Talek & Luna's page

I really think that niche classes like the rogue and paladin are wearing thin since the arguments for their evolution stray quite a bit from their original conception. Part of this is because the game has evolved to an extent which really lessens the contributions of these classes.

For example, rogues used to have abilities no one else could get. Want to move stealthily without a spell? You need to be a rogue. Same goes for opening locks, finding traps, scaling walls without aid, etc. Now any class can gain many of these abilities through appropriate choices of backgrounds and class skills. Rogues as up front damage dealers? That was never the case until D&D 3.0 & that change was justified because backstab was too arbitrary.
Paladins were the fighter/cleric mix and they got to use the best weapons and cast a few spells. They were never temple defenders or champions of their gods. That was the role of the cleric. Now clerics are only limited by imagination as Domains allow a huge versatility of function unavailable to any other class. Fighting ability? Check. Stealth? Check. Arcane spells? Check. Variety of weapon proficiencies? Check. There is very little that clerics cannot do. The justification for a paladin has always been the shining beacon of good. Lawful Good is a demanding alignment to play & people need charismatic examples so that people continue to tow the line. Why would other deities care? Evil does not often want a focus on itself. After all, screaming "I AM THE CHAMPION of Evil!" tends to draw adventurers and opportunists towards you which is not good. Chaotic alignments would not want a Champion as it would create a hierarchy and any kind of order is anathema to a chaotic individual so concrete examples of someone being better just by dint of her class would be frowned upon. A neutral character might have a TEMPORARY champion but a permanent champion would lean too much towards Lawful territory and could risk alignment changes if said champions were the rule rather than the exception

Yeah, I said it!

I really like the tiered concept of critical failure, failure, success and critical success in Pathfinder. This system needs to be at the heart of all aspects of combat, not just spell saves and skill checks! Combat is the closes thing that approaches pure chaos and the dice rolls need to reflect this. Here are two examples I can think of for critical failures. Let me know if you can think of others.

A) A critical failure results in the loss of one action. If no other actions are available this round, this missed action carries over to the next round.

B) A critical fumble results in the fumblerer exposing herself to extreme danger and risk. The next single attack roll against her is a critical hit if it succeedes. If the attack misses or no attacks are made against the fumbler then the effects of the critical fumble expire at the start of the next round.

I do not understand what the big deal is with unchained barbarian. Rogue I get because they allow him to add dexterity instead of strength to attack and damage rolls over time. What does the barbarian get? Watered down damage rolls and temp hit points that are lost first? My group house ruled temp hit points being lost first a long time ago and barbarians lose out on damage with two handers with a flat +2 to +4 damage modifier as opposed to taking the equivalent strength bump. For example a low level barbarian deals +3 on damage with a +4 strength bump when using a two-hander but that is lost in this equation. I never understood why a barbarian becomes weaker when using a class feature with a penalty to AC. No other fighting class gets a penalty when using their special ability in this way. Fighters way outperform barbarians in damage. Please tell me how unchained fixes barbarians?

Ok, first a few remarks.

This is a serious discussion, not a troll posting. I have made my views known in other posts that I do not agree with the pathfinder rules in which constructs are vulnerable to sneak attacks. I am not starting this thread to have that discussion. Please do not post reasons for its vailidity here.

I would like to discuss alternatives however. Maybe a complete lack of sneak attack may be too harsh. However, constructs are made of sturdy stuff (stone, clay, iron). Weapons such as daggers, rapiers, short swords, etc. are not going to be effective against alot of these materials. However, as people have said all structures have weak points. Here are some alternatives I have thought up to compromise.

1) All sneak attacks against constructs roll D4 instead of D6. If a critical is rolled, D6's are rolled as normal for any other creature.

2) Each golem has a set amount of sneak attack resistance. Similar to weapon damage for any martial class. A golem ignores "X" amount of D6's based upon the golem type. This cannnot be overcome unless the golem's body type changes to a different form of material. Flesh golems would have zero sneak attack resistance as they body type is that of a normal person.

3)Maybe a rogue needs to overcome a matrial resistance similar to the caster level check a caster makes to overcome spell resistance. This rating could vary depending on the innate toughness of the material composing the golem.

4) Give all golems improved uncanny dodge equal to half their hit dice. Sneak attacking a walking wall should be difficult and would be no different that fighting an npc that has that ability.

These are just a few examples I had though of. Any others suggestions would be welcome.

This discussion came up in our group over the weekend. I was playing a CE cleric of Lamashtu. During three battles that I thought the DM was going to overwhelm us, the channel negative energy feat really turned the tide of battle dramatically. My cleric had the selective channeling feat and I rolled really well on the damage. Everyone was quite surprised that we won battles and even the DM remarked that the channeling seemed very powerful since many low level monsters have very weak will saves.

Has anyone else had a concern about this feature. I would be kind of hesitant to use evil clerics as low level boss threats against PC's since even a 3rd lvl cleric can hit in a 30 ft burst for 2D6 for an average of 4 to 5 strikes unless she was disabled first.

Any thoughts or criticisms would be appreciated.