Wait, so Attacks of Opportunity are now a reaction, does this mean you can only do one per turn, effectively making you unable to use any of your other reactions? That's a massive nerf in my eyes.
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10th level spells? Unless you are bumping the broken 7th-8th-9th level spells up there, please stop. This is the one chance we get to see the caster/martial disparity fixed, not broken beyond all recognition. Spellcasters absolutely do not need what was Epic spells in 3.5 given to them to break the game with.
I have the same issue with the Shifter than I do with the Kineticist. The class's main purpose is to be a frontline damage dealer. Therefore, it should have damage comparable to the more standard builds (2hand STR Barbarian or Fighter, whether Greatsword or Falchion) reliably. The problem is, it falls behind noticeably. Also, I find the consideration towards 'power creep' rather amusing, given that functionally every book adding new spells only increases the versatility of existing casters, effectively bumping their power; or that there are noticeable class power-boosting books (WMH and Unchained Rogue/Monk being the most obvious examples). Well, and that I have the firm belief that there's a potentiall overwhelming (based on player skill) power disparity among the different classes. Well, I'm deviating from the point I'm trying to make, which is: I've given a look at the numbers, and they look low. This is not comparing to the more damage-intensive builds (Archer-Smiting paladin and Ubercharge, or TWF shenanigans, amongst others), but to the bread-and-butter ones.
While nuking the dungeon from orbit may sound like a good idea, it breaks the game's theme. And several interstellar conventions regarding cultural sites, use of WMD, etc... You mean something an evil party (because there are going to be evil games, particularly with the Azlant Empire being a thing, as well as the empire that Hell has on the Material Plane) wouldn't care about, or is SF assuming only good-leaning parties? Or a neutral-ish party against a major threat? Because (Dawn of War II spoilers)Spoiler: That's how you get Azariah Kyras banished in the IG campaign. Through a big nice orbital bombardment blast.
If I get to running a Starfinder game (Two PF gestalt games take quite a while to build encounters for), besides mechanical fixes (I'll rely on my favorite numbercrunchers for it mostly), I'll probably add some 40k flavor for it too. Usage of Drift travel doesn't only cause elements of the Outer Planes to be lost to the Gap, it also causes them to slowly manifest on the Material Plane, the Abyss and the Maelstrom being the most prone to events of the kind happening.
Except that at level 20 it isn't just a simple sword or gun, it's the very best sword or gun that mortal minds can conceive and craft, the same way in PF you can't really call a +5 keen impact heartseeker training impervious greatsword just a sword.
I remember that overall, though I haven't played Fates yet. Is it any good? Of course, in a SF group, you probably don't have enough characters to make the "double-dancer" strategy really powerful like you do in Fire Emblem....Funny thing on the Fire Emblem comparison: the games go out of their way to make sure you can't have more than one dancer-style unit active at once. Most obviously is Fates, where giving Azura the ability to clone herself results in the duplicate not being able to give extra turns. Regarding Fates: Honestly, not that much. Birthright has your standard FE plot, but the game is incredibly easy, FE8-Easymode or Awakening-normal tier. Conquest is a tough, fun challenge, particularly on Hard mode, but the story is downright terrible. Spoiler: Revelations reveals the plot behind it all, but neither the story is any good, and the gameplay is more gimmicky than providing any challenge for the usual FE player.
Corrin is a wuss and the least proactive of all FE protagonists. EVER. And DLC/Grinding just breaks the balance. Also, if you can, install the patch to get the straight translation from the JP game, the localization job was downright terrible. (Saizo and Belka's C support? Turned from an interesting conversation into a bunch of "..."s spammed all the way down).
Except that (outside of FE:Heroes, which is a high lethality exception) the Dancer/Heron (not Crane) is a bad unit when you're new to the game and you can't use the rest of the units to the most/aren't good with positioning, solidly good when you have some experience, and not necessary at all when you have good mastery of how the game's mechanics work to its full extent (Just bringing 5-7 units that you overlevel without even grinding is enough to crush most challenges in many cases-or do some game exclusive shenanigans like staff abuse in FE5 or double Galeforce in FE 13)-Sure, you could do a comparison to the Rallybots in Awakening (+10 to allstats AoE effect for two unit's actions that doubles as staffbot when unneeded, which means +120 damage baseline, +48 vs dragonskin in a single round of combat with Brave weapons on both sides of the pairup, plus enabling that x4 attacks and probably surviving an enemy pack of Apotheosis Secret Waves? Hoo boy), but that game was totally broken in terms of balance. From what I'm getting, a maximized Envoy on a teamworking party is comparatively less flexible than a 3.5 well-built Bard, who buffed everyone to hell and back plus provided a ton of side utility, plus being able to hit hard on its own. Talking about another topic, can we hear some more about the new Hellknight Orders? (Furnace and Eclipse) Because hoooo boy those names sound rather hype-building. Nice to see that the Pike got promoted (being a consistently LG order, if minor); although it's sad to see the Pyre go (or is the Furnace the Pyre on space-flavor? Given the fire association, it's something I could see having happened).
Question, why is Damoritosh LE and not LN? Neither his portfolio nor his writing suggests particular evil over neutrality, specially when he seems the lawful counterpart of Gorum rather than a deity more like Moloch. Sure, he does forgo honor and such when necessary for victory, but he says when necessary (and not when pragmatic, because a victory at higher costs remains a victory). And Ragathiel remains as an example of a LG god which doesn't do diplomacy, which means that his undiplomatic attitude shouldn't be a quality to make him evil. "No concern for Freedom or Comfort" means he doesn't care either way, not that he's against it. And being a god of military duty, obvious parallels can be drawn to any martial order under history. Soldiers don't get to live in comfortable conditions when at war, and mutinity/desertion are nearly always capital crimes (or incredibly heavily punished) for a good reason, as a chain of command is necessary to keep an army running.Also, it doesn't say war is the only way to be relevant. "war and conquest are woven into the fabric of the universe" Means that war and conquest (and perhaps violence in a larger part) are inherent parts of life, not that they are the only one worth noting. He's probably against pacifist stances, but there's many Good and Neutral gods that don't like pacifism either (and again, Gorum).
Question, why is Damoritosh LE and not LN? Neither his portfolio nor his writing suggests particular evil over neutrality, specially when he seems the lawful counterpart of Gorum rather than a deity more like Moloch. Sure, he does forgo honor and such when necessary for victory, but he says when necessary (and not when pragmatic, because a victory at higher costs remains a victory). And Ragathiel remains as an example of a LG god which doesn't do diplomacy, which means that his undiplomatic attitude shouldn't be a quality to make him evil.
Will the previous lore sections of Asmodeus being the First alongside Ihys and all that be rewritten to be in line with the 'new lore' (cough-RET-cough-CON-cough) from HR onwards that describes him as a far less powerful, ancient, and lore-important deity that Book of the Damned Vol 1 initially set him up as?
Personally, I think the new lore warden is better. Not only does it no longer have some obviously garrulous trades, but it actually gives you choices in when you get the lore warden's abilities. It's like a built-in archetype-unique advanced armor training option. Yes, and how much is the Fighter getting out of it? a +3 to either Diplomacy or Bluff (Clever Wordplay)(This also means not taking Perception as class skill) and maybe UMD (Which has a fixed DC for most uses)? Around an archetype that still had very limited ranks per level? Design conventions don't matter when Fighter was horrendously underpowered, and plenty of archetypes did the same thing (Mutation Warrior being the biggest example for Armor Training), and with AMH the feature's now about worth it for the trade. Oh, the combat maneuver bonus was unbalanced? Do I need to bring up the issues with CMD on enemies snowballing out of control, which means that the Lore Warden's CMB bonus was NECESSARY to make combat maneuver builds VIABLE on the late game? (Not even mentioning the increasing amount of enemies that become immune to certain combat maneuvers for all practical purposes as the levels go higher, hello flying and many-legged, or huge+ enemies) Ah, yes, a bonus to Combat Expertise's scaling. You mean making the feat what it should have been in the first place to make it worth taking on its own rather than the biggest feat tax in the game? And given that offense>>defense, it might still remain unused? And even with the newer books, the Fighter isn't at the top of his tier, nor does Lore Warden push him over it. These words do look angry from me, but this is because I don't see this nerf as reasonable.
Except that in Razmir's case, it's more Razmir not wanting to take risks, likely. Guy's a single level away from 20th and the Immortality wizard discovery.
If the intent is to make the paladin get locked into fear, it's far better to just rebuild a lower level dragon into an intimidate build and at least 3 antipaladin levels and either the Damnation Feats or Signature Skill The thing is, the spell will not really screw a paladin unless they roll a 1 or a 2 and don't have Called or an equivalent abilities because their saves against fear effects are still pretty high, and it remains a tool only for the DM to use; and against paladins only, as no other player class I recall has a baked in full immunity to fear effects. Quick math: A CR 14 Adult Red Dragon has a Frightening Aura with a DC of 21. A level 14 paladin will have a base Will save of +9, plus another +4 from Charisma, another +4 from his Cloak of Resistance, another +4 from his Aura of Courage, which even when deprived of the fear immunity, still grants a hefty morale bonus; and this sums to +21; +19 if he has -2 to Wis. This means he only fails the save on a Nat 1. A level 12 paladin may fail the save on a 2; or a 3 or 4 if he's a level 10 paladin(And this is before any other bonuses that may apply), but it remains clear that even with his immunity deprived, he will reliably make the save against the effect.Unless the paladin already traded away his aura of courage on an archetype (and in which case he then no longer has fear immunity, making using the spell against him pointless) he doesn't really risk failing the check. (EDIT-there's also 4 archetypes that do trade out Divine Grace; but I've rarely seen builds of any but the Stonelord, which likely still has a decent Will from being a dwarf and being able to dump Charisma) A spell that allowed the caster to bypass the fear immunity of enemies regardless of their type (And as such also allowing intimidate builds to work against undead, constructs; which outside of specific campaigns tend to be more common than plants, vermin (against which a trait can already allow for intimidation) and oozes-the latter being already a pain for melee to directly attack though) would enable players to play around with intimidate builds without risking making half their build useless (Given that an intimidate build generally involves getting Cornugon Smash, Dazzling Display and Shatter Defenses plus prereqs at minimum) against fairly common enemy types; which is my criticism of the spell-It'd be fun for everyone if the spell's fear immunity-piercing applied to everything so that the spell is a good choice for players too.
EDIT: And in the meantime, Draconic Malice allows for non-antipaladins to finally have a way to pierce fear immunity, that is, against living creatures (And not undead or constructs, which are likely more common enemies with immunity to it)If its any consolation, I designed that spell so dragons could make all of those pesky paladins cry. Except that short of building a dragon into the Cornugon Smash lineup or intimidate builds (Because outside of the Intimidate Signature Skill unlock at 15+ HD where the DC for the increased effect kicks up to a decent amount; intimidating as a standard action is not worth it, and barely so as a move action); a dragon's frightful presence will still go against a Strong Will save+Charisma Mod+(Possible Wis mod, but likely 0 or -1/-2)+4 morale from Aura of Courage (As it bypasses the fear immunity aspect but the paladin is still his own ally) plus any other bonuses such as a cloak of resistance. If the intent is to make the paladin get locked into fear, it's far better to just rebuild a lower level dragon into an intimidate build and at least 3 antipaladin levels and either the Damnation Feats or Signature Skill
What subtypes do the drakes have? Choice between aether, air, cold, earth, fire or water. Hm, it seems like drakes with Air do get Glide for free, which makes them available as flying mounts for normal sized riders at level 13, which is still 6 levels later than MM Mastery and with a penalty to fly that remains at -10, but at least at 15th you can get it to average Flying, which alleviates the penalty to -2. 15th is still pretty darn late to get functional flying though, and you're still burning almost every single drake power into it.
That is as a ground mount. For Flying, you need to get all Glide, Flight, Mount, and either Improved Mount or Improved Flight, as Mount in of itself will cause the drake to lose it's highest drake power related to flying while carrying a rider, and gliding is most certainly not flying. EDIT: And in the meantime, Draconic Malice allows for non-antipaladins to finally have a way to pierce fear immunity, that is, against living creatures (And not undead or constructs, which are likely more common enemies with immunity to it)
It seems like drakes make for absolutely terrible flying mounts, particularly for medium characters. Not only they need to invest about everything into making it a decent flier, the archetypes are pretty costly in trades as well. Makes for a better investment to just spend two feats into Monstrous Mount and MM Mastery for a flying mount, which can also be obtained much earlier. Endgame wise (Levels 17+) it seems like the Drake will outdamage the Griffon offensively as a mount and be much sturdier; but having to wait until level 15 to get the Drake to work as a flying mount (And with a disastrously terrible -10 to Fly from it being Clumsy maneuverability and Large size) is just ridiculous.
As a kineticist, you get 4 + Int skill points per level. That's already ahead of the wizard. Put 2 points in Int, dump the rest in Con, and you're getting as many skill points as the average 16 Int wizard. I rarely see 16 Int wizards, at least they tend to have 18 if not 19-20 Int at level one, and that's before ability score increases/wondrous items start rolling in. In addition, with a good Int bonus and Pragmatic activator, you reach the level where you can automatically succeed at the DC 20 UMD check to use those wands of Infernal Healing or CLW faster.
Intelligence is sub par as a casting stat compared to con. That's why they... The tradeoff is Con, which means HP (which, unless your DM is out to kill you or you play recklessly or w/no healer), and then 14 CON plus fcb to hp should do most of the work for; and Fort saves, which I'll admit is a bigger issue. Yet Int gives more skill ranks and gives better bonuses at plenty of them (Helping with monster identification and out-of-combat scenarios is a good way to make your character more useful outside of combat, as well as potential for helping in social scenarios), which is a fair enough bonus on its own. To note, SWD was a nerf to Orc SWDs and a buff to Half-Orc SWDs, who can now start with an effective 22 Int for spellcasting if so they wish-Not nearly as sturdy, but now with spells that are slightly more likely to work and more spells as they gain levels.
1-Hardly an issue, in fact in some cases an advantage. Outside of PFS where you can't be evil, there's quite a few evil spells that will either not affect you or be even beneficial if you're evil-aligned, and unless you are the party-unfriendly kind of evil you should have little issue integrating in the group as long as you don't have a smite and purge obsessed paladin or similar type of character (And then there's ways to mask your alignment) 2-You have to be kidding me. Intelligence provides plenty enough benefits in skills, particularly because most Charisma-based skills can be swapped over to Int via traits, UMD being one of them. There'd be reason to make the argument if it was Charisma, but Int is good enough on its own. 3-Won't dispute this one, I'll have to ask other people that are more experienced with the class to agree or disagree with this fact.
Added a lore blurb about the Cagebreaker Brotherhood in my character sheet, under Other Notes.
Fluff has been added to my character's sheet. If anything needs expanding upon, I'll do so.
Character sheet is here:
Question, regarding Scent, how would the ability work underwater?
Interested, thinking about playing a Sea Half-Elf warlord, a former guardsman-turned mercenary after a conflict between doing what he thought right and the constraints of the law ended up with him losing his job. Hearing some rumors about a possible war, he figured out the best way to prevent innocents from being harmed was to get himself involved in the middle of the conflict where he can do the most.
Regarding Baroness Gellintha's Soiree and clothing, how far do the Sleeves of Many Garments go into providing the circumstance bonuses? Do the outfits also come with the accesorizing jewelry, or are the PCs to obtain the jewelry independently of the magical sleeves?
Agreed. Giving a honest look at the kineticist, it stands at the same level as the ranger and the barbarian. A class that while underpowered, has comparable potential and won't get outshined outside of fullcaster shenanigans. My main issue is that the class it outright unintuitive to play. Sure, there's plenty of blaster wizardry even when it'll be the least efficient way to play outside of very specific scenarios, but the other schools are given plenty of focus from the get go. On the other hand, the Kineticist is built with the kinetic blast as its centerpiece, but it's a very underwhelming one. Outside of full nova, it cannot keep around with martials that can go all day with their DPR capacity (While some have limited uses, most of them will have mora than enough per day at mid levels). It's the talents instead that make the kineticist a thing.
Agreed on the above. While not a user of Spheres of Power myself, I see how the system helps a lot in balancing casters. Dreamscarred Press's stuff is great too, and Path of War+Expanded makes it easy to build quite varied martials, without the fear of falling into trap choices.
DR is taken into account for calculations, when enemies with more DR will have lower AC or HP as compensation. And as others have stated, PFS scenarios are easy per-design; because otherwise in many cases random groups with little or no system mastery would easily fail them. This would be very much like saying that Fireball is an overpowered spell because the group was facing a cold-themed scenario with multiple small enemies with cold vulnerability, which by being clustered let the spellcaster almost completely clear the encounter with a single cast.
The feat's fine, you've mentioned the Rogue taking 3 rounds worth of full attacks to take down the boss. By level 10, most dedicated melee builds will take two.
In addition, the quick runner's shirt ends your turn - you can't pounce with it. Because apparently martials can't have nice things at all. Allie, same here on a couple builds T-T
Oh, yes, I'd love me some dragon-themed animal companions; particularly if they scaled somewhat better into the late-game, no matter if we need to invest two-three feats for it. Wyvern mounts when?
Gods below, that weapon training is too good for a trait. +1 with one weapon, fine. It's half of weapon specialization, or half a feat. +1 with 12 weapons is worth 6 feats. Especially since while shield bashes, daggers, and unarmed strikes are weak, those are some of the best weapons in the game.Eh, weapon switching is terribly unlikely because of weapon-locked feats, the fact that ranged has a min 2-feat tax so you either focus ranged or focus melee, focus 2handed or 1handed TWF, plus the expense of keeping up-to-par magic weapons means that at most you're getting it on two weapon types for all effective purposes. Weapon Specialization's been often criticized for being considerably limited in its range of benefit, namely of +2 to a single weapon. And as you've stated, the other two weapons are generally backups, and as such will likely be less powerful in damage output. The trait does exactly the following: 1/2 Weapon Spec damage for your main weapon, and a small boost on your backup (and likely weaker) weapon. It's not a DPR increase over 1/2 Weapon Spec, but a bonus to a martial's combat versatility, which is something they dearly need.
Gods below, that weapon training is too good for a trait. +1 with one weapon, fine. It's half of weapon specialization, or half a feat. +1 with 12 weapons is worth 6 feats. Especially since while shield bashes, daggers, and unarmed strikes are weak, those are some of the best weapons in the game. Eh, weapon switching is terribly unlikely because of weapon-locked feats, the fact that ranged has a min 2-feat tax so you either focus ranged or focus melee, focus 2handed or 1handed TWF, plus the expense of keeping up-to-par magic weapons means that at most you're getting it on two weapon types for all effective purposes.
Another competitor to using the quick draw shield is to simply two-hand the shield. Shields are one-handed weapons, and thus they can be wielded with two hands. Other than the poor crit profile, they are quite effective and allow all of the power attack bonuses while still allowing the full shield AC, without needing any feat beyond improved shield bash. There's a Gorum feat that lets you take heavy shields as light weapon. Grab oversized shields, and you get a 2d6 after stacking it all. Fighters can pick up Focused Weapon Advanced Weapon Training choice, which by level 11 would give the heavy shield a 1d10 baseline, which gets bumped up to 4d8, or 3d8 if the Gorum trait feels like cheese. And because Shield Master, the penalties get all skipped.
Not while keeping the AC bonus. It doesn't say anything about special abilities. You could always slap on a +1 buckler of heavy fortification or something.
Actually, it does now. You get to add half your strength and 50% bonus to power attack since you can 2-hand that longsword. At levels 14-15 that can easily amount for an extra 4 damage from STR, and an extra +4 damage from power attack. +8 damage per swing isn't bad at all.
This does nothing to help martial/caster. It just invalidates a lot of other martial builds.Powercreep isn't a bad thing when the original power levell is too low.This as well. Regardless of how much of a help WMH has been to Fighters, them alongside all the other noncasters and 4/9 casters are still below the 6/9 casters and even further behind fullcasters in terms of capabilities. It's pointless to balance a feat around what another martial class can do because then you stagnate them in the point they are in. A good point of balance is the Inquisitor or the Warpriest, which while partial progression casters, are pretty weapon combat oriented. Eh, sword and shield was never good because PF works around playing offensively rather than defensively far better. Now sword and shield gets better treatment since they can two-hand a weapon alongside their shield, even if the weapon choice is limited. OTOH, I'd need to check how dual-shielder of Gorum remains after these changes.
Magic Vestment? Oh, which at level 12 is a +3 bonus to the shield? (Take into account that pearls of power replenish a third level slot for 9k gp, which means that it's the exact same value) You only get to save 7k gp on the shield at level 16, and 16k at level 20.
Powercreep isn't a bad thing when the original power levell is too low. This as well. Regardless of how much of a help WMH has been to Fighters, them alongside all the other noncasters and 4/9 casters are still below the 6/9 casters and even further behind fullcasters in terms of capabilities. It's pointless to balance a feat around what another martial class can do because then you stagnate them in the point they are in. A good point of balance is the Inquisitor or the Warpriest, which while partial progression casters, are pretty weapon combat oriented.
The feat is more powerful compared to the baseline, yes. That baseline is flawed though and frankly, I hope we see more options for martials of a similar power level to this feat in future Player Companions. It's a good feat but I would never go as far as to say it would break the game. Certainly not something to be an alarmist over at any rate. Want some monster math? Here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E2-s8weiulPoBQjdI05LBzOUToyoZIdSsLK xHAvf8F8/edit#gid=3 The attack bonus of what more than likely is the melee dedicated enemy leaps from +31 to +34 at CR 15-16, and from 36 to 41 at CR 18-19. At the highest levels, it becomes increasingly hard to keep up with the Attack bonus of enemy monsters in terms of AC, you keep putting cash onto it so that some of the secondary/iteratives get a chance of missing. And heck, it's not melee or ranged attacks that make high CR enemies dangerous. Their dangerous stuff goes against saving throws or touch AC. What makes the Pit Fiend truly dangerous is not his full attack, but his trap the soul and mass hold monster.
Hm, although there's this precedent http://paizo.com/products/btpy8w7p/discuss&page=8?Pathfinder-Player-Com panion-Animal-Archive#372 for an animal companion that lacks share spells. Although not technically official errata, it's been posted by the book's author and thus it should be something to be considered as a common-sense fix. Applying the same principle, Protector familiars still get the full array of abilities.
Why aren't you discussing a Familiar at all? Because the Fighter can, and already could choose to pick up a familiar. Tell me where the Familiar Bond feat requires you to be a spellcaster. Tell me where Eldritch Heritage requires you to be a spellcaster (Well, it does ask for 13 Charisma and that means you end up losing 7 points worth of point buy). Heck, because Iron Will is already a somewhat solid feat for fighters and worth its investment, Familiar Bond is a single feat investment that nets you an equal or better survivability boost than Unhindered Shield at no cost. Also, it's not just "Barbarian can wield a shield now too" but "You can wield a twohanded sword with your shield too." ((Limited to a Nodachi if you want to get the most of it but oh well)).
Fightans and other 2handers only need Shield Brace+a trusted nodachi. Because I am not putting those two feats in comparison of each other directly on whether Shield Brace may or not be more or less broken than Unhindered Shield? You keep questioning why I am not bringing up Fighters for Unhindered Shield and keep bringing up the Magus. It's because the Fighter has close to 0 use for Unhindered Shield. And again, I point to Protector Familiar angrily. This is the same amount of feats, Shield Focus+Shield Brace/Unhindered Shield, and SFocus+Eldritch Heritage or Iron Will+Improved Familiar, and both provide substantial defensive benefits (I double dare you to say +50% HP and +3 to AC isn't just as big a boost if not better because it has wider situations in which it is applicable.) Why aren't you discussing a Familiar at all?
Eh, Aelrynth, funny thing is the time I built a character with this stuff, I took all Shield Brace, Cut+Smash from the Air, and the PoW feat for Shield to Touch AC. DM was in a "ranged touch attack with rider effect" mood. Of course, said character got rekt after a couple weeks when DM decided that ranged touch wasn't putting us at danger anymore and gave us no-save wisdom damage spam+confusion and other maladys.
Because the Magus is the single biggest beneficiary of Unhindered Shield? Unless I've been missing something, I don't see how Unchained Monks really get that yuuge of an improvement when they are already sinking tons into their WBL to keep that amulet of mighty fists up to par. Unhindered Shield is for Magi/UMonk/Any other class that ends up needing a free hand. Fightans and other 2handers only need Shield Brace+a trusted nodachi. Well, maybe there's Archer Fighters, but this would be a really really situational pick for them. I've brought up the Protector Familiar. Tell me how effective +3 to AC and 50% more HP (which helps against all sources of damage, not only AC-targetting stuff) for minimal if any cost isn't better than investment-necessary +6 to AC.
Because as I've stated a couple posts before, Fighter is better off with Shield Brace No, I brought up Shield Brace because you asked why Kensai Magus and not Fighter McFighterson. Want a fair comparison? Well then, again as I mentioned a few posts ago. Skill Focus: Knowledge (Any)+Eldritch Heritage (Arcana), or Iron Will+Familiar, or Extra Arcana>Familiar if you're a Magus. You grab a Hawk with Protector archetype, retrain that useless Weapon Finesse because Familiars get Dex to attack rolls from being familiars into Additional Traits, pick something to boost the hawk's saves and then Helpful trait, which boosts the Aid Another bonus to +3. Now, Mister familiar is providing you with a) Against 4 attacks per round, 95% chance to increase your AC by 3; b) 50% additional health pool at later levels from splitting damage, c) take the full brunt of an attack (plus any rider effects) as an immediate action . How much additional gold does this cost? 0 gold, or 200 gold x level (which caps at a very affordable 4k gold at 20th) if you lose your familiar. See level 12, 25k vs 2400 gp if you get your familiar gibbed or fireballed.
That Shield AC can be obtained from things like dancing shields already without a feat. The feat only lets you not lose the gear bonus from a piece of equipment; it in and of itself is NOT providing +7AC. Oh, are you forgetting that +6 to AC and 75% Fort being prohibitively expensive (at least without killing your offensive power) until levels 17-19 when local friendly wizard has just hit his 9th level slots and can choose to completely stop paying attention to his now borderline "Worth four level 1-4 spell slots" fighter friend?
Because as I've stated a couple posts before, Fighter is better off with Shield Brace since the nodachi as a weapon provides better DPR than a greatsword and is also a polearm. Also, by level 12-13, 25k gp is 25% and 18% of the WBL respectively, not a neglible amount of gold by any means. And then, for those same two feats, you can pickup Difficult Swings/Cut from the Air, which basically make you harder to full attack against enemies of the same size (Your local friendly wizard will do the Enlarge Person when needed) and enough ranged attack parries that the enemy archers won't be a problem either.
A feat with multiple requirements that doesn't even *give* something, just lets you not lose what little you get from having the weakest type of shield?Multiple requirements? Doesn't give something? +7 AC isn't something? fighter level 4 and 1 feat are multiple requirements? Oh, wait a sec... It reminds me... Weapon Specialization. Let's do some numbers for a Human Kensai magus (Because Fighter level -3 at 7th). At 7th level, he becomes able to pick Unhindered Shield. Naturally, this means that of his 6 feats, he's spent half of them, plus around 16% of his WBL to get a +2 buckler, earning him a +4 to AC. Naturally, this means that not only he's been leveling with two dead feat slots until then, but that he could've earned his protector familiar for one feat instead and just be at 1 AC lower four times per round (And getting attacked more than that during a turn is generally a sign that things are already going to hell).Because of how much a character will be spending on improving his shield, the bonus won't scale to +5 until 9th, +6 until 12th, and +7 until 15th, assuming a considerable investment into keeping that buckler on par. |