going too far with a build.

As you said Euphoric tranquility requires a melee touch attack so its not that terrible, it actually reminds me of 3,5 Irresistable Dance. All in all a very powerful spell, borderline broken.

Regarding Cold ice strike, IMO damage dealing spells like fireball and cone of cold aren't worth it. Cold ice strike is a good spell but nothing more. Dealing 15d6 damage with a 6th level slot as a swift action at level 15 (how much damage does a fighter deal at that level?) is certainly nice but not broken.

As a master of many styles I would aim for crane style, tiger style and snake style.

Crane style is awesome for survival.

Tiger style gives you slashing damage, a great full attack action that combines well (which you lack because you don't have flurry of blows) and the ability to become take the power attack penalty to your ac(which is great since high to hit roll synergizes great with increasd damage).

Snake style gives you piercing damage and the ability to dodge ranged attacks relaibly. (Especially ranged touch attacks)The rest of its benefit are solid too.

After these dragon style increases your damage a bit but the intimidate effect is rather meh.

Mantis styles is good to take without its follow up feats for the +2 dc to stunning fist increase.

A sample progression:

1st Stunning fist, Unarmed strike, Crane style, Weapon focus(unarmed srike), Power attack
2nd Combat reflexes
3rd Tiger style
5th Crane wing
6th Tiger claws
7th Crane riposte
9th Tiger pounce
10th Snake style
11th Snake sidewind
13th snake fang
14th Dragon style
15th Dragon roar
17th Dragon ferocity
18th Medusas wrath
19th Mantis style

I am not sure but boar style and dragon style might combine nicely for fear inducing tactics