Wild Hunt. Fey, CR 18-20 range. Made as a multiple entry. With spectral hounds, spectral stags to ride and 2-3 types of co-hunters of lesser CR (or just 1, then we will advance it by class levels). Alternatively to stags and hounds, just create a cool fey template for spirit animals, and then say to use such template in the Wild Hunt Entry. But the master of the hunt must be awesome. To scary or at least worry an high level fiend. EDIT: possible variation is an undead wild hunt. But please, some love for high CR fey.
Ashiel wrote:
In my homebrew, I'm working essentially at this, plus reworking domains and schools, and dividing class features in a way combat does not steal to non-combat. Every class has something magic, but the more mundane ones only have a bigger control over equipment and are the best weapon and armor crafters (fighters) or have old abilities merged and reworked (rogues steals things froms PrCs).
Gorbacz wrote:
Myself, at times, I just waited for the errata because I wanted to avoid my usual negativity and say again that APG is a great book but several abilities are just in the "does the designer of this know the rules" field. After UC, I just gave up with the RPG line.
Serisan wrote:
There are things like flanking and such. I admit that the more you level up, the more is difficult beacuse of fly, true seeing and stuff - but say it's 99% of times is just ridiculous. Anyway, the OP said low level, so...
Mike Schneider wrote:
The weapon damage dice compared to multipliers and threat, due the inflation of flat bonuses to damage.
MicMan wrote:
Up until the "Scimifalcascythe, 18-20/x4. I will open another thread and people will say me once again: 1) "lol the only weapon worthy of EWP look at bastard" - as if something in the middle could not be viable 2) "lol consider those things is for min-maxers" - as if all players don't use numbers for combat or skill cheks or whatever 3) "lol you can houserule it" - as if the rules are not there to help people, otherwise why buy the book I don't seriously think I can stand another thing like this. I'm really done with this game. Heavy houserule time, goodnight, Paizo.
I wish to point out one thing: I am quite disappointed from what I've seen until now of the book. Said this, most of the "Wuxia" stuff can be refluffed. Look in any source, wikipedia included - you can rename oriental weapons in any way suitable. The same with classes. In my setting, Ninjas are sort of a Rogue-Monk fantasy version of the Warhammer 40k Dark Eldar Mandrakes. Samurai are deathsworn bodyguards of the Emperor. If one is badass and has resolve, you can just say is a special order of Knights. On a more side note, something similar to firearms. A lot of people think to Doom2 (BTW, that could be a great one shot campaing: fighters and gunslingers vs fiends with lazors - double loot in weapons and ammunitions). I just think to this.
Gorbacz wrote: I never stop being amused at folks who argue about realistic portrayal of sharpened pieces of metal (complete with youtube and wikipedia links) but have absolutely no problem with the fact that falling from 500 ft. is something that a mid-level Barbarian or Fighters sneezes at, because it causes him at average 70 points of damage. Please. The system tried to simulate weapons. Slashing and keen weapons have greater threat. Piercing, devastating blow weapons high multipliers. Heavier weapons TEND to have greater damage dice (which is useless after level 6 and it's one of the things I hoped the book could try to address, but anyway). Weapons with hooks, or which are chains have the trip ability. Weapons with special shape the disarm one. Is not 100% accurate, but enough to grant immersion. You know, roleplaying game. If you depict, by rules, a weapon in a way I cannot reconnect mechanics with fluff, you break my suspension of disbelief. The fact that a barbarian jumps and almost ignores the fall damage is because is just that awesome at that level. That's a matter of adjusting your expectations.
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Technically, it says "reduce", so RAW you should UNlearns stuff, not just refuse to learn. But a good GM can houserule it.
Th eproblem here is not only te mere DPR calculation (which nevertheless shows how the more you go up in levels, the more falcata becomes powerful), but the fact that for a single attack there is a very, very high chance of a big damage burst. Seriously people, I've seen it with a CaGM barbarian and was annoying.
KaeYoss wrote:
You are right and wrong IMHO. PCs could be more complicated to run, and maybe more powerful, but IMHO a consilidation and/or a scaling with levels could be an awesome idea as an alternate rule.
Axl wrote: You think that Pathfinder weapons are supposed to represent real life? Look at the dire flail, two-bladed sword, orc double axe, scythe.... If you wish, you could use the crunch for the scythe to represent a Pollaxe. Piercing? Yes. Slashing? Yes. Hook for tripping, vicious blows. I can not help for the other weapons :p
seekerofshadowlight wrote:
Skill consolidation! If he did it in 3.5, he anticipated the times. Pure genius!
Gorbacz wrote:
Nothing bad in my opinion. Certain classes already share spells or class features. I agree that some PrC is awesome to have for specific combos (one poster pointed out Paladin + Shadowdancer for the Goshdarn Batman). But core classes shoud have priority. @seekerofshadowlight: very imaginative your player ;)
ENworld is loads of fun when is a matter of edition warring. And when is a matter of justifying every thing WotC does, included hypotetical puppies shooting ("in this case, shooting puppies whas the only thing reasonable to do for WotC.."). Thank you Gorbacz for the post. i will print it in a 10x10 feet poster for the sad moments. is intriguing to see that Ari Marmell is nevertheless better as a diviner than as a Game Designer (Tome of Magic Shadowcaster, as an example).
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Wise words. Thank you.
Rules exist to model concepts (and solve conflict). If designers choose to change a little bit more, or a little bit less to obtain what they want, is better than having them restricted, expecially in a job wich requires creativity. Seriously, there are several things that can be worthy of complain, but this is just pointless.
A Man In Black wrote: I've seen both overpowered options and trap options cause problems in games Me too. Overpowered, if the difference among party members is not that big, can be dealt with just increasing challenges. Buffing up most times became "DM mercy", and the player just rolled/choosed something else. If an option is bad, is bad. There is nothing you can do, because houseruling it means be a developer or something. Since I do not receive money for that, I just don't do it if I buy a book. And a thing more about "your DM can fix it". Yeah, he/she can. If is experienced. Now I can fix thing (again, I start to bother now because I just decided to stop buy RPG books). Then when I was a noob DM, I just made up things and they never worked as expected. I pay books to avoid those troubles. If I have to buy books for other people suggestions and houserules, internet is plenty. @Balance: perfect balance is impossible and would be horribly boring. What one should aim at is interesting, comparable options with situational advantages/disdvantages. This makes a game interesting. And this is not obtained when there are feats so bad you cannot take them (ERRATED cockatrice strike), so good you can avoid taking them (persistent spells + FtS), exotic weapons all crappy barring few "WTF" ones, and so on. And paizo seems to just ignore this, or just apply fixes that are not fixes (Cockatrice Strike, antagonize). With a surprising celerity in fixing nonbroken things like the Monk INA feat. These last two things make you wonder if you are just playing the same game.
Panger wrote:
Point being that te weapon is a larger version of Katana and Wakizashi (more or less). So it makes sense is 18-20. I'd bet there is something wrong with the category.
People, you are SERIOUSLY overestimating the Ninja. Is a rogue with few tricks more. Seriously. Said this, I think is sad there are not mountless archetype for Cavaliers, Westerns or Easterns. People asked vocally for them and in my opinion could have expanded a lot more the class (just call it Knight, marshal or whatever). I wait to see the book to see more, anyway. The previews intrigued me more than the UM ones.
BigNorseWolf wrote:
O_o whan I said was better? I said that was one use. And can be stacked with shield dodge or whatever, if needed, even if is VERY stats and feats intensive.
BigNorseWolf wrote:
My point was that is not. In a quite swing-y game like pathifinder, an all-or nothing round MAKES the difference. Quote:
If you use it 1 round in 3, is a good feat. Now, I can agree with you that is bad feat, because most times the PF version is taken only for improved trip for the old concept that you cannot have a good feat immediately, you just have to take a sucky one before, and for how has been changed. Can be used, but is sub-par definitively. Quote:
I have zero chicken, you have two chicken. "Statistically" we have one chicken each, but actually I am hungry and you are a satiated big wolf ;) Now, is not a matematically correct joke, but it's useful for me now to point out my opinion: DPR is an useful tool but not to adjudicate short term damage output. If I have to stack up AC, and I succeed, is not the same of increasing my AC by 3, expacially with people with greataxes around. If they hit with a 12 instead of a 8 is one thing, but if they hit with a 20 instead of a 12, things change, expecially since everybody barring, IIRC, 20th level fighters must confirm criticals. Now I see that you pointed out the DPR and said the other way around, but there are other factors involved - HPs of the fighter. The DPR could be the same, but is the x3 greataxe critical killing him. not going to happen if you play it defensively one round AND the party plays in your favour (see example) Otherwise, yeah, better avoid defense and hope to drop everybody fast&furious.
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Man. If you raise a little bit the AC, can not worth that much. BUT different sources raising the AC can significantly decrease the chance of being hurt. If done well, even of being if by the first attack, charge or iterative. This was my point, and I was not even trying to show that CE is a good feat because I think is not. If you get this, well. Otherwise, good luck with your games. DPR means nothing in this case. It's useful for long time calculation, not for specific rounds. Dear god, ever heard of the chicken joke about statistics?
BigNorseWolf wrote:
My situation is just an example. And I'm not saying that CE is the "bestest feat EVARR", see my previous posts. I just brought examples. And no, gaining 3 AC for un round is different, if you cap AC en oug to make yourself not hittable. And again, I talked about synergies with defending weapons, so the net increase is far bigger. My player did this in 3.5. I already said you need more work for a less gain in PF. I don't understand what you say about combat reflexes.
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Except that I didn't suggest this kind of use. Example: Round 1: the fighter full attacks in the usual bloody, gory manner. Enemies retaliate. Round 2: fighter prepares a standard action attack. Enemies countinue to retaliate, but in the triggered attack goes first and the whole CE + defending is activated. AC raises, a lot of attacks miss. In a favorable situation, every attack misses barring 20. Round 3: reinforcements arrive (along with a web, a fireball of whatelse, a poisoned arrow from the rogue, what you want), healed fighter eviscerates the enemies. Something like that.
drbuzzard wrote:
Yes as I said above, was 3.5, was uncapped because of complete warrior, and a defending weapon was used togheter. This allowed one turn of "can't touch me". Not more than one, because of course enemies will adapt and as BNW said, the best thing is in generaly deal damage until every enemy stop moving. I think that the feat can hae an use in PF too. Just needs more the synergies, like the +4 AC two handed weapons feat, defending weapons and such. Yeah, took a little bit of nerfbat for sure.
Darkholme wrote: Honestly I haven't ever *seen* Sword and Board in pathfinder, I included it because i was curious if it was a decent build. Having seen TWF, it's definitely a crappier way to build your character than THF. They're both supposed to be routes focused on attacking, and even if you're not taking into account the added money for TWF and the fact that you're going to get hit doubly by anything with Damage Reduction, your ability to make things hurt is still trailing FAR behind that of the THFer. I have seen a S&B. Very feat intensive, but for level 12 was just scary. Flail + Improved Trip, and Shield + Bull Rush. Great control of the battlefield and decent DPR. Quite awesome, more then one time I've seen him prepare an action, trip, and bash away the target with the AOO.
You assume the players were always in the optimal situation. But I didn't put them in the optimal situation. Switch a single round - just to gain some time - to a defensive tactic has been proven as useful. I do agree that generally "nuke" is the best option. But sometimes being hit by maybe the first iterative can keep you alive in the right moment.
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Is not intuitive but can work. As an example, you use mobility (:D great build) and move against the target, decreasing the chances of being hit by enemies around. A fighter played by a player of mine had a good use of it switching from full DPR to defense in several rounds to make retaliatory enemy attacks wasted (but he used the superior, uncapped CE and a defending weapon in top of that). It needs some imagination and a "gut" for the right tactic.
Fozbek wrote:
I essentially agree with you, but I was showing how assignment of martial/exotic generally works. And AGAIN, the scythe is slightly above a standard martial so, since we are going in circles, I just drop the discussion. Have fun.
LazarX wrote:
This explains Bellerophontes too I suppose. Carried as baggage. If fear you want to defend something that can't be defended.
Jess Door wrote:
very good Jess. I will steal it.
meabolex wrote: It's not designed to be a primary attack. It's supposed to be used in bad situations where you can't charge (or don't want to charge) and can't take a full attack. This is all fun and games until you realize that feats are a very limited resource (expecially for fighters, since it's more or less all they have).
Paraxis wrote:
If a fighter kills things and avoids to be killed he's just good in his job. A lot of things screw fighters, expecially at high levels (mind affecting, fly if unequipped..) so if your player is doing fine, why should you thin the game is broken?
In my experience, the rogue is not SO bad to being unplayable. I found traps be quite deadly, if used correctly along with monsters. Said this, IMHO the Rogues suffer of a very bad syndrome, sometimes suffered by the fighter, expecially in 3.5. "This should be done by another class or by a prestige class". So rogues cannot use flasks anymore - but alchemysts can use bombs. I said before UC a talent for Rogues able to make them use flask at least a limited number of uses/day could have been good. I wonder if they put in the book something similar. The same, you cannot be the unavodiable infiltrator because there is a Master Spy. To be an Assassin, there is a PRC. The lord of shadows is the Shadowdancer. Additionally, a lot of rogue talents could just have more uses per day or be more flexible. Again, this is something suffered by the fighter too. A lot of people don't want to use Fighter Archetypes because they lose Armor Training. But the point is that if you want to create archetypes, you have to give away something. And if there are not so many class features, there is no choice. The same, the Rogue to get iconic abilities like the poison use, have to lose other iconic ones like Trapfinding. This disappoints me, and when I see that the wizard is less and less limited at the level of opposition schools, I just scratch my head. What's the direction of the design? Flexibility should be encouraged, or not? Or is good only for certain classes? |