We interrupt this regularly scheduled thread for an off-topic on-topic observation:
Quote:
most of the time make good game design. If you read books like Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals from Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen, or The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lens by Jesse Schell
Ahhh, so *that* explains what's been going on in the unfolding trends in gaming over the last generation or so.
Let me guess: these books use quantitative psychometrics to help game designers see what keeps people clicking for the pellet like a grandmother spending down her fortune at the slot machine.
The same design principle behind those ftp games with microtransactions and rng enhancing that gets people to plunk down time and or money trying to get the pellet. It *does* work (and none of those games are loathed or if they are it's never for any good reason, and certainly no one who plays those games have feelings of frustration that they then take out via in-game aggression in likewise carefully designed contexts).
I don't mean to knock these - I'm sure they're invaluable for game developers, from the pov of a game developer. But I'm not sure these are the sort of game design principles behind the success of the hobby Gary & Dave launched. It comes from a orthogonal perspective.
If the game was made based on the sort outlook I'm sure it will make the devs a fortune (by tabletop RPG standards). Okay, just one more since I'm hooked...like a good gamer.
Frankly, I find the idea that someone who knows absolutely nothing about magic can craft a magic item about as bizarre as I find the idea that all mundane longswords, whoever crafts them, have exactly the same characteristics.
Somewhere on these forums someone posted a while ago his bemusement at the idea that Mary the Master Seamstress down the street can craft a magic sword that requires Master in crafting, even though she's never made a sword and knows nothing about making them, while Joe the Expert Swordsmith can't do it. I'm with him.
What you want is a more complex rule system that requires people to take specific crafting (and perhaps performance) skills. Basically 3E's version, where if you took a skill like that you would specify (seamstress) or (tailor) or (blacksmith) or (armorer) or (weaponsmith) or, for perform, (song) or (dance) or (comedy) or (rhetoric) and the like.
The current system simplifies for playability because players also did not end up liking that version. But it's always possible to go back to that on the argument-for-verisimilitude. (The old pre-3E pre-skill-point era had that too). So just because your fighter was a good boyer or fletcher, it wouldn't make him any good at all at repairing his armor, too. He'd have to take a separate skill.
Since Wizards have INT as their primary skill and thus and advantage in skills as it is, they should also have to have the skill to make any item they're going to enchant, as part of the enchanting process. So they'd imbue it with magic as they craft it. So they'd need armorer for armor, weaponsmith for weapon, boyer for bows, alchemy (natch), seamstress or tailor for their robes, goldsmithing/silversmithing/jeweler for accessories, and so on. Because I think I can agree with you that the idea that any old masterwork-tier item is alike and is prepped to be imbued with magic by the wizard enchanting it is a bit of an abstraction. Like the legendary crafters of items in lore and myth, it shouldn't be just some item picked up down the street: it gets forged as an enchanted item as it is being made.
And yes, it's a raccoon. You gotta arm and armor your raccoon AC for the battle. If it's named "bitey" you might be in the same "Rise of the Goblinlords" campaign Treantmonk is in (broadcast and DM'd by Karsh the Goblin on youtube, using, so far, PF1 rules).
As for crafting, in 3x wizards were not technically the only ones who could take the crafting feats and do crafting either. It's just for a variety of reasons, they were more likely to.
Unicore points out a reason why it will possibly (we'll see) be still a wizard's niche in PF2. But it wasn't "by rule" a wizard's niche in PF1 either.
The area that did change is that now non-casters can do it, too. Whether one likes that or not is one of those ymmv. One of the reasons I'm done with any iteration of 3E, including PF, is the whole Discount Larry's Crazy Low Low Prices WBL Appliance Mart attitude towards magic items that it fostered - you can get all the key big 5 items you want at low-low prices! Discount Larry has you covered!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTKRoBjjyeI
I'm not sure yet how much 2EPF has moved away from that - and I like cool magic items as well as anyone - so I don't need to move them too far. It has generally de-emphasized reliance on magic items.
Anyhow, the point is wizards might still find that being their thing here too even if by rule it's not an exclusive prerogative of wizards - but it wasn't in the previous edition, either. It just ended up that way due to how incentives played out. Crafting is int based still and wizards will be the int guy. People with int as their dump stat will be able to repair their armor and weapons but probably not be doing the enchanting.
If they were given a STR score (say -4 or -5) then with their tiny size we could calculate what they could carry. But they don't have a listed STR score.
This would imply that as the rules currently stand, they can't lift or hold anything (Weapon or not, manual dexterity feat or not).
I'm not suggesting the rules allow the familiar to reload the crossbow. But it seems that, from what you said, they can't even move a small object from one part of the wizard's lab to another - they lack a strength score. A familiar with the manual dexterity feat but without a strength score can not only not hold a crossbow or load a crossbow, it seems that by the rules as they stand now, it would be against RAW for them to hold a needle and thread to darn the wizard's robes.
> But that's just silly...
Well, maybe I'm wrong but if you're right then I am not. They can't carry *anything* since they lack a strength score.
The skies would be crowded in some of Toril's areas.
Fly The Crowded Skies.
tbf, setting the books aside, the impression given by FR is one of crowded skies in some areas (griffon-mounted watch & other peeps in Waterdeep). They're not *more* crowded with Wizards than they would otherwise be because of all the gates (currently: teleport circles) that are reputed to be there.
Admittedly the novels follow a more narrative structure where Ed backed off of some of the things that were obviously in his magic system (ever read Seven Sisters? Or any of the other Greenwood-written accessories focusing on his favorite pNPCs? the kind of magic-at-the-fingertips he clearly used in his own campaigns was one of the contributing factors to braking 3E since a lot of the magic and spells in that were inspired by what he had written up for 1E/2E products. Whew, lads! Ed is one of the greats of the game, but, like Gary and *his* wizard pNPCs, they were the ur-creators of the idea that wizards should be quadratic and at higher levels overshadow everyone else. FR is a great example of that but...)....
And my own once-favorite setting of Mystara: whew, lads, when it comes to air stuff.
but...see also Golarion, where even an unpstart usurper in a backwater burg like Pitax had 100+ wyverns to mount an air cavalry on in canon.
Here in this comment I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong that all these ease-of-travel and airfarce stuff should be curtailed. But it's wrong to say it hasn't been present. So it is a noteworthy nerf.
*here "pNPC" stands for PC-NPC. A character that is sort of in the grey area between an NPC and someone's PC-insert. See also Tricksy of Kintargo/Ravounel.
It really does seem like you’re looking at this in a vacuum. From my experience, spells work great even against higher level creatures.
That's probably true, in retrospect.
Indeed it is true since I have zero experience so far with PF2 at medium-to-high level play. Only interpretation from reading things like the article in question.
So I'll pipe down now and do what Michael suggested earlier, and have more patience.
I do thank him (and you) for your answers to my posts.
That is why I included a table against Player Level+2 Enemy. It shows that even when taking all that loss of hit chance into account, the damage of the spells when they actually hit is so big that, plus the fact that it does half damage on a successful save it, compensates for all the lower chance of hitting.
...You are underestimating the lower level spells. Like I said in the article even level 1 debuffing spells can be crippling for enemies, and you will have plenty of those at higher levels. (7+?)
With only a 1/5 or 1/4 chance of hitting during what are critical junctures, the spell better be pretty devastating to be worth casting.
I am *not* an expert in these rules. But I do look at impact in a not-in-a-vacuum way, but in a form of comparative analysis: If this were 5E, Treantmonk would be reminding people that the dodge action exists and is a perfectly viable choice when there's little chance of doing anything impactful (i.e. cantrips - and PF2 cantrips scale a bit better than 5E cantrips, but, if there were a dodge action, Treantmonk would probably say that using the dodge would be strictly superior to using a cantrip in almost all cases once you reach mid-level. But cantrips are not the point, really; ignore cantrips, they're a diversion, as your article suggests. They could easily have been left as they were).
The same would be true any time your chance of landing that impactful effect is abysmal. But the thing is, it doesn't take a Master-tier caster to use the dodge action: any numpty can use it and be a decoy for one round.
As far as I know, there's no full equivalent to the 5E Dodge action in PF. so then your opportunity-cost actions (the best available alternatives you have to casting a spell that has a extremely low probability of landing, and then, if it does, still gives the target a save - and we're counting a best-case scenario after the save: 0 resistances, or other abilities strong foes tend to have that can mitigate effects. They're likely not automatically taking half the impact). So your opportunity-cost action would be something like moving as fast as you can in the other direction and hiding behind something. You're less likely to be helping the party by being a decoy, but more likely to survive the encounter, an encounter where your chances of meaningfully contributing would be considered laughable if the hit-chance was on any character other than a caster.
Maybe out from behind cover you use that l.1 grease spell that still might be effective, you've got me there. It doesn't change the fact that during these extremely critical and tough encounters (that the party *will* face from time to time), when everyone needs to count on everyone else, you're really not likely to be effective when it matters.
The article takes the standard assumption that a PF2 combat lasts ~4 rounds.
It correctly says that a mid-to-upper level wizard will have about 7 spells of approximately the impact as a fighter's strike (not necessarily doing damage).
It then calculates that on a given round, the spellcaster will be competitive with an equivalent martial character.
For that round.
But the article assumes 7 or so encounters/day. With the caster using one of those "Big Gun" spells each encounter.
However, with 7 encounters/day, that's not 7 rounds of combat. It's 35.
Each round the martial character is the Energizer Bunny - they just keep going and going and going, with approximately the same effectiveness.
However, the tacit assumption of the article is that, other than the 7 highlighted rounds, the caster is doing - significantly less effective things? Because it is counting 7 "big gun" spells that are competitive with what a martial can do on that same round.
So each other round, the caster is - less impactful. (Again, I use "impactful" rather than "damage" - of course spells do other things. But martial characters also have other abilities, and many of not most of these are also energizer-bunny abilities. Of course, these abilities are not spells. But we're running with the assumption that other than the "big gun" spells, the caster's spells taper off in impact after that).
The article also highlights that casters have some major situations - the ones where all party members need to be most efficient and effective - where they are probably better off, given opportunity costs, doing - what? 20% chance of a hit vs a barb's 40% (but it gets better! Casters rising to the heights of 25% soon after, vs the barb's 40%. And the barb was chosen because they have a lower chance to hit than, say, the fighter). So during those levels, the caster is supposed to do...what? Offer sage advice? Which yes is valuable. But they're best bet would seem to be to hide somewhere so they wouldn't be reduced to a fine spray.
From what I can tell, the article highlights that during those situations (critical encounters at several key levels) the caster is being carried by the martials.
Correct me where I am wrong. I probably am. As I said in another thread, I'm far from an expert at the rules. Though the article does its best with adjectives and flavor text to minimize the underperformance of casters, the numbers spell disaster for casters at SACRIFICE
(Yes yes, I know: it's because fighters are genetic freaks and they're not normal So casters only have an 8.333333333% chance of contributing at SACRIFICE while the fighter has a 141% chance of contributin, and as others pointed out in that other thread, it's a cooperative team game, not a solo game, so the caster should be happy the team has a 141% chance of winnin at SACRIFICE because Scott Steiner is in the same party they're in, holding his cape as his valet I guess).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFoC3TR5rzI
I don't intend to single out Unicore here who has been far more active on these boards than I and groks both PF1 and PF2 at a deeper level than I do but to this
Unicore wrote:
What does the arcane transmuter need to live up to past expectations for the build, that will not step on the toes of Dragon/Aberration sorcerers or Druids?
I remind of posts like this earlier in this thread:
oholoko wrote:
NemoNoName wrote:
There is simply nothing relevant Wizard does that another class couldn't do. And that other class would be doing even more things, or doing the same things better.
I think that's true for every class. There's nothing that another class can do that you can't except that class can do even more things.
In 3x/PF1 wizards could step on the toes of other classes (except CoD, which simply squashed them under its Gojira-sized feet). So the design reaction that I think the Unicore quote aptly reflects was to insure wizards did not step on the toes of other classes this time around - but it seems to have been fine for those classes to overlap quite a lot with the wizard's toes (thus the oholoko quotation).
It's perhaps why people are finding wizard underwhelming even if the mechanics are working as intended. Perhaps a way - and the underlying rationale for - the pendulum swinging *too* far.
As an earlier poster said, they thought of a number of ways to bring wizards (and casters in general) down a peg - and then used most of them as a kitchen-sink approach, and then "gave back" only a bit.
That said opinion is obviously still "mixed at best" and I still don't have enough time with the new rules to put my feet down in any one camp but my *impression* is that wizards are now whelmed. Not overwhelming, not entirely underwhelming, but whelmed, by many other classes (not just fighter though that one got invoked as the comparison a lot during the portion of the thread that focused on who DPR's best over the course of one round of one combat, and the consensus seemed to form that if the wizard had pre-buffed enough and the party had de-buffed the targets enough, the evoker-wizard could nova with their top spells at that level just fine for that one round when compared to the regular attacks for fighter of the same level, with pretty standard feats for the level).
One of my favorite examples of "Quadratic Wizard / Linear Fighter" that shows why it's simply not fun to have a party with a high level Wizard in 3.5 / PF1 is a video on YouTube called "Angel Summoner and the BMX Bandit" feel free to look it up if you're interested.
tbf those BMX-related skills were pretty pro I mean just like martials there wasn't anything broken about things at all....
That said, I think too often this thread shifted from the original theme: were casters nerfed too hard. Which is different from going around and around in circles over whether the caster-martial disparity was real or not.
I don't know the new rules enough to know whether overall they were nerfed too hard. But my initial reaction is that there were a number of things that, when I played a wizard or a cleric or whatnot, I could do that are not really worth an action to do anymore.
Could casters do them too well under the previous edition? Yes.
Now you can get (or give) a small bonus (or penalty) for a very short time. OtoH the martials can always use their best ability inexhaustibly. Not just their damage attacks, but their skills and many feats (most that are not Focus-related). Sure, as a caster "you can have skills, too." But that's not a class-related distinction then and most of your "iconic" skills will lay elsewhere. In Treantmonk's old guide to the PF Wizard he described roles, one of which was "The Gimp," which was a role you did not want to end up in. Many caster options seem like they're slotted in for that role, now. Again tho this is just an impression. Again also I still like much of 2E more than I thought I was going to now that I have spent some time exploring it. No bully.
As things stand now, as others pointed out, "gishing" from martial to caster has a "feel" that is far more rewarding than "gishing" from caster to martial (I am having trouble making a build where it would ever make sense for my caster who multiclassed into a martial would ever use his or her martial weapon. OtoH, they're still limited in their casting potential. So what I'm really having a difficult time doing is making someone where their few spells get used and they can still be a meaningful contributor. Cantrips, one says - and cantrips are okay but despite their scaling, still don't really "keep up." They're an area where they are better than 1e [except for Arcane Tricksters, who were better with cantrips], but you are now in the shadow of the martials.*)
But I am probably overlooking things. In any case one seems to get far more "bang for the buck" by multiclassing into a caster than from a caster into a martial. {Of course arguably in 1E it was the same since except for a few builds, multiclassing out of caster was a fool's errand. But it would be one way to make up for what I see as a current discrepancy).
Casters shouldn't be the Angel Summoner to the Martial's BMX bandit. But that's not the original theme of the thread, though it became that. It's whether they got hit *too* hard. Whether the current "meta" pinches too much. Even a couple months after the initial release I don't think I know enough to say if this is the case but it does "feel" this way as I am kicking 2E's tires. That said, I like much of the new "chassis" as people have called it more than the old 3x chassis (which I also liked for years but am personally finished with. I would rather go back to AD&D 2E, tbqh, than any 3e version including PF1).
*This is not a claim that you should be able to outshine them. But instead you are holding their coat, it looks like. Or, at your top spell-level, do something with a limited resource - and not just damage - that equals what they can do without exhausting a resource.
PF Bucklers I sort of imagined as more akin to a cataphract's buckler than to a duelist's buckler.
A cataphract would strap their buckler to their wrist because they needed to be able to keep it on while also being able to use a bow (and switch to lance at the charge).
A dueling buckler is held out more in front and that does use the hand more than the wrist. But since PF bucklers keep the hand free, well, like I said: I saw it more akin to the cataphract's version.
The ONLY thing I don't like about wands, is that if you want to be a serious wand user, you need a golf bag of wands, rather than having a single wand that can do multiple things.
The usual negative of WBL is that's it's not an end all be all in actual play, its used as a guideline when planning characters. The other negative associated with it is that crafters in the previous edition could easily get things at 1/2 price and effectively double the amount of magic items you could have.
Another problem with the Discount Larry's Crazy Low-Low Prices WBL Item Appliance Mart* is that it fostered an attitude towards magic items as == appliances to be acquired off-the-shelf with WBL. ("Teh Science" - only not really that, but an engineering product).
Back on topic:
Quote:
Also yes PF2 does have WBL but it's based on party gold not individual. So everyone has a lot less money then they previously had.
It'll be interesting to see how that works in practice over time. Not every player makes every session or (more significantly, since you can always NPC an absent-player's character) can continue throughout a campaign. I'm sure there are (or in the GMG will be) guidelines how to handle turnover.
*(the chain's full name, and not to be confused with Crazy Character Emporiums, which are contributions to the community IMO. I love character emporiums, they generate useful NPCs and demonstrate creative possibilities, if nothing else).
That kind of exploit seems counter-productive, even if technically legal.
I don't disagree. But otoh to each campaign their own. I don't know how many characters will get a baker's dozen of rings worth investing to invest.
But then I personally have never run or been in a game with the 3x-standard "Discount Larry's Crazy WBL-Item-Mart. Shop Smart, Shop WBL-Mart" in every burg. Is WBL even a thing for PF2? (I haven't looked into that).
Edit: OtoH I've also never been too concerned if a character wanted to say "my ring I got altered and is now an earring." Or whatnot. Cosmetic changes that put them on other than fingers (but not bizzaro changes that get out of hand) I never fussed over. But you're right about letting absolute number of ring-items get out of hand.
However I also would find interesting a character concept that involves some sort of ring hypertrophy. Might be lulz. I wouldn't scoff at it, especially since it's techinically legal. It's why the games have a DM - to make judgements. /End of rambling. Rambling is one reason I hardly ever post anymore. Apologies for rambling on.
You can now wear ten rings instead of two, or twelve with a feat! (Provided you've got the fingers for them).
Feat should really let you wear another ten.
A character who lost a hand can still wear twelve rings. There is no such thing as a ring-per-finger limit (tho I’d probably stop after three or four).
wear them on ears, toes, and (not recommended) esoteric parts of the body.
Most of the big ones have already been mentioned, but one that struck me hasn't been, yet. I didn't play the playtest version at all (even informally), so it was unexpected that:
Cantrips have spell-levels now other than 0th.
Not necessarily an unwelcomed one, but it'll take some getting used to on my part. I'm sure there will be tons of little things that I'll "d'oh!" over and will take getting used to if I adopt PF2.
It also isn't helpful calling something "abhorrent on so many levels" without at least saying what some issues are. I get criticism of Hell's Vengeance, evil isn't for everyone. But I can't think of any time I've heard it used to describe Hell's Rebels.
When the last one is out and I have time to write a review of all of it, I might. It will indicate what I find abhorrent about the first when tied to the second, as they are clearly intended to be, which is why:
Quote:
Paizo is pretty good at avoiding mention of AP events in other products.
Was violated here, and why I took the moment to decloak regarding my opinion of the whole thing, since they did break an otherwise generally* observed policy of not having APs or modules interact with other APs or modules in pushing the gameworld.
Anyhow I don't have the time to get into what would almost certainly become a forum debate by specifically mentioning the many levels on which I find these abhorrent. I'll pass on the opportunity to even hint at the reasons, for now, lest it just start the ball of thread unravelling.
Genuine apologies for staying cryptic for now because you're right that in using such a strong term to express my dislike for these APs I owe en explanation for my details. But I simply haven't got the IRL time to start what I'm pretty sure will become a time-consuming exchange. I'm going to wait till it's all out, wait till I have a good block of time to (a) formulate my critique in a review that I will try to word carefully so I don't give off unnecessary vibes (I've had issues phrasing things in a tone that is abrasive in the past), and (b) at a time when I'll have time to respond to any objections, disagreement, and so forth.
I only posted the feedback I did (above) to lay down at least a marker for any devs reading these that not everyone will want this to become canon in the setting going forward, and I won't spend any more money buying Paizo products at all if I think that there's a possibility it will. (A crappy means, but the only one a consumer *really* has, ultimately).
(Again, I really, really liked CoT, and Westcrown I think is among my favorite fantasy cities anyone has ever published. I am not implying a blanket condemnation of all APs, or of the writers/designers).
P.S. I don't object to evil PCs or evil campaigns as such, however. If I did, I probably wouldn't use this avatar.
Hell's Vengeance will assume that the events of Council of Thieves have already taken place. There is an entire Adventure Path's worth of plots in Westcrown (from Council of Thieves) that simply cannot be addressed in a single adventure ("Hell Comes to Westcrown"), so the decision was made to "advance the timeline," so to speak--with regards to Westcrown, at least. The adventure will have more details on this.
Should I take that as implying the events of this AP and the previous one will be baked into the cake of future products set in the same general area?
If so, that is awful. I say that having really, really liked CoT. But I find these two (Hell's Rebels and Hell's Vengeance) to be abhorrent on too many levels.
Even a hint that these events will be baked into future publications in any way affects all my future buying decisions.
I's unfortunate nobody replied. Maybe because of "cohorts" in the title. But I think you're right that these are interesting RPing situations in the last part of the story.
Depending on the strength of the party itself and how the AP is playing, Scorpion's players probably made the right choice:
Sc8rpi8n_mjd wrote:
No, the players didn't have Terendelev or Pyralisia by their side. Both NPCs remained in Drezen and Kenabres respectively to protect the cities, as the demons launched an all-out attack while the PCs were exploring Threshold trying to close the worldwound. The players decided this was best, as both creatures lacked mythic power in their standard forms and were no match for the enemies the heroes would have to face (a sound choice, in my opinion).
That is; the players can have the freshly-redeemed friends helping out with the big picture, insuring that cities aren't overrun & the inhabitants slaughtered (or worse) while they're closing the worldwound. Part of the bigger background, happening off-stage rather than complicating things at center-stage.
It's still a great and flavorful game. I started with Basic (blue book) and followed quickly with AD&D1E. THe most memorable games I had were in AD&D (and BECMI). People in the "system theorycraft" threads do have a point when they say with a good DM and good players flaws don't matter much.* Which is why we could all play this still today (or the Rules Cyclopedia of BECMI - just one book to carry with you!), and adjudicate anything not covered on the fly & houserule.
We used to sandbox tons, interspersed with the occasional modified module.
Current rules are strictly better, as rules. But one can have as much fun playing old-school. Plus, tons of buried treasure in those books.
Plus as disorganized as they were I have a soft spot for Gygax's writing style in those books. I learned tons of vocabulary and sought out tons of fiction, mythology, history, and the like because of some offhand remark or reference (Apendix N!) he made. Heck there's still stuff on my "to read before I die" list from that.
*:
That said, if one has the alternative, improving rules is always better. But we could all save a lot of money by still playing with those old school rules rather than buying the latest & next rulebook, or expansion, or supplement, and just houseruling anything additional we want.
That would have to be applied to spontaneous casters as well otherwise it causes other problems.
I know an increasing number of people want to do away with prepared casters completely, but IMO that's a separate and distinct subject.
In any case, that only deals with some caster classes (wizards, witches, and the like). It has no effect on clerics or any spontaneous caster-class, and thus does not address the root of what Roberta Yang mentioned.
I've been taking a look at narrative-driving abilities for martial characters. I'm trying to focus on effects that do not directly affect combat ability (with one exception that targets mass-combat scenarios) and interact fairly little with existing systems. I have built this list upon the sample suggestions I posted a few hundred posts back. I appreciate constructive feedback, especially compared to dismissive responses :)
Paladin's Call (and similar abilities): It might be better if CR -1 or CR -2.
Tell the World: if they carry sufficient water, do they have to stop? or can they drink while running?
Famed Mercenary: It should be made clear whether this allows people to "break" WBL or not. If the answer is "not," then for those campaigns in which WBL is an iron law, this ability has no effect other than reducing future treasure to "make up for" the fact that an NPC gave a greater reward in time 0.
Friend of the Wilds: Should have a CR cap. At most CR = Ranger level. Uncapped, it's probably too powerful. Plus, "no true neutral" seems kind of broad and not necessarily nature-themed. After all, you don't have to be nature-oriented to be neutral and not all nature-oriented people are neutral (or even non-evil). That said I'm not sure how to rewrite that to improve it, so I simply throw the observation out there.
Journal of Legends: it's Takano's scrapbook! (Actually, no. That item may [or may not have been! After all, there was real information in there!] more of a curse-equivalent than a benefit).
Indomitable - Thematically very nice. I like the atmospherics of this one.
Ages Endless - might need a different name but I like this one. It's odd how the game tends to give these kind of abilities to classes that need them least (because those classes tend to be ones where mental ability scores are their primary stats, not physical). capstone-level martials should get this automatically, for free, IMO. After all, at 20th level they're practically quasi-dieties.
No Matter the Distance - stationary target might need to be clarified. Is that anyone who didn't move on their previous round?
A more complete way to state the problem is as the difference between the modifiers an invested character and a non-invested character could expect to have approaches 20, the system breaks down.
Once the modifiers approach the randomness in the system, the success or failure of a roll turns from a rating of the skilled being more successful vs. the unskilled being less success to a binary "You can/you can't" situation.
Just to clarify this point: with high modifiers, there are a lot of "only fail on a 1/only succeed on a 20" type situations. With low modifiers, there is a lot less of that, and thus a lot more risk.
One issue too is: casters tend to accumulate a greater variety of ways to stack modifiers (either bonuses to themselves/allies, or penalties to their opponents). Now, of course it is only a tendency (there are exceptions).
A "generalist" tends to have fewer ways to stack bonuses. Their bonuses tend to be spread out. Since they're spread out, any encounter made to be challenging for characters who can stack bonuses would be overwhelming for a character that cannot - at least not without the help of their friend. Who then is the real hero.
Casting also tends to provide both "generalist" versatility and the benefits of "specialization" bonus/penalty stacking, particularly as they level and the potency of spells scale in ways that feats, for example, do not. I don't dislike this, myself (but the people who suggest that casters be forced to specialize understand this situation, I will give them that for sure).
It's not so much "magical" vs "natural" as "magical" vs "nonmagical". I'm fine with some things that would be considered supernatural. Hercules was supernatural, but didn't feel _magical_, you know what I mean? He wasn't strong for X round per day, he was just supernaturally strong.
It wasn't so much the flavor set by the ability descriptions and designations as the unintentional feeling I got from the mechanics themselves.
That's a good pithy way of describing what I hope the "feel" will be like. While recognizing that *some* abilities might be an exception (I don't think martials that have some abilities with use-per-day clauses necessarily violate this atmosphere/distinction).
The game is far from perfect. But it is a role-playing game and background should dictate skill expenditure and knowledge base. Not whether or not every mechanical advantage possible is gained with every skill point, feat, and ability point. At least that is my opinion and how I tend to run my games.
I think this is where you went wrong in this particular discussion. Because it started off with people saying a Arcane-type could put limited skill points into a skill that is, strictly speaking, sub-optimal for that class, instead of a Knowledge Skill that almost every party wants.
Now they would do that, in this case, to fill a needed role. But it's not exactly "optimization" as CharOp design teams would define it.
Also while you are correctly highlighting the common theme for Wizards, Clerics, and the like, it is role playing to create characters that are at least somewhat distinctive from the average trope.
It's fairly easy to come up with distinctive backgrounds that can cover a lot of things. Clerics can be militant, Wizards could have grown up on the mean streets before their knack for magic was discovered, and so on.
In my experience, role-playing isn't just playing the cookie-cutter trope over and over again. And parties do need to find ways to fill roles. Or each party could just be optimally constructed with the optimal character class in each role, and then focus on the skills and abilities they "should," but I doubt people would call that role-playing.
All this is on a spectrum anyhow. People trade off between effectiveness and story/background RP.
I am running a Kingmaker game that takes place on a Caribbean island with jungles. The players are exploring and I'm trying to come up with some good encounters that don't just involve 'ancient jungle ruins'. What ideas do you have in mind?
Traders wash ashore and involve the PCs in a trade dispute. Eventually the PCs end up stumbling uncontrollably into allowing their own chancellor to seize absolute power right out from under their noses.
An acquaintance of the party stumbles upon an offshore reef full of dangerous intelligent jellyfish and cries out for help!
A small craft operated by two crew and carrying five passengers on a short crew is wrecked in a storm and they become castaways near the PCs encampment. Hilarity ensues.
Sahuagin Attack! - attack of the killer sahuagin.
*insert pirate-related trope-encounters here* - corsairs, perhaps "Against All Flags" style instead of Johnny Depp wacky zaniness. Or maybe "War Rafts of Kron"
The PCs stumble upon the Isle of Lost Souls, full of uplifted, awakened anthro-beasts (are they not men?) under the thumb of an evil Druid.
#1: List feat chains that could be combined into one feat. Why?
These are really good, thanks for the effort. Just a few suggested tweeks;
Moonlight Stalker - either Combat Expertise should be eliminated as a prerequisite for this Feat, or Combat Expertise needs to be made worth taking.
Spell Breaker - Probably it should just be made a free Fighter ability, or otherwise it should scale up somehow. Like an additional +1 to DCs to cast defensively per 5 points of damage done.
Plus, at a certain level or BAB, spell breaker could also be used to sunder spells, 1/day or whatnot.
Heroic Endurance is an interesting idea but might you might add that at 8th level you can stay on your feet and act for another round after being reduced to 0 HP.
Shield Focus: I would remove the shield type clause. I'm still not sure it will be considered "worth" taking (many people scoff at Weapon Focus, and even a +2 to AC w/Shield from a Feat ~= +1 to attack with a weapon). What you did with Weapon Focus is "the look" though (meaning = good).
Bearsark is more Barbarian, IMO, and Crusader themes better with Paladin (if imperfectly). Warrior is already taken and personally I'm not keen on it, I associate it with a lesser grade than soldiery.
Slayer seems more assasin themed, and anyhow would be akin to Fighter in people's mindset: it focuses the mind solely on whacking at things with pointy objects.
But otherwise I like your list but would add to it Myrmidon, Scutatus, Spatharios, Stratiotes, but these are more esoteric. :p
Swashbuckler would also be a good addition to your list, and less esoteric. But more of an archetype (which many of your alternative names are as well, so it's not a bad thing).
Alright, here I go with a question which best is left under spoiler tags, relating to module five of Reign of Winter:
** spoiler omitted **
Spoiler:
Sane PCs should strive to come back with the Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th Edition. Among other true treasures. Alas, they'll probably miss out. Not much of an opportunity unless the DM gives it to them, or they deliberately wander off course. Pity, really. I'd trade the tank for some tomes. The notebooks are very nice, though. If the DM doesn't make sure they get destroyed in the fighting.
James: If your character went there and could return with 5 items, what would they be?
5) Same as #4 above. That said, the one I'd like to redo the most is Second Darkness, particularly part 5, which I feel dropped the ball on making elves be something other than cliched D&D style aloof and uncaring jerks. My hope for that AP was that elves would instead come off as much more friendly and be a society the players would WANT to befriend and help.
6) It'd be one that follows multiple generations of heroes, such that when you hit 20th level with one party, the timeline advances and you start with the descendants of those player characters as new 1st level characters that repeat for multiple generations and therefore this last AP would never end.
#6 was a great "Bwahahahahaha" answer. And #5 was just, um, yes.
Frankly, crafting items takes a lot of skill to make something relatively mundane. Even with select feats and traits that imitate caster crafting, the martial character cannot make something nearly as good at high level unless his caster buddy enchants it for him. That Adamintine Greatsword is silly compared to the Hasted Adamantine Greatsword of Flameburst +5. I don't know how to address this reasonably though.
I always avoided craft trap as a... trap. Seemed like a lot of work to make something that doesn't scale so well. Martial characters like rogues being able to craft mechanical constructs to serve them in battle or everyday life would be cool, especially if the constructs didn't outright suck compared to what a caster can assemble already.
I liked this post, it had a lot of good ideas in it. Commenting on one: Often forgot is that people can enchant with just the feat, but without the other "pre-requisites" (such as spells), though it's harder.
Plus this is where UMD (which I otherwise dispise as the universal solvent to all non-caster problems) can come into play.
The problem is Martials can't really afford the feats for crafting, the way spellcasters sometimes squeeze them into a build.
This might really be a way in which a ritual catch-all can help all classes. I've never been too fond of the crafting feats (but without ever really coming up with a better solution).
But again going back to the roots of the game: myths and fantasy, it was often non casters who forged the most powerful of items. So there should be a way for non-casters to craft their own 'magical' gear. People's mindsets probably need to be shaken out of the belief that "casters enchant, non-casters do not." Then the rules can be restructured to reflect that any suitably puissant (read = level, aproximately, with approrpiate skillz) person can forge a eldrtich item.
Supposubly (with a 'b') the upcoming Mythic rules will have "legendary" gear in it, which scales as the character goes up in tiers. Something like that could be adapted/adopted for non-mythic characters. I mean in some ways its probably kewler if you keep your own favorite weapon as you level (and, yes, there are ways to do that in the existing rules, but they're often inelegant), rather than discarding it each time you find or buy a better one.
Porphy: If you think I'm trying to bicker, that was not the intent. It's unfortunate that this is all that managed to shine through my post. :(
Sorry, no I didn't see you as bickering I just really feel the caster stuff has to be minimized in this thread, or it will degenerate into bickering again.
I guess that means I self-appointed myself "Thread Police" which is also terrible (I hate that guy too). But I find the thread illuminating when it stays on topic and pointless (if mildly entertaining) when it degenerates.
I do actually agree with you that if everything was perfect we should talk about all these things in relation to each other. But that simply doesn't work on the internet. Which is unfortunate.
Anyhow, no I didn't see you as bickering; I just wanted to, as reasonably as possible, explain why I think we should just focus on martials (to the greatest extent possible) in this thread.
The thread's gotten interesting again and you're one of the people contributing to that interesting productive idea-stuff.
End of long explanation of why I responded, and apology for leaving the impression I said you were contributing to bickering; I don't see you as a bickerer. Sorry, I should have been clearer.
Porphy: The reason people keep drifting to the "Change Casters" line of thinking is because no matter what we do to martials, we probably can't close the gap between them and casters without effectively making them casters. There's probably a lot we can do to somewhat narrow the gap, but it will remain huge all the same.
I don't agree with that. I think it can be accomplished.
In any case, we should, here, work on the "a lot we can do" part, observe, and worry about the rest after that.
I have agreed there are things that need to be done about certain spells and certain broken (usually caster-related) abilities, but those things are irrespective of martials-as-such.
In any case I also disagree with making the perfect the enemy of the good. Reducing the gap would be significant. People don't feel "Tier 3" (for lack of a better way of putting it) classes are lamentable.
Plus, as I keep saying, Kirth and a few others have come up with ideas towards giving martials flavorfully-martial ways of impacting the gameworld on a similar scale. I think creativity can be bent to accomplishing something like that, even if one doesn't like his specific ideas.
In any case - again, empirically - on the rare occasions this thread (and others like it, such as the Fighter-specific thread) focus on that, those are the times when fruitful discussions happen. When they don't, nothing fruitful happens. At best it's lamenting over beers (or coffees), like the old blokes hanging out at the Chestnut Tree. At worst it devolves into the endless bicker-churn.
Therefore I again recommend: lets first do the "a lot we can do" to improve Martials. At least in this thread. Or we can spend another 1K+ posts uselessly. It is the interbutts, after all.
Again, just a recommendation. In general I personally have little of substance to offer to the substantive parts of the discussion except "I like this" or "this sounds good but here's a good tweek" and the like. But the people who do have actual good ideas (better than me) tend to grow silent (or go away) when the thread gets dominated by bickering.
Celestial Obedience is a good model for scaling feats, too. Though of course not nearly all Feats should be tied to getting benefits from a external source, but it does provide an obvious precedent for a single Feat that produces scaling benefits as one levels, with capstones.
There should be a way to build fighter-only, monk-only, rogue-only, ranger-only, &tc feats in a similar fashion. This would be an improvement on the "chain feats" with feat taxes.
Indeed many of the current feat chains could be redesigned as a single scaling feat.
despite attempts to steer the conversation away from casters I remind you that questions of balance are always in relation to other comparable classes, so nerfing casters IS a way of relatively improving martial classes.
1)(the part I snipped out) I still don't like it. :p But that's a debate for another time.
2) technically you're correct but people here can read multiple threads and all attempts in this thread to discuss how to improve martials by nerfing casters have produced nothing but the "NO U!" cycle. Absolutely nothing productive was accomplished. The only time this thread moves the ball forward in an interesting way is when it focuses on martials.
That may be a deplorable commentary on human nature, but it's a reality. it may be ideal to discuss everything in the context of everything else, but how successfully has that ideal been approached in this discussion? Epic Fail comes to mind.
Similarly, in my observation, ways to improve (by toning down, or otherwise) casters seems to work better in threads devoted to them.
Again, the same people can read both.
Also again, I don't tend to agree with Marthkus on everything, but on the one thing of keeping the martial thread focused on what to do to improve martials, i do, only because, empirically, it's obvious the forum can't do both at the same time. Again, unless of course the value one gets out of these threads is solely the entertainment value of watching and/or participating in pointless circular bickering, in which case, ignore everything I just said: it wouldn't apply in such a case.
I don't like forced specialization and I rather hope the idea doesn't spread.
Plus it has the potential to clutter the game with too many sub-classes ("But, Porphy, aren't schools subclasses already? And Archetypes?" - sort of. But I think if casters are forced to specialize, to the exclusion of all spells outside their specialty [I assume that's what Ilja means by specialize] - the Devs will feel compelled to "give them something in exchange," and it will ultimately devolve into what amounts to a class for each specialty.)
Though that's not my reason for disliking forced specialization of that sort. Or at least not my only one. My meta-reason is that while some things need to be done, nothing that radical needs to be done.
Anyhow Marthkus is correct; we should keep on the topic of discussing ways to improve Martials in this thread, and avoid casty controversies (those can have their own threads). This thread is relatively productive when it sticks to topic (a bunch of people have had interesting ideas), and a deluge of nonproductive bickering when it drifts.
(I'm not against topic drift as such, but I am against unproductive topic drift).
It's a wish. It can already do all sorts of things. That's the whole point of wish.
The various lower-level polymorph spells already essentially grant the effects of a template, after all.
THAT SAID... I wouldn't allow a wish spell to give yourself such a template FOREVER. I mean... a wish can increase an ability score by +1. The advanced template increases ALL your ability scores by +4.
Ok, goodo and thanks for the clarification because that's just the type of thing I was puzzling through as the potential results of using wishes to gain templates.
Temporary as a polymorph-style effect is kewl though. It does display the flexibility of wishes, but without busting the game. I mistakenly thought you meant people could get templates permanently with (9th level) wishes.
THe only problem is with invoking the term "mundane" is that it will be latched onto by the sort of people whose mindset is "non-caster = peon = of course they shouldn't be able to affect the world on the same scale, they're just mundanes."
Caster/Martial may not be perfect terminology, but it doesn't reflect that problem, or at least not to the same degree.
Is there a possibility of raising this thread from the dead after all?
If there is, it probably is to return to its original purpose, of ways to improve martials. It is not possible (or necessary) to try to resolve the dispute over whether people like Vancian casting (AKA D&D's magic system) or not, or squabbles over specific spells
digression over specific spell, oh help me:
(though I do think that if the people who believe Simulacrum should be interpreted a certain less-powerful-way, and that, for example, it's the same spell whether in the hands of a PC or in the hands of a "storyteller" DM who may want to say it's appropriate for a NPC to recreate ability X but not a PC casting the same spell, thus abusing DM fiat, and that this would be an abuse by the DM just as it would if a player wanted to abuse the spell, if they agree with that, then they should embrace *something* *like* my outlined rewrite of it, which eliminates much of the ambiguity. But I digress, unfortunately).
There are ways of improving martials that have nothing to do with what is done to Casters. Note I don't say that nothing needs to be done about certain spells and certain abilities (I agree with what Kirth said), but that's an independent topic. There are ways in which martials need and can be helped.
The only thing discussing all the other stuff in this particular thread has accomplished is a repetitive churn of mutual bickering, from which no illumination can escape. And perhaps an increase in people's postcounts.
THus I humbly recommend a return to the original focus of the thread. That might produce more actual ideas. It's only a recommendation, mind; some people's preference scales rank the repetitive churn higher in their ordinal rankings. After all, this is the interwebs, and people need amusing diversions. But perhaps, for them, there are other threads to engage in a repetitive churn of mutual bickering in.
Alexandre Dufau
Alzandre Dufau
Fernardo Mattero
Ving Tran
Ahzeem Kazzahd
