Kazejin's page

It's no offense to the Bard; they are still fun characters, especially when bubbling a smoke pipe in hand while laughing at all the enemies that are uncontrollably crying when the big bad frontliners go and beat them senseless. That's definitely a character I'd enjoy playing for sure, but the issue is that they must focus one or the other, and the Bard's casting capabilities (and Bardic Performance features) are one of a kind, whereas being a frontliner ignores such powerful and useful capabilities, and the party (as well as the character, especially if poorly played) suffers as a whole because of it.

The logic of "Magus does melee caster better" isn't much of a point. Wizard does caster better, so does that also mean that bards shouldn't try to be good casters?

There's nothing about the Bard's spellcasting that's unique, aside from the spells that directly relate to Bardic Performance (I'll come back to that). Wizard has been a superior spellcaster from day one, and Witch is hot on his heels for the "arcane buffer" spot, and already surpasses him in numerous ways. So, no, a Bard need not concern himself with being the best caster he can be to stand out. (I'm not saying no one should play caster bards. I'm just saying your statements about a melee bard are rather misguided. "Magus does melee caster better," true, but Wizard and Witch do stay-back-and-focus-on-casting better.)

Next point: being a frontliner doesn't ignore the thing that actually separates the Bard from his contemporaries: Bardic Performance. Being in melee doesn't hurt this at all.

Next, experience teaches one the finer points of playing a "flank buddy" role. Having an extra melee presence is more than just "I do damage." Proper positioning leads to the establishment of meta-control over enemy positioning and movement. Bards may not be full-on tanks, but they can still hold their own quite well if they need to; enough to be a solid skirmisher, and that's all that's needed here.

Lastly, there are ways to achieve other sources of control without even needing to focus on saving throw DCs, however this often requires creativity. The classic example is using the spell Silence. Don't cast it on an enemy caster, because he gets a Will save, and his Will is most likely his best save. Don't cast it on an area near the enemy caster, because he'll just leave the area. Cast it on the Fighter, and let him get in the caster's face. Doing this effectively silences the caster, and circumvents the saving throw.

There are other examples of how to use soft-control and meta-control to turn the tide in a fight, but I'd have to be writing a guide to really go into great detail about it. Point here being, there's nothing suboptimal about a Bard who doesn't focus fully on casting. You just have to know what you're doing.

Hey all; if you're here to say bards suck i know lol,

Since when did bards suck? This is news to me. Unless you meant, "only having 4 levels of bard sucks," then I might be able to agree.

I'm a little curious why your warrior poet couldn't be a single-classed Arcane Duelist Bard, but I won't go into all those details. (Just a suggestion).

As for your actual question, Vital Strike will always be inferior to any equally optimized full-attacking build, if you're looking for high damage. Go crits.

News flash: all spells aren't created equal.

The solution is quite simple. If you aren't comfortable with the spell, don't allow it in your games. It doesn't phase me, personally. Level one blasts suck (except for corner-cases, like a Magus using Shocking Grasp). If a caster at my table wants one that isn't crap, he's welcome to it. It's not going to have a gigantic impact at low levels, and at higher levels he has better options anyway. It's not allowing him to do much that he wasn't already capable of by other means. Just my two cents.

So who's correct in interpreting the intent of the people who wrote the content? You? Me? Baring some kind of official FAQ from the actual rules people (as was the case with the full-attack sunder question), we have no reliable way to determine intent; therefore, logically, you must default to RAW.

Statements like these are the reason rules-lawyers have bad reputations.

I've been gaming for 28 years now and in all those years min/maxing almost always leads to DM vs Players. This happens because each side keeps upgrading their optimization to keep up with one another.

Not really. The only fights that need to be directly challenging are boss fights, and that alone hardly counts as "DM vs players." If your GMs are egotists who can't stand being one-upped by their players, they should consider retiring from GM status. It's not a crime to be happy for your players if they find ways, mechanical or otherwise, to get through your encounter with minimal damage taken; nor is it a crime for them to do so. 3.5 and PF can often turn into battles of resources; as many items and abilities are limited by daily use. It simply makes sense that you find ways to proceed without having to blow half of your loadout in every fight.

I don't run cake walk games, period. If I am not having fun in a game then I won't bother running. It's as simple as that.

I find this statement intriguing. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying every encounter of every campaign should be a cakewalk. But you seem to be implying that your fun stops the very moment your party finds a way to blow through an encounter. Not to be offensive, but this is entirely the wrong mentality to have when you run a table. That is what causes GM vs. Players Syndrome in the first place.

I haven't commented so much about my witch. Perhaps I focused too much on role playing optimization for my witch. His build is primarily focused on social skills and potion making (he's only level 3). Of course he has hexes, but I have deliberately avoided taking the more commonly acknowledged overpowered hexes (no slumber). He has virtually zero combat oriented optimizations. He has average strength and con, so his hit points are not that great. I've put his favored class bonus into skills because there are so many social skills (and UMD) that he needs.

Now, is he "dead weight?" By some definitions I see on this thread, he absolutely would qualify as "dead weight". He does piddly damage with either a dagger or crossbow. In fact his "prehensile hair" is his most powerful melee attack, and that's d3 based I believe. In combat he typically sort of cowers in the back and uses "ill omen" and "misfortune" on the enemy. It's hard to tell sometimes how effective those are since the GM rolls behind a screen. On rare occasions he might fire his...

That doesn't meet anyone's definitions of "dead weight" from what I'm seeing. Misfortune is one of the most powerful hexes the witch has, and by itself contributes a lot if the enemy doesn't make the save. No one expects the witch to do damage, it's not his/her job. You found a fun way to play one, but you're still very much doing what people might expect of one.

A witch can have 10's or below in all three physical scores, be built without any source of damage, and still contribute meaningfully; I think we all know this. People were saying a fighter with those low physical scores would probably be dead weight. If we assume that fighter was intended to be a front-line combatant then, yeah, he'd be a contender for the "dead weight" title, specifically in combat. No one said he couldn't make a good party face, or provide other contributions to the game at large.

In any case, your post was a good read. Just wanted to give a little more clarity to how people actually perceive "dead weight" characters. It's more about the planned role vs. the implemented role.

Whatever happened to playing Pathfinder, as a player, for the story? Whatever happened to GMing because you wanted to tell one? Sheesh.

Many people (not all, but quite a few) build powerful characters because they consider everything before the boss battle as busy work. That's not to say that they don't want there to be other battles, of course. It usually means two things: 1)they don't want to spend so much time in combat that they don't have time to advance the plot, and/or 2) that they'd rather not have every battle along the way be such a challenge that their resources have dwindled before they even reach the Big Bad of the dungeon.

My advice to GMs is not to worry too much about the in-between fights. If you build up an encounter that was meant to be a fair challenge, but they found a way to breeze through it don't sweat it. Let them have their fun, just make sure that one epic battle at the end is as tough as it needs to be (and that any sub-bosses are also built up to compete, though not as much of course). Every battle doesn't need to be an epic one. By definition, if everything is "epic" then nothing is.

I find that this strategy gives people the best of both worlds. The people who want to breeze through fights get to do so enough times to be happy. The people who want a challenge get their big reward when the boss shows up. In the meantime, how about some story?

If you wish to voluntarily be hit by an attack, the person doesn't need to roll to hit you at all. You're hit. The rules for AC assume that you don't want to be hit, as is generally the case in combat. But if you want to be hit, then there is no need for any attack roll.

Your DM's interpretation is interesting, but incorrect, on both accounts.

The way the Pearl of Power functions is exactly how you thought it worked. You spend a standard action to activate it, and then the spell is regained as if uncast, meaning the spell hangs around until you cast it again, as normal. Just as if you had prepared it a second time.

The Magus' ability also works this way. After the Magus spends his swift action, the spell simply returns to "uncast" status. He doesn't need to use it immediately, and he doesn't somehow "lose" the spell if his Spell Recall ability is somehow taken away after the fact. It just returns to him as if the spell has been prepared a second time.

He is, however, welcome to houserule the issue in whatever way he wants it to work. But if the question is about the actual rule... he's mistaken on this one.

Edited for clarity.

Definitely agree with animal companions, mounts, familiars, summoned creatures, etc acting on their owner's initiative. Less book keeping, less technicalities, more fluid combat.

if you followed that discussion, you would know that the devs itself was completely oblivius to that so-called rules until someone elso brought that up. It seems like it was just an abrupt and unintended bad usage of words caused by the porting mess of the core rulebook and was never intended to be an actual rule. This whole "hey it's a rule" when clearly was never intended to exist in the first place is pretty disgusting to me. I'm sick tired of all this casters and martial jumping at each throat. I'm not seeing anyone calling OP on Two-handed fighters doing 2 times 5x damage with a schyte, can't see why all starts to call names when someone drops down a double meteor swarm.

You're missing the point, man. The worst case scenario for an OP fighter with exta actions is that he'll drop an individual baddie in one go. The worst case scenario for an OP caster with extra actions is that he'll finish the whole encounter. Whether a dev realized this beforehand or not doesn't really change the issue. Unfortunately, all standard actions are not created equal. I love playing control wizards, but even I don't want it to be THAT easy to wreck the game.

Time to comment on some ratings. These comments are all specific to Zen Archer, not to the others. This also does not apply if someone is looking to just take a level-dip of Zen Archer for another purpose. This is solely for the pure Zen Archer characters.

Rating Zen Archer's Flurry as green? Eh. Just because it's mechanically a step down in terms of weapon options doesn't actually make it inferior. It still deserves a blue rating. What else is the Zen Archer going to be doing with his time? Is there any full-round action that could possibly be better for him? I think not, barring extremely specific scenarios. Removing the ability to Flurry with other weapons is essentially the compensation for being the one build that almost never has to move, and therefore gets to Flurry just about all the time. While the standard monk spent his first round getting in position, the Zen Archer already started Flurrying. When the standard Monk has to move to his next target, the Zen Archer already started Flurrying.

Even if you disagree with the above statement, try to remember something. Whether or not you think the tradeoff is fair, its still the single best option the Zen Archer has on his turn, and it will continue to be his best option: all day, everyday. That alone already makes it worth a blue.

Secondly, Point Blank Shot is rated far too high. It's a trap feat, and needs to be red for the Zen Archer. It really is quite useless, as the bonus only applies to a range that a good archer need not bother being in. The only reason other archers want the feat is to qualify for Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Manyshot, and Improved Precise Shot. No one actually wants Point Blank Shot, they want the feats that come afterwards.

But guess what? He can get Precise Shot (which should be solid blue) for free as a Monk bonus feat without needing the prereqs at lv1. He can get Improved Precise Shot (also solid blue) without needing the prereqs at lv6. Flurry makes it so that he never needs Rapid Shot or Manyshot at all (both red, use Flurry instead). Thus, the Zen Archer has no real reason to ever need Point Blank Shot. Lower that rating.

Now, if you're wondering why I rated the other archer feats as blues or reds, lemme explain.

Without Precise Shot, you're looking at -4 to hit every time your target is engaged in melee combat with someone. Which is EXTREMELY often in practice, unless your entire party is ranged. Taking -4 every single attack hurts a lot, so if a single feat can completely negate that penalty... that feat is blue. Can you name any other single feat that gives you +4 to hit? I sure can't. Precise Shot is an absolute necessity archers. Needs blue for Zen Archer archetype.

Without Improved Precise Shot, every time an ally or another enemy stands in your line of fire, your target has cover from your shots. This hurts, a lot because they basically get +4 AC against you. You can negate that entirely with a single feat at lv6. I've played a lot of archers, believe me this feat makes a gigantic difference in combat. Needs to be blue for any archer build that can afford to get it... and Zen Archer can get it for free.

Rapid Shot? Zen Flurry does the same thing without burning a valuable feat slot. It's a trap. Rate it red.

Manyshot? Zen Flurry will accomplish just about the same thing without burning a valuable feat slot. It's a trap. Rate it red.

*Not to mention, Zen Flurry will eventually outperform RS and MS at higher levels anyway, making them even more useless to a Zen Archer.

Hope this giant text-wall helps.

Make the party fight the Invisible Christopher Walken.

Critical thing you're ignoring here when you bring up moving as a detriment to melee combat; If Full Attacks are an issue (IE, I'd have multiple attacks), I probably also have access to Standard Action options which are good uses of my time, like spells. I can move and contribute very well. I dont have to take a Full Attack to contribute, and I'm probably not overly worried about it.

The reason I'm not calling this out is because its equally relevant to either build. Neither build has a superior set of spells, so its moot to depend on the spell usage as the difference-maker. Yes, you can cast a spell to help contribute when you can't melee. So can I. This does not put you ahead of me. Going to my only real point in this discussion, below.

Being proficient in melee however, allows me to capitalize when it does come up, and it provides signficant advantages that you are ignoring.

Not ignoring them. I'm saying that this road has two directions. Whichever way the person takes, there's a different set of advantages or disadvantages waiting for them. You contribute more damage when the situation is favorable to it. I contribute more damage when the situation isn't. I'm comparing the two to emphasize that its a trade-off. One set of pros and cons for another.

What I'm saying is that I don't consider spending an extra feat for all the perks that a dex-bow build presents as a subpar choice. I never claimed it to be superior to the melee build; in fact I stated in my original post that I'm quite confident that it wouldn't be superior. It's an option and its miles from a bad one. It gives the user more flexibility in several regards, and flexibility is never a bad thing. Not saying the flexibility here is outright better. Just saying that its not only viable, but can indeed be preferable depending on how you play it.

I'll spend a feat for that. It's fine if others don't. I'm just saying, the build deserves just a little more credit than it was initially getting. It doesn't deserve all the hate being thrown at it; as there are reasons for it to exist. Of course, like everything else, party cohesion is a factor. Maybe your party is more amenable to the presence of a ranged oracle, and maybe not. I'll agree that usually melee is probably a better choice here, as it probably is more easily placed in a lot of party set-ups.

Am I making a little more sense now?

If its an optimization guide, this statement is not necessarily true.

Optimization does not equal maximized DPR. Optimization is the act of building to meet a goal, and using the correct tools to accomplish this. The statement should generally hold true if you aren't trying to pidgeonhole players into thinking in only one form.

It depends on three factors.

1) The players.
2) The DM.
3) The relationship between 1 & 2.

There's no cut and dry answer, as how much you should or shouldn't give them a little nudge is dependent on your style as a DM compared to the style of the players.

But, I will say: if its literally impossible for them to move forward without object X, and they have absolutely no idea how to get it, then you'd probably have to smack them with a metal Clue-Bat until they get the hint.

If they don't actually need object X to succeed, and its just an issue of how easy or difficult the success would be... then it's dependent on the three above factors.

For instance, if your style of DMing includes frequently hiding useful items or tools in places where you believe they would look... and then the players' style of playing almost never gets them to find said items (because its just for whatever reason not in their play mentality); then you would probably have to adjust a bit to keep the ball rolling. In such a situation, yeah, drop hints. But try to keep them as in-story hints where possible. Eventually they should start realizing that they need to be more observant in the campaign.

If they are the kind of observant players who rarely miss anything, and they just happened to overlook this one vital spot... that's a bit trickier. On one hand, their observational competence seems deserving of help, but on the other hand it seems like they shouldn't even need it if they just retrace their steps.

For me personally, I just observe the playstyles and mannerisms of my players constantly. If I can honestly see that they just won't figure it out without a hint, I'll toss one at them. But I make them work for the hints usually. When I'm the player, I suppose I sort of expect similar. If I honestly just can't figure it out, I try to show my efforts to the DM as being worthy of a "sudden epiphany" in the form of some small clue or some such. That being said, I'm usually very thorough about stuff like that.

I'm actually going to add something of a correction/addendum to my previous post. Cause really, I only hit the tip of the iceberg there. There's an even greater reason why the two concepts aren't linked, and never were.

Let's say I make a character and name him Kaze. Kaze is a two weapon fighter, and is mechanically built to optimize this. But let's also say Kaze is the student of a swordmaster that taught him the art of using feints and 'false strikes' to lower an opponent's guard and get some hits in. (In this context, I'm defining 'false strikes' to be the concept of blatantly using attacks that are intended to miss, or get pulled back from. The enemy doesn't know this, so he attempts to react anyway, thus leaving him open tactically.)

Now, lets say Kaze has a special ability that lets him strike twice with both weapons as a standard action. (Four strikes total).

Mechanically, there isn't much to complement the very specific roleplaying tactic I gave him. There is the basic feinting combat mechanic, but its not quite this specific, and it would generally require him to not have moved. (Improved Feint as move action... so if he moves, he can't do a mechanical feint.)

However, let's drop the mechanical aspect for a moment.

On my turn, I declare that Kaze moves at the enemy, and uses his four-hit special. But, I also state that amidst the four mechanical strikes, that he also uses countless feints and false strikes, and ultimately that is the reason why his attacks might hit. Because his opponent was fooled by his motions.

Mechanically, I don't have the ability to actually do this. But what stopped me from saying I did? Nothing. Lemme explain. I make my attack rolls as normal, as per game mechanics, and lets say two of them hit but the other two miss. Ignore the simple mechanic that states "you just missed." And remember for a moment that a target's AC embodies not only their armor, but their ability to move in it. (Dex bonus).

I decide to roleplay my two hits by saying that my enemy was fooled by my complex motions, and he wasn't able to defend himself properly against them (mechanically: the attacks hit). However, after eating my swords two times already, he caught on to my strategy and was able to deflect the other two strikes with his shield. (mechanically: the other two missed).

The mechanics don't say that I did all of that. But what is actually stopping me from saying I did? Nothing.

Roleplaying is about adding flavor and personality to your character's actions. The rules can never stop me from doing that. Ever.