Theomniadept's page

Problems I have with the "explanations" proposed thus far:

1. Stop trying to compare it to real life. It's a nice basis for...level 1. And not one level further.

If you want to bring in exact real life duplicates, will someone explain exactly how the Alchemist can mix a volatile reaction safely, throw it, have it explode on impact, never suffer from an accidental hand detonation, and also do this without incurring any material costs? Where are these "cheap enough to be everywhere" material components?

2. Sure, the master craftsman -could- take two years for a suit of armor. Problem? Magic does it better. There's literally no reason for someone to train in smithing armor or weapons if a mage can do it infinitely faster.

Also, someone said making armor is the work of an entire workshop? Yeah, in real life. Aid Another adds +2 to the check and you only get one Aid Another bonus. The system doesn't allow for a large amount of people to just take measurements and craft separate pieces of the armor, liek 1 guy making the pauldrons, 1 making greaves, and the master making the chestpiece.

Pathfinder was supposed to balance 3.5 and allow players to actually be good at what they invest the feats and skill points into. I do have to ask; how do we bring these issues to the game devs? I mean they're working on books that add a bunch to their world but the end result? Who cares when your players want 1 thing and you have to houserule it on the spot and even then how good is the houserule going to be?

Magic items are nice in this aspect; I like the idea of magical tools that only function in the hands of a skilled crafter. But these items just don't make it worth it to invest more ranks. 6 ranks in every craft, use those Amazing Tools, make everything in days.

Seriously, trivializing Craft to the minute details was what 3.5 did and that's why Craft and Profession in 3.5 were as useless as Use Rope and Open Lock.

Mark Hoover, I realize you want to have the PCs do a bunch of RP stuff. Problem? Yes. None of that is in the rules. At all. Your idea of a Forge Master with a hundred apprentices? Not possible when one item requires a certain amount to be made in crafting and you can add exactly 1 Aid Another.

The rules just don't differentiate between crafting on the road and crafting in a dedicated situation. Technically speaking the rules only say you need Artisan's Tools, and one set of these tools can apparently make armor, weapons, bows, or alchemical items. There needs to be waaaaaay more detail than what is given.

Crafting items seriously just isn't a viable option for the players. I thought Pathfinder would make it actually viable when taking it in from 3.5 but let's face it crafting still takes forever.

First of all, in any realistic sense the players would probably need to craft their own equipment given their class. Example: The quintessential Adamantine Full Plate Armor. Unless you're dexterity based or a spellcaster, this is the armor the character in question would eventually wear.

Except that the crafting rules require you to craft 1500 gp worth of the armor, with 9000 gp worth of the masterwork component (adamantine). Your crappy littLe craft check is in silver pieces. Per week.

Now to buy this from an NPC? Ignoring the fact that full plate must be made to a certain person, this is way too expensive to make in any sensible time. Unless your NPCs just live in the realm of DM fiat (a terrible tool), the average Expert at level 10 would have a craft check of:
10 ranks
3 from trained class skill
3 from skill focus (armorsmithing)
2 from Master Craftsman (armorsmithing)
4 from Intelligence of 18 (generous for an NPC)
totalling 22.

On a take-10 of 32, those DCs are easily boostable by 10 as per the "fast craft" rule (hah fast crafting), meaning that going off the DC 30 adamantine this expert crafts 960 silver, or 96 gp per week.

WOW. That means it will take him 93 weeks just to make the adamantine component. That's over two years to make a suit for one person.

This is clearly just an NPC, right? Now let's take a maximized character. I had this Dwarven Defender character I liked to play who crafted his own armor (had a large backstory based around dwarven shenanigans relating to this). So I looked at how I could max the crap out of this. Ready?
3 from trained class skill
3 from skill focus (armorsmithing)
2 from Master Craftsman (armorsmithing)
2 for the dwarven alternate trait relating to crafting with metal
2 for a reasonable Aid Another every day assuming there are forge hands and apprentices helping
10 for having a Synaptic Mask with a +10 Shard in it corresponding to Craft (armorsmithing) [Only available if Psionics Unleashed is allowed]
2 for having masterwork tools
10 ranks assuming a level 10 character.

Now, this characters armor had AAAAALLLL the stuff. All 3 optional modifications making the full plate part cost 4050 and the adamantine part cost 9000.

On a take 10 check of 44 (WOW), that's crafting:
44 x 39 = 171.6 gp per week, 23.6 (rounded to 24) weeks for mundane part
44 x 40 = 176 gp per week, 51.1 (rounded to 52) weeks for adamantine

Yikes. That's 66 weeks for the armor. No adventuring party is just going to take over a year off. This needs changing.

Not convinced? Okay, so your archer wants a composite bow. There's a freaking enchantment that mitigates the strength modifer problem. For a measly 1000 gold (500 for those with someone in the party with Craft Arms and Armor) you just need to make a Masterwork Composite longbow without the strength modifier. That's 300 for the masterwork component, 100 for the bow itself. A simple character at 5th level can have a craft of 10, enough to make the take-10 DC 20 masterwork check.
That's 20 x 20 = 40 gold per week, 8 weeks for masterwork
20 x 15 = 30 gold per week, 4 weeks for the composite bow

This is with only Aid Another and 5 ranks in a class skill. Minimal investment but it still takes 12 weeks!

What sickens me the most?

"You can craft any early firearm for a cost in raw materials equal to half the price of the firearm. At your GM’s discretion, you can craft advanced firearms for a cost in raw materials equal to half the price of the firearm. Crafting a firearm in this way takes 1 day of work for every 1,000 gp of the firearm’s price (minimum 1 day)."

Guns are made like magic items. Seriously? In a few days one guy can go through the complicated process of treating metal, forging it into a perfect cylinder, cutting a wooden stock, treating the stock, and making intricate mechanisms for firing.

Rule number 1 of any tabletop game: if a player wants to specialize in something it should bring benefit. This is some 3.5 garbage here. It actually discourages players from doing this just through time cost.

Now I know the converse problem: if a player can craft something in a short amount of time he can make a lot of money, right? Crafting at 1/3 and selling at 1/2. I've done the math and it roughly works out to where selling something you craft repeatedly and simply using Craft as a Profession check (which it does say can be done) makes about the same amount of money, give or take depending on your ranks, what you can craft, the most optimal way to use time, etc.

Paizo, please. Gunslingers tick me off to no end and then you give them the ability to work for a couple days and come out with a revolutionary double barreled gun. Archers take weeks to carve wood. Armorsmiths can't even risk taking a holiday else it interrupts their crafting. This system clearly needs a revision.

I mean seriously, even with outside sourcebooks it STILL takes over a year to make adamantine armor on a craft-optimized character.

Personally, Summoner is one of the most creative and original classes I've seen, and is my personal favorite. I mean it's a class that lets you decide practically everything about it and has a lot of build options, each as viable as the rest.

But as for broken? No, Summoner is not broken. This is coming from 3.5, obviously, where there was broken (Frenzied Berserker for over 200 damage a round) and invincible (there were multiple ways to permanently either become invincible or get an infinite number of actions in a round).

First of all, Summoners and Eidolons cannot do ranged combat. REMEMBER THIS. Focused Shot allowed them to not only ride on a mount and full-attack but also only take DR into account once. Neither summoners nor Eidolons have the feats available to use bows effectively; the necessary requirements are just too much (thus why fighters and rangers get those feats as extra feats to allow them to actually USE bows). So they MUST get into melee, incurring danger. Additionally, due to the lack of feats, Summoners and Eidolons cannot become critmonkeys like a fighter.

Summoners have to be nearby or the Eidolon loses 75% of its life (barring an Unfetter spell which is a little more preparation). Next weakness. The Wizard can do the following.
Round 1: Summon.
Round 2: Summon.
Round 3: Summon.
Repeat. Summoners can only have ONE Summon Monster spell active at any point in time. This is good because it lasts minutes and allows things like summoning a Succubus with Change Shape to make Diplomacy rolls for you at a +20, but in combat does not allow for the sheer power of the Wizard Zerg Rush. Plus, the Eidolon interferes with this too. Assuming he can avoid getting hit at all the Summoner can in fact do a lot over a long time but never hits the higher power of Wizards in this aspect. The Summoner can still take Summon Monster spells, but with a limited number of spells known he would be giving up a good spell slot for a little more versatility.

Don't get me wrong, the Eidolon can have a crapton of natural attacks and can wield a weapon with a feat: an eidolon with a two handed weapon and its natural attacks becomes the party BSF, but he never quite gets the same number of Hitpoints. Eidolons get less hit dice, so there's another weakness. And, of course, shared item slots. That eidolon's not gonna have a Cloak of Resistance if the Summoner has one.

The reason people think Summoners are broken is that Eidolons can in fact do more damage than a fighter. Fighters are going to have more feats though, and Eidolons just get stat and size boosts, which have always been available to Fighters. Everyone assumes having more natural attacks equate more damage, but that's wrong. Natural attacks get eaten by DR and they also cost evolution points. If it was just about number of attack then baby Hecatonchires would be the most powerful character. There's a reason shortsword proficiency + 50 arm evolutions isn't ever actually done.

And last: Summoner spells go up to level 6. That means....lower DCs. An unfortunate loss.

Now that I'm done beating the crap out of my favorite class, time to acknowledge the strengths. The Summoner spell list is still extremely powerful: spells without DCs are death, like Black Tentacles (aka Win The Battle). Pit spells are not only deadly, but in conjuction with a flying grappling Eidolon they become a dump site. Eidolon pick up enemy, flies over pit, end grapple. Eidolons can become large and possibly huge sized, giving them the strength to do whatever strength would accomplish. Flight also helps getting around the field and performing evil ameuvers like flying OVER the battlefield, ignoring melee combatants, grappling someone in reach while hovering, then carrying them to the Pit of Happy spell the Summoner has set up.

The most powerful thing about Summoners that others will bring up is the Synthesist archetype. I don't know where people get the idea that it's really complicated but it does encourage min/maxing score in the order of CHA>INT>WIS>CON>DEX>STR so your physical scores get replaced, but this to me is just a different way to play; if the eidolon dies, you're in melee. As a caster. Whoops.

Nothing powerful about the summoner has not already been complained to death in another class. Remember Druid? Yeah, Summoner is, to me, pretty much an arcane version of Druid. The Druid already had 9 levels of spells, Wild Shape, and an Animal companion. Those together are like playing a Synthesist Summoner who can also summon a separate Eidolon of slightly lesser power. And yet DMs still manage to have successful campaigns with Druids.

So coming full circle, yeah, Summoners are tough, mostly because they are not one trick ponies. But broken? Far from it. Too many weaknesses to account for and not enough Wizard spells to overcome it.

Okay, here's how I'm getting the ridiculous number of attacks:

First, assume a 16th level character or onwards. This would mean they get 4 attacks, like any Fighter, Ranger, Barbarian, Paladin, etc., including Gunslinger.

Next, add Rapid Shot. This means as a full attack you get one MORE attack. Also, add either the Haste spell or the Speed enchantment, which adds another attack. Now we have the 6 attacks that archers and brawlers can make. This is very normal, pretty much par for the course.

Now let's take things a step further. Two Weapon fighting has three feats: Two Weapon Fighting, and its Improved and Greater versions that altogether add 3 more attacks. Factor in Haste/Speed enchantment on this off hand and you get another attack with the weapon, for 4 more attacks. We are up to ten. This is feat-heavy and legitimate for any melee fighter with two weapons and for any hand-crossbow user who will still only be shooting d4 damage without any stat to add to damage like a bow.

Now look at the Pistolero: with TWO double-barreled pistols he can fire -both- barrels as an attack. At the same time. If, referring to my first post, he is completely able to reload these with free actions (requiring Quick Draw, just like using two hand crossbows) then his ten attacks are each using two bullets. That's double the attacks on a higher damaging weapon. Yes, there are attack penalties, but again, a -4 to all attacks in exchange for literally double the attacks is ridiculous. And this is only possible because firing both barrels is just counted as one attack.

Before I forgot you can't get 4 off hand attacks so my math was off a bit but this is still an extremely broken ability. Thus; either the action for reloading multiple barrels needs to be errata'd as some sort of increase to the action or there is literally no reason to play any ranged class other than Pistolero or Musket Master.

And just for the sake of having the math here, 4 attacks from BAB + 1 from Rapid shot + 1 from Haste/Speed is 6 attacks, which the Musket Master with a double barreled musket doubles to 12. With a two-handed gun.

The problems here are that you have a class adding DEX to damage (removing the multiple ability dependency of an archer who needs DEX to hit and STR for damage), targeting touch AC instead of full AC, doing higher damage dice rolls, criticals hitting at a x4 multiplier, and a low, eventually non-existent misfire chance. I must remind everyone that the Musket Master and Pistolero get abilities that say they never, ever misfire with their weapons of choice. Ever.

This is a powerful character already. Doubling attacks is just insane to add to this.

Okay, first you must understand the situation.

If you have a musket it takes a full round to reload it. Knock it down to a standard for Rapid Reload, a move with Lightning Reload on top, and a free action using alchemical cartridges.

This is 100% viable. My problem? The rules say it takes a full-round action to load each barrel of a gun. Thus, if you have a double barrel musket, there's a problem.

Rule possibility #1: It is a free action to load each barrel, then fire. This is broken to me. I mean you can bring all you want up this plainly means that a Gunslinger is in fact going to shoot literally twice as much as an archer of any build. Just Rapid Shot + level 16 says you get 10 attacks a round and I'm pretty sure Pathfinder wanted some of the 3.5 cheese to stay there and age (read: rot). Furthermore this ruling means that even if there was a 57 barrel gun you could reload and shoot it as if it were a single barrel gun. Logically that doesn't make sense but mechanically under this ruling it is sound.

Rule possibility #2: The reloading of both barrels must be done simultaneously to use both and this it is 2 full round actions to reload the whole thing, which through Rapid Reload + Lightning Reload + Alchemical Cartridge knocks it from 2 full round to 1 full round to 1 standard to 1 move action. This seems more feasible, but my only problem is that this makes double barreled weapons really only useful for an extra shot the first round of combat (unless I am missing something). But, is this technically a sound ruling?