Once again it seems people really want Martials to get the shortest stick on everything. In a world where magic can summon the dead, extraplanar entities, plane shift, ressurect and bend the elements to their whim, are you guys Seriously telling me that you can't think of anything more magical than a +X to add to a magical weapon?
I've seen people have fun in widely varied systems - Palladium (Rifts, their superhero game, TMNT), Paranoia, Gurps, Call of Chtulu... I don't think a common factor is balance. None of those are "balanced" unlike say 4th edition was. It's important to note about what balance means to such a system such as Call of Cthulhu, Runequest the BRP line of games in General, GURPS and such, vs Pathfinder "Imbalance" Yes, Those games are unbalanced in the sense that there exist common and identifiable mechanics which the player, regardless of effort may never truly be able to overcome. Many monsters in CoC will easily annihilate another player, let alone weapons in general. Similarly, Magic is by far a stronger option for players to take in these games. However, that those games are unbalanced from that angle does NOT mean that those same options are the most versatile in the game or that there exists no sort of consequences for their use. To even begin to look into casting spells, a player first has to read a mythos tome and take some SAN loss and a loss of maximim san via the increase of the Mythos skill. Then you need to be powerful enough to actually cast the spell. Then you must gather any sort of materials or sacrifice that the spell requires. Then the spell's casting time can vary from as little as a single round to hundreds of years. After all this you still must sacrifice sanity with each casting of the spell, which is incredibly difficult to recover. Sure you can literally summon gods and travel near infinite distances across the cold vaccum of space, but just because you can doesn't mean you should. Runequest is similar. Magic isn't trained or research and can only be increased by very specific tasks such as religious communions on your cults holy days, defeating a spirit in combat or overcoming a spell cast on you of a more powerful caliber than you are. Same principle. If you choose to pursue it, then you'll have a blast. But you won't be mechanically crippled if you don't choose to pursue that past. It doesn't matter whether I choose to specialize my character in the fields of magic or martial arts. I have a world of options available to me whether I play a boring swordsman or a growing wizard. None of this silly "I stand still and full attack" business that at least 1e did all but make mandatory in the ruling descriptions. These games don't have as much crunch as PF does over the years(*though I would still argue are more crunchy where it counts*), but the crunch that they do have is rarely ever punishing, useless or a straight up trap option. Because these games focus on strictly reinforcing action, agency and not "you get a +1 on your next attack" "if you choose this other one then it becomes a +2 and then after that a +3. Awesome choices!" It's not called Mathfinder or often described as a great character creation game for nothing. Pathfinder has a lot of crunch, but a lot of it is of questionable value. It's all numbers, numbers numbers. Even the more socially oriented traits still try their darnest to emphasize that +1. Mind you, I still love the game for what it is even if it drives me bonkers sometimes. TLDR; At least one of the games in question is imbalanced from power perspective but is built in such a way that a character can and will still be somewhat of a decently and versatile competent user of some more common skills with positive reinforcement while still being distinct enough on their own as a concept.
The fighter doesn't represent these warriors though. It represents shallow archetypes of them. The fighter's problem hasn't been fighting things and that the various combat feats and fighting styles keep getting brought out as the solution to the fighter's identity problem is baffling. It's even more confusing since unfortunately that's the route Paizo seems to have reinforced in the playtest so far. Again, all of the Fighter's class features are dedicated towards fighting. His extra feats are all dedicated to combat. There is next to no definition for a Fighter as is now or even in most of PF1 unless the only depth you sought to try and improve upon or replicate was combat related. The fighter's bonus feats in PF1 weren't a catch all after all, they were required to be combat feats and nothing else. Warriors of past and present are not dumb, unintelligent or uncharismatic. They can serve as diplomats without needing to resort to intimidate. They CAN and have solved detailed problems that required extensive study in the fields of medicine and logistics, despite what the playtest rulebook seems to think. The Pathfinder fighter embodies none of these things RAW and 2nd edition doesn't seem to be helping in trying to define the fighter as anything other than a wargaming miniature pidgeonholed into an RPG.
3.x does not need a grid at all. It can easily be played without one with minimal issue. Vic isn't saying that 3.X needs a grid. Vic is saying that the simulationist design behind 3.X inherently favors a grid over ToTM. It doesn't mean that ToTM can't be done with 3.X or that it can't be done with a degree of simplicity. I digress though, a bit off topic this particular subject seems to be in this thread. My apologies OP.
IIRC, the direct ancestor of the original D&D was Chainmail, a set of rules for miniatures battles. That would be correct. The OD&D books assumed that you had both played chainmail and were thus familiar with its rules AND that you owned miniatures for it. B/X, BECMI, AD&D all afterwards stepped into the ToTM pretty consistently until 3.X and 4e in that regard. There were some tactical elements involved mind you in each of them, but far less emphasized than their successor editions.
I sincerely think Fighter's status as "Guy with combat feats" needs to be reevaluated. Combat feats in general need to be evaluated. Why someone who dedicates their lives to the martial arts needs to take feats for things like Power Attack or Cleave is patently absurd. It's bar none one of the worst changes 3.PF made to the system. Since 4e was mentioned, at least even that system had the decency to make something as common as Cleave an at will ability. I'll happily take more from the 4e fighter though. I'll still bat for it as the best incarnation of the class across the various editions, closely matched by AD&D2e Fighter.
Like it on the surface but not sure about the nitty gritty portion. It seems, at least in potentially the fighter's case that the advancement penalty is being shifted. 3.P asked Spellcasters to sacrifice spell progression in advanced for multi classing, whereas PF2 only asks them to give up Feats and not the core of the spell casting capability. By comparison, the fighter in PF2 still seems to be a class that is literally defined by their feats at least as far as class progression seems to go. Going back in the thread and even to the fighter blog, both of which seem to imply a rather minimal if any investment from a would be multiclasser. A caster can multi class and advance as a caster, but a fighter by comparison essentially has to put a pause on their own development in some respect. AOO, Proficiencies, "other buffs" and the largest selection of feats are or will in all likelyhood be available in some form through either advancement or multiclassing, with the fighter just kind of holding on to such things for a limited time. The fighter really needs more of an identity outside of "Feat Master". In addition it seems that, at least from the Bard example that casters MC-ing into fighters get a lot of passive increases. Things that they can throw a feat or two at, mark on the sheet and basically never manage it past that. It's always on and requires no real further investment. The fighter meanwhile, will further have to juggle their available actions against a flood of new and active abilities that require constant managing to consider the use of. Kinda seems like a step closer/regression to 3.0 fighter in that respect, let alone 3.5/PF, but I'm fully admitting that I could have just been reading this entire thing wrong or just missed some sort of detail.
My problem with Martials in DnD/PF has never been power. Martials are good at killing things from the start to the end. My issue has always been versatility. Full attacking every round might've been optimal but was in no way fun when it becomes the default option. PF2 thankfully seems to be making great strides in giving martials more options to tackle the evolving battlefield with and in so, adding more of a tactical and dynamic element to combat. However, I admittedly am still not satisfied with the seeming lack of narrative options for such characters as far as I know. Hopefully the playtest will have those a nice surprise. Combat is fun, but it isn't the end all be all. If I wanted to do nothing but fight as a martial type character, I'd probably just pick run an Only War campaign or something similar.
Character creation is the first section I always turn to when experimenting with new systems personally. After I understand how a character is made, then I actually go through the rest of the book and skim through the rules for clarifications or such.
No, your wordy essay here is putting words in my mouth and taking things to extremes. "No U" is basically what I'm getting out of this it seems. I digress. Lettings games their run their natural life isn't killing the RPG market, whether you want to admit it or not. I've said it elsewhere and I'll say it again. Talk to your fellow PF1 players, hook up with a few PF2 players and get to homebrewing. You'll likely be able to get some decent PF2 content into PF1, though likely not without some difficulty but its the nature of such things.
The only thing that doesn't make sense to me is why people continually try to chain Humans/muggles/martials to the realities of our world despite it being made clear over and over again with lore examples that the "Limit" of such characters is not equivalent to that of which we commonly recognize to be possible in either our worlds or some works of fiction. The same way how Spellcasters in Pathfinder are laughably elevated by several tiers against most other Spellcasters in fiction but just being magical somehow gives them a pass, despite many of those other universes offering explanations as to how their powers work, how far their scope extends and the consequences involved in its practice/dangers. Things PF magic by and large either neglects or hand waves away as simply being universal/Magic.
I don't understand what's so hard about this. People keep handwaving away Irori as an exception and entirely missing the point in his constant referencing. The point is that the Zenith capabilities of mundane characters, human or otherwise on Golarion are much higher than most people seem to think.
I'm glad at least someone brought up how Irori fought the universe and won. That usually seems to be lost in these types of discussions. There exist precedent for the seemingly impossible and that is good enough for me.
Bullrush ALL the Goals.
Can't stop this train CHOO CHOO
The reason why dumping for no benefit is not an acceptable solution is that nobody in their right mind would adventure with the guy who is just plain weaker than everyone else.Personally, I'd rather adventure with someone who is a little bit weaker than adventure with someone with an attitude like that. Gonna go ahead and echo this as someone with personal experience in that regard. Met 2 people in a group once with that type of behavior and it was absolutely demeaning. You had to pick a certain race with certain point buy for certain classes with certain specifications or else they would endlessly spew about how you were not getting the best out of your character and how that you were designing poorer characters and less useful to the group. And if you picked a Martial? Oh boy, now you've gone from poorer characters to an outright liability and will now get a wall of text explaining why your fighter or rogue basically shouldn't exist because of how much better everyone else will be for picking their classes ect.. Needless to say, I didn't parley with that group for more than a few sessions.
Simple, sweet, yet effective. Keep up the good work Paizo. The Dynamic defense looks like it can definitely open up the avenue for a multitude of weapons in play in addition to the afformentioned weapons blog a while back!
At least from a figher/monk/barb type deal: BBEG locked up their fortress and has anti scry and fry? Just let the martial walk up to the gates and beat the gate or such senselessly until it falls, or shove their fist through those gates and tear the lock joints out like a child unwrapping presents. High level fighter specifically should be able to weaponize just about anything. Table leg? Enemy Corpse? Still living enemy? A wooden cart? Swing em or throw em. It's all natural to ye. Superhuman endurance. I reject the idea that superhuman abilities or talents can't duplicate or have quasi spell like effects. Sleep? Food? Water? Who needs it. High Level martials should be able to go several days while rejecting sleep and food and slightly less for rejecting any water before suffering any statistical penalties and or any of the above 3 become necessary. Endgame / high level martials should be able to march faster and for longer periods of time while taking reduced penalties if you wish as well. Intense weather or temperatures? As long as they aren't on another plane of existence, they can take a bit of it before needing to address it similar to a stripped down version of endure elements. Need to bring the martial along underwater but didn't prepare enough water breathing? That's fine, A(n) high level / endgame martial should probably be able to hold their own breath for about 2 hours or so. Give em a bag of air and once they need it, they're good for another 2 hours. Huge enemy? Save your silly enlarges, for we might not need it if the martial can still wrestle with an enemy about 20 ft or so tall with little issue. Meat shielding against your enemies is probably a given so bring on the endless hordes ect...
Perfectly fine to feel this way, though as others have pointed out, you've likely yet to scratch the true surface of possibility with the existing content available. 10 years of support is a respectable amount for a tabletop RPG to go through iterating on itself without making a full break. The material isn't going anywhere and if anything else, maybe PF1e will have its own little OSR-style community where entire games may be spun off it in the coming future to extend and build upon flawed concepts without necessarily making a clean break from it. At the end of the day however, a clean break may or may not be a great thing. The idea may sound unappealing but perhaps the execution will soften or eliminate the blow. After all, remember that the ruleset of the game you currently love was derived from a system which itself threw away and/or reimagined 25 years of mechanics and traditions to make a clean break on a new system and most people would agree that it certainly became a much better game because of it.
Likely to do with the way Crits work in PF2. +10 AC excess or a nat 20 roll. That +2 is small only at a quick glance.
Sign me up for a properly crafted Mythic system up to 30 or so at least.
I'll go ahead an echo this dedicated Ancestries book (Ancestries of Golarion or such.) I'd rather keep the sort of afterthought type situations limited within the scope of PF2e's first outings. Though as to the topic on hand, I'd be in for Ratfolk, non silly non crippled kobolds, Gnolls and Ghoran personally.
We were playing an Eldritch style game in 5e a couple of weeks ago. It was a group I was familiar with but hadn't been able to play with due to RL scheduling. Things have cleared up recently for now so I decided I was going to try my hand at it again and they all missed me as well so it worked out to a nice combo. GM offered to homebrew in a quick Ratfolk but I told him I'd just go with whatever is present out of the list he was allowing. So the deal then became that he gave me a temp NPC turned PC, an Arcanist to finish off this little arc until the main story kicked up again and I could introduce my character proper(An Air Genasi Bard. College of Valor...probably should have gone swords but bleh). I decided I was going to go down the erratic snarky type character stick given the details about this particular character and their part in the overall story. First few sessions go ok, I'm being snappy with the paladin and arguing some here and there IC about how I'm more trustworthy than the paladin because I've been nothing but right and they've made repeated wrong decisions(RNJesus in effect). However we get to the point where we think the arc is likely to end with the attempted recover of a baby inside this weird mansion located in a demi plane. When the Paladin goes to pick up the baby, there isn't anything actually under the cover just the sheets. This does not stop the local nurse spirit from going absolutely ballistic and attacking the party...specifically the Paladin to start with. Combat starts we all take our attacks and what not and then the Wraith goes and attempts to touch the Paladin with a necrotic spell, failing horribly. While the wraith nurse is screaming in fury and rage, a moment of inspiration struck as I proceeded to yell out: "That's two things you can't take of lady! Your babies and your enemies!", to which combat suffered a multi minute pause and I was grated inspiration for post session.
As a fan of FFG Star wars RPG and having looked into their Recent Genesys system(which is mostly that regardless), this change excites me greatly. Not really the biggest fan of binary success/failure systems over the years, so to see that one can make a save with potential minor/unintended consequences gets mechanically added to PF play is a big plus from me. A lot of extra flexibility for RP and effects this way.
Do we add narrative risk to magic. I mean, that's more or less what it used to be prior to 3.0/5/PF and their removal of such drawbacks. Or rather than narrative it was more Mechanical in this specific instance. Spells like Fireball or Lightning bolt could easily backfire on a Caster if not aimed properly enough. Shout could defean you if you used it more than once every day. Summons had a non trivial chance of turning on the caster in some situations. The use of Haste aged your character by 5 years. Polymorph was a Self induced Save or Die roll due to the incredibly stress induced in the transformation ect...Though this is not to say magic should strictly be as harsh or resemble anything too similar to this. The nature of Magic was more powerful but also widly volatile among other things. Closer to Dark Heresy and the nature of the Psyker in 40K as opposed to something just anyone born with the ability can handle. You would still completely outstrip martials by end game, just not as soon as you could in 3.5 systems. AD&D 2e was far from a perfect system and 3.0+ unification changes are absolutely fantastic, but the decision to amp the power of casters while basically removing most their drawbacks will never cease to confuse me. |
