Omernon's page

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

The 2 skill points per level is also horribly crippling in a skill-based system.
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If the fighter could.. well.. fight, it would at least be fullfilling its core function.

It really doesn't though. When you go to make your character do what you want your character to do out of all the options out there something else probably does it better or just takes a fighter dip.

One handed fighter? Swashbuckler

Unarmed fighter? Monk/brawler

Sword and board? Sword and board ranger

Two weapon fighting? two weapon fighting ranger

Mounted combat? Cavalier

Archer? Ranger archery style

Two handed weapon? B b. barbarian.

Imagine if the listed classes were weaker than the fighter at these fighting styles. Would there be any reason to play them? In my opinion fighter is a good class, because it is a "build whatever you want" kind of class, therefore by design it cannot be better than aforementioned classes in their areas of expertise. You can make fighter specialize at any weapon or fighting style and it is much easier to build character's background around this class than any other, because it gives you more freedom.

Also, comparing martial classes to casters is like comparing cars to helicopters. It is pretty logical that casters have more options, because magic by definition breaks the laws of physics and stands in opposition to technology.

Mechanics: 4.0 (See below)
Lore: 2.5 (I'm more of a FR/DL fanboy, but I like how flexible Golarion is and so I make my own areas for this setting)
Pathfinder Role Play Experience: 5.0 (Being GM and role playing every character in the world that PCs encounter means that I have a lot of experience on that field)
3rd Party: 2.0 (Maybe little too high, given that I only use some unofficial campaign settings for my sandbox games)
Adventure Path: 1.5 (Haven't played or run any of those, but some I've read)

Overall Level: 15th

Was tempted to lower mechanics score, because although I own every core PF book (by that I mean the main product line, not the Player Companions etc.) and I've read all of them, I sometimes get this little rule-blackout, where I just don't remember a simple rule from CRB or other book and need to search for it (yet I have everything so well bookmarked that it doesn't even slow the game). I'm almost exclusivly GMing, so I don't know every build out there, but still, in my games rarely someone complains about something being OP, even though I allow every PF material outside of 3PP and PCs (permission required with this one).

Omernon wrote:

Now, 'bout fighters:

It seems like everyone forgot that a fighter is not only a frontline warrior, but it can be a deadly archer as well. Get him a fast moving mount and pick proper feats. In open field archer shooting from a horseback is one of the most effective fighting styles, because most enemies won't be able to catch him (unless your GM is a dick and keeps countering you all the time). I remember this was an issue some time ago, when people on Paizo forums complained that mounted archery is so OP.

You don't even need a mount for the Fighter to be a mobile archer. Spring-Heeled Style+Mobile Fighter/Dawnflower Dervish with Archery is a dirty, dirty combination lol. Though mobile fighter works better with Melee and disparate attacks (As in combining natural attacks with manufactured weaponry). Not to mention she'll have a great AC (Also against AoOs).

Well, that's even better, but the real question is why do we all argue here? Most adventuring parties are made of different classes, so all the gaps can be filled and you just need one f$!+ing wizard if you want to move to another plane or say... have your arctic adventure. Really, there is no need to have druid, summoner, wizard, witch and arcanist in one party if someone wants to play martial class. In fact, balanced party will make gameplay more enjoyable, because it won't be bogged down every time a fight starts, because of players picking the right spells or constant buffing. The other group I DMing is made of samurai, ninja, wizard and shaman - they are capable of fighting 5 CR higher encounters and finish them within 3 rounds, mainly because they work as a group.

People often mention resources as if HP recovery was problematic, but you just need one caster (say cleric) and wand of cure light wounds. I'm currently running games for three different groups, one of which is made of summoner, oracle, brawler, fighter, sorcerer and unrogue (which are now at level 7). Multiple times they have been adventuring for many hours, especially at lower levels where they had to travel alot on horses and now they usually fly to their destination (note that I'm running sandbox games and travelling and exploration is big part of them), but the last dungeon they've visited was a forgotten, underground city, which in fact was a mega-dungeon with multiple floors. It took them days to explore it fully, most of them stayed there the whole time and only one person was going back to town to recover resources once in a while (at one point even gathered a group of explorers to help them out a bit). I mention this, because they've got wounded there quite few times and it didn't stop them at all. Why do you need every person in your party to be a caster, while you really just need one or two? One wizard can make you all invisible, teleport and do all sorts of tricks and you probably will be just as effective (or little less) than a team full of casters, so where is the issue? I could understand it if Pathfinder was a game where players play it alone, but it is not like this, you work as a group, so every gap can be filled without problems.

Now, 'bout fighters:
It seems like everyone forgot that a fighter is not only a frontline warrior, but it can be a deadly archer as well. Get him a fast moving mount and pick proper feats. In open field archer shooting from a horseback is one of the most effective fighting styles, because most enemies won't be able to catch him (unless your GM is a dick and keeps countering you all the time). I remember this was an issue some time ago, when people on Paizo forums complained that mounted archery is so OP.

This tier discussion IS solely about class abilities. Basically the discussion is take all the options you have and remove any option open to a commoner class. The leftovers are what we're discussing.

I'm lost, because some people talk about "your normal adventuring day", others bring up arctic adventures and now I'm waiting for someone to came up with inside a volcano adventure.

Yes, without their shiny items and in the middle of ice tundra or inside fiery caldera fighters are useless and pretty much dead. Everyone happy now?

Now, enough of this nonsense. From a combat perspective only one thing is imporant - how fast can you kill the enemy and this is what strictly melee classes are designed for. Outside of this area you can have your tier category, because wizards can go invisible, can fly, teleport or visit other planes and pretty much do godlike stuff, but at the end of the day you will probably have at least one fight in which you will have to bring your foes health pool from maximum to zero.

I've seen many martial classes going crazy and not just fighters. Samurai, ninja, paladin, barbarian... all of them are capable of going through hordes of enemies like a warm knife's blade through butter and all of this can be done without 3PP, on latest errata and at the end of a day this is all that matters. Combat is never the same, but depending on scenario, martial classes can outshine casters and so it can be the other way.

Outside of combat casters might have more to say, although some martial classes are great skill-monkeys, which can be very useful, especially in urban environment. Everything I've said so far was meant to change people minds about martial classes, because I've seen many players that went mad (to the point of being insulting) when they've seen someone coming to the table with a fighter on the character sheet. They had very hard time changing their mind about martial classes, even though said fighter proved many times his worth.

Eidolon has the same HP as a fighter though, so I'm not sure how you can be so sure the eidolon is going to drop in a couple combats yet the fighter is going to last all day?

Except that Eidolon doesn't have access to the same feats that fighter does and can be dispelled with one spell.

@Frosty

Just stop arguing with them. They have never played fighter or they did, but back in 3.5... All the difference between cleric and a fighter is 2 HP per level and items don't matter in this s&@@ Tier-theory, so basically a sorcerer is a king, because he is a wizard, just without spellbook! Whoa!

My current Summoner (and her Eidolon) can match your fighter's DPR at level 1 (and completly outdamage any fighter soon afterwards), can continue to fight all day long, brings her own meat shield, and got plently of spells and skill ranks for other stuff, too.

Yea, with that HP pool your eidolon is going to last so long at first level, oh my... I had seen many summoners (even master and synthesist - that one was OP, I agree) and without their summons they've meant nothing, just like wizards without their spellbooks. It was far easier for me and the monsters I've controlled to kill eidolon than it was with propely build martial classes (yes, that includes fighter).

Caster's don't do SWAT style because they don't need to. Apart from the fact that classes like witch and summoner can be stronger than martials without spending any recources, a caster doesn't need to be able to handle a dozen groups in a row. The caster can just sneak by with invisibility and kill the target. If you play a caster, tactical thinking in combination with spells means you have better options than going in guns blazing.

What you mean "without spending any resources"? Oh, and yeah, because every time you sneak into dungeon you kill everyone in sight without them having a chance to escape. EVERY SINGLE TIME, SINCE LEVEL ONE...

Eidolons are good, but comparing them to any kind of martial class is a joke and without them summoners are joke too.

I had the same issue once. It didn't bother me that much, because I usually run sandbox games, yet I found it little annoying that they've been casting detect magic all the time and I had it enough when wizard did it in castle's toilet room (what did he expected to find there?!). So I came up with a trap that is triggered whenever that spell was being cast (it was sensitive to keywords) and which activated a huge, stone globe that came down through narrow corridor, destroying everything on its path. When I told them how it was activated, they have stopped spamming detect magic. We still laugh about it and that ball got pretty famous.

So, this is more like an anecdote than a solution, but you should't worry so much about players detecting some of your traps and hazards. Non-magical traps can be just as effective or even more so (collapsing walls, pits... all of this can be very dangerous), but I believe that you have a different problem, which is pretty common amongst new GMs.
You need different approach. When you design complicated dungeon, you should give your players as much freedom as you can. Don't force them to visit every room, don't force them to fight every creature there and finally don't force them to fall in every trap of yours. It's not a puppets theatre. Create many passages (some of them can be well hidden and let PCs skip dangerous parts), rooms, corridors and let them be discovered. Make player choices meaningful and finally; if they walked through your dungeon like a breeze, skipping most of your hazards, then don't make thier lives harder just because they have outsmarted you. They've done it a clever way so they deserve a reward for that, not a punishment.

You and your players are part of the same team, working together towards the same goal, which is called "Fun". Give them more freedom, focus more on designing world around them, rather than the story that you've forced them to be part of. It is much easier this way :)

Also, when talking about tiers, you don't bring in your "other class friend." If you can't do it yourself then you fail that challenge.

Yeah, but Pathfinder is a cooperative game, where players take up a role of some fantasy creatures and work together towards a common aim. That's how most game look like and therefore I would like to quote one of the first posts in this topic:

There is just no such thing as a rigid, accurate categorization for classes and I really would love to see the whole Tier quasi theory just fade away once and for all. It's such an over-simplistic, completely arbitrary and, frankly, meaningless attempt at trying to quantify something that just doesn't need quantifying.

I just couldn't agree more. Look, there is just so many options in Pathfinder that almost every class is capable to shine in one or more areas. Wizards have options to shine on many levels, but this is when they have a good warrior in front of them (so that they don't need to worry about protecting themselves and instead focus on what they do best - desintegrate enemies), and that warrior is able to withstand a great amount of punishment when there is cleric or any other support caster to back him up. This is how it works.

He has his wizard-friend for that kind of job (unless, he or she is out of spells, but there are still other ways that don't require spells) and I advise you to read my posts.

I'm not talking about superiority of one class over the other:

I also don't talk about group of fighters vs group of wizards, but rather try to abolish this absurd theory that at first levels group of casters would be more efficent than a group that is made of martial classes and casters. This way everyone can specialize in their area of expertise and there is no need for druid/cleric front liners. This is what people often forget about.

A 1st level wizard could possibly target HP directly, AC, touch AC, CMD, ability scores, Reflex, Fort, and Will.

So many options, but in most cases you will do 1d6 damage, unless, of course, you deliever coup de grace after putting to sleep a group of foes (if that works). Your average two-handed weapon fighter will deal pretty solid 1d12+7 or so each round, if he hits. At first level wizard can be killed with one unlucky hit (an arrow), this is not so common with fighters. You can easily start with around 20 or so AC and be almost immune to most melee foes of your level.

And... I also don't talk about group of fighters vs group of wizards, but rather try to abolish this absurd theory that at first levels group of casters would be more efficent than a group that is made of martial classes and casters. This way everyone can specialize in their area of expertise and there is no need for druid/cleric front liners. This is what people often forget about.

TBH I always wanted to have entire party of wizards, but then this art comes to my mind: http://i.imgur.com/lxIXOI6.jpg

Maybe it could work, but I bet it would require different approach.

A druid and cleric are pretty strong front liners imo.

Melee shaman is pretty good too and so is summoner's eidolon (although it is a bit of glass cannon). Once they get through first few levels they don't really have to worry about front liners, but I still believe that there always is and should be place for a pure melee class.

An all spellcaster party would be extremely powerful. Do you argue that druids, summoners are weak at level 1?

Also imo a wizard is significantly more powerful than a fighter at level 1. If you want to to prove you are right, we can make a new thread and I can show you the difference.

Not in a regular play, no. I've been running games for many different groups (I'm quite well reputed in my area) and although wizards can be extreamly potent even at low levels, it's the martial classes that take the most kills. Reason? Wizards have access to only a few spells at first level and they usually take up the role of battlefield control (they soften up enemies, they put them to sleep and use all soft of nasty tricks, so that fighters and other melee classes can quickly finish their enemies).

TPKs are common in my games, because new people come to me with their AP experience where every encounter is well-balanced, enemies are stupid and everything feels like in video game, where the storyline is tailored around the PCs. While my games are set in living, breathing worlds, filled with creatures that have their own desires and needs, other than being slaughtered by the adventuring party. So, visiting a cave that is a home of the orc tribe means that unless you are quiet and cautious, you will have very soon the entire tribe of orcs (minus the females, elderly and kids) going after you. Yet the same players still come to me, because of the difficulty, authenticity and freedom of my games.

BTW. Wizards are very important and powerful (I don't doubt that), but the entire group of them would be a suicide in old-school sandbox games (well, at least at first levels).

Maybe that's the way you and your group play. It's a bit presumptious to impose that interpretation on everyone else.

I'm pretty sure that everyone plays this way. It's Pathfinder, not World of Darkness or you name it. You play as adventurer, not pacifist, so it is expected that you will use your sword or magic to kill, for the good or bad.

Like people said before, someone with demonic powers can use them for the right reasons and that is perfectly fine, hence I don't agree with the statement that: "evil for the right reasons does not exists". Ending someone's life is an evil act, but you can do it for a good purpose - to safe innocent life. Your average paladin is a killing machine, designed to protect innocent lives by slaying those that threaten them... and this is what I call "evil for the right reasons".

If you break it down to basics, it is still an evil act, but because doing so saved innocent life, we no longer see it as something evil. These people are called heroes.

Put simply, you can't be "evil for the right reasons" and not be evil.

Except that almost every adventurer is a murderhobo, no matter if he or she is listed as Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil person.

Throw them to jail and let them rot there.

I'm being serious. All their actions should have consequences and sometimes you just need to let PC die or get imprisoned (prison break is a good idea for an adventure), so in your next campaign they will start to care about their characters and their actions.

There are half-drows in Forgotten Realms, so I guess the same thing will apply to any other setting. Just as in real life - such mixture will make their skin darker, but not as much as real drows have. Hair and eye color on the other hand may resemble more surface elves.

It's really hard to give you advice since you didn't state what do you like, but if you like magic go for wizard and pick fun spells/schools of magic.

- You can be old diviner - mad mage that knows the future and loves fortelling from bones etc.

- You can be a mind controller (enchantment school) - if you are creative then you will be very powerful but it's so fun to play one regardless if he is weak or strong.

Not every wizard has to use a fireball.

Sorry for double post but I can't edit my first post.

No. All bows were banned. Not just CB. No one paid any attention to it, however.

Bows were banned for knights, but not for regular units. Crossbows were banned for christians unless used against heretics.

Generally speaking knight ethos required that your enemy had at least small chance of defending himself. Crossbows were so deadly that they could go through few armor types and until around 14th century smiths started to craft fully rounded brestplates that could deflect or slow impact of a bolt. Knight in a fullplate armor has padded jack (gambeson), chain armor and plate armor on top of it. Total weight of entire armor is around 20 KGs which is opposite to popular believe that they were incredible heavy - ofc you can't really sprint in this thing. There is no single space where you can stick your sword (even armpits and eyes were protected). Knight in that armor had no need to protect himself, while regular soldiers had to avoid his attacks - that was huge advantage. Arrows at greater distance couldn't do no harm to knights, especially when they were using their shield to protect weaker parts like helmet. If armor was made-on-measure of the customer then it didn't hindered his movements - yes, techniclly you could swim in this thing. But here comes a crossbow bolt that can penetrate through three different layers of armor and even go through a knight. I've seen breastplates in Castle Malbork museum (Marienburg in German) that had holes from bolts, which only proves how devastating this weapon was.

From game perspective crossbows are far from what they were in Medieval times. Crossbow should have much greater damage (and chance of crit), but at the same time it should have much longer reload. Also it shouldn't suffer same close-combat disadvantages as long as bolt is loaded.

In Medieval Europe crossbow was banished from use by knight orders because it was so deadly. Why would you fight honour battle when you can just point a "piece of stick" at the other guy and he drops dead? Crossbow power was so big that it could penetrate through most armor types (maybe with exception of full plate armors). Ofc it didn't stop armies from using them, just it never was a weapon in hands of a knight.

@Edit:

Crossbows were brought to Europe by first Crusades. It was a dangerous and very efficent weapon. In year 1139 crossbow was banished from using against other Christians. Later on pope Innocent III officialy banished them.

Balance... that's what kills Role Play part of RPG. I'm afraid that most new players look at most powerful classes rather than on what it fun to role play. People make builds and choose prestige classes not because they want them to appeal to their imagination of their character but because they can deal 1d8 more damage. Tell me, which character is better? Guy that has 40 AC and can wipe his own team in one turn + 1 shot elder dragon or a the guy whose roleplaying skills made game much better for the rest of group?

Balance, is the main thing that pushed me away from D&D 4.0. I'm not saying that D&D 4.0 is well balanced RPG but the class mechanic is designed in a way that it can be much easier to balance classes without changing their concept which leads to one problem - all classes look the same, there is nothing unique about them.

In most scenarios it is GM's fault that player feels that his character is less useful than others (unless he is just dumb and can't use his class when opporunity arises).

BTW, there is no balance in RPG game where imagination is your main weapon. Why would you want to fight a dragon in a dark caveren system when you can collapse entire mountain on his head?

P.S.

Sorry for my English, it's not my mother language.

You can't force someone to roleplay if all he wants is combat and experience, but you can encourage him to do it. This doesn't mean that you should force him to do so, because the effect you'll get will be pretty much opposite.

Here are my advices:

1. ROLEPLAY!!! You can't just create an old dungeon and say it's creepy. You need to make them believe you. Picture it for them; highlight its ancient walls, aweful stench, darkness, silence, strange feeling of being watched... Maybe some skulls impaled on spike right outside, pools of dry blood on walls etc. Describe it in the best way you can and if you are not good at improvisation then write description of the place and read it out loud but make sure that you voice is not dull, but mysterious, maybe scary, anything that will help you create the right atmosphere.

2. Add NPCs and scenes that have nothing to do with main storyline but give it nice flavor. It can be some angry merchants arguing over something, brawl in an inn, lady in need etc.

3. Give life to your main NPCs. You don't have to give every single NPC his own special personality, but make sure that players won't forget your main NPCs - whether they are their friend or enemies. Make players respect, like, love or hate them; extreme emotions will make them unforgettable.

4. Roleplay while fighting. You don't want to hear simple "I slash him with my sword". Ask them to describe their moves and let them go wild - let rogue make a frontflip over his enemy without punishing your players with extra rules. As long as it's not gamebreaking or completely out of space then why you should discourage them? If player wants to skateboard on a shield like Legolas then let him, we are roleplaying in high fantasy setting.

1- Our characters need to sit down and eat, which we’ll need to RP

2- Same with sleeping, we’ll also need to post a guard for this

3- Enemies can attack us during these times

4- Anyone who sleeps in their armor/sleeps without a bedroll or some such thing will suffer penalties

Good ideas, but make sure that you don't spend too much time sitting and trying to RP. If you have a group of warmongers then they will just sit and stare at eachother without much to say. It's good idea to have NPC in group that you'll use to start conversation with other players.

Yeah, but the beauty of RPG is that you can change almost every aspect of it. I know it's easier said than done, but if have open-minded GM then with his/her approval you can modify Investigator class that it looks more like Sherlock Holmes.

Ofc devs should listien to their customers so we won't have to change every class, but you can't satisfy everyone. :)

I'm afraid that most non-munchkin players won't use multiclassing to achieve their desired effect. Casuals won't be looking at warrior-priest combo, they will take paladin instead because it meets thir aims and it simplifies the entire process of character creation and development.

Good roleplayer will take warrior class and roleplay fearsome bandit, noble knight, gladiator, swordsman, swashbuckler and he won't have any problem with it but what about casuals or less creative players? Good roleplayer won't mind seperate warrior-like class and it will certainly benefit new players that are looking for something that they feels comfortable to roleplay.

I will say it once again:

We - Game Masters - shouldn't ever stop players from picking or even creating class they want, unless it will disturb fun of other gamers (as long as character suits the setting & theme of your adventure and it's not vastly overpowered compared to other characters). Don't get me wrong, player characters shouldn't ever be equal or well-balanced - diversity makes parties more interesting - but we GM should craft adventures in a way that every character will have something to do. For example; back in D&D 3.5 adventure set in Forgotten Realms campaign one of the players picked a diviner wizard. She decided to roleplay her as a gypsy with all sorts of witchcrafting like fortelling from bones etc. She had no fancy fireball spells because who the hell would expect from a gypsy to cast magic missile in someone's face? She roleplayed her character in a way she wanted and even though most of her group consisted of battle-hardened mercenaries I manipulated adventure in the way that she could fully roleplay her character and feel useful in her group.

So, for this reason I want to see more classes even if they are not as good in combat as others, because at the end of the day player will choose only one class from hundreds others.

I let my players use rulebooks whichever they buy. We all have the same goal - to have some pretty awesome fun - so I won't stop them from making characters they want to. We have just one rule that we follow no matter what; we can do whatever we want as long as it doesn't disturbs gameplay of others( + GM is always right lol). That's all I need to satisfy my players - together we build world and storyline. I always ask my players to review adventure that I've created for them, I take their advices and criticism to get better. There is nothing more fun for me than see my fellow gamers enjoying my campaign.

At this point I'm running adventures for many different gamers (most of them I don't even know personally, they just come and go, but I managed to build a good reputation in our little community) and if someone purposely ruins others fun then I just let him go. There is no point of teaching someone how to play with others if he can't follow the basic rule - if one of the players is power gamming while other struggle and try to roleplay then why would I keep him with this group? He is better off with group of power gammers and hack'n'slash type adventures.