Good to hear that others do about the same as we discussed. I was also wondering about the template issue and speaking celestial/infernal.
Search Posts
How do people handle getting summoned creatures without languages to do more than just fight? Or even to use their special abilities (say, smite evil for celestial animals)? The spell says they show up and attack unless you communicate to them to do something else and many summons are animals or vermin of some variety with no language. Do you go with handle animal checks and "push" them to do tricks? Is the only way to use the speak with animals spell?
ah -- for some reason I was reading it as a cap, like the cap on attacks. All the rest makes sense then.
Is anyone else mildly confused by the max armor bonus explanation? So, the armor bonus column in table 3-3 is supposed to be the "base total armor bonus" and it can be split between "an armor bonus and a natural armor bonus." So, does that mean it doesn't affect things that give an "enhancement bonus to armor or natural armor" (eg, barkskin). What about shield bonuses? Do they fall under the prohibition on armor? The Shield spell? Similarly, at first glance, this sounds like it means that you can use any combination of evolutions or magic items or spells that grant "armor" or "natural armor" bonuses, but that they cannot total more than this number. That's odd, since at first level this number is 0 and all eidolon base forms start with a +2 natural armor bonus. Does the Armor Bonus column only refer to increases over the initial +2? How does the INA monster feat fit in? Also, the explanation says that "this number is modified by the eidolon's base form and some options available through its evolution pool." Does that mean that when you take the improved natural armor evolution that it modifies the number in the column by 2 as well? (meaning, you've increased the cap so you can still use spells and other magical means to increase AC without accounting for the "+2" you get from your INA evolutions) Am I missing something explained elsewhere?
Another weapon that allows simultaneous reach and adjcent attacks: The Duom (a spear with two reversed blades for adjacent attacks) It showed up in several books including the old Arms and Equipment Guide.
As someone who was an unabashed regular on the old 3.5 CO boards at wizards, I would strongly be in favor of a CharOpt forum. I won't waste time listing all the reasons why there's nothing wrong with optimizing a build (many have been covered here already), but let me make this one point. One of the main reasons I dislike 4E (my opinion, mind you) is that the mechanics make it very difficult to play a particular style of game. 2E, 3.0, 3.5 all allowed for a spectrum of gaming, from roleplaying to "rollplaying" to use the hackneyed phrase. One of the best things about Pathfinder is that it retains this ease of play regardless of the preferences and styles of the gaming group. Similarly, these forums should allow and encourage players of all styles to play the way they prefer. In short, to the extent that people aren't interested in optimizing a character, they don't have to visit the forum, but that doesn't mean those that like that sort of thing shouldn't have a place on the forums to discuss it.
That's funny; I would've figured you would call it another nerf for the fighter (since it's capped at 1+[BAB/4] instead of [BAB]). Live & learn!I don't see it as a nerf at all, because if you're a THW guy you can also take Backswing for 3x Str for that 1st attack. Add Power Attack to the mix, and you're equally as well off as you ever were in 3.5... with a lower attack penalty to boot! It's costing you 3 feats instead of 1 now, but that's good -- it keeps you in line with the TWF guys. What I REALLY like is that there's finally a reason for 1-handed weapon wielders to use Power Attack; there never was before, because mathematically the -1 penalty to +1 damage was a lousy tradeoff unless you were auto-hitting anyway (in which case your opponent wasn't scary enough to need a feat to deal with anyway). I think I'd still call it a nerf to expertise at this point, but that will depend on what the extra "bonus" turns out to be for that feat. The power attack changes were probably still a nerf overall, but I agree that its more usable for 1-handed fighters, and in any event, is much less of a nerf than the beta version.
So, if this is the way power attack works, I assume expertise works (essentially) the same way? If so, it's a definite improvement over beta. Capping it with Int just made MAD so much worse that it became unusable for some classes that really could have used expertise (like Monk, for example).
To me it's apples and oranges. I really like the ki pool system. I think it both standarizes and adds to a collection of a monk abilities that previously always felt a bit like throw-ins. I think monks, along with paladins, are the most improved classes over 3.x (and also happen to be two of my favorite classes overall). I especially like that they really will be combat maneuver specialists, and I'm excited to try the new flurry. Nice work.
That was what I was asking for, and I appreciate the response, which I doubt I would have gotten from most other companies. I still disagree substantively, as there were other, more backwards compatable ways to increase uses per day without redesigning the entire mechanic. This wasn't an either/or proposition, where we had to nerf coasting effects in order to increase flexibility. Actually, from Jason's comments, it sounded more like the nerfing of inspire courage, etc. was an unintended side effect. Now that I see where the idea came from, I can see why that was the case. In any event, I look forward to seeing the complete final version. Hopefully there will be something to address the issue of how a bard can play an instrument and still fight/cast/etc.
Well, I was going to agree with DM_Blake that no one here said they gave us what we asked for on the bard, so that comment was a bit off base, until I saw Jason's response that stated that this change was the result of feedback (albeit not as directly as some other changes). I think this is the part that's most frustrating to me. I can completely accept that lots of decisions would be made by the designers on the final product that would not necessarily be the decisions that I would want most. For example, I hated the change to combat expertise, but at least we got to discuss it and I understand at least the rationale behind it and how the designers got there. But, respectfully, the problem with this particular change is that it doesn't seem to be the result of any particular feedback. In fact, I went back to look a bit at the bard beta playtesting threads, because this seemed like it was a drastic change that came out of left field. I found a thread where Jason was asking for advice on bardic music, but I didn't find any discussion about anything like what we got. I may have missed the discussions that Jason is thinking of entirely, but if so, I'd be interested to see what feedback inspired this change, indirect or not. By the way, I don't think any of these kinds of questions are inappropriate for discussion here, so long as we discuss the issue like adults. I would hope no one disagrees with that, but if so I'm curious as to why.
Actually, to be honest, I didn't think there was as much flaming on this thread as there is on many others. Just to be clear, I like Pathfinder and one change to the Bard isn't going to keep me from buying or using the final rules. And of course, we don't know what the final rules will look like, but since paizo is putting out previews and taking the trouble to explain changes in the final version, one would expect there to be comment and debate on them even if we don't know what the complete final rules will look like. That's the point of the previews, right? Also, in this one instance, this particular change is something that I would have liked to have discussed and tested earlier--given that it is a fundamental change to the core of a base class. Of course, as others have said, I'm sure there was time pressure at the end of the design, and of course Paizo didn't have to have an open playtest at all and it's great that they did and I'm thankful that they did. But if you're marketing anthem is: "It's your game now!", you create a bit of an expectation on the playtesting end that players will be able to discuss at least the most fundamental changes to core or iconic mechanics. That may explain some of the frustration in this thread. On the whole, though, I don't think many people are going for the nuclear option on this one.
DM_Blake: Ah. From your other post it appeared you were saying that my group was well over the number of rounds the designers intended, and then were referring me to the place in the DMG where the designers said what they were intending. If you were only referring to 4 combats per day, then I agree with you. As far as I can tell, there's not much on the rounds/combat issue. You and two other people here have said 5 rounds is average for you, and it appears to be what the Pathfinders designers assumed, so there's some support for that. It's just not representative of my group. I should add that, even assuming 5 round combats, the redesign still amounts to a nerf and is still problematic -- making it about 8th level before a bard can cover a day's combats, as opposed to 4th level under 3.5. In any event, I tried to answer your other question in my previous response -- I have always played with DMs who use their own material. If I had to guess why we have longer combats, it could be because our main DM I think tends to give us higher CR encounters than average (with correspondingly higher point buys, etc), so that most encounters are at least at our CR. The simplest way to fix this while keeping the new pathfinder version is probably either to use lingering song, or to up the rounds/lvl from 2 to 3, which speeds the progression enough that I'd probably be comfortable with it. On the other hand, you could have just kept the old system and added a few more uses at early levels to gain flexibility -- and that doesn't have to be 1st level, if you're worried about one level dips. I mean, the reason I wouldn't have used something like inspire competence isn't because it cost a use, its because the bonus was no greater than aid another. The new changes to up the bonuses do more for inspire competence, imho, than the change-over to rounds.
I went back and looked at the 3.5 DMG and I can't find any sidebar that suggests the designers planned on about 20 rounds of combat per day. Looking at the sidebar index, none appear to address this topic. If you look at the section on encounters, at page 49, it talks about encounters using up about 20% of resources on average, with about 4 encounters per day. There's nothing about the length of an encounter, which was the point I was interested in.
Yes, I am. In the 15 or so years I've played, it's been almost exclusively DM-created adventures, which is why I ask. I don't have my DMG handy here, but I recall the sidebar to which you're referring. I don't remember it coming out at a 5 round/fight average, although I recall it describing about how many encounters per day you should expect. I'll take a look at it later. Boss fights, incidentally, I usually expect 10 rounds. All this aside, the lingering song point is interesting. Putting the coasting back in would essentaily un-nerf it, but then you'd actually have a huge net gain in "uses" per day.
Has Jason or anyone else said anything that suggests there's such a "buffering" of music rounds to allow for hands-free-ness? Or is this just a guess? We call this a "Feat Tax" This is my major beef with those who say the Extra Bardic Music feat is the answer for those of us who think the change nerfed bardic music. Incidentally, shouldn't the extra music feat have given 8 rounds, not 6, even under Pathfinder RAW, since it's replacing 4 levels worth of bardic music? Also, do people really average 5 rounds per combat? That seemed to be the designers' assumption, but our group has always averaged closer to 8 rounds per combat, which amounts to a huge difference in the level at which the pathfinder bard equalizes with 3.x bard for bardic music. These kinds of questions are much of why I'm frustrated there was no opportunity to playtest this major change to the defining ability of a core class during alpha or beta.
I've kept up with a lot of this thread and I don't think anyone's made this point yet: doesn't the new system (that apparently(?) removes the coasting from inspire courage, inspire greatness, etc in favor of round-by-round use) discourage perform(instrument of some kind)? Particularly if the bard expects to be involved in any melee/ranged combat? Under 3.x, you could start inspire courage with an instrument then put it away and fight, while inspire courage coasted for most of a combat. It sounds like these revisions would preclude that. Also, even though you can now cast spells during the performance, are you going to be able to do that while playing a flute? So, doesn't this discourage instrument use, which part of the fundamental identity of the class? ------------------------------------- [also, for the record, I think these last-minute changes to bardic music were a bad idea, and as has been admitted, unnecessarily nerf the primary ability of a weaker core class. If one wanted to increase "flexibility" for low-level bards while keeping things as "backwards compatable" as possible, the answer was to increase the number of bardic music uses at low levels, rather than alter the system entirely in such a way that nerfs the system at mid-levels. I wish this would have shown up in alpha or beta rather than right at the last minute.]
anyone notice her CMD is CMB+9 instead of +15? Typo? All other preview icons maintain the +15 (to my dismay).
Agreed. That's my point though. That means we need to sync up character saves and monster saves somehow. Our choices seem to be, find some way to lower monster saves to scale with character levels (seems difficult if we want to stay backwards compatable) or make character level "bad" saves less bad. (and simultaneously address lower level spell DCs). Also, what exactly do you play that a 20th level caster *doesnt* have a 30 in int? start with a 16, +5 from stat boosts (21) +6 from an item (27) and +3 from a tome/wishes? At 20th level, ESPECIALLY now that crafting a tome doesnt cost you any XP, any caster should have a +5! I feel the 30 was low if anything. Starting with an 18 (likely in 3p) would bump it up to 32, and a +5 tome instead of +3 would bump it up to 34. In 3p you could even start with a 20 in your casting stat, making it 36 if you really wanted it to be. If you don't have craft wonderous item and enough time to make a Headband of Vast Intellect (hell, a Headband of Mental Supremacy by that level) and some +5 stat boosting tomes, or casting wish a gajillion times... Something went wrong. I didn't even add in the quite possible Spell Focus that a wizard might have picked up by that level. I don't know about under the new rules, but I doubt that everyone plays in such a way that every caster min/maxxes their prime req as far as humanly possible, which is your assumption. You've assumed they've: 1) put in all stat boosts; 2) gotten the highest available magic item booster; and 3) they've cast the most powerful spell in the game multiple times. I know many people who play that way, but I also know plenty of players (and DMs, more importantly) who don't make it that easy to do this sort of thing. In any event, I think it's a mistake to assume this is the "average."
While it may not be hard (depending on a charcter's knowledge skills) it does take actions. If your DM requires an action, that's a round lost per monster in your 15 round day. If not, maybe by looking at a monster (without metagaming) tends to rule out one of the three saves, but as you pointed out, you're still left with two saves, which means you've got a 50% chance to pick the right one, and assuming you have the appropriate spell, then have a 50% chance of success. 50% x 50% is 25% -- effectively halving your chance of success with your best spell, doing the thing you do best -- in the best case scenerio. Also, as you mentioned, you can "probably" rule out one save -- meaning sometimes, you're going to be totally wrong, wasting more rounds and spells. I don't want to beat this to death, but I think it's important to acknowledge that you can't just assume you can target the bad save when we're addressing balance in the system.
I'm not sure I'm on board with those numbers. I just took a quick spin around the SRD and monsters CR 17-20 have a bad save that's more in the range of 17-19 than 13. In fact, I think just about all CR 20 monsters have a 19 bad save, bringing your effectiveness down to about 20%...on a bad save. Also, maybe I play a different style game than you do, but a +10 int bonus is only going to happen at 20th if you get a +5 stat item or wishes, and those aren't run of the mill in the games I play in, so you may have to adjust that save down a bit more. Of course, this all also assumes that you can determine the monster's worst save and have a useful spell ready of the appropriate save type--certainly not a given. These numbers get much worse for the caster when you can't target the worst save (which is sometimes an inherent nerf to spells that are high level because they affect multiple targets).
Again, we're assuming identification of the bad save and the appropriate spell, but even so--for maybe a 15-round of combat day, you've got a third of your time with a 45-50% chance of success at the thing you do best, best case scenerio. You then fill up the rest of that day--again, best case scenerio: assuming right spells prepared, identify bad save--with a 25-40% chance of success. But, maybe that's what we want. Maybe we want spellcasters to be less useful on a round-to-round basis so people play them less. Also, another interesting thing is that the average bad save for a monster is likely much higher than the average bad save for something of equal CR with character classes. Someone else here or on the other thread mentioned that the disparity is not between save DCs and saves, but between Monster stats and class stats. In going through the SRD just now, I did notice that the monsters of high CR (15 or above) with the lowest bad saves, were generally the lower CR monsters who gained character levels. Maybe that's an argument to nerf spell DCs and monster saves or maybe it's an argument to improve class bad-saves. This goes back to my earlier point about reducing the disparity between a character's bad and good saves.
I'm gonna go ahead and disagree. It's not the 50% with my best spells I disagree with -- it's the 25% or so with the remaining bulk of my spells. If I could guarantee a 50% success rating with most of my spells, I might not feel so bad, but that's not the case. If only my top spell level or two has a reasonable (read: about 50%) success rate, that means that I only get about, let's say 3-6, spells per day that have a reasonable success rate against equal CR opponents. If you figure at least three or so combats per day and at least 5 rounds per combat, that's only about a third of the time where a wizard has a 50% success rate at the thing he's supposed to do best -- and that's assuming all highest spells are combat spells with saves. Also, let's not get crazy. While some of those spells can have a substantial penalty on a single creature (as a spellcaster's highest spells should have against equal CR monsters) I think you're overstating the point. At high level play (13 and up) a blinded or silent monster is not dead. Hold person and mind control spells are difficult to target (ie, lots of stuff immune/resistant) and have repeating saves (at a 50% rate, they should save by their second opportunity, statistically). And, we haven't even discussed SR yet.
That being said - there is a feat that allows DEX to be the modifier for CMB, which I feel is fair and appropriate. Why? If a particular combat maneuver (balancing on a cart or running up a polearm) seem to have nothing to do with strength and everything to do with dexterity, what is the basis of using the CMB as written? The feat doesn't change anything. This isn't about character options, it's about whether the basic mechanic makes sense. In fact, the feat is just as bad, since then you're using dex for at least some combat maneuvers that should probably be more appropriately done with dexterity.
I like the ease of use, but I still think the 15 is too high for at least some of the basic combat maneuvers. Also, I understand that they're aiming CMB to be a general tool for cool maneuvers, in the ways suggested in this thread, but I wonder whether strength is always the appropriate ability modifier. Technically, under 3.X rules, you could just have made the character make an arguably relevant skill or attribute check to swing on a chandelier or whatever. I get that CMB makes it quicker by having an all-purpose roll, but what about running up a polearm, as someone suggested. Shouldn't that be a Dex based roll? Also, my offering: I had an NPC goblin run down a table of food (while scooping up a chicken leg) and do a flying leap onto a PC...and promptly failing the check, did a faceplant into his shield.
Just to further support the idea of a flat bonus for either tenticle monsters or even monsters with a racial improved grab ability, you could compare it to the fly skill. If you can naturally fly, you get bonuses or penalties to using that racial ability. This is a similar situation, where a flat bonus should apply for a specific physical characteristic.
Was bluff accidentally left off of the Monk skill list? Seems strange to give them the option of Improved Feint as a class ability (meaning its something you learn in your monk training) while making it so they can't get the +3 bluff bonus for an in-class skill.
I wonder if maybe the problem is that all combat maneuvers aren't created equal? I have been one of the people suggesting lowering the CMB number, because I've felt that you should have probably a 50% chance on succeeding at, say, tripping someone of an equal CMB. Another player in my playtest group thought it was fine because combat maneuvers are special, flashy maneuvers with special benefits, so it makes sense that you have to be substantially better than your opponent to do them consistently. Is the problem that we're both sort of right? Maybe you should have to be substantially better than your opponent to disarm her, but you shouldn't need to be substantially better to trip her or overrun her? To put it another way, maybe disarming an opponent is an action that can often be "more valuable" than a simple damaging attack, but maybe that's not the case with, say, pushing your opponent back or making them prone. In any event, I like combat maneuvers. I think they make normal combat more tactically interesting than "attack, wash, repeat," which is much more like a 4E version of combat ("use at-will power, wash, repeat"). They also let you interact more with your environment. I think PF should be in the business of encouraging their use, not discouraging it.
This is an interesting problem. I was worried about the 15+CMB thing when we playtested PF for the first time, since it obviously makes it harder to do combat maneuvers. Someone made the point that it wasn't a bad thing, because, essentially, it means that to have an average shot at doing a combat maneuver, you have to have +5 over your opponent--ie, it makes combat maneuvers more special in the sense that you have to be substantially better than your opponent to do it reliably. I suppose that makes sense generally, but it ends up with the result that it's much harder for lower CR monsters to grapple, which is odd when those monsters look like they probably should be able to do a lot of grappling (ie lots of tenticles). That wasn't a problem in 3.5 not just because of the opposed rolls, but also because size granted a larger bonus there. Maybe certain monsters should just have some kind of racial modifier to CMB when grappling?
Yeah, I meant spells known. My point was really that wizard specialist powers essentially balance against sorceror bloodline powers, so you can't really count the bloodline powers as a way to balance the fact that wizards get bonus spell slots for high attribute and sorcerors don't get bonus spells known for the same. I agree, though, that any extra spells known, I think, work an improvement and make individual spell choices less critical. Also, since wizards specialize more often that cuts down on their spell selection too, so it narrows the gap.
Ahh, I see where you are going. Well personally I don't really think of the wizard as mitigating their negative, they need to maximize their INT regardless. I just compare the two based on maximizing their prime req at all times. I think I'm still not being clear. I don't think wizards necessarily max their prime req just to mitigate their negative as opposed to the sorc, I agree that they're always going to max it, just like a sorc maxxes CHA. But by doing that, instead of each class getting equal benefits from doing so, the wizard gets the additional benefit of mitigating its negative of fewer spells per day, while the sorc, maxxing its prime req., doesn't get the same additional benefit of mitigating its negative of fewer spells known. In making this argument over the last several years, I've never heard a single design-based argument that explains this lack of symmetry. My sense is that because everyone was so used to vancian spellcasting, the idea of lots more spells per day was controvertial, and so it was thought that extra negatives were needed to the sorceror class to keep wizards relevant. Of course, this was back at 3.0, long before warlocks and at-will spell like abilities were accepted as balanced. I think PF represents a new opportunity to remove this needless nerf. As for the new bloodlines, yes they do add more spells per day. Unfortunately you can't really choose them. Additionally, since wizards get extra spells per day for specializing, essentially all the bloodlines do is to balance the wizard's specialization bonuses. It doesn't address the underlying imbalance in the bonus spells for high attributes.
Oh, and there's that other part where wizards get bonus spells per day for high attribute (reducing the inherent penalty for wiz vs. sorc) but sorcerors do not get bonus spells known per day for high attribute scores (not reducing the inherent penalty for sorc. vs. wiz.). Right, which is really the problem. The balance between sorcs and wizards is supposed to be: sorcerors get more spells per day, but few spells known; wizards get fewer spells per day, but infinite spells known. Wizards can mitigate their 'negative' with a good prime attribute, but Sorcerors can't mitigate their 'negative' with a good prime attribute.
There's also that part where the wizard compensates for his need for preparation and lesser spells in a day by having bags of scrolls, either homemade (even overnight, if your group doesn't rest much) or bought relatively cheaply (for magic items). You don't memorize utility spells every day, you just keep two scrolls of comp lang, fly, scry, etc. Then you prep your most versitile combat/encounter spells. Oh, and there's that other part where wizards get bonus spells per day for high attribute (reducing the inherent penalty for wiz vs. sorc) but sorcerors do not get bonus spells known per day for high attribute scores (not reducing the inherent penalty for sorc. vs. wiz.). And there's that third part where you can only really have a reasonable chance of beating the save of an equal level CR if you use your highest level spells, meaning your lower spells are relegated to direct damage (Save for half) or utility spells. So if you're a sorc, you'd better have made intelligent choices for your low level spells, or most are going to be borderline useless at higher levels. And people have already mentioned the inherent skill bonus for being a wizard (with Int as a prime req).
I really don't think the good save/bad save discrepency is much of an issue. There are feats that can be taken and applied to any saving throw type (Lightning Reflexes, Iron Will, and Great Fort) to close the gap by +2. What I've experienced that gets back to the 'spellcasters are overpowered' argument is with all the new splatbooks the number of 1)swift/immediate spells and 2)spells bypassing SR and/or not allowing saves both increase greatly. And with my group of admitted min/maxers much of their spell selection is often based on such criteria. Do you really know people who regularly take those feats? Even if you were to take one, it only boosts one save, and to argue from the savERs' side, that doesn't really close the gap. For example, if you start with a 45% save rate (and that's considered acceptable), casters can lean on one stat all the way up and increase all their saves by 20% or more, while those feats will only improve one of three saves by 10% success, and they certainly aren't able to boost all three save attributes like casters boost their one prime stat. SR: people keep bringing up SR bypass. In my experience, SR is a prime culprit of why I have to min/max a caster. Only my high level spells have a reasonable chance at success, and now I have to deal with SR as well. So of course I pick spells conjuration spells that avoid SR, in the same way that I only pick non-save-negate spells for my useless low-level spells. At the same time, since SR usually is better for stuff with better saves, the SR is low enough on stuff with crappy saves that I don't care about it anyways. If you want SR to matter, give decent SR to stuff with lower saves to force the caster to think about spell selection, but don't give sick SR to high save creatures that already only fail on the best spells.
Just to follow up -- I agree with Tarkis's math, but I don't think it's overly bad across the board. We noticed there that base saves versus base DCs before any attributes, items, feats, or other min/maxxing, good saves offer between 60-70% saves and bad saves offer between 40-50%. This isn't bad for the saver. Any better saves and the spellcaster's going to be wasting his/her time on anything where saves negate. The problem from the saver's side, is that attributes/items/feats stretch the gap between DCs and bad saves until there's a 20% or so success rate, which becomes a real problem for the saver on anything where saves negate.
Tarkis, I think you're right that they're two separate problems, but they're definitely related, and I think your analysis of the first one is right. Which means we either need to make it harder for mages to pump their DC (which was tried going into 3.5) or make it easier to increase saves. However, (and this gets into the interrelatedness of the problems) we've already got a system where DCs are too high for non-best-level spells, so maybe 4E got this one right, in getting rid of good and bad saves. Still, 4E made both saves only slightly better than 3.X bad saves, when it probably should have instead been slightly worse than 3.X good saves. Your suggested heighten spell changes (at least your second one), I think, may end up with results similar to DC boosts in the psionics system. Actually, I much prefer playing straight-class psionics users than pure spellcasters -- not because I want to go nova or use some silly combo, but because I can feel good about using all my resources. And you still have to ration because it's too easy to blow all your powerpoints on fully pumped powers and low level powers are still useful even unpumped. Low-level spells don't maintain that kind of utility at high levels unless they're buffs - and there's still usually a better option. In any event, the reason why your suggestion (and psionics for that matter) solve at least one of these interrelated problems is that they allow for increasing low-level spell DCs without permitting increases to high-level spell DCs.
Wow, that's a pretty narrow reading of the text, Quentyn. I think it's pretty clear from the rules as a whole, whether you look at all 3.5 books, or just core books, that clerics belong to religions that are structured in certain ways and have certain requirements for entry and continued membership. For someone so concerned about world-building, I'd think you'd acknowledge this. Additionally, it's equally clear that clerics do have to have a "divine connection" to get their spells. As you point out, gods send their priests their spells. If that's not a divine connection, I don't know what is. In fact, according to the SRD:
Thus, a character's deity has a definite effect on who (s)he is. Additionaly, this quote suggests that the language you have been focusing on in the basic class descriptions is intentionally vague as to the requirements of a particular religion because those specifics are dealt with in the relgion portion of the PH. This even suggests that one can be devoted to an alignment instead of a particular deity. However, other sections of the PH and supplemental books make clear that then the divine energy of the plane and outsiders of whatever alignment plane you worship grant your powers. Thus, it's not true that if you are "sufficiently good" that some random deity you don't believe exists will bestow powers on you. And if (s)he does, wouldn't you then believe in him/her? And for that matter, what does "spend the level choices" mean in in-game context? It means joining up with the particular religion and developing a relationship with the appropriate deity and/or plane. I mean, it may not be the Roman Catholic church, but you still have to develop an individual faith on a significant level. With all due respect, I think it's pretty difficult to argue that under RAW (whatever you want that to mean) that you don't have to have a relationship with a deity or alignment(read: source of divine power) to be a cleric--and consequently, not just anyone can do it.
The other issue is that at high levels the rogue's Reflex save and the Cleric's Will save (or either one for a Monk) will be much higher than someone who has a poor base Reflex or Will save. So it's difficult to have a DC that will have a chance at affecting them without making it an almost automatic failure for the rest of the party. I don't know if that's a big problem, though. Maybe that's a more precise way of putting the problem. I always hear people complain that spellcasters are too powerful. I think some of that goes to particular spells that need to be nerfed and the swingy-ness of save or die spells, but when someone suggests that a wizard has problems using lower level spells because of low DCs, the answer is always: hey, let's not help the spellcasters anymore, they're already broken. I'm trying to find a way to separate these two problems in this thread, but I digress. To get back to your point about the gap between good and bad saves, why should the NPC monster have it any different than the PC caster? When I face an equal level CR as a wizard, I usually have at best a 50% chance at success with my best spells against their BAD save. That's the difficulty really. Thus, in reverse, there really shouldn't be a situation where the monster gets to jack up its DC to have a good chance at affecting a GOOD save, and thus trashes the PC with the relevant BAD save. The monster should instead have to try and target bad saves, just like I do as a PC wizard. To put it another way, perhaps: if you're fighting a monster that's better than any individual party member, the monster is always going to trash any individual PC if it decides to focus solely on that PC, be it through saving throws or beatdown.
Why the hell should monks use weapons, anyway? Monks should punch and kick stuff. Maybe what needs to change then, is a monk's ability to resist damage normal people would take by hitting stuff that hurts? Also, I'll second the earlier remarks concerning monks and simple weapons. Monk weapons are eastern versions of western weapons.
My group has always played with ki straps that can be enchanted with carriers (ie fire, cold, etc) just like any other weapon, and it works well. I think it's suggested somewheres in a 3.5 book (or maybe that was SKR's website). I think one key (no pun intended) way to improve the monk is to allow them to have the same access as everyone else to magic weapons and armor, through ki straps and other items that are as available as other magic weapons and armor and at the same prices. EDIT: just noticed on Jason's blog that beta is going to allow amulets of mighty fists to include other weapon enhancements.
Just to return a cross-reference to this thread where we're having a related discussion. We're focused more on the underlying problems people see with DCs rather than an optional rule fix. To summarize: some players feel their PC spellcasters have a hard time getting high level monsters to fail even their best saves, while other players feel like they're getting reamed by high level monsters because their saves are too low. I'm wondering whether the problem isn't the gap between PC saves and DCs and Monster saves and DCs of a given CR.
I see a lot of people are beating my 20th level example to death. For the record, in my experience, wizard DCs haven't been too high, they've been too low against relatively even CR monsters (see the examples several people have provided here). With min/maxxed attributes and buffs, I still ended up settling for a 50/50 chance or worse with my best spells, let alone anything a level or two off my best. I provided the unmodified example because it runs to the counterargument. While I'm complaining about player wizard DCs against monsters, others seem to feel DM's NPC DCs are too high against their saves. The basic unmodified "bad save at 20" versus unmodified 9th lvl spell DC seemed a good place to start. Based on what's been said here, it sounds like player class saves or DCs aren't the thing that needs fixing. What seems to need fixing is the gap between player class saves and DCs and monster saves and DCs. Any agreement?
20th level bad save is a +6. Base DC of a 9th lvl spell without attribute bonus is a 19. Needing to roll at least a 13 is a 40% chance. Of course, when you factor in attribute bonuses, this can swing a bit towards the caster unless the save in question applies to the target's class's primary stat.
["points." Any system where you have to seriously weigh costs and benefits (duration of rage vs. use of rage powers) requires tactical thinking and micromanagement. The barbarian shouldn't involve either. What do you mean by tactical? Of course a barbarian thinks tactically, otherwise he'd just full power attack on the first thing he sees, repeat ad nauseum. Even avoiding a suicidal attack is "tactical" in some sense, and no one suggests being a raging barbarian means you have to be suicidal. The rage mechanic has always kept barbarians from using spells or other more finess ways of doing things. They certainly don't pause to reflect before they choose a particular option, they attack more instinctively, in the moment. Nonetheless, raging barbarians are great at choosing the best way to kill something, whether that's running around a corner to drive an ax through someone's skull, or battering down the wall and going through to drive an ax through someone's skull. I think your problem is that you're thinking of the rage abilities as magic abilities they are invoking or something. Choosing to take a hit in a certain way so as to reduce the damage (increased damage reduction) for example, or making an extra angry blow (powerful blow) against an opponent are no different than the other things a barb normally does in combat, like doing an overhand chop on the guy on the left but switching to a shorter grip to cut the guy on the right in the stomach.
In general, 3e is better and more systematic. I like that. I'm not certain the system is exactly right though. I've debated going with defenses more like SWSE (and 4e). They all increases the saves to effectively be strong saves (based on 1/2 level, just like a strong save) with some bonus on the top from the character's class. It's very tempting to just go with the higher rate and give a +2 on top of any save that is considered "strong" for the class. But does the 2 point difference make up enough of an achilles heel against really powerful, high-hit die creatures? I'm not sure it does. It may make things too hard for the caster. For reference, 4E basic save percentage actually helps the caster. If you just look at the basic 3.5 save bonuses (without attributes) versus basic save DCs (without attributes) you get a 60-65% chance (70% at 20th) of saving against an equal level caster's best spell for the good save and a 40-50% chance for the bad save. For 4E, it's 45% across the board.
There are threads that address teleportation, flight, etherealness problems, and I think that issue is best fixed by tweaking the spells. At higher levels, the characters have often gotten so good at the game that they have now memorized high level monster stats; the DM has to seek out unusual creations or hand-craft leveled NPCs to pit against the characters. That is seriously a player problem. Any player can metagame. If they use knowledges or past combat experience to know monster attributes, then fine. But there's no fix to broken players. They're making their own game less fun. If he uses a stock monster, few can survive the onslaught of SoD's from the group's spellcasters so the DM has to research equipment/magic items to give the creature to present a challenge to the group. And the players may have to worry about preventing the reverse. How many spellcasters do you have in a group? In my experience, there's one or two spellcasters, and only their highest spell levels have 50% chance success rate against equal level monster stats. They shouldn't be hurling 15-20 SoDs with realistic success ratios. And besides, if the book stats leave them still too vulnerable to SoDs, then just boost their saves a couple of points. It's a non-labor intensive solution.
I've seen some threads discussing how 3.5 was problematic because save DCs are too high versus bad saves. I've seen other threads discussing how 3.5 was problematic because save DCs are too low for any of your lower level spells once you become higher level. Are either of these right? or is the problem something else? My opinion: Having played spellcasters through 20th, I did find that I often couldn't use any spell with a save that negates unless it was one of the highest couple spell levels I could cast. I understand that people say you use those lower level spells against lower level encounters, but I don't often find myself facing goblins when I'm 15th. So, I'd spend all my time trying to boost my saves and do stat damage to other people's save stats. On the other hand, for years, I've continuously heard people tell me wizards are overpowered, and by default, there shouldn't be any attempt to increase spell DCs of any kind. I do get that spellcasters have an incentive to boost save DCs and that since they can increase only one stat (their spellcasting stat) and have an effect on save rolls against three different stats of the target, it is generally easier for spellcasters to boost than for targets to boost saves. Nevertheless, I don't know whether my DM arbitrarily boosted monster saves, but I never seemed to outstrip save DCs once we switched to 3.5 (which removed those class and feat powers that allowed easy boosting of save DCs). I think the feel of overpowering might come not from save DCs, but in part from a wizard/cleric/druid's ability to pick powers suitable to a given situation on a daily basis, which other classes cannot do. Thus, they've always got something precisely useful in a certain situation. I also think that save or die spells have a lot to do with the problem, since even a 40% chance success rate (the basic rate at which a 20th level target using its bad save saves against a 20th level caster using a 9th level spell), feels overpowering when failure is death. On the other hand, if you're a spell caster, it feels pretty cheap not to have at least a 50/50 chance at your best spell working on an equal opponent. Especially when you feel like you can't use the bottom 2/3rds of your spells. Also, some of this feeling may come from the fact that, other than direct damage, saves usually negate, which makes magic use very swingy. Whether it's death or blindness, having either a wasted action or a serious condition be the possible options is going to be swingy by necessity.
Thought I'd reference my thoughts on the other monk thread as well (the "sucking chest wound" thread). 1 - monks need to have weapon and and ac enhancement bonuses as readily available as other classes. This means the ability to buy things like ki straps, and armor bonuses. Maybe some people won't like the flavor of this, but every other class employs magic items for basic combat. You can run a low-magic campaign if you want, but if you want a monk class that can play in any campaign (low or high) it needs to be intially set even with the other classes. Also, monk weapons with enhancments don't solve this problem because of their loss in damage dice. 2 - MAD is a huge problem. We need to cut it to 3 stats at most. If we want to keep focus on Wisdom, we need to cut out either strength or dex. Since Wisdom adds to AC, dex seems the likliest choice, but it would need to be clear that wisdom works for just about everything dex normally does. If you want to sub wis for str, then wis would definitely need to go to hit and damage. In any event, if Wis is going to substitute in this fashion, then the regular stat, either Dex or Str can't do the same or the monks will double stat bonuses. For multiclassing purposes, once you go into monk levels, you permanently use Wis instead of the other stat. 3 - Monks should be the masters of combat maneuvers. People have said that monk abilities are really just a random bag of powers; that they don't hold together well. I think that monks should be the masters of combat maneuvers. They should get all the combat maneuver feats, and maybe additional bonuses. People have debated how smart it is to have the CMB number be 15+CMB (I prefer 11), but in any case the monk could have an additional bonus, so they have more than a 25% chance of success on average.
I think the real problem is that save or dies make the battles too swingy, but to the extent that you think saves are the problem, it's not the gap between good and bad saves that are the problem, it would be the gap between a typical bad save and a typcial spell DC. If you look just at base saves (without attribute bonus) and base DC (without attribute bonus), characters start with a 50% success rate on their bad saves, and ultimately finish at a 40% success rate (all other modifiers being equal). 40% seems pretty fair for a bad save, since spellcasters need a reasonable chance of success at their specialty, especially when they focus on a bad save. I think there are two problems. First, 40% seems fair in general, but hardly fair (or fun) when dealing with death (ie-save or die). Second, the 40% success rate goes way down when you take certain other modifiers into consideration. Spellcasters always have much higher prime stats than at least some of the opponent's save stats, especially when they boost that stat every four levels. Also, there are class abilities and feats that make the save DCs even better (although this was cut down in 3.5), but fewer class abilities and feats that improve saves. I think items are pretty much a wash, because although spellcasters get stat boosters for their prime stats, most players also get items of resistence, in my experience. So, the solution is either to assume casters are going to have an easier time improving their DCs than targets will improving their saves, and so increase base saves across the board, OR, make it harder to improve save DCs and easier to improve saves. I think the latter is the better option, rather than forcing all spellcasters to min/max as much as possible. For example, you could improve the save boosting feats, either increasing the plus above +2, or having one feat improve all saves +2 across the board and having a second improve it another +2 across the board. You essentially need something that makes it as easy for characters to increase all saves as it is for the spellcaster to improve his primary stat (since it works against all saves).
I guess I don't get it. Is it just because they both use points? Because lots of classes have combat-related powers they can activate -- in fact, all of the primary melee classes, from rogues, to paladins, to rangers, to fighters. And combat feats don't exist anymore (removed in beta). Under 3.5, you could just take the similar rage feats and get the benefits continuously while raging (ie, destructive rage, for example).
Heh...You're not a DM are you? not usually no. But I've been gaming for years with a DM who's perfectly happy using psionics, and even used spell points back in AD&D. Seems like it'd be easer to me. You don't have to worry about what's memorized, you can just use what you need until you run out. How is it more complicated than hit points? Speaking as a DM, rage points looks like they'll lead to the same problem as psionics. Cool idea and great for players but a true pain in the ass for a DM to run. Again, don't get it. Your concern about nova-ing only makes the case that psionics and rage points would be better for an NPC. They're gonna die anyway. DMs have no worry about managing or saving them. I think nova-ing is much better for DMs than players, if you want to go that route. On the other hand, if you think that's cheesy, there's no need to spend them all. It does, however, provide a nifty incentive to prevent players from nova-ing, since what goes around comes around. My fear is the same thing will occur here where Barbarians go NOVA over a round but being significantly underpowered from other points during the day. Sounds like a player, not a DM problem. With the appropriate response, I suspect they'll figure it out. I may not be our usual DM, but I've seen this done many, many times. Another problem is "ease of use". The barbarian, along with the rogue, are actually the easiest class to both play and use (anyone that says fighter is dead wrong) since even if you ignore half of said classes feats, the chassis is powerful enough to work by itself. OK, so you've just made the case that you don't need to use all the resources of the class to be effective. Since you can just spend rage points on raging and not all the bells and whistles, what's the difference? I should also note that many of the rage powers appear to be based on raging feats from Complete Warrior and other books. So using rage points for just rage would be essentially like playing a barb who didn't take the rage feats. Sounds fine to me.
Agreed and agreed. I think my group's consistently positive high-level experience has to do with a DM who almost only uses homebrew and who plays a bit by the seat of his pants, with a basic outline and some characters fleshed out, but a willingness to let the players determine the direction of the campaign on some level.
Could you explain this problem a little more specifically? I don't want to get into the whole smartDM/dumbDM thing, but can you give some examples of how PCs can completely trounce your NPCs again and again? My DM seems able to understand the combat strategies we set up and often work in elements to specifically deal with them. Also, he turns the table on broken spells and combos, which works as a natural deterrent. So, I'm curious as to exactly what the problem is in your experience, since a lot of people seem to bring this up. If it's certain spells, like fly/teleport/etherealness, PF is working on changes for some and could include DM tips for dealing with them. If it's save or dies, perhaps those need to be nerfed. If it's info spells, like contacting gods and spirits, you get to decide what info they get, so that's sort of in your hands. (it's not cheating to refuse to give them the exact info they need to break the adventure.) Or is it some feat/power combo/build that's causing problems, like a persistent cleric or the "King of Smack"?
|