I strongly disagree.... the fact that it gets so many options is what makes it really OP... "The whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts."
That's basically not an argument. I can do that too. "The tide is strong when the moon is fat."
Anyway, options only translate to power if they're powerful options.
Some of them are indeed powerful options, though. And the spell list issue can be fixed. An MPL Samsaran Unbound Shaman who takes the Arcane Enlightenment hex every day on the regular is probably my favorite power-gamey full caster, when I've rolled good stats (the build is mad as hell, which is admittedly strange for a full caster) and I don't feel like doing the wizard thing all the way.
Standard shaman spells are quite good though. There's sleep, entangle, levitate, blindness, deep slumber, sleet storm, stinking cloud & fly, just to name a few low-level stables. Admittedly, the 2nd level spells aren't very good, but that's just how it goes. There's always Summon Swarm, and the whole SNA line.
if you're going to take all your levels in the same 2 classes feel free to ignore
Instead of looking at the chart for your class and saying 'everytime I see a +1 I gain it' this system uses the underlying math. At each level any given class gains the same bonus to BAB/saves/etc (ranging from 1/3 to 1, generally) and you add together all these bonuses and round down. Being gestalt you still take the higher of your options. BABs increase by 1/2, 3/4, or 1 depending on class. Saves increase by 1/3 or 1/2 depending on whether its a good save, and any save that is a good save for any of your classes gains a one time (non-stacking) +2 bonus.
This is by far the best (not to mention official) way of handling it. It doesn't provide the ridiculous 'Ftr 1/Sorc 19//Wiz 20 has +20BAB and +21 to Will Saves' result that the normal rules put out, and it actually follows the rules as written.
There was a reason that the fractional base bonus rules were first printed as a sidebar to the Gestalt Rules, after all - they're created to tackle this specific problem. Sadly, they got classed as 'fluff text' for the purpose of what could go on the SRD, so now the two aren't in the same place.
Anyway, the short of it is that the designers were aware that multiclassing gave wierd results, and they used partial bonus progression to patch those.
1) Well, their offendedness shouldn't be considered either, is what I'm getting at.
2) I'm comparing the two in one aspect only: Their prescence, and how they're portrayed, offend certain people.
I'm not saying that they're alike in any other ways than in that specific aspect. They are, however, alike in that specific aspect, only.
This is what I'm saying. I'm not saying that any of the other stuff has anything in common, either.
1) You're completely ignoring the reasons why the two would be found offensive. People who only want heterosexuals are doing it due to a fear and discomfort they experience due to people being different than them due to deep seeded bigotry. People who don't want mental illness portrayed in games are more likely because they understand the gamut that mental illness can run, and realize that such a complex issue can't be boiled down into a random table and chart without being horribly misrepresented.
2) Your comparison was inane. People are offended when they are represented in a way that lacks respect for who they are, hurtful stereotypes and such that only further ignorance. You could pick almost anything to make that comparison, so there wasn't any point to it. Not to mention how TERRIBLY offensive it is to compare mental illness to homosexuality especially with your lack of qualification to your comparison, like just wow.
1) However, it is not your job to decide whether someones feelings are valid. Anyway, I still don't see how someone being offended is grounds for change. Someone being hurt, I could see that. Still, I contend the point that in-game illnesses are in anyway representative of OOC ilnesses.
2) You're once again supposing I said or implied that homosexuality is a mental ilness. I'm not, and I did not. That'd be crazy. However, I am saying that some people are offended by homosexuals. And their feelings must be considered too, even if it's just to decide 'nah, I like homosexuals, let's put them in the story anyway.' or 'Bigger parts of my customer base is progressive, we'll get more money if we throw them in.'
Anyway, personal story time: I'm diagnosed with a mental illness. Once, one of my good friends, who was not aware of this, made a joke about people with my mental illness. That hurt, a lot, not gonna lie. However, and this is important, he was not intending to hurt me. There's a big difference between people wanting to be mean, and people hurting you by accident. This guy doesn't make that kind of joke anymore, for example. The point, however, is that I was able to be hurt by him, because I'd invested in our relationship. People being hurt is important. People being offended is really not. And I don't think this existing within the rule book of pathfinder will hurt people. I'm certainly not getting hurt by it. I've even used those very rules for a couple of games. So long as it isn't played as 'Look, my character is insane! He so crazy LOL!' (which is hurtful and somewhat mean), why should I care what rules are being used? It's a fantasy world, after all, not even remotely intended to depict reality. Further, expecting random people, such as game designers, to be intimately familiar with mental diseases is silly. I certainly don't expect people who aren't either doctors or relatives to someone with Asperger's Syndrome to be familiar with it - that's like, at least 5 hours of study per relatively common mental disease for everyone. That's completely unreasonable.
Honestly, I think it's okay for pathfinder to contain offensive material.
The APs in particular contains heaps upon heaps of offensive material. Insane mothers who lost their children? Check. Beastiality? Check. Children born physically deformed, and cast out of society at birth? Check. Further, most of the named villians are at least in part motivated by sexual or amorous desires.
(T is, in theory, in a relationship with N, although she's more interested in her business. O is attracted to L, who's more into T, and is heavily implied to be working on a magical rape drug for him to boot. WR pretends to want N too. Meanwhile, B is mostly interested in his prostitutes.)
This is all off the top of my head, and contained within the first book of the first AP, mind you.
Other APs bring us such gems as a tribe of primitive humanoids kept in habitats for study by a more advaced race, suicide, self-harm, and homosexuals.
All of this is steeped in a long, continuous, unbroken line of bloody and inventive murders, commited by the 'heroes' and foes alike.
They've managed to stay clear of pedophelia and killing children(on-camera, at least), although the first book of RotR did contain a 'how to put goblin babies in this scene for moral conundrum' sidebar.
These things are all insanely offensive. Not all of them to all people, but all of them to some people. So why's your offendedness special? I don't suppose you'd like paizo to write the homosexuals out of the APs? Because that's what you get down at the end of that slippery slope you're walking on right now.
My take on it is that if someone made uncomfortable by some of the material in pathfinder, it should just be avoided in their gaming group. No reason to censor it for all the rest of the people.
Also, remember that the real world has prisons for a reason. They're basically places where you put people to be slaves as punishment, because it's better than killing them.
Also, this sounds like a fun time - when the pcs come back to sandpoint, you can have the npcs regale the tale of 'the Goblin Revolt', and you can even
Goblins are interesting, because Pathfinder plays them as comical villians, while in reality, the way they're described makes it very easy for anyone who takes them remotely seriously to make the whole thing very tragic.
Terry Pratchet wrote some very interesting stuff with goblins in it - his goblins are pretty closely related to pathfinder goblins, except with less murder.
The Fighter received more feats. The rest I don't know just feel underwhelming. Sure he can move at full speed in armor. Which at most is a ok ability imo. Now if he could move and do a full range of attacks that would be a upgrade. As soon as a Fighter moves more than five feet. He can do one attack. Weapon training is useful. With the right feats I can do that anyway to a lesser degree. Bravery don't get me started on that. Even Weapon Mastery by the time you get it is also underwhelming. By level 20 everyone else has better captstone abilites. It's like congratulations you can auto crit with a weapon but guess what too bad the game is over.
I would have to say the rest of the classes were given buffs. Sorcerers actually came into their own.
I don't know that the fighter got more feats - they get the same number as 3.5e fighters.
If you figure that the 3 feats from the base upgrade is 'extra' sure, but 3.5e had flaws, and pathfinder split the combat maneuver feats into two-feat chains, so most fighters actually lose at least 1 feat there.
---
Also, the reason you don't run screaming from being a high-level fighter isn't that the fighter is actually a good thing to take levels in: It's that pathfighter prestige classes are bad on general design principle.
Besides, you don't need more than 3 fighter levels to move in mithral full plate. And then you can go multiclass into a real class, like barbarian or ranger.
Fighter - gained new features, and those features helped the fighter in its primary combat role, yet did nothing to help it when a situation occurred that did not need a weapon applied to someone's face. Combat feat taxes also mitigate the added features (such as combat expertise needed as a prerequisite for many combat feats)...
That was not a change from 3.5. The Fighter got considerably better. He's the only class that can move full speed in heavy armor once you hit mid-level. He gets inherently better in both weapon and armor use without feat expenditure. And all those people moaning about the fighter not having options besides "hit people in face" for get that for 80 percent of the game... that's what you do... and in that department he has mastery and versatility par none.
Overall the biggest change in Pathfinder from 3.5 is that base classes aren't something you run away from as soon as you qualify from a PrC.
Except the knight could already do that in 3.5e. Also, you don't need more than 3 levels of fighter to move 30ft in mithral heavy armor.
'Mastery and versatility bar none'. Except for, oh, I don't know, the Barbarian, Bloodrager, Paladin, Ranger and Warpriest? The alchemist also makes a pretty good showing here, and Horizon Walkers (Oh god, a functional prestige class! Call the Pailice!) can teleport all over the battlefield while they fight.
You spend 80% of your game just fighting? That's pretty strange, but if you enjoy that kind of gaming, have fun with that. Most of the rest of us actually spend the majority of the game out of combat, I think.
The lack of PRCing is not a function of buffed base classes - it's a function of sucky pathfinder prestige classes. War Mind, just for the sake of a random example off of the SRD, is still a straight upgrade over taking pathfinder fighter levels.
The 3.5 core rulebook material was pretty much all balanced.
*eyetwitch*
I'm pretty sure they where meaning that more like "They took the 3.5 Core Rulebook and balanced it out better" rather than "the 3.5 Core Rulebook was already pretty balance".
No, that's not what I meant. I mean using only the Player's Handbook, they were pretty close to being balanced. It was the supplements like the "Complete" series and so on that were poorly designed and thought out.
I think that's some rose colored glasses you're wearing there.
Core was horribly balanced. They had monks and druids in the same book, for one thing.
Just to say, The Dragon, the problem isn't that the Oracle is weak, is that Prepared Spellcasting is TOO GOOD.
I can't agree to this, at least not in the case of the cleric.
The ability to make blindness, ability damage and death go away in a timely fashion is not game breaking.
In fact, it's very enabling for the rest of the game to move forward.
The fact that oracle's limited spells known is a bad way to use the cleric list, because it encourages not helping out your team with the spells, instead going for workhorse spells like Harm and Righteous Might; stuff you can use in every encounter. No-one wants to be the sucker that took ressurection on an oracle - you'll never use that spell, except in the rare case that someone dies.
Wizards are another story, but that's because their preparation is about knowing a bunch of tricks.
Paizo really overreacted with the Cleric, getting scarred into thinking the Clericzilla was more than a myth, and did a ton of hard not notice nerfs across the board. Another thing they did was to remove a lot of the better Domain Abilities that gave permanent bonuses, Bonus Feats, etc. . ., and went out of their way to make Clerics unable to realistically affect themselves with a lot of Domains, forcing them to play as background buffers and healbots a lot more. They later also introduced the Oracle, (their more ideal version of the divine spellcaster) which in a lot of ways is just better and a lot more open than the Cleric.
I guess we played with different groups then - CoDzilla was totally a thing, and it was glorious.
I must admit I can't agree with you on the oracle thing - the cleric is such a potent class because it can shut down a lot of nasty stuff on the fly. If you play it smart, ANY cleric spell of the level you can cast and below is, at worst, 25 minutes away.
This means that you can go from DEAD to alive in the space of 15 minutes. Your friend got stuck on a different plane of existence? 30 minutes to prep 2 spells, zap over to him, then zap back.
This is power.
Oracle is weaksauce, not because it's a bad class (I like revalations as much as the next guy) it's just that the spontaneous spell list is far too limited, and unlike the sorcerer spell list, the cleric list lends itself to spells you only cast once in a while. If you want plane shift and raise dead, that's a whole 2 of your spells known. What when someone gets poisened? Paralyzed? Blinded?
Oracles can't effectively deal with that and still retain spells to be effective in regular combat. Sure, they can buy scrolls for eventualities, but then what are they bringing to the table that a fighter with Use Magic Device isn't? Also, in my experience, GMs are unreasonable jerks who will use silly excuses like 'You're in a damn dungeon right now!' or 'You just burned down their temple, what did you expect?!' to deny you access to buying scrolls of whatever you like.
I'm not saying you couldn't make something good with the things on this list. You could, if you multiclassed and stuff. I'm just saying that as written, if you take these 1-20, you're going to suck.
In 3.5 - that was true of EVERY class relative to multi-classing & going prestige.
It's true for the sucky classes(see the other list). These (just as an example) are perfectly fine if taken for 20 levels. They might get even better if you prestige, but only if it's a full casting prestige. Otherwise you're just making yourself worse for no reason. Thou Shalt Not Lose a Caster Level, remember?
Regarding terrible 3.5e classes: Soulknife, samurai and soulborn are made out of pure undiluted suckage, the same way the outer planes consist primarily of alignment made material.
Avernus is made out of Law. The seven heavens are made out of Law and Good. The soulborn is made out of Suck.
Complete list of classes to avoid taking 1-20:
Divine Mind
Dragon Shaman
Fighter
Healer
Hexblade
Kight
Lurk(ish)
Marshal
Monk
Ninja (although they do make the only half-way functional precision based archers)
Ranger
Rogue
Samurai
Soulborn
Soulknife
Spellthief(ish)
Swashbuckler
Truenamer(probably)
I'm not saying you couldn't make something good with the things on this list. You could, if you multiclassed and stuff. I'm just saying that as written, if you take these 1-20, you're going to suck.
3.5e had a much lower optimization floor, and a much higher optimization cieling than pathfinder ever had.
HP 11/12 | AC 17, T 11, FF 16 | Fort +3, Ref +1, Will +1 | Initiative +1, Perception & Sense Motive +1
Heiron had been sitting through the whole conversation in stunned silence. He'd known things were bad, and people talked, of course, but to think that his own ancestors had called down a curse on the family! Heiron had trouble believing someone would betray their blood like that.
Now, he shakes his head, and gets on with the strategy-making. That was much easier to deal with than curses and magic.
"The fort will be easy to find, though. Ravenswood is a mire of swamps, treacherous trees and their roots, all wrapped in shadow and disease - I don't know anyone who could find his way out of there five times out of five, much less lead us to the site of the shrine."
I still can't believe they worded it like that. It kind of implies that all other martial classes with shield proficiency are not proficient with them as weapons. It was probably bad rules lawyers that forced them to do that.
You mean the ones with martial weapon proficiency as a catch all.
Bards, clerics, druids, inquisitors and oracles get hit with lack of martial proficiency here.
Gungslingers, magi and swashbucklers are in the amusing position of being proficient with the shields as weapons, but not as shields.
Also, I feel the need to reassert Pun Pun's divine majesty here - he'd just one-shot however many creatures you summon. He does have infinite actions, infinite damage and infinite reach, after all.
By then you're playing an ENTIRELY different game, though - you don't seem to allow for the fact that if you warp anything to a sufficient extreme, it WILL become something completely different. This is why you don't allow just any far-fetched hypothetical to be considered a valid argument just because it's technically possible.
Do note that high-level spellcasters have the ability to play this game as part of their class features.
High-level Martials do not.
This is the caster-martial-disparity, and the reason people who argue against do so is that they don't experience it - to their thinking it's, as you say, a "warped", alien version of the game.
And that's absolutely fine. What's not fine is that they go out and say stuff like 'martial caster disparity does not exist!' Because that's obviously false. It exists, and it's not a problem.
These boards, I swear to god.
Anyway, back on topic, neat trick. As another poster pointed out, I don't think it works, though - time dilation is probably tracked relative to the material plane.
Beating 20 monks 20 could be a trivial task, or it might be hard, depending on whether you intend to fight them directly, and if they buy items of true seeing.
It's possible for a person to make it big, here in Kavail. Possible, yes, but unlikely. Each year, hundreds of people flock to the city, in hopes of fortune, fame, or just a better life for themselves. The city sucks them all up, chews most of them down, and shit them out in the gutters. A few manage to rise above the rest through wit, skill, and no small amount of luck.
You're the new meat. You've recently joined up with Soren's Tradehouse, as low-ranking members of the smuggler's guild.
You're untried, untried, and, possibly, ready to take the city by the horns and make it your own. But to the guild, you're expendable. Do you have the guts to survive?
So I'm going to be running an evil 'sandbox' campaign, set in the city of Kaival and surroundings.
Setting info:
The World at large.
Kavail sits on the southern side of only pass through the Sarial Peaks, which bar the Ternan Empire from its southern coastline. As such, the pass is a highly active trade route.
The city of Kavail.
Thirty thousand people call the city home. Or at least, they live there. Trade is its lifeblood. The politicians are corrupt, the city guard is both far too small, and far too easy to bribe. Although nominally part of the empire, and owing fealty to the provincial Empirator, the city is effectively run by four Thieves' guilds, who jockey for power and wealth. The nobles don't interfere with the guilds, and the guilds leave the nobles alone; it all works out, except for the smallfolk, who're generally caught in the middle.
The thieves' guilds -The Headsmen.
This is the most powerful guild in the city. They're proffesional and deadly, and rivaled in wealth only by the Ordo de Rosaceae. Their leader is a mysterious figure known as Cowl. As far as you know, no-one has ever seen him, but rumour persists that he runs the guild from the shadows. The day-to-day leadership is handled by a scarred, grey-haired fellow called Argus Slint.
Uniform: These guys don't wear any sign of allegiance, but they do tend to favour black clothing, even though, strictly speaking, a good matted green and grey cloak would be more practical for concealment.
Sigil: A black glove holding a dagger.
Territory: The better part of the market district.
-Jok's Enforcers
These view themselves as the good guys. They started out as a gang of workers; coachmen, off-duty guards, apprentice millers and blacksmiths, that sort of thing. They'd gotten tired of the guilds exploiting the common man, and decided to do something about it.
They've eeked out a good-sized territory. In the proccess, they've also taken over a couple of less savory businesses, but run them 'clean', making sure no-one who didn't sign up for it gets caught in the middle. They take care of their own, and the people under their protection. Although they're regarded as somewhat strange by the other guilds, their fighting force is well respected.
Unique in that they're the first gang in living memory to rise to a position of power - the top guilds usually come down hard on newcomers trying to muscle in on their territory.
Uniform: They wear red barrets.
Sigil: Don't have any.
Territory: The slums, and a bit of the market district.
-Ordo de Rosaceae
They buy and sell information. Wrought in shadow, rumour and mystery, they keep their own secrets tightly guarded.
By any account, they are not warriors, and most of them seem to view violence with a mixture of disdain and fear. When they do exert their influence, it's mostly in shape of blackmail and manipulation.
Uniform: They wear a flower in the pinhole of their jackets as a sign of allegience.
Sigil: Perhaps unsurprisingly, a rose.
Territory: The edges of Hightown, the temple district, and small but wealthy part of town where clerks, lawyers and paper-pushers of various stripes ply their trade.
-Soren's House of Trade
The runt of the litter so to speak. Run by Lara Orogdraur, a thirty-something human woman. They hold dominion over the labyranthine tunnels under the city, and use them to ferry goods into and out of the city unseen.
Uniform: None.
Sigil: A merchant's scale, with a coin balanced on one side, and a bear on the other.
Territory: Not in the traditional sense. Instead, there's a bunch of hideouts all over town, warehouses and the like. It's all kept hush-hush, as many of the places are Their prescence is strongest in Old Kaival, and the other guilds avoid it for that reason.
Other Factions -The Imperial Army.
As Kaival sits in a strategically important position, there's a garrison there. It's not situated in the city itself, however. Instead, there's a small city outside the walls, a little further up the foothills, close to the mountain pass. Currently, there's something like a full legion of a thousand men stationed there, but in the past, the place has held five times that number. People who care about that stuff say it's because the empire is at war, and the home garrisons have been sent to the frontlines.
Regardless, the army keeps mostly to themselves.
-Silas Ludd
He's the city Viscount. He collects taxes for the empire, and runs various businesses across town. The guilds regard him as stupid and decadent, but easily bribed, and thus he has remained in power for a long while. It's fairly common knowledge that he keeps most of the tax income for himself, delivering only a small faction to the empire. He also owns many brothels and gambling halls, and uses what influence he has mainly to crack down on competition on that front from the various guilds.
Deities
The Golarion deities are worshipped in the Ternan empire.
Character Creation:
-Level: 1, 0xp, Fast advancement. 1 feat is gained for every 5k xp after sixth level, per the E6 rules.
-Stats: 2 rows of 4d6b3. Any rows that do not contain 1 stat of at least 15, and any row of which the modifiers do not total at least +4 may be rerolled for free. If you dislike either of your two rows, you may go for a 20 point buy option instead, but you may not lower more than one stat below 10, and even so, it may not go below 8.
-Races: Come one, come all. Monstrous races and races of outrageous RP values (EG. Driders, Centaurs and Gargoyles) are generally not allowed, but Ogres will be allowed, so long as the characters in question are at least fourth level. This, of course, means that they will only be availible to people who die at a later point, or retire their current characters.
-Starting Gold: Average for your class.
-Traits: Any two. No campaign traits allowed.
-Sources: All first party pathfinder material is allowed. Even the tech-stuff. Further, you may poach official 3.5e material, if you want to. If something exists as both pathfinder and 3.5e, the 3.5e version takes prescedence. I reserve the right to ban and/or modify 3.5e materials as I see fit.
-Alignment: Okay so you don't absolutely have to be evil. Uppity paladins are likely to be ganged up on by their teammates unless they keep their fool heads down, however. Also, stupid characters are likely to die horrible, gruesome deaths. Appropriate alignments run the entire gamut from Lawful Neutral to Chaotic Evil. I may accept extremely well-written good characters, but don't count on it.
-Number of Players: I'm looking for 8 pcs.
-Make sure to read the houserules section.
Fair warning, and a note on my style
I like combat. I like difficult combat too. Expect there to be a fairly high turn-over rate of dead characters, compared to what you might expect from an official adventure path. Also, sometimes you might encounter things you can't beat. The appropriate response to that is to run. Failure to do so will result in you dying. I don't particularly care about 'level appropriate' and other such nonsense. I have npcs statted up already, and if you anger the wrong guy, he will kill you. And then you will be dead, end of story. That said, people are always welcome to roll up new characters.
This also comes with the potential for you to get stuff you have no business getting, and that's okay too. If you manage to swing killing a great wyrm, well, then you get 204'000xp to share, and a treasure hoard worth ~200'000gp.
The game will be fairly sand-boxy, but with rail-roady bits too. If you want to jump off of the rails and go do something else, that's fine too. It will have consequences, though. Note that sometimes you'll be handed a task - This is railroading. However, I do solemnly promise that I'll never dictate how you attempt to solve the various tasks at hand.
Houserules
-Guns and related gear are availible at the listed prices. Technological items are availible at twice the listed prices, and a single battery costs 500gp.
-A cannon weighs 500lb.
-You recieve the benefits of Variant Multiclassing for one class of your choice at an accelerated rate, and with no feat expenditure required: The first benefit comes at 1st level, the second at 4th level, and the final one at 6th level.
-I run mostly freeform stealth. You'll never make more than one stealth check to overcome a particular obstacle.
-I'm sure there's more to it, but I can't remember more, so I'll call it good now.
Tippyverse is based on readings of RAW that I'd never allow... Create Food and Water traps and other forms of RAW abuse.
I don't think it actually depends on these things. They're just the most convenient way.
If you had no traps, then you could still easily feed everyone by using "Restore Corpse" on an obese pony skeleton, then the cantrip "Purify food and water" to make it unrotten, then butcher it, then repeat. Each 1st level restore corpse feeds like 400 people for a day and needs no external resources.
For general health, a channel can reach ~1,000 people in a spherical scaffold structure.
For disease, blindness, etc you can use metamagic lingering spells of remove disease or its ilk, on a cow on a railroad track, then push it out of the way and release the brakes on the rollercoaster full of 300 diseased people you set up beforehand to fly through the lingering area in the next 6 seconds.
A small field full of no plants except sprouted acorns + Plant Growth gives you about 1.5 acres of wood dense enough that "it needs to be chopped through" - with that raw material, a Lyre of Building can now put together a whole city district. (Or just lyre buildings out of the living bedrock)
Etc. etc. None of the above involves permanency, wish, OR traps! Magic still solves everybody's everyday problems in a million ways without those.
Thor actually did that, but with goats instead of a pony. Then he ressurected them afterwards.
Personally I appreciate dark themes and roleplaying more than playing a hero who never experiences being beaten down. If it honestly is a DM on a power trip then I will be pissed, but as long as there is good roleplay and experiences to be had then I don't mind.
The GM has unlimited resources, he can just declare a character dead, or trapped...
In our group, either of these is considered lame.
We like to be in situations where our characters contribute to the story as heroes, not be stuck in crappy situations where they require help.
I mean, seriously, beyond level three or four, getting captured seems... odd...
I had it happen at (I think) 9. With a random encounter.
Lame.
Oh, quit your whining.
I get it, GMs on a power trip is bad, and those GMs should feel bad. However, sometimes, your character takes some hits. They lose someone they love, their favorite token is stolen, their retirement inns burn down. And sometimes, yes, the evil government throws them into prison.
The reason adventurers are cool is that they get right back up again. The more adversity they overcome to win, the greater that final victory is.
@OP: Still Spell, Eschew Materials, Spell Mastery and Silent Spell will let a wizard prepare and cast spells in absolutely any situation.
In prison without your spellbook? No problem.
Bound and gagged? No problem, suck on a fireball.
Blindfolded as well? Aiming might be hard, but just magic missile the sound of the guards, can't miss 'em.
Your eyes and tongue cut out, your arms and legs amputated? Works just fine.
In some groups, some play styles, allow for Martials to become unneeded.
Usually this isn't due to the game but due to a combination of optimizers and game masters who disregard the weaknesses with non-martials.
The only other time this seems to happen is at the REALLY high levels. I mean around level 17+ in general. When people start getting those 8th and 9th level spells.
And yes, those powers are really strong, but they are also not really intended for player characters. Games aren't really designed to go that far. If that is the issue then all of the complaints are about the 18th, 19th, and 20th levels.
The call then shouldn't be for Martials to "get nice things" but for games to stop at a reasonable point.
Pointing out that the game is bad at high levels and you shouldn't be playing it, is a kind of sad thing to say, somehow.
I dunno, seven league leap is pretty cool, and is Ex, so it works even without magic...
The vital strike chain really opens up with mythic...
Especially since you can use it twice per round. I realize it's just damage, but DAMN can it be a lot.
Yeah, yeah. MVT is good, but "I kill a foe in a single strike with a two-handed weapon!" is not a mythic ability. This is the regular ass result you expect in the real world when someone gets hit with a two-handed weapon. Obviously, fantasy environment, exceptions exist etc. I wouldn't be against it if it was one ability between a bunch of things like Seven League Leap.
I also think they shot themselves in the foot. MOAR DAMAGE is pretty much all the good abilities you get as a martial in mythic. This is an excellent syndrome of the problem. If they'd given them nice things instead of damage, WotR wouldn't be as much of a cakewalk as people are reporting it being.
That said, it was poorly written enough that the natural interpretation of the text gives an absurd result - RAI is painfully obvious, but if I wanted to have arguments like "No, that's not how that ability is meant to be used," I'd be creating homebrew, not paying paizo to do it for me.
Philo- I hope you'll catch a second wind, I thought the idea of an elven arcanist/magus sounded like it had a ton of potential...
Mechanically it's working, but I'm having trouble finding the character in there. when things go right my muse keeps me up at night working on it, but this one just isn't clicking for some reason. I'll still play with it and see if something changes.
Sometimes I find that if I'm not starting from concept, but working from crunch first, I have to grab two classes that I wouldn't normally use together, or in general go out there and do something wierd, else I don't get a character out of it.
I've seen a hundred different Paladin//Oracles, and after the first few, the backstories start seeming trite, and standardized, somehow. Magus//Wizard is another combination that kind of works like that, in my mind at least.
Sometimes it helps to grab something like Druid//Alchemist, or give your cavalier a greataxe as his main weapon, and that makes it easier to create the person from there. If you have something wierd and non-standard, you can go "Well, that's strange, how did that happen?" and then your backstory flows quite easily from there.
Why wouldn't you be a master summoner? I get that your group might think summoner is OMGWTFOP, there's certtainly an argument there, but unless you're intentionally gimping yourself to cater to your groups optimization level, this theoretical summoner should be a master summoner.
And he has no trouble with existing summons.
@LazarX, while I'm sure you'd like the rules to be that way, it is just not the case. You absolutely can summon while a summon is already there. It's only the eidolon which prevents summoning.
You know, the actual rules in the book wrote:
A summoner cannot have more than one summon monster or gate spell active in this way at one time. If this ability is used again, any existing summon monster or gate immediately ends.
Which boggles the mind. The final product is at best a sidegrade to the original Monk (at least one with archetypes), ad it was meant to be a buff...how do you even go about the process of making a class weaker than the Core Monk?
Hmm. Not quite sure I agree with you there, it's not weaker than the core monk.
Certainly weaker than Zen Archer though.
And the move-and-full-attack that they get is pretty good. Combine it with the fact that they don't lose the 1½*str when using a two-handed weapon (seven-branched sword or the tri-section staff (has a wierd name, but that's what it is)), don't lose accuracy from flurry, and get an additional high-bab bonus attack from flurry at 11th level, I think it is very nearly good.
I wouldn't bring it to a high-op game, but I wouldn't neglect it our of hand in a casual-op game like I would the core archetype-less monk.
The fact that they can't get bonus weapon attacks with ki is plain ugly, though. I don't really get why they implemented new, clunky limitations to replace the old, clunky limitations that were dropped.
Also a certain person there does not like Monks in the first place...
It's worth noting that one of the other designers let slip that Jason's original plans for the Unchained Monk were substantially weaker than the final product.
I had a GM that got it into his head that Goblins were awesome and gave them (and other enemies) +varies bonuses for circumstance modifiers that weren't available to players. "High ground" for jumping onto tables, "cover" for messing around with doors, "difficult terrain" after throwing improvised splash weapons, and +4 bonuses save bonuses "for casting the same spell at the same creature twice across two rounds".
None of which we could reproduce by doing the same things as the monsters.
I quit that game in rather a hurry. I get why you're frustrated.
That said, I've GMd for an 8 player party from time to time, and been playing in it for longer.
Fair warning - you'll lose time. This is the nature of a group of that size. Not much you can do about it. People will also spend a lot of the time not paying attention.
It helps to have a GM who has some sort of recognized authority in the group and can say (without people being hurt) "that's enough of you, (points at other, less active player) what do you do?"
Once that is said and done, running a group of that size is awesome.
You can have them fight off hordes, make them their own little army squad, and drop them into complex combats with multiple objectives and have them solve everything at once. Their endurance is strong, and they can deal with a wide variety of problems and encounters in the same day.
A couple of things to keep in mind when designing combat:
-More individual enemies (action economy is king. Dragons will crumble like wet tissue paper if you send them up against 12 characters alone. 8 level 6 characters went up against an encounter of an Ogre Magi with an artifact sword, a Hezrou demon, and a Marilith and won. The players had pre-buff time, level 7 WBL, and two bonus feats. It was a hard battle, and the marilith used subpar tactics, but they killed all three in the end.)
-Less varied enemies (trust me, if you try to keep tabs on 4 different creatures and your players at the same time in a real-time game you'll go spare. 3 enemy types is max compelxity here. And only if you've read up on the creatures beforehand. Or maybe you can hand control of some of the creatures off to one of the more rules-savy players. My gm does this all the time, works great.)
-Use a grander scale than normal. 12 adventurers represent a real power factor in the world. This should be reflected in the consequences of their actions.
-Multiple combat objectives. (The object here is to make the combats less same-y. Remember the ogre magi with the artifact sword? The sword needed sundering. Was great fun.)
-Go light on the buff spells. (having to remember multiple moving parts is a great way to bog down combat. Sometimes bring out a well-buffed boss creature when you want to scare the players)
And finally, remember that combat is a hassle. Only drag your players through it when you feel it adds to the story. If your players aren't going to talk about your encounter afterwards, don't bother to have it. This leads to a 15min work day, which is perhaps regretable, but it also means you can add more enemies in and still have a good idea of how much punishment your pcs will be able to dish out and take in a given encounter.
One thing to bear in mind is that 32 is enough to identify a moderately common CR 18-22 creature, but none of its abilities.
So, if this was a monster identification check, the character could recognise...
A kraken.
A balor.
A pit fiend.
If the information the character finds is rarer than these, it's unlikely they would have learned much of anything. Maybe give them a snippet of history relating to the artifact. But only the history, not powers, just names and rumoured events, possibly twisted by the passage of history.
That never made much sense to me. You pick up knowledge about the big, notorious things first, whereas the obscure or day-to-day knowledge is the stuff that a master inside a field would know.
Someone who'd picked up a few skill ranks in knowledge: the planes would know much more about the demons at the top of the power structure than about the life-cycle of dretches. "Yeah, you've never heard of the giant movers and shakers of the abyss who're extremely iconic, not to mention legendary creatures" sit really badly with me.
Presumably, legends would be a primary source for knowledgeable people in a d&d society - and legends in a fantasy world would be about the really legendary stuff. Stories about Balors, Solars, great wyrms and Tarrasques seems like they'd be much more accessible than the other stuff.
For Rose(Fun Character) I think something along the lines of magical robin hood, possibly set in Cheliax, with Hellknight enemies, Stagecoach robberies, political kidnappings and ransoms, perhaps recruiting a bunch of misfits into a good hearted bandit group. (Rose's rough riders? Rose's Rabble Rousers? Rowdy Rose and the Quick-finger gang?)
For titus, I might do something along the lines of uncovering political corruptions, murder investigations, drug trade, kidnapping rings etc. Possibly the dirty cop with a good heart road, or only person who cares so action is left to him road.
The Aspodells shook with the thunder of ten thousand screaming hobgoblin soldiers. From the phalanx emerged a single champion. One by one the tribes fell silent as the warlord rose up, blue scales gleaming on his shoulders, horns swept back from his head. A hundred bright banners stood beneath him, each marked with a great red hand. He stood upon a precipice and raised his arms.
"I am Azar Khul, Son of the Dragon!" the warlord bellowed. "Hear me! Tomorrow we march to war!"
In preparing for a solo game, I've come to the decision that I also want to run a public game of Red Hand of Doom. There's a general clamoring on the boards for gestalt games, there's been a lot of games not getting off the ground, and even then, a lot of people who haven't gotten into the scant few that did. I figure we need a few more games run.
As for the backstory, you've been approached by one Commander Gerregne, of the Andoran army, who has handed the party the deed to a place called Vraath Keep, in Isger. He wants the party to head over there and re-establish the keep, using funds you're to liberate from the vault of the place. It's a bit of a clandestine operation, as Isger acts as a sort of demilitarized zone between Cheliax and Andoran; Cheliax keeps their troops within one mile of the northern trade road, and Andoran keeps their military and operations out of the country entirely.
Once you've set things up, under the pretense of having inherited or bought the deed to the place, Gerregne wants to use it as a base of operations from which to gather intelligence on the borderlands.
Character creation guidelines.
-Starting level 5, gestalt.
-30 point buy.
-Standard wealth by level.
-Max hp at first level, average rounded up at subsequent levels.
-Two Traits.
-Variant Rules: Commonplace Guns, although advanced firearms can only be bought in cities. A good few years has passed, and the musket is now the weapon of choice for foot-soldiers in large-scale conflicts. At least, that's the case in civilized lands. Expect most enemies to try to stab you regardless.
-Material allowed: Anything paizo official. Most 3pp material, if its accessible online. No 3.5e material though.
-Specifically allowed 3pp classes: Mystic, Stalker, Warder, Warlord (All from Path of War.), Dragonrider.
-Specifically banned 3pp material: DSP Psionics, including the Zealot, Harbinger.
-Regarding alignment and backstories: I'm down with people running what they want to. That said, you're hired by Andoran military high-ups, who are reasonably certain you'll be loyal to them, and keep who hired you secret, at least to a point. Beyond that, the adventure assumes you're willing to be embroiled in a long and bloody, dangerous war to save the people of Isger, instead of running off to relative safety across the border. If you can make that fit into a chaotic evil character, by all means submit that guy.
I think we might hit 12th level, when all is said and done.
Favored Enemy Advice, for those as require such:
As you might have gathered from the blurb up above, Dragons and Humanoids(Goblinoid) are going to be the thematic ones this time around.
Given the close proximity to Cheliax, and other factors, Outsiders(Lawful) or (Evil) might not be a half-bad idea either.
Beyond this, Magical Beasts Humanoids(Giant) and even Undead are going to make decent choices as well.
On a somewhat related note, dwarves are a lovely race, and fiercely powerful, except I didn't know that for a long time, as I struggled to remember all their sodding situational bonuses. They're not for adding-adverse people.
Sadly, a lot of the finer details in pathfinder relies on fiddly, temporary and situational bonuses.
In general, I'd recommend you try to play casters as much as possible in tabletop games, that way your turn won't have math in it the way you get it with warrior classes. You can just write down your save dcs ahead of time, and that will be that. Write down skill bonuses too.
Outside of your turn you'll probably have to deal with hp, saves and initiative, not much you can do about that.
Sometimes people find it easier to count damage instead of lost hit points. I.e. "Okay that orc gave me 7 damage last turn, I write that down. Now, this turn I took 4 damge, 7+4=11, but luckily that's less than 12, which is my max, so I'm still standing." Might be easier than
12-7=5.
5-4=1.
So the unchained monk is probably different enough from the standard one to merit a guide. I kind of want to make one, but I'm sure I'd miss a lot of things if I just started writing. So here's a brainstorming thread, where I'm hoping people will share their thoughts.
Things that should probably be in there;
-This thing actually combines flurry and mobility fairly well. Color me surprised.
-It is also really good at hitting stuff. Multiple attacks! At full base attack! Without penalties! Means that you are more accurate than for example a brawler.
-This extra accuracy should be traded in for damage, as you lack that. Power Attack, Pirahna Strike or Deadly Aim* are all golden, depending on your setup
-That said, if you want pure unarmed melee power, go grab the brawler or the sacred fist warpriest instead, probably with a dip into master of many styles. The guide will be for people who want the sweet wuxia flavor offered by actual monk class monks, not for filthy optimisers.
*Though if you like ranged attacks with your monk, pick the zen archer instead. It kills things really, really well.
Ki powers:
-Slow fall is for chumps. Grab a ring of feather falling instead, it's almost free.
-The ones costing 4 ki points are almost never worth it.
-Formless mastery is like having Favored Enemy(Humanoid: Strix). Do not pick this for PFS, nor for an AP, unless your GM likes to rebuild all the creatures and NPCs. Some GMs like style feats though. If yours is one of them, it might be more like having a holy weapon.
-Wind Jump is awesome. Having a ring of feather falling gives more mobility with it. Taking slow fall does not. See a theme here?
-Ki Visions: Divination is a powerful spell. This is not a bad ability.
Style Strikes
-Flying Kick. Take this. This is borderline mandatory.
-Shattering Blow. I wonder how this interacts with Pummeling style. If it lets you
That's all I have at the moment. I'm especially looking for feats and magic items I might not know of.
Ha. Am I the only one that finds it funny that pathfinder changed flurry, essentially making it two-weapon fighting?
Then there was the whole faq thing.
"It's not two-weapon fighting"
"Is too!"
"Is not!"
"Is!"
Aaand now they've changed it... Into the 3.5 version of flurry. Heh. It's even got the old extra attack on 11th level and everything.
Still, they've fixed the accuracy loss. This is good. It only took what, 7 years?
Seriously though, this version of the monk I can see myself playing, although I will remain annoyed that Brawling is an armor property, that 'Greater' combat maneuver feats require Combat Expertise while not being on the 10th level feat list, and (the new one) poor will saves. But these relatively minor inconveniences I can deal with. The loss of archetypes perhaps less so. They were actually quite interesting.
Sorry to stomp all over your concept though. It's not that I don't like it in principle, it's that it's pretty unfeasible in a team-based game with a combat-focused bent to its rules.
