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I'm confused with the use of the word "brake", do you mean break?

One is what you use to stop your car or similar applications mechanically. The other is to make something inoperable, like smashing a pot.

Casters end encounters with 1-2 spells. Near invulnerable combatants have to do a hell of a lot more work to end encounters (and have to invest more gold/character generation resources), and often run into more problems with action economy than casters do. Casters are also a hell of a lot harder to kill than the "invulnerable" front liners, if the player/GM knows how to play them.

If you have an 18-20 post racial you are fine. Anything less and you are sacrificing major class features for scores that are irrelevant to what your class does. Going lower than 18-20 means lower DCs, lower DCs means your spells don't work to full effectiveness or at all. You lose out on spells, even 1 less spell can mean you don't have the encounter winning spell ready, or don't have the luxury of open slots, or don't have as many all day buffs available. These are mission critical failures as a wizard.

Now some of the advice about building a lower powered wizard is true, you don't have to have a good int score to play the iconic high int class after all, its just not a good idea mechanically speaking. The advice for an AP, which often contains higher powered encounters, is to build for efficient combat capable characters. The time for rp and soft scores is usually more limited than the large number of combats. Wrath of the Righteous is a combat AP dialed up to 11. The saves of the enemies are going to be high, SR is going to be common so some spells might fail (meaning you might need to cast more often).

The other scores that might be useful? Isn't that why you are in a party? Let somebody else get the spotlight for being the damage dealer, the face, skilled class, or buffer. The wizards job is to have the right spell at the right time to ensure victory. Lower scores means your spells might not work, or you might not even have the spell at all. Heck, with the knowledge secondary role wizards have, you might not figure out what you are fighting in time.

Now if you want to play a less overpowered arcane spell user that has more "balance" the bard is over there, and he is pretty cool too.

Having played at least a dozen different game systems for both RPGs and table top miniatures I have to say there is nothing more odious than the cheese crying neck-beard.

Its usually cried from the heavens like a divine and irrefutable proclamation that "X is Cheese, Ban it despite strong argument Y proving that the cheesiness isn't nearly as bad as 'acceptable' Z"

Its childish and tiresome to hear after all these years. The very invocation of the word gets me to look closely at the person crying over it. If his lassitude and lack of perspective is without redemption (and it usually is in the case of advanced neck-beard cheese criers) I will refuse to either play with or even associate with said player. I even encourage other players I game with to avoid the infected individual. Because crying cheese is an infectious meme. It leads to tournament organizers banning special characters in 40k(including ones required to run fun theme forces that aren't remotely good). It leads to developers strangling promising advanced game design space after bowing to a vocal minority (primarily video games, but also in mini and rp games). It leads to distorted local meta-games so wrapped up in their own house-rules that they can no longer play with outsiders. In fact it got so bad that the "other" game store in town often is incompatible in terms of how various games are played solely because of an inner circle of friends creating houserules (with various levels of since it beat me or my friend, its cheese, time to ban it/appeal to TO which is also part of the circle).

But mostly I'm just sick of it like the villagers in the "boy who cried wolf". 99 percent of the time I hear it called out, its simply not true. In this threads example we have the gunslinger banned. Really? GM is so lazy they can't properly challenge a 1 trick-shot pony with a low power level cap? Sure it does tons of reliable damage. What else? Its still effectively a fighter. Power level isn't measured in HP damage for people who know the secrets of 3.x based gaming. A fully cheesed out gunslinger has nothing on a 25 point buy equally optimized cleric or druid.

Now if a GM wants to just say, PF, Core only, Final destination... Sure go ahead. Its a completely valid way of playing. But for the love of the game don't call equally valid ways of playing only for "cheesers"

Healing, say, 4 people a total of 160 damage sounds pretty effective to me.

Its efficient after combat is over, mostly a waste of actions in combat.

I liken combat healing to using a spoon to bail out a canoe with a hole in it.

Yeah, you are doing something, but you probably aren't making much progress and your time would be better spent rowing to shore or fixing that hole.

The entire point of most encounters is to deplete resources from the PCs. A typical scry and die routine is going to use up a large chunk of resources. First there is the scouting spell, depending on what you have ready this could be several spells. Like a commune to know the location of X, followed by a more specific scry effect once you know the location. Then you have the pre encounter buffing, most likely 2+ spells per available caster (not including spells that are effectively all day spells). Then you have the teleport, which could be several spells, first a teleport to get you to the general area, followed by a ethereal jaunt/dimensional door/passwall effect to get you to the encounter zone. Then the real spell slinging happens as you bushwhack the enemy, or the find out the enemy was prepared after all and ambushes you. You need to have spells remaining as an exit strategy in any case, spells that you can't use unless its a dustoff maneuver.

If you are keeping track a high level party can't do this very many times a day. Sure, they can do the 15 minute adventuring day, but that is effectively true at any level (and thus its the GMs job to give a narrative reason why you would have more than one fight a day).

Sure, a high level party executing their strategy well will end encounters fast and not take any damage ect. This is also true at any level. PCs getting hurt is not the only measure of a good encounter. As long as there is either a chance of failure or the PCs use up some sort of resource (which can be anything: time, hp, spells, consumables, reputation, ect), its perfectly valid encounter.

The difference between knowledge local and diplomacy is the difference between "I already know this, lets get started" and "I don't this, but I can ask around" One takes MUCH more time and possibly money, and requires talking locals, and the fact you are asking around gives away information to possible 3rd parties.

On top of that knowledge local can help identify weaknesses and powers of humanoids. Many players just meta knowledge that sort of thing like "orcs have darkvision" but they really shouldn't.

Knowledge local won't however get you out of trouble or get you in trouble like diplomacy can. So a well built social character should have both.

IDK, for somebody who is into rogues it seems there is a lack of proper appreciation for something so basic.

This thread is pointless because there is no usable parameters, the goal posts keep moving, and there is no real definition of "eclipse" other than some vacuous statements. On top of that the real discussion is supposed to happen in an ambiguous "future" thread. There has been no statements made in favor of the rogue that hold any water even under the shifting goalposts anyways.

The rogue is a crap class and people who play them play them because of the name and fluff of the class and not the mechanics of them. There are other classes that do everything that the rogue does + more, but since they are named other things and have different fluff, people play the mechanically inferior choice. Really nothing more to it than that.

Bard is a tier 3 character, thief is tier 5 by most estimates, and IMHO should be a high 6 with the other NPC non casters. Yes I would lump them in with the experts/warriors/aristocrats. At least the aristocrats and warriors get decent weapon and armor profs. Sadly the adept actually rates higher than the rogue. Not a good place to be.

Rogues do crap for dpr, they aren't the master of skills, they don't have unique abilities anymore, and their tricks very often don't work or require so many inefficient actions/build choices that its just not worth the opportunity cost to play one.

Now if you are the sort of person who doesn't like mechanics, numbers, being credit to team, and in general being effective: Go ahead and play a rogue, its the right class for you. But if you feel that way you might as well pick an NPC class because they are even more optimized for that style of gameplay.

I noticed you are talking about AC40... That is normal AC, the giants touch AC is likely laughable. Spell casters have powerful touch spells at this level.

As for the rest of it, you have the spell casters providing things they excel at (control, overcoming the the impossible, ect), the bard is contributing all of the fighters damage that would normally miss without the buffs. The fighter for your group is nothing more than the war head to a guided missile. Your missile would be useless without a guidance system, propulsion, and counter measures to protect it.

I don't know what damage builds you guys are running to out damage a damage focused fighter, but I would have to see the numbers to believe it. Perhaps you are playing with fighters that don't know how to spec for damage? Or are you expecting a single target specialist to deal the damage damage that a blaster does to a group? I mean 90 damage (maximized, intensified fireball) x7 targets is always going to beat 200 damage (which is on the low side if casters are tossing around spells doing that much) to one target.

If you want to have fun don't be a heal bot. A battle cleric or oracle is a good enough healer for all levels. Besides, healing isn't a normal combat action, and if it is your party is playing mechanically poorly. Combat is for combat, out of combat is for healing wounds.

Any class that can UMD a CLW wand is a good enough healer at 4th level. What your party is looking for is a healb~$%+ from the sounds of it, and since you are the new guy you get to be it. While I'm the last person to say you should "play how you want" without regards to the party, in this case you should give them exactly what they need and not necessarily what they want. If they are struggling enough that they think they need a healer then you should roll up a bard. They get CLW access and make the party better. Or you can be an evangelist cleric, you lose the ability to ditch spells for cures,and get diminished access to channels, but you gain bardic performance and keep full progression on the cleric spell list. For the evangelist you even build for a primary combat role, since your class is inherently awesome at spells and bardic support no reason why you can't also be good in combat. Be so awesome that you shame them into wanting to play good builds instead of ones that beg for a dedicated healer.

The best healing is preventative. Give support that they need which is killing the enemy faster and providing proactive support rather than reactive healing (which doesn't even come close to keeping up, its a downward spiral to death).

I don't really get the whole debate when it comes to the mechanical aspects. Cover, concealment, miscellaneous penalties all add up for ranged combat. Sure you get touch AC for first increment... but that is so short and it costs grit to extend it. A good full BAB is hitting on 2+ most if not all CR appropriate encounters anyways, is it really that big a deal when the Gunslinger does it? Perhaps you guys are playing with fighters who use sword and board TWF or tower shield and fight defensively or something. Heck the 3/4 BAB guys hit 2/3 of the time.

At the levels you are fighting at 100-200 ft touch attacks, your fighting in many monster's charge range (some fast flying monsters out there). Its single target damage at that, so as long as there are multiple monsters in combat its not an issue at all.

In a 4 member party you are supposed to have a main attack character, a crowd controller, a buffer, and somebody to be the skills and face. All party members should be able to contribute legitimate damage if called upon, but if you are meant to be main damage, you need to put down a LOT of damage. A Gunslinger is meant to do damage, and nothing else. His damage is on par with paladins, fighters, barbarians, and rangers if built for this role. It only over shadows other classes if there are too many people trying to be main damage and one person not building their character as competently. A main damage character should be able to 1-2 round mooks and 2-3 round bosses. This is taking misses and not getting full attacks into account.

When I see threads like this I wonder if people are even playing the same game. At all levels of the game encounters last 2-3 rounds if there isn't major environmental effects in play. The monsters are built that way, the PC baseline abilities are built that way (even the crappy pregens). Anything longer brings in the possibility of character deaths, looking at the damage by CR for monsters its pretty evident this is the case.

Well the second wight starts out prone in the middle of combat, has a low AC, and not so many HP to survive a single round against a party that has competent damage dealers.

Its pretty harsh on certain aspects. Some of the combats can be hard for some play styles to deal with. Also its important to read up on environmental hazards (cold and snow) and later on aerial combat.

Much of the difficultly will lie in how hard your GM plays some situations, as written and played as intended its going to be rough for the PCs. If the GM rules loosely or gets certain details wrong it can be a cakewalk. Read environmental conditions closely.

Oh, the random encounter chart is on the brutal side of things, pray you don't get hit with some of the stuff on there.

High DC's mean you're more likely to succeed, success means power and win.

So you're saying you don't want to succeed less often... what player would? You want the magicto be taken away from areas where it iisn't needed.

The success rate of spells, especially ones that actually allow saves, isn't the problem. Its that the spells them selves have to much narrative power. Got a over land trek complete with random encounter charts and such? Too bad, over land flight. Got a dungeon complete with traps to challenge the rogue and tough fights to challenge the fighter? Tough luck, detect magic finds the dangerous traps, spells can bypass the danger, and you can use magic to get past the monsters. BBEG doesn't see it coming because you bypassed his defense (unless he in tern is a caster). Surprise round, drop a battlefield control spell blocking off reinforcements. Round one the enemy goes down because the sorcerer did the barbarian full attack delivery trick. The rest of the party is reduced to being the war head of the magic ICBM.

The thing is there is nothing in the arsenal if full martials that can compete with the story changing powers of casters. A party full of martials by definition are all aboard the plot train types. It requires a much heavier hand to control casters.

Feral wrote:

I'd much rather have the a 'burden' character than an optimized one that ends the encounter before anyone gets a chance to play.

This applies to both PFS and normal play.

Sounds like the problem is with the encounter. It's exceedingly difficult to create a character that is capable of soloing encounters on the first turn unless there is something grossly wrong with the encounters.

Not really. I've done it with relatively weak characters before. Apparently a heavy pick + crit kills bosses in one hit. Same with save or die spells/hexes. Even a non crit can end an encounter with little effort, and a lance charge just obliterates enemies.

Heck, at first level a power attack + cleave can drop 2 CR 1 monsters (which is a CR3 encounter) in one round on average (2d6+9 = 16, 15 is average HP of CR1s). Seen it done in society before, seen it done in normal play.

Yeah, the people I know who optimize the most are the ones who are most interested in the game overall, and they tend to create the most original characters and immerse themselves in the role-playing the most. The people who don't optimize their characters, in my experience, seem to have a more casual approach to the whole hobby, and are less likely to do much role-playing and more likely to want to play angry birds during game time.

YMMV, but that's what I've seen: a strong positive correlation between optimization and role-playing, as opposed to the inverse one people tell me about.

And, yeah, we're all mostly grognards here. I played a lot when "elf" was a class, and played the most with "weapon type vs. AC modifier" tables on the character sheets, and still remember THAC0 as a major innovation.

I only started in 2nd ed AD&D, so I'm just beginner. THAC0 was a bit of a pain in the butt, but I remember making a fighter, my very first character, rolled 3d6 in order, first stat was 18 STR, rolled 00 on the bonus strength. Witnessed by the GM and all players. Got 17 dex, and everything else was 7-11 range. GM made me retire character after only a few sessions because it was "to strong". He was really upset about the negative AC more than the high strength though. He didn't want to run monsters with good thacOs against the party since everybody else was like AC2-5 range.

Yes, clearly you have much more experience in the FRPG field than I do. I bow to your superior knowledge and reading skills. By many standards I am a neophyte in the field. I mean, I had no hand at all in the making of the Fighting Man, Magic user or Cleric. Thief, well, yes, But hey.

But we play pretty darn standard. Almost no houserules or modifications.

I see grognards like you in games stores from time to time, harping on about the kids on their lawn, how if G Gygax (whom they played a game with personally) were still around he would sick an owlbear on them and make them go away.

They usually have some old ignored supplement they tried to self publish back in the day they want to you try out, complete with rusty staples from the university copy shop. They drag out old minis that had runs of less than 4 digits, from companies that haven't existed in 20 years. Talk about how in the keep on the borderlands they totally destroyed that crazy old guy in the woods with a 10 foot pole and a bit of chalk and some string. Now kids won't even go adventuring without a +1 weapon, the spoiled snots.

In all seriousness I find OD&D pretty fun, its not the same game as 3.x/PF though. In OD&D if you rolled up something with terrible stats, it didn't matter all that much because the game largely didn't give out much unless you were at the extreme of the bell curve. Most of the mechanics came from the class and not the stats. 3.x/PF stats matter much more, and how you choose to progress your character matters much more.

From a society perspective in defense of optimization of characters:

If I've invested 40+ hours of game play into a character, I am pretty invested into it. I don't want it to die or be ruined (due to having to spend all of the prestige or gold for a res) due to some party load causing a wipe or dead PC. Often a weak character doesn't actually die, its the guy being forced to cover for the weak character that dies. Similar to how a geriatric driver doesn't get into accidents, but they sure do cause a lot of them.

Being forced to carry a party just sucks, and I've had to do so in the past, even taking my witch into melee combat since it had the best AC and damage potential (in a party with a figher and oracle...)

PFS scenarios are very hit and miss when it comes to lethality. Some are cakewalks you can hop and skip through, others are brutal multiple PC deaths are the norm scenarios. Season 4 is particularly brutal at that. Some GMs are also more brutal and less forgiving. PCs that are played by people who complain the most about optimization are often party loads that do nothing other than waste spot in the party. This is not an exaggeration. The most annoying wastes of space are the "skill monkey" and the party white mage that only heals. The skill monkey is utterly worthless when life and death is on the line 90 percent of the time, and the healing make specializes in fixing failures instead of contributing to success. Instead of running to a downed PCs side to cast stabalize, perhaps you could help the combat actually end?

You should be able not just contribute, but contribute well and contribute in a way that is actually needed. Often people who complain the most about other people being "optimized" or "powergaming" can't even pass this low bar. I would say the majority of people who get butthurt over optimization I've met in person are in this camp.

I like to use Clerics with a few Heals every now and then. But by 8th level or so any cure X spell isn't going to do enough to matter-- its less healing than a full round attack by a single character, so usually not worth it.

Heal is the exception because it is SO much HP back.

Cure spells aren't enough for a single attack from my groups primary damage dealers at any level. 1d8+5 is beaten at 1st level, 4d8+8 is easily beaten at 8th... Cure spells are garbage at every level for in combat healing. Channels are even worse. At 11th when heal come on line 110 HP healed isn't even enough for some of the single hits that happen.

At 11th level its not uncommon for mooks to have more than 100 HP, a primary damage dealer should be able to one round a mook at every level, preferably with out using all of his attacks to do so. Heal while not being completely bad, still has its limits of usefulness. IMHO the enemy cleric ought to have something better to do in combat with a 6th level spell than to cast heal.

Well to start with the premise is slightly flawed. "Tank" isn't a party role in pathfinder. There is no aggro mechanic other than what the GM thinks the enemy should be doing. In PFS the GM has to follow combat tactics as written in the encounter, but they give a lot of leeway things so your ability to avoid damage and protect the party is limited by the whims of another. Not a good place to be.

Tower shield is a trap. Don't take it. The minus to hit and other factors make for huge drawbacks for marginal improvement in AC. Its not hard to make a cleric with standard gear and magic to not get hit except on crit threats, any investment past that is a waste and I would argue a waste well before that point. +1 dex, +6 armor (4 mirror armor) and +2 shield is AC 19 at first level. Add in shield of faith and you are not going to get hit by the average CR 3 monster or NPC very often. Of course being a 3/4 BAB character with slow movement and marginal strength means you aren't going to be hurting much either. The combination of high AC and terrible offensive capability means you are a bottom tier target in both types of calculations (ease of threat removal, and how dangerous the threat is). You won't be tanking, you will be shifting the attacks to others.

Don't take channel into consideration when looking at dwarfs. You are -1 channel for being a dwarf and it looks like you burnt 2 build points on cancelling out that deficit. Don't bother. Channel is a pretty bad ability, it doesn't scale well. Its possible to make it reasonably good, but it requires a different build concept than a dwarf tank.

You don't need 18 wisdom if you are a martial cleric. In fact a 15 is all you really need in that stat, +1 at 4th level gives you the 16 you need for the bonus spell that you get at 5th level for having +3 wisdom modifier. Since a 15 on a dwarf is only 3 points, that gains you 7 points to be spent on more important stats for a battle cleric. Heck, follow my advice on charisma and I've gained you 9 build points without even trying. Put that into some dex and strength. Get a reach weapon, take combat reflects. Control a large area of the battlefield with enlarge person. Take the growth domain if you can so you can get a fast enlarge person. That is how you really "tank" in PF. Control a large portion of the battlefield making it hard for you opponents to bypass or deal with.

Adamantine Dragon wrote:

For those claiming that the classes are finely balanced already, I'll believe that when every tactical treatise I see published on the boards doesn't start with "first go after the casters..."

So you're saying this proves that casters are frail and fragile squishies who can be picked off in the first round compared to the nigh invulnerable martial classes who can only be worn down gradually? ;)

You go after the "squishies" because you can ignore the big dumb fighter because he chose to spend his gold on his big dumb sword instead of a super expensive item that grants flight.

Does remind me of an encounter I recently used on my party. The main enemy was a fighter with CC feats and a reach weapon enlarged blocking access to a room. In the room was some archer mooks and a single caster lobbing spells. Party was super focused on getting past the fighter and took some nasty AoO and got smacked around hard. When they finally get to the caster they found out it was just an adept who had already blown all of his good spells by round 2 and was just lobbing lightning bolt from a wand for 5d6 damage(which at they level they were playing is like nothing to worry about).

Turning tactical conventions against the party as a GM is fun.

I remember one day while talking before a PFS a rogue player was bragging about the combat effectiveness of his character. He was going on and on about how much damage his guy could do and all of that stuff. I asked him how much damage he actually does, and he was like, TONS! I was like, give me a number. So he did. I was like, are you level 2 or something? He looked at me funny, no level 6. I was like, um that is actually really bad damage for that level. Sorry, 3d6 sneak + 1d6 normal +1 for magic weapon is not that good, and you need to sneak attack to do even that much. He asked me what I was playing. I said cleric. He then said "well at least I'll do more than you do, all healing the party and stuff"... I straight up told him I don't heal in combat, if you get hurt its your own problem till I can use my wand, I have more important things to do like buff the party and to crush the enemy and see them driven before me...

Come game session his character is completely ineffective, complains about people not helping him get flanks, and gripes that my character is killing everything before he can get into position (my character is a cleric of Gorum with channel smite and a spell storing great sword... its meant to hit hard and one shot things). He also complained that the bard was a better talker and didn't fight (was to busy casting party buffs) and that we just detected magic for traps and laughed off the possibility of mundane traps being a problem (anybody can find them if they put points into perception and didn't tank wisdom, and 99 percent of the time you can laugh off the damage or inconvenience). Oh, his character got smacked by a full attack from some mook, nearly put him on his back, first thing he does is shout "medic!"... I'm like, stop trying to melee things if you can't take a hit or can't kill it in one round. There was no cannon in his glass cannon, so he kept getting smacked around by full attacks.

Later on he complained I wasn't playing cleric right, and if I wanted to play like that I should have played a fighter or barbarian. I was like... No. I want to do more than just damage, and IF I played a fighter or barbarian you would be complaining even more about how much damage I was doing.

That being said a well played rogue CAN be effective. But people who both are willing to put in that much effort, and still want to play a rogue are somewhat rare. Most rogues players in my experience aren't up to getting the most out of the class.

Shattered star makes good use of a big blue dragon. Its even on the cover and the fight is set up to make use of the abilities quite well. In Reign of Winter there is a good dragon fight early on, and module 4 is pretty much Dragon Riders of Pern.

Edit: Sahuagin are in Skull and Shackles IIRC. which makes sense, and if there isn't' enough of them they are on the random encounter charts.

Pretty much rogues are obsolete at this point. Detect magic + dispel can by pass many traps long enough to get past them. Also other classes have access to full trap-finder/disarming. So if you choose to play a rogue keep in mind all the sacrifices to power that you have to deal with the be the "utility" of the party has been made pointless due to more powerful classes standing on your toes.

encounters are balanced for a group of 50 PCs, to balance 15 PCs, 15 Cohorts, and 10 Pets. so we face a lot of class leveled humanoids who also use horse riding snipers, the tactic that wounded us countless times, the tactics we adopted and use against our foes.

Sounds like your "encounters" are pitched battles that might be better played in Warhammer Fantasy Battles!

Avatar-1 wrote:

Hakken's advice here is true. Touch AC doesn't even make sense with gunslingers.

They should be hitting flatfooted AC. Think about it. The reason for this "bypassing AC" is logically supposed to be because of the bullet's speed, not because it's armor piercing. The target should be denied dex, unless they can dodge bullets.

This also solves the problem in the rest of Hakken's post about the problem worsening at higher levels. Armor or natural armor bonuses still protect the higher level bad guys.

Have you seen what guns do?

The reason they replaced existing weapons as quickly as they could be mass produced was because they completely neutralized the armored infantryman. It is the same reason the longbow became so infamous. An arrow that punched right through full plate was devastating. That is why we don't wear full plate any more. It stopped protecting the soldier inside it from the weapons he encountered while doing his job.

Guns only hit touch AC out to the first increment. In PFS that means 30 feet, more with some buffs or abilities. Beyond that they have to hit regular AC as the velocity of the musket ball loses the force (and the primitive munitions and barrel design made these weapons very inaccurate which is not accounted for in PFRPG) to pierce the equipment.

You are correct that velocity is a lot of what makes that happen. After all, physics tells us that force is a calculation between mass and velocity (with some finer points for other variables).

You are wrong about arrows and bullets piercing plate btw. The plate worn at Agnincourt could stop the bodkin arrow. The mud won that battle. Bullets couldn't pierce a good breastplate, they even proofed them by firing at them point blank. If you saw the tiny dent you knew it was a good piece. The reason why they stopped wearing plate is because it was too expensive to waste on troops, and warfare moved away from nobles fighting pick up battles and the occasional big battle (which was actually rare) to massive armies moving constantly devouring the country side like locusts. Heavy pieces of steel strapped to yourself feels awful and tires you out too much.

You also don't have to "dodge" bullets or anything stupid like that, a simple evasion pattern is enough to force a miss even irl, most people even trained soldiers are unlikely to hit an evading target without a decent RoF and/or a bunch of training. Heck it took the machine gun and fast reloading riffles to finally kill off the cavalry charge. Speed + shock of the charge would force rushed shots, breaking formations which didn't have iron dicipline and enough massed firepower.

Now at point blank range you are probably going to be toast unless it hits you in the strongest part of your armor. Which is close enough to the current rule of touch only in the closest range increment.

Step 2:
Low level games are rocket tag too. You know what CR a level 3 orc warrior is? 1CR. Do you know your chances of surviving even a non crit high damage strike at level one? 2d4+7 using the basic npc stat line and power attack averages out to 12. I've seen many a starting life total below the average damage. Crits can kill outright very easily and that falchion that orks likes to crit quite often. You can do the same thing with ranged using monster that have the appropriate bonuses. The things you can do with a crossbow wielding kobold is hilarious (warrior kobolds get lvl-3=CR with that sort of budget you can get a level 5 kobold for only 2CR budget used, that is 3 of the archery feats).

Having huge amounts of damage is only a good thing. I've seen people try to engage targets at 10th level with their 1d8+whocares before and its completely pointless. By the time they get done whittling away HP on the monster it could easily kill the entire party, the village they are protecting, and a good portion of that entire county. High burst damage keeps combats short and sweet so you have more time for the RP, exploration, and goofing off out of character (you know you do it). If you choose a class whose job is single target DPR, then do your job as best as you can otherwise it wastes the parties time and resources carrying an anchor. Sure it wrecks single enemy encounters but that is more of a product of single target damage MUST be high to compensate for only affecting one target. Problem solved by not wasting your CR budget on solos or PC class enemies.

I have a Lucerne Hammer (Bludgeoning and Piercing) with a Greatsword (Slashing) as back up. So all bases covered.

You need a small weapon for tight quarters like being grappled. Always have a dagger.

If he's running a DEX based monk, that sounds about right.

It also means his flat-footed AC is probably much worse than the rest of the group.

Typical BDF: what is your AC? 30. What about touch? 10. Flat footed? 30

Every Paizo AP that I have run couldn't deal with X class. Where X = whatever my players are playing at the moment. They destroy combats in 1-3 rounds, have ended module boss fights during the surprise round, and make all but the most brutally set up combats trivial. I still manage to accumulate dead characters at reasonable rate. In my Shattered Star Campaign I managed to kill everybody at least once, even after ignoring the hero points prevented deaths, and several players (particularly the witch) died multiple times. IIRC one died twice in the same combat (breath of life, why are you so good?).

Which is kind of the point of it all. My players are challenged, I didn't have to rewrite much (some nights I actually have everybody show, so I add a mook or two). Yes the combats are short and the PCs win, but the PCs are meant to win. Its just enough of a challenge without devolving into a meatgrinder (like my short Ravenloft campaign, I have 20+ dead character sheets from that one, 3 from one player in a single night).

Gunslingers are balanced, IMHO they are on the underpowered side. But since they do something that GMs and players are unused to, they get lots of cries of "cheese". Yet those same cheese crying grognards don't see that other classes have way more unbalancing abilities.

As for the musket + deadeye deed... Grit is a limited resource, and one shot at 80 feet is hardly game breaking. Oh Noes! A martial class can actually almost function at the only thing it can do!!!! NERF! NERF! NERF!

Let the cleric have it, its not overpowered in the slightest.

This cleric in particular isn't build for combat, an increase of a few points isn't going to change that enough to be broken. Competent combatant? Maybe. His damage is still going to suck since he isn't built for it. Yipee, he will get 1d8+6 on his attacks, which he will get 2 of. Between the two attacks you meet the dpr of a competently built first level barbarian (which is 2d6+12 during rage at the very least). You know what you call 3/4 bab characters who have trouble beating the DPR of characters 7 levels below them? NPCs.

The item enhancement itself isn't even broken, but if it could be broken its not going to be clerics doing it. Monks get way more millage out it. Guided makes monks SAD. They get their most important save from wisdom, their AC from wisdom, and their to hit/damage with guided. Do they really need much else other than some minor dex and con to boost AC,HP, and saves a bit?

Save money and book keeping and just use clustered shots and don't worry about all the other junk. Want to get past DR, just deal more damage. Even the highest DRs can be solved with more damage.

I stopped giving XP for adventure paths and started using the benchmarks to know when to level them up. XP is no longer a crafting resource so I don't think its important to track it in an AP.

Reign of Winter Spoiler:

So I guess I should probably include the list of spells I think are good at every level. I don't play sorcerers (or oracle for that matter) since I don't like the flexibility loss of not having a huge pile of spells. Yes I know about the half elf paragon surge and other things like human favored class... I still like witches and wizards and clerics better (I'm mixed on druids, their list doesn't appeal to me).

My list is based on all levels of adventuring, obviously color spray and sleep are amazing at low levels, but useless later on so I don't include them. Some of the damage spells at low levels require specific builds to make good use out of, look at the admixture wizard and similar things for making them good. I have it broken down into types of spells too, as imho its good to have a variety of effects ready at each spell level (though your high level slots will likely be filled with metamagic version of your favorite offensive spells and emergency measures spells)
level one:
Single target damage: tossup between snowball and shocking grasp.
AoE: Burning hands
Self Buff: shield (mage armor can be replaced with bracers later on, or wand/potion)
Friendly buff: enlarge person
Control: Grease
Mobility: expeditious retreat or mount

Lvl2:
single target: Hideous laughter (no good damage options, and this is Save or die effectively), or blindness/deafness (targets fort instead of will)
AoE: Gitterdust (not much damage options worth anything IMHO)
Self Buff: Invisibility, mirror image. Two good illusions cause miss chance is better than armor.
Friendly buff: bull's strength and suppress charms and compulsions
Control: Create pit edges out web, barely and by situation.
Mobility: communal mount or spider climb (Amazing situationally, nobody looks up and you create lots out new combat space that doesn't give up cover like flying does)

lvl 3:
Single target: Hold person. Its a save or effectively die. Dispel magic cause sometimes you need to say no.
AoE: Fireball. Learn it love it metamagic the crap out of it.
Self Buff: Displacement. Cause miss chance is better than armor
Friendly buff: Haste. Depending on group this is solid or spectacular.
Control: Stinking cloud. Ends combats, free slightly used lunches. Runner up is Slow, for less collateral effects.
Mobility: Fly. At later levels, phantasmal steed (can fly and lasts loner and movement doesn't eat up your actions)

Lvl4:
Single target: Dimensional anchor, this level is weak at this type of spell IMHO, but this is pretty good for some fights.
AoE: Black tenticles. decent enough damage over time, locks down an aread.
Self Buff: greater invisibility, sure you can give it to others, but its better on you.
Friendly buff: Stone skin. Give this to the meat shield, let him take the attacks while you use G.Invis
Control: SO MANY: the wall spells. Confusion. Solid Fog
Mobility: Dimensional Door. Baby's first teleport

Lvl 5:
Single target: SO MANY: Magic Jar, baleful poly-morph, Feeble-mind, hold Monster, Icy prison, Dismissal.
AoE: Cloud kill, kill all the trash and weaken the big stuff.
Self Buff: Not much I like here, Echolocation gives blind sight...
Friendly buff: Not much I like here, Polymorph and mass stone skin if I must
Control: Walls walls walls, oh a hungry pit I guess.
Mobility: teleport and overland flight. if you have to guess why turn in your wizard guild card.

Lvl6:
Single Target: Disintergrate, when it absolutely must die now and has a weak fort save. Flesh to stone, save them for later.
AoE: Circle of Death, when all of the trash must die.
Self Buff: true seeing, repulsion. See them coming and keep the dumbs ones away
Friendly buff: Greater heroism if morale isn't aready covered.
Control: greater dispel magic, Sirocco (flyer control)
Mobility: Shadow walk, Summon Giant Eagles (you know you want to)

Lvl7:
Single Target: Finger of Death, DIE!, Grasping hand (so much fun!)or power word blind for those no save debuffs
AoE: Waves of Exhaustion. Such a great debuff.
Self Buff: Spell turning (killed a PC with his own disintegrate, so it holds a special place in my heart)
Friendly Buff: Joyful Rapture, yeah, you aren't likely to prepare it but its pretty good for a wizard
Control: Force cage
Mobility: plane shift, its a game changer

Lvl8:
Single target: Power word stun, Save or die without the save part. Maze, time out for the big dumb fighter.
AoE: Sunburst, Vampire be gone
Self buff: Not much I think is worth a slot, Mind blank cause you probably have powerful enemies by this point
Friendly Buff: Screen, almost required high level party protection for camping/stronghold inner sanctum
Control: telekinetic sphere.
Mobility: nothing of note

Lvl 9:
Single target: dominate monster(hmm wonder why), energy drain (ouch even with a save), power word kill (for your no save death dealing)
AoE: Wail of the Banshee. 170 damage min, effectively a mass save or die spell
Self Buff: Time stop
Friendly buff: screw your friends, you are a 9th level spell caster. Oh I guess Wish, but only if they pay for it!
Control: Prismatic sphere: Try getting out of that!
Mobility: Interplanetary teleport, astral projection, Gate.

Get haste. Don't think about just do it. Once you have it, next level, take it again just to make sure. If your first spell every combat isn't haste, you're doing combat wrong.

*I feel it necessary to add this is completely tongue-in-cheek, I will honestly say though, I get irritated any time the arcane caster can cast 3rd level spells and doesn't have haste. It really is that good.

Haste is actually a pretty poor spell in my group. When full attacks are rare and combat is over in 1-3 rounds haste just doesn't do enough. Then again my group has played together for a long time and know how to get things done. They have even had an arms race for initiative since going last means you probably don't get to do anything.

That isn't to say I don't challenge the party, I manage to kill quite a few even though I've only been running APs the last couple of times (Legacy of Fire, Shattered Star, and currently Reign of winter). When you have a party member that hits the boss of a module on a 2+ and deals 104 damage at level 4 during the first round its really hard to justify haste.

Use the names of dead places that no longer are on the map. Or archaic names for places that still exist. Like Uruk (ancient city in modern Iraq) or Tadmur/Palmyra (same place, different names during different eras). As for archaic names, Albion is a good one (old name for England iirc). If players complain just point to Conan, the guy who wrote that (Robert Howard) use old names to give an authentic sound to the places. Just look at where he got the name for Conan's homeland: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimmerians

As for names of rulers and npcs, just look through the roles of ancient kings, generals, and advisers. Yeah, King Lothar II (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/348512/Lothar-II) might not cut it, but what about Belisarius (Eastern Roman general under Justinian)? Unless your group is hardcore history buffs (or play grand strategy games like Crusader Kings II) they won't even know what you are doing. And if they do figure it out? All good then cause its not hard to make the NPC have similar traits and it gives some weight and interest in what you are doing.

Counter snipe him. After he makes his attack and before he hides again, he is visible. Have held actions targeting the sniper. Its the same tactics you use for fighting phase spiders and quicklings.

I found that HP healing is the least important thing a "healer" class can do. Remove paralysis, suppress charms and compulsions, remove blindness/deafness, and similar condition removal spells are far more important. That fighter can operate at 100% till he is dropped if he has no conditions on him. If that fighter is dominated, blind, or immobile, not so much.

Last night the party was forced to go without their primary healer, only having a witch (their backup healer) available. Party got hit with a feeblemind trap, and the witch got nailed too. It required a UMD'ed scroll to fix the witch, the witch teleporting back to town to buy the right spells, then teleporting back to fix the party. Then there is the level drain and ability damage they took... They had to risk the saves and spend the time to fix that. They also got hit with confusion (which the cleric usually fixes). It was just a train wreck of a night for them (1 killed, 1 neg, 3 feebleminds, 2 levels drained, and 3 party members taking wisdom damage). They got lucky on the saves vs madness effects, that would have been crippling for the summoner who only made it with a hero point.

My party tends to have 2-3 round combats normally, they usually have 2-3 people who are really good at dealing damage, with the others being able to contribute save or dies/save or sucks in addition to incidental damage. There really isn't time for in combat damage mitigation other than a clutch breath of life (the cleric always has a reach breath of life available for emergencies). Interestingly enough breath of life is a condition removal spell for her, it removes the dead condition.

IMHO condition removal and damage prevention through smart use of buffs/debuffs is more important than in combat damage mitigation. That isn't to say that it isn't sometimes needed, but I have found that in combat healing usually involved the party being caught with their pants down, or that they are low on resources at the time the combat occurs.

1: Skills are often uncovered, and some people forget to pack their own healing. Some people who seek to fix the above problems forget to bring combat ability (ever sit down at a table with a healbot cleric and a skill monkey rogue? I have, as a result my WITCH had to tank an encounter, and she was actually better at healing and skills than the other two combined).
2: Bard. No really. Everytime I almost hit I wish I had one. Every time we need a knowledge roll but don't have that particular one. Every time we need to roll really well to get a social encounter out of the way... And they give extra spell support which is super nice since they have minor healing and solid arcane spells.
3: Being bad in combat gets you and potentially other party members killed. Being bad outside of combat makes non combat encounters take more time or possibly fail faction missions. I would say a balance of 2/3 combat ability, 1/3 out of combat ability (as if you could actually divide that up lol) I would say have at least 1 good social skill, 1 good knowledge, whatever your class is supposed to be good at, the ability to not drown, and if you have the points, 1 skill that is so random most people won't have it but it might come up (profession sailor actually comes up semi frequently for instance).

I would say for a pick up game where you are unsure of other players you should pick a hybrid class/versatile class. Examples are the inquisitor, the witch, the magus, the alchemist, the cleric (especially the evangelist archetype), a well built bard, the druid, and the summoner. The other classes are very much specialized/lack important skills and you can't count on the other party members of filling the missing pieces.

By far the best character (IMHO) you can make for a new group you know nothing about is the evangelist cleric. You give up some important features for even better things. You are one of the best buffing characters possible, and you are full caster (and 3/4 BAB). Grab a good domain, build for buffing, and use a ranged weapon to support the party after you are done buffing. This character doesn't really heal that well, but you can just carry a 2 PA cure stick for that (and when you get your channels you might as well pick up a alt channel ability for even further party support, protection is a solid choice).

Horses won't charge into long spears, why would troglodytes?

Troglodytes are stupid? Man, never thought that -1 to int based skill checks was the same thing as being stupid. Heck that is just a racial tendency, no reason why a troglodyte can't be a wizard or sorcerer with different stat allocations.

If an animal is 5 foot away from the enemy, why wouldn't they 5 foot step instead of eating a AoO? Heck even spiders and scorpions approach dangerous prey with cation.

Don't stand 5 foot away from the monsters, problem solved.

notabot wrote:

-Anvil- wrote:

Jeraa wrote:

A cleric isn't really needed. The bard can use wands of Cure Light Wounds.

After the low levels, wands can't keep up with enemy damage output. The only things that can are metamagic enhanced healing and the heal spell.

I recommend a class that can fill that requirement.

Can I assume from this statement that you heal in combat? I might be presuming a bit too much so I won't get into that.

For higher levels wands are still viable, just have to have a bundle of them, they are still cheap consumables. Also a well prepared party can use buffs and abilities to avoid damage, preventing damage is better than restoring lost HP.

Heal spell is still really nice, but it takes up a very good spell slot. And its unlikely that the cleric will have more than a couple at any given time. Sure he could have metamagic cures prepared, but going full heal bot is the same thing as playing a health dispenser instead of a real character.

I am aware of the flame wars between healing in combat and healing outside of combat. I for one never understood how a play style without healing in combat works. Maybe it works if you're playing PFS, but no way can I see it in a homebrew campaign. Out tank has a little over 200 HP. At level 15 enemies are doing 100+ dmg a round even through our buffs. So how do you keep the tank upright without healing in combat? He'd be down after round 2. At higher levels healing in combat is a MUST. And we're not noobs at this. This campaign has been around since 2nd ed.

I find the cleric gets so many spells that preparing a few metamagic heals and the heal spell is waaaaaaaay more effetive than many buffs. This is for a few reasons.
1. At upper-mid and above levels many of the buffs don't stack with enhancements from magic items and become useless.

2. Again at upper-mid and above levels granting someone a +2 or even +4 to AC or DR etc etc, is (surprisingly) not as helpful as you might think. Many combat...

I think part of the problem is that many groups can't find the "tank" class in the core book, APG, or the ultimate books. (btw the term noob doesn't reflect length of experience, not calling you even passive aggressively that, just clarifying). I know with my group which we have in the past gone up to level 18 fighting appropriate enemies have had to deal with monsters capable of doing even more damage than that. Yet they didn't really ever take that much damage, because combats tended to be over in 1-3 rounds of actual combat, the preceding rounds were mostly setting up the perfect round of rocket tag (positioning, buffing, ect). When a party member gets hit, he withdraws and lets somebody else deal with the pressure (or lets the summmons take brunt of the enemies offense). If somebody dies, there is usually a res later or a breath of life now that fixes it.

1. You aren't being creative enough to find your buffs. There are tons of them available that do stack if your party has good synergy and your primary buffer knows what he is doing.
2. At higher levels sure, +2 or 4 AC boost is small, but its not small if the characters have ACs that managed to scale decently, +4 to ac can halve the enemies hit rate if the AC was decent to begin with. That can be hard for some classes to actually achieve, but its not impossible.
3. Not going to argue on the high level cleric not being good a combat if he isn't built for it. But building for combat doesn't really take much away from late game spell casting if you do so correctly. Heck is a -1 or -2 to DCs and couple less spells really that big a deal to give up an entire facet of your character? The cleric can easily buff enough to more than make up for the 3/4 BAB, has better defensive options than most std martials, and if built right can deal tremendous damage (not barbarian or archer levels, but enough to fill the role of damage dealing ability). Even in parties where the role of primary damage is already filled, having another guy who can still dish it out in a supplementary role is only a good thing.

A 40 point buy stat array is ridiculous. The NPCs and monsters are designed around a 3-15 point buy, why would even a 35 point buy character make even the slightest sense?

Wanting to play a 14 CHA fighter? Sure go ahead. Want to not be stupid? Sure, the combat expertise/intimidate fighter is viable after all. Still want to have high strength and con without dumping wisdom or dex? Uhh.... Munchin much?

The game is designed around a 15 point buy (or standard array that is effectively 15 points). Messing around with this changes the dynamics of the CR system. Wanting anything higher than a 20 point buy is either being a bit power gamey, or straight up munchin in the case of the 40 point buy equivelent stat arrays/rolled arrays.

Now If you want to have god like or only good rolled stats (how often do you hear about players who actually go 1-20 with a bad roll?) go ahead, play the character with only strengths and no penalties... Just don't think anybody is impressed by it. Besides, wanting to spread your stats around and still be amazing at your core purpose doesn't always do that much. A wizard with 14 strength is just as likely to be a melee combatant as a the wizard with 8 strength.

master_marshmallow wrote:

personally, I cannot stand the point buy system. It encourages, nay, mandates min-maxing, and when you turn it into strictly a numbers game, it becomes less fun imo. Playing a melee character usually forces you to dump INT or WIS and that makes me sad, because I like playing melee characters with high INTs for more varied skills that I can offer my party. "But, it's a 20-point buy and we need someone who can swing a damn sword, so no INT for you!!!!"- says the rest of my party.

thank you this exactly! times a million. it one of the worst things to ever happen to the game, and build optimizers benefit the most, as it calls for the same stale, dried up, cliche, unoriginal no RP character to be made again and again.

Stormwind fallacy much?

Stale dried up cliche unoriginal no RP characters has more to do with the player playing them and not the stats behind them.

My battle cleric of Gorum makes for great RP, despite making the point buy system bleed in terms of maximizing return on points. 9 Dex and 7 Int (yeah, double dump on stats) all so I could get the huge strength (18 after mod) and good wis needed to be a proper battle cleric. I play her as dumb jock only interested in combat, her small stature (I rolled 4'11') is a sore point and she has a chip on her shoulder about it. She only will fight opponents who will fight back (not CE) but has no problem antagonizing people into wanting to fight (so not good either). Gets easily bored by social situations (lack of social skills other than intimidate) and doesn't like situations that don't call for battle (low number of skill points). Only uses spells that help her and others fight better (buffs and condition removal), and feels that healing in combat is cheating (but is fine with it after the fight is over). Finds range combat distasteful (not very good at it, similar to how jocks can be regarding sports they don't play), but respects people who are specialized in it. I've got a good background story written for her, but since its a PFS character it doesn't every come up (other than through her trait selection).

On the topic at hand, I move to point buy because I had the problem of underpowered/overpowered charaters. The guy who rolled up the +4 total bonus character would suck, and the guy who got lucky with the +12 would rock. I would say reroll till you get at least a +8, but that would often be time consuming or result in even more 12+ total bonus character (which would demolish the adventures I was running). Also with the caps and bottoms of stat bonus it would hurt players who rolled above average at everything but nothing actually good compared to the guy who rolled extremes on both ends. Eventually I just realized that a point buy was the only way to enforce parity without having to spend far too long watching rolls (and if you don't watch the rolls you end up with statistically unlikely numbers of 18s...).

With point buy all characters have equal opportunity to make good characters. It does make certain MAD characters more difficult to build however, but that is due to poor design of the class more than anything else (also you don't really need an 18 most of the time, that +1 bonus over a 16/17 isn't a deal breaker, it's 1 result out of 20 when you roll, or 1 damage).

Personally, I would outlaw the Summoner class outright. No NPC should ever outshine a PC.

Eidolon isn't an NPC. Its a core component of a PC class. A summoner without an eidolon is a crappy conjurer. With an eidolon the summer is still balanced with the rest of the party given the same level of optimization for all characters. People who complain about being overshadowed by the eidolon aren't building very optimized characters.

I just personally find it hard to believe that housewife of average ability would have 3 levels and 10-14 hit points. Give her a frying pan and her angry house cat and she could TPK a level 1 group that lacks a fighter class.

I have the idea that the best land is tied up in rich land holders because of the assumed social structure of the major inner sea powers. Cheliax uses large slave populations, which implies a plantation style farming style. Taldor's major exports involve olives and wine, which also has a large landowner style of farming (that and the byzantine social structure it is based off of). Qadira has limited farmland and a social structure that implies that anybody not noble born or city born is a foreigner or slave. Osirion has a large slave populations that work the fields that support the urban areas.

Any farm that is going to escape these kind of conditions is going be either undesirable due to size, productivity, or access to markets. A farmer that doesn't have access to larger markets is going to make enough food to support his family, and enough to trade with the local craftsmen and to pay his taxes.

Which makes the average family farm unlikely to be able afford the cost of the magic grain box.