chocobot's page

PF1 already has paladins of every alignment in its conceptual space.
They're just called Antipaladins and Champion of the Faith Warpriests because of the sacred cow LG alignment. And they aren't core.

It seems like a waste of time, space, money, etc to have to get minor variations of the same concept written over and over as different classes when it could just be one class with some good/evil/law/chaos based powers. You get the ones that match your alignment/deity, or choose if you're neutral just like clerics do. And if that's upsetting to anymore, everything but lawful good ones can be uncommon, then DMs get the justification to say "not at my table" if they really want to.

One thing I’m noticing as I try out these rules by building a few characters is that the free ability choices which the ancestries have make me more inclined to choose less standard ancestry/class combinations than in PF 1.

For example, I love that I can now easily have a dwarf wizard starting with int 18 and a host of other reasonably high ability scores. In PF1 I’d always feel this was too sub optimal to enjoy (which is probably more to do with my perceptions than the system).

But now my image of a craggy bearded, grey haired grumpy dwarf with a crow on his shoulder and a rune encrusted staff can enter the game.

Incidentally my planned ability scores are below if anyone has any thoughts (using scholar background) Tempted to put strength down to 10 and boost wisdom to 14 but not sure yet.

STR 12
DEX 14
CON 14
INT 18
WIS 12
CHA 8

I played a dwarf wizard in PF1. He was my first PF character actually, but not a rookie mistake. I played 3.x a lot and knew what I was doing. He was still a wizard. That is to say, not really having a problem on the optimization side, even if the int was 2 lower than a human.

I am using this thread to Point out other Problems with exploration mode. This time, the example for which skill to use for initiative (pg331):

- Merisiel and Kyra have been captured and are negotiating
with the kobold king. Things aren’t going well, so Merisiel
decides she’ll launch a surprise attack against the king. As
soon as she says this is her plan, you call for initiative. -

What threw me off was how they extended on this to explain using different skills for initiative (pg. 331-332).

- For example, if in the prelude to the attack, Merisiel’s player had
said, “I’m going to dangle down off the chandelier to get
the drop on them,” you could let her use Acrobatics for her
initiative roll. -

Really? In the middle of the negotiation, Merisiel decides to climb up on the chandelier, and after that we roll initiative? Based on Acrobatics?

This is just one of the Points where it is painfully vague and annoying as to how we are supposed to Transition from Exploration mode to Encounter mode.

Kyra: Let's work something out, your majesty. Perhaps we might reach an arrangement that benefits us both?

Kobold King: No, no, no! Humans are slaves now!

Merisiel: What? I'm not human, you moron.

Kyra: You're not a diplomat either...

Kobold King: Lies, lies, humans always lie!

Merisiel: That's just racist, you little dragon wart. And again, I'm not human!

Kyra: Just calm down and let me handle this, please, Meri. Please!

Kobold King: You slaves now, humans.

Merisiel: That's it, I'm climbing the chandelier

Kyra: Is that code for... oh dear goddess, you're really doing it

Kobold King: No, no! My lighty thing. Mine! Guards, get human off lighty thing!

Kobold Guards: (look way up at the chandelier, then down at the short swords in their hands)

Kyra: Uh... King... your majesty, ignore my friend please. I'm sure she's just getting some exercise. Let us discuss the orcs in the southern passages. Life would sure be easier for the kobolds if we took care of them for you.

Merisiel: Surprise attack!

Kyra: (sighs) Chaotic neutral...

1. Do you currently like pathfinder 1e?
Favorite rpg by a lot

2. Did you once like pathfinder 1e but now find it troublesome?
There are things that could be improved, but nothing I can't handle

3. Do you like 4th or 5th edition D&D?
I like(d) 4e, but haven't played it in years now. PF is just so much better, but I'd play 4e if I knew someone running a game. 5e, no. I'm a crunch and options guy.

4. Which are you looking for class balance, smoother high level play, more options, or even all of those things?
Improvement in all or any of those would be great. I love options the most, but but if the options aren't balanced then they're less of an option, you know, and again if high level isn't playable then that also cuts out options in practice. Mythic rules, for example - lots of new options but major problems in those other two areas. Played WotR, but probably won't be using mythic again.

5. How do you feel about making the game more accessible in general?
Needs to happen. New customers need to replace old ones lost to attrition or the game dies

6. Are you willing to give up on accessibility if you can still gain all of the benefits listed in question 4?
I probably would accept it and enjoy it while it lasted, but I can see that isn't a good direction for the game to take, so I hope Paizo wouldn't do that.

7. Would you be willing to play an alternative rules system then what we have been presented? (A different version of pathfinder 2nd edition if you will).
Sure... if it is a good system and matches my tastes for crunch and character options

8. And if you said yes to the above question what would you like to see in that theoretical game?
Such an open ended question. I'm basically happy with 1e and could be forever, but Paizo needs to sell new stuff and attract new players, so I get why we need a new edition as a community, regardless of my personal needs. I think a system that supports varying complexity would be good. I think starting with a low complexity in the beginner box, and medium in the core rules and adding more through supplements is a good plan to be able to Saturday the crunch freaks like me without intimidating new players. That is more or less how 1e is structured, but the difference in 2e would be that it is all part of a plan with a unified design. The complexity knobs and dials are all present in even the beginner box, they're just turned to low. You have official settings for beginner, intermediate, and advanced games which should be supported by organized play. Beginner would have simplified character creation using builds and packages and cut a lot of fiddly modifiers in play, intermediate core rules and core supplements, advanced include specialized subsystems like kingdom or intrigue.

I believe that if you've put every possible resource into that skill your chance of success against the average equal level unspecialized opponent should be around 90%. If you're in your specialty but not completely optimized, maybe 70-80% range. The chance of the average trained character with maybe 12-14 stat and no other bonus is what should be 50%. Untrained, ability penalty, unfavorable circumstances, or a higher level opponent are the only situations in which you should be much below 50%. If the system can't do that, then I think it needs to be fixed.

I haven't played an actual game session yet, let alone a high level one, so I have no idea if it works this way in play... but that's the scale I'll be grading on.

chocobot wrote:

...

Signature Skills only prevent you from becoming a Master or Legendary at a particular skill that isn't typically used by a class. There are ways to unlock certain skills as Signature Skills either through Archetypes or some class features.

All in all though, this shouldn't prevent you from being able to perform most trained or expert actions that a skill is capable of. It just prevents you from getting the crazy bonuses of high level skill unlocks.

Oh I understand, and that is exactly what I hate about it. Limiting skill progression based on class skills was a specific problem in 3,x that Pathfinder fixed. I consider this essential to how I like to play, so going back to that is as I said, hard pass.

I agree with a lot of what's been said here. My perspective is mostly as a player, and the thing I like most about 1e is all the ways we can customize our characters to build someone who feels really unique. I didn't really care for 1e until APG, and then slam dunk, I was sold on it. I'm a semi-optimizer, in that I'm going to make a character that is highly effective but not so tuned that I lose my individuality. I hope that's a common viewpoint, but who knows...

My likes:
Action economy: great 100% love it. There may be some room for tuning actions, but the system is perfect IMO.

Feats at every level. Yes, I'm all about the options.

Charisma is a good stat: I like having some charisma on my character and not feeling like I screwed up for it.

Everyone has perception - well it was a defacto requirement already, so yes it should be an actual requirement. Good choice.

More HP at 1st level and no rolling. Well, we haven't rolled for a long time, but yeah I'm on board with anything that makes 1st level better.

Proficiency levels - I like it, but I wish it went further in making proficiency matter. Legendary proficiency should be able to do truly legendary actions. Higher weapon proficiency should give you some basic actions that are currently feats, like anyone with expert can power attack. Feats could do more interesting things.

Class Feats: I like how the option choices of all classes and archetypes have been standardized into one system. That's cool and now you can apply the same archetype to any class so we don't need 10 different pirate archetypes. That's a further improvement on the ideas in starfinder. Great job.

Heightened spells - awesome, except spontaneous casters who still need to learn new versions of the spell, except that they can pick a few they can heighten... Too complicated, too burdensome on limited spell selection. Drop that, otherwise, great.

Cantrips more effective, other spells less effective. i think this is probably a necessary balance adjustment.

Dislikes:
Choices we used to get at first level are now spread out over 4-5 levels. It's already hard enough in 1e to make your character concept feel complete at first level. I already don't like 1st level in PF 1e - it always feels very limited in play, and very contrived how these schlubs end up the heros when there's a dozen more powerful npcs in the town. Anyway, I tolerate the first couple levels to get to the game I like, but PF 2 seems determined to make it worse. I would like to be able to choose stuff like archetype and racial abilities right off the bat. Not having a general feat at first level really hurts too.

Language Nerf - what does making it harder to communicate add to the game? There's nothing overpowered about languages. Having more languages just means more chances to roleplay, more variety in encounters. If you can't talk to the goblins, then every encounter has to be a battle. That feels like 4e where it's predetermined which encounters will be battles and which will be skill challenges and as a player you just follow the script.

Not enough difference between proficiency levels and I don't like untrained getting full level bonuses. This is a game where we usually have a team of specialists working together and you lose that feel if everyone can do everything just about as well.

Fighters should get more skills. Anyone without spells needs a lot of skills. They fill the same need for something you can do outside of combat.

Signature Skills - no. That's terrible. Class limits on skill level is a hard pass for me. What would work for me is maybe pick one signature skill at 1st level that you get expert instead of trained. Because I'm always in favor of more competent 1st levelers, and 2e has very low skill bonus and very little ability to specialize.

Magic weapon damage dice - I like the result, but I dislike putting more power in the gear and less in the character. I'd rather see this as an effect of proficiency.

....

I could probably say a lot more on both sides, but that's enough. Although I wrote a lot on the negative side, I'd say I'm optimistic overall. Signature Skills is the only thing I straight up hate.

So since you're here... is there any Golarion justification for elves taking 10x as long to learn basic apprentice skills as some other races? Or just because that's the way it was in D&D?

If so please let it be because as aliens they have completely different developmental stages that they metamorphose through as they grow. Elves do not learn, per se, until the final stage known as adulthood. Prior to that, they operate purely on instinct, at almost an animal level, although their instincts are complex enough to appear like learned behavior to an untrained observer. Every 7 years or so they go through a growth metamorphosis which increases their size equivalent to a year of human growth and provides them with a new set of instincts equivalent to a year of human learning. When they go through the final metamorphosis their brain develops true cognition similar to a human, and at that point they become capable of learning from their experiences. Trying to make an elf learn prior to then actually slows their development, possibly making them take decades longer to reach adulthood. Only the most learned of all elf masters understand this however, and most make their students study before they are ready. But 1 in 60466176 elf wizards can train an apprentice in 10 years, similar to the average human, simply by recognizing the signs of maturity and waiting until the brain is fully developed.

For dwarves, apprentices are literally just too stubborn to learn stuff, like at all, but after 50 years their master finally gets fed up with their incompetence and literally hammers their heads into shape so they get a class (see phrenology for why this works). Master wizards just have more patience than master barbarians, which is why it takes them longer.

Edit: fixed elf wizard age to 10d6, instead of 8d6

"Dexterity measures agility, reflexes, and balance." (Core definition of the ability). Your Dex mod modifies your initiative which determines when you get to act in combat or a non-combat encounter. This applies even if on your action you solve an equation, try to remember something, or hum a tune. If Stephen Hawking was in your group he would probably be the last one, owing to his poor physical coordination, to recognize some cosmic phenomenon as it manifests.

If your entire group are astrophysicists? Otherwise, he's the last one to examine it, but the only one who makes the knowledge (cosmic) check.

I mean unless it's DC 10 or less. Like you know, the moon.

DM: perception checks please.

19... 15... 22... 25... 3...

DM: not with the -125,000,000 modifier! You're all surprised as something massive comes out from behind the clouds where it was hiding. Surprise round: it illuminates the area in dim light. Now roll initiative guys.

I have one more crossbow post and I changed my mind on numbers due to a thought I had while asleep: that it really is not that hard to ballpark what the energy of various crossbows would be.

1) Hand/repeating don't need various pulls or str requirements repeating crossbow is designed to load as quickly as possible. Hand crossbow is designed to be small, concealable, and hand loaded. They both have even shorter draw length than standard crossbows. Increasing the pull would have minimal effects on damage and possibly huge effects on the effectiveness of the mechanisms.

2) Light crossbows should should be usable with a strength bonus and would add 1x that bonus to damage. Reasoning is as follows: light crossbow implies a simple loading mechanism that can be completed as a move action for most people. It has about 1/3 the draw length of a longbow, and thus needs a 3x pull to get the same energy from the projectile. If you use a 3x mechanical advantage you exert your force over the same distance as the long bow draw, but you have to reposition it to do so and load the bolt which accounts for the load action - those are things a skilled user can make more efficient though and eliminate the load time with Rapid Reload feat. If the crossbow loads by standing on the end and pulling up the string, you're just using muscle groups that are 300% stronger - still repositioning the bow and loading the bolt are what account for the move action reload.

2) Heavy crossbow should be usable with a strength bonus and would apply 1.5x that bonus to damage. because it would have approximately 2x the pull of a light crossbow made for a user of similar strength. Like a two-handed weapon though, that doesn't give you 2x damage from applying twice the strength because strength is not linear. So why do I say it's 2x the pull? Because the load action takes roughly twice as long. Applying the same force (user strength) to the cocking mechanism for twice as long means that you're probably using a mechanical advantage of 2x the light crossbow. Rapid reload can eliminate some of the time by making your nocking and repositioning more efficient but you're still cranking twice as much so you don't eliminate the load action that easily.

So assuming light load as a rough estimate of bow pull, the person with 18 strength would be able to use a 100lb composite longbow (+4 damage), 300lb light crossbow (+4 damage), or 600lb heavy crossbow (+6 damage). Those would all be custom weapons of course (costing 100 or 150 gp per point) with the off-the-shelf crossbow still being +0 damage.

The bow is still a superior weapon, because you don't have to spend feats on reloading and you can Multishot. It's just not ridiculously superior, and if you have the feats for crossbow mastery, the heavy crossbow can come pretty close and is better in situations where don't get a full attack. That's a reasonable difference for martial weapon vs simple weapon, and doesn't unduly punish the concept of "crossbowman" anymore.

How one can reload crossbows of different pulls than these, or how many actions you could possibly take with how big a crank doesn't really interest me. I'd just assume the mechanism is made to work at the speed dictated by weapon type and moving it faster is not a matter of strength but technique (I.e feats). If you try to speed it up with brute force, roll a strength check to break object. Likewise I wouldn't allow people to take additional actions to load it slower, instead saying you need x strength to work the mechanism or it won't budge. If you attach a different mechanism you can effectively change the weapon type (between light and heavy crossbow), but if it is longer than a full action you're building a siege weapon; it's too unwieldy to carry and use as a personal weapon. That is purely to prevent abuse (I spend an hour cranking up my +600 str crossbow), but seems pretty reasonable-ish.

I'm pretty much with the "it's not a class, it's a disguise check" crowd. I can't see the point of having a whole class based on such a narrow concept and when you add that it also gets to be a pale imitation of some other class it seems doubly pointless. It seems like the whole concept could be boiled down to a Dual Identity feat, and maybe a couple other feats that build off that if you really want to concentrate character resources on a secret identity.

And if you have a full campaign focused on secret identities, then it should be a campaign system like kingdom building or relationships, not a class ability.

Now if you want to make a class that does something unique with the vigilante concept like take batman's devices and make a class that uses mechanical and/or magical gadgets to create spell-like effects - I'm all for that. Especially if you can attach them to arrows like hawkeye and green arrow. Or any other concept as long as it is actually how you fight crime, not what you do when you aren't fighting crime.

Felyndiira wrote:

Redelia wrote:

Well, if 51% of your actions are putting the needs of others first (including basic self care to enable you to meet the needs of others), you are of good alignment. If 51% or more are selfish, you are of evil alignment. To truly be neutral, it would have to be 50% of each.

Neutral is as much a gradient as Good and Evil are. It's not this fine balance that can be tipped by the smallest actions.

Usually, Good and Evil are defined by a strong commitment. If you occasionally donate to charity/the homeless to make yourself happier, that doesn't automatically make you good. Similarly, a bit of selfishness doesn't make you evil.

This extends to Pathfinder characters, as well, or you'll get ridiculous stuff like this:

Druid: After getting out of that prison, I take a moment to appreciate my freedom and lie down under the gentle embrace of nature.
GM: You expressed a love for freedom, which is chaotic. Shift your alignment from NG to CG. You fall as a druid.
Druid: What?

I truly want to see that play out sometime in an actual game.

next time he'll know: write a petition to have this day declared national freedom of me day and get 1000 signatures (more or less) and submit it to the city council, but only by bribing a disbarred lawyer to impersonate the official secretary to the under minister of the wrong department.

Duh

Well in that paradigm the dwarf fighter wouldn't have a 20 speed, he'd have a 200. Because why is it totally realistic for fighters to be colossus but not quicksilver? There's zero difference in realism, and it's just an arbitrary decision that the muscle groups in their arms are allowed to develop beyond human potential but those in their legs are not. Monks of course can develop superhuman musculature in their legs, but fighter for some reason are restricted to arms. Totally arbitrary.

I love pathfinder. It's my favorite RPG to play because of all the options for making interesting characters with diverse abilities. Honestly, I did not care at all about pathfinder until APG. I played it, but PF over 3.5 or 4e didn't seem special or interesting. APG is my favorite RPG book ever, and sold me 100% on Pathfinder over everything else. I love the base class + archetype paradigm and the concepts and design for the new classes were really exciting. Summoner turned out to be more boring in play than I had hoped, but whatever. Looking forward to trying Monster Tactician Inquisitor someday which looks more like what I wanted out of summoner.

The only major releases that really disappoint me are stuff like Advanced Race Guide and Monster Codex because I dislike race-locked content. It's just inherently less useful than other stuff. But at least they don't do it as much as 4e, my god that was annoying.

And I hate the fighter because it can't do anything but fight and isn't any better at fighting then anyone else but that issue is easy to solve by playing other classes.

So I'd rate my satisfaction with Pathfinder around 90-95%.

I have no issue with evil characters in principle, although even a well-played evil character just can't fit into some parties. Most campaigns have a way to fit in evil PCs, if they're the right kind of evil. But...

They usually aren't. Most people who want to play a guy who isn't nice, is completely out for himself, willing to do whatever is needed to win the scenario, but functions within society and the party because he knows that's the best way to succeed write "Neutral" on their sheet. The "Evil" characters I usually see are more like comic book villains, and not nuanced villains like Magneto or Lex Luthor. LE: Darkseid, NE: Thanos, CE: Joker.

CN gets used a lot for "I don't want to play an alignment, I just want to do what I want to do" in groups I've played in, and that's a thought I can totally get behind. So although I have seen a few pure random insane chaos characters, CN doesn't cause a problem as much.

Besides, let's suppose I'd like to bind the Hierophant Spirit and I have a temple nearby. What do I do?! I perform the calling ritual inside or nearby this temple?! A 1 hour ceremony that can't be uninterrupted and requires concentration?! And the clerics of the temple or the inhabitants of the city would allow such ceremony!?

There are some obvious problems with the mechanics of the class because almost every favored location of every spirit brings a lot of problems. Sometimes you will bypass these problems (for example, a inn nearby the temple where you can perform the ritual quietly) but, often, you won't. So, you won't be able to use the Medium class features. It's like a Wizards who couldn't read his book or a cleric who couldn't pray for his spells. They would become useless.

It's true that, even without bonding to a spirit, the Medium would still have his 4th level spell casting but I don't think it would be enough.

I'd kind of been assuming that your ritual could (and even should) be something more or less indistinguishable from appropriate activity for the location - so prayer or meditation for temple, weapons kata for a training yard, study for a library, etc. Because you're inviting this spirit who dwells there and is tied to the ambiance of the place, it seems unlikely that you're going to have to do something considered offensive by the probably like-minded inhabitants. Unless they're actually your enemies, in which case I suppose you probably have to kill them first.

i suppose you could say that the ritual must look like evil bad magic with skull candelabras and curvy knives, but the way I see it you only do that when you're trying to get a spirit out of a necromancer's sanctum or a temple of asmodeus.

Even a feat that lets you call back the legend you used the day before without finding an apt location would be cool.

Generally, anything Medium related would be welcome: it's true that its just a few pages long, but the Medium got only 1 feat. :/

Honestly it's probably better if Paizo never makes such a feat.

If they publish a feat fix, then you it becomes an essential feat tax if you choose to play a medium. If they don't, then you get to convince the DM to either handwave locations or sprinkle them liberally throughout the wilderness and dungeons. If you succeed in convincing him, you get to play a medium with all feats intact. If you fail to convince the DM, this is a bad campaign to play a medium and you save that character for a different situation.

All the really smart tieflings spend 4d6 years learning to be sage sorcerers and 5 days retraining to wizards. Wizard school is a trap for tieflings without enough system mastery to really be wizards.

My favorite is psychic investigator archetype. I love the investigator, but not a big fan of alchemy. Being able to replace that with psychic magic is awesome. This I will play as soon as possible.

I like the psychic too, more than I thought I would for a guy I figured is pretty much int-based sorcerer. Mechanically strong of course, but the disciplines have cool flavor. The serve the same purpose as bloodlines but the powers and concepts are more varied.

Kineticist and Mesmerist seem good, I don't quite get the occultist yet, and spiritualist doesn't really appeal to me.

Medium I like the concept, but it terrifies me with a big red warning flag, because of this thing called favored locations it really seems like you will not in fact get to choose your role, but rather get it forced upon you by location availability. It seems like you can find any of the favored locations if you're in a city, but very few in wilderness. The kami archetype is worse, even being reliant on the weather for some spirits. Need to discuss the issue with DM and make sure he's willing to handwave it before I'd consider playing the class.

Chakra seems hard to justify using. 1st power does basically nothing so it takes 2 rounds to ramp up, and then you're able to jump far which might be useful but you need to know 1 round before you need to do it. And that's costing you ki which is not a plentiful resource to begin with. And there's risk involved. And I think 0 characters can actually do this without multiclass or the psychic sensitivity feat. So I'm thinking I will never in my life see chakras used in play. Good thing it only used up 2 pages.

Possibility... Without going into spoilers, have you read book 4 yet? Read the end of the first scene and then decide if maybe you want them to find that scarnetti info now. It makes no real difference to the overall plot if they do and it could be much more interesting than the alternative.

and now it can be used to justify horrible caster/martial disparity too!

On the other hand this makes it an official rule that a level 20 human fighter is not a physiologically normal human.

Mythraine wrote:

A quick read through of the ARG errata seems very reasonable to me.

I particularly love the adjustment to the Aasimar, Dhampir and Tiefling starting ages.

Wait, do people actually use the starting ages? I always ignored them. Granted, my campaigns have an in-universe minimum PC age of 17 1/2 to 21, depending on exactly where the campaign is taking place, but I've never seen normal campaigns use the starting ages.

i hate starting ages. I have been forced to use it by dms who thought that was crucial to their world. I can't stand the idea that elves are somehow so mentally disadvantaged that it takes them 100 years to learn the skills of an adolescent. I know it's meaningless fluff, but I care about my PC history and I feel obligated to write "I spent the next ten years learning to tie my shoes. Once I felt I had mastered that, I focused on eating without smearing food all over my face for the next decade. In truth this turned out harder than I could have imagined and I was well into my sixties before my wetnap needs diminished."

It works if you imagine every elf as an Adam Sandler character.

Polymorph effects can (should? might? DM willing) remove racial regeneration and/or immunity.

Caster uses summon spam! It's super effective!

You guys assume the casters don't clear out dungeons before entering them.

Martials use a time dragon, it's super effective! They get it to take them back before casters were born and murder their parents.

But no! Casters had already befriended their own time dragon and traveled back in time so they could give their parents contingencies that trigger upon being killed by time travelers (by magic jarring them and casting from inside their bodies). The contingencies teleport their sperm and eggs to their time dragon's lair where he can IVF surrogate mothers to make sure that they are in fact born.

But no! The martials had actually befriended the same Time Dragon at a later point in his life and he knew all about the plan so he snuck into his younger self's lair and switched all the vials so the casters ended up with terrible mental stats and could no longer cast spells.

This time dragon has one move left...

Good point, draw length is a factor. The length of the bow staff is relevant only in so far as that a long bow staff is the mechanically simplest way to maximize force over the full draw length. Compound bows do the same thing, composite bows do the same thing. I think most medieval crossbows are composite bows, but I'm not an expert. At any rate the composite bow of crossbow size is still smaller than the composite bow of longbow size and thus a shorter draw length. So yeah I can see how that affects the str factor. Exactly how that impacts damage considering the mechanical advantage factor as well, no clue. I just know that crossbows have different pulls and stronger people can use stronger crossbows.

hmmm, maybe we could make a house rule that crossbows have a str mod, and sicne you load them with two hands you can use 1.5 your str mod to determine how strong of a crossbow you can load.

after further consideration that should probably 1.5 for light crossbow, 2x for heavy crossbow(better mechanical advantage causes slower load), .5 for hand crossbow (cause it's tiny and offhand capable) Cost would be the same as bow str 100 for heavy, 75 for light, maybe 50 for hand.

And if you don't have the required str you just can't load it, period. Attaching different mechanisms or using longer actions is way too complicated. You can still shoot it if you get someone else to load it for you.

Pathfinder crossbows lol physics fail. Crossbows take longer to load than bows, not because they're made by or for idiots, but because they require more strength to pull. Because of the high draw strength a mechanical advantage is necessary which results in a slower draw. The net result is that when you pull the trigger they shoot really f-ing hard, because conservation of energy is a real thing. Not being able to get any effective strength bonus on a crossbow is silly. If it takes no strength to pull, it also takes no time or effort. Realistic crossbows would be something like 1 1/2 strength.

Obviously that ain't how it works in pathfinder, but for Paizo to claim their stance on crossbows is realism is incorrect. It's based on Legolas and an arbitrary rule of cool for bows, not science or anything.

bookrat wrote:

That would give the brick a hardness of 5. So you only have to do three more points of damage to overcome the hardness of a stone than you would brick before you start damaging it. Easily doable by a 20th level fighter, as our only fighter example this thread can do 27-30 points of damage per unarmed strike. So really, he's punching/kicking/head butting through an inch of stone per hit, or with a full attack 4 inches of stone a round (every six seconds). It'll take him only 30 rounds to completely punch through that 10' column.

Except that damage potential isn't the only consideration when it comes to breaking objects.

If you can do 1000 damage with a feather, it still won't break the wall.

it will if you make any modification whatsoever to the feather with the intent of improving its stone-breaking ability. At that point it will be "designed to break up stone" and therefore deal full damage.

the thing about bricks and concrete is they're brittle, if it's something that can be polished to be a smooth pillar, than it is more than likely 10 fold stronger than concrete or brick.

Similar to how a level 20 fighter is 10 times stronger and tougher than any real world human, perhaps?

alexd1976 wrote:

Naked Fighter is designed to smash things.

If I swapped ONE feat out, the build I posted would do 1D3+26 with a bare-knuckled punch.

He permanently deafens AND blinds people on criticals (which are auto-confirmed, threaten on a 19+ and do x3 damage), DC 30 FORT save (for each effect).

A critical hit from this guy will do at LEAST 81 points of damage, with his bare hands, NAKED. In addition to probably blinding and deafening you.

Tell me this man can't break stone, I dare you.

Stop trying to crap on martials and at least let them do what the rules let them do!

Said "Naked Fighter" is more likely to break his hand than the wall, and any GM that rules so would be well within their rights.

As to "let them do what the rules let them do," we are! The rules specifically state that some weapons simply do not damage some objects if they are not designed to. Human appendages are not designed to tunnel through stone, therefore your damage potential is irrelevant as Naked Fighter's fist do none.
According to the rules.

Sure, but you're making a judgment call when you say that human appendages are not designed for breaking rocks. It's a pure 100% judgment call either way. I've seen plenty of rocks broken by human hands, which is impossible unless hands are designed for breaking rocks, therefore they are necessarily designed for breaking rocks. Then maybe someone else argues that hands may have evolved to be capable of breaking rocks, but were not specifically designed for it so they cannot actually break rocks.

It's silly because there's no clear standard for what "designed for breaking up stone" means, especially considering that the weapons listed as being "designed for breaking up stone" were in fact actually designed for breaking people just like every other non-improvised weapon. They bear some similarities to tools designed for breaking stone, but so does basically every melee weapon.

So basically any answer is within the rules. Except for that one where the fighter breaks his hand, which is just a making stuff up.

This is like that one scenario where antimagic field actually benefits the martials. Gotta work that in here somehow. I recommend having improved familiars UMD it from a scroll and fly around disabling all those invisible flying freedom of movement casters. Maybe Pseudodragons - they're good at finding invisible things without magic.

Bandw2 wrote:

can get weapon training natural...

Weapon training (firearms) wouldn't help him shoot down a wall any faster with the non-lethal rounds I mentioned earlier, so why would weapon training (unarmed) help with his fists? Again, this isn't about his skill level, which is what weapon training augments, it's about the delivery mechanism being unsuited to properly distribute enough force in a manner to actually damage the target object. To give another, perhaps more helpful examples, think of if you gave the fighter a wooden bat and had him go to town on the stone wall/pillar. Which do you think breaks first, the bat or the wall? The bones in your hand and arm are NOT as solid as the bat, soooooo...

my arm would be mangled I'm sure. But I'm not a guy who can dive in to lava, swim out 6 seconds later, brush it off, and be just fine if a bit singed. So I don't think the capabilities of real human being are at all a viable estimator of the capabilities of 20th level characters. There's at least an order of magnitude difference. Saying that guy fist isn't an appropriate weapon is the absurd thing. He can punch a hole in a stone golem which is the same exact material. His hands can withstand more damage than literally any weapon he could possibly use against a wall short of an artifact.

And the same goes for a level 20 wizard punching a wall because being only 50% as durable is close enough. If he's strong enough, there's no logical reason he can't do it. It's not a special fighter thing. There's no rule to support that, but every rule in the game supports level 20 characters being superhuman, even when only mundanely so.

chocobot wrote:

Ok so here's what you do. Buy a scroll of awaken, get enough UMD to use it, etc.

Don't buy a scroll. Hunt down a high-level Arcanist and get them to metamagic it up to an Empowered Maximized Awaken, maybe using rods or something. Watch as the animal gets 18+3d6/2 INT (Average 23.25). Now who's the smart one?

the animal, who then becomes our supreme overlord?

Ok so here's what you do. Buy a scroll of awaken, get enough UMD to use it, etc. Wait until the Druid/ranger/hunter/other is dead and his companion becomes free -- then bam! Awaken it. Now it's friendly to you and will stick around for the rest of the adventure.

But wait there's more. We're still going to Rez that guy. Come on, party loyalty. And when he comes back to life you get to watch that whole awkward conversation where the animal tells him it's found someone else and maybe they can still be friends just not, you know, companions anymore. Hilarious.

Do note how I said Sorcerer...

The sorcerer equivalent of a naked fighter doesn't have any hands or mouth. Hmm... Maybe I'm proving your point.

But maybe the martial equivalent of a sorcerer is a brawler, in which case it's much more dependent on who wins initiative.

Having played a high level sorcerer beside a high level wizard I didn't feel like I was any way inferior. Obviously a wizard's total capabilities are more, but a sorcerer can be better than a Wizard at whatever he chooses for his expertise. So what happens is the sorcerer defines his niche, wizard gets what's left. Psychologically, that's huge. The wizard's slice of pizza may be bigger, but the sorcerer is choosing one with all the toppings he likes. It's not a bad deal at all.

Being a level 3 sorcerer sucks though.

Well, recently the Fighters have gotten archetypes that act like those PrCs.

Martial Master, Mutation Warrior (even though that got a slight nerf because f@#&ing everything got nerfed in the ACG Errata), Eldritch Guardian, and the new Sensate archetype from Occult Adventures are pretty solid.

Yeah I like martial master and eldritch guardian in theory. Not a big fan of mutagen flavor (grape? Yuck), but it seems solid.

Sensate I haven't looked at much honestly... omg its actually 100% fighter magic and a will save

The Fighter was born in an era when the Fighter did all the fighting. You had to meet strange and arcane prerequisites to become a Paladin, had to slog through levels and levels of XP-penalized multiclassing to become a Bard, and there were about 4 core classes. Now we have 11 core classes and a bunch more base and hybrid classes. These classes fill specific roles, Fighter fills the space in between. Which, granted, is still a lot of space, but most of that space amounts to dealing damage and being tough.

That's only sort of true, because that fighter was reimagined in 3.0 as the feat master but 3.0 core feats were terrible with a few exceptions. So the fighter became the class that peaked at level 4. 3.0 soon became a festering morass of prestige classes that you conveniently could join at the same time the fighter class became godawful. So that became the fighter fix and was carried over into 3.5 - but not pathfinder because pathfinder jettisoned most of the prestige classes, but Paizo never figured out they were the only thing making fighters worthwhile. The de facto purpose of fighters was to meet PRC feat requirements and provide a mundane origin story for someone who soon became much more (in whatever PRC he chose). The zero to hero story. But now, you have nowhere to go from zero.

Now I'm glad Paizo got rid of PRCs for the most part. I hated having to switch classes and most of all having to jump through hoops to unlock them. But in the case of the fighter, they really dropped the ball, because it was never a 1-20 class in 3.x regardless of being listed in the rulebook as such. The fighter sucks because Paizo basically dropped the ball and didn't put the same effort into it as they did other classes. Even rogues got talents taken from their PRCs like shadow dancer (it was still bad but at least they tried). Fighters got static bonuses that were basically the same as the static bonus feats for all practical purposes.

That's why fighters suck.

Are there 11 level 4/6 casters? Also no summoner

Bard
Paladin
Ranger
Inquisitor
Alchemist
Magus
Skald
Bloodrager
Hunter
Investigator
Warpriest

Yeah, that works. However that list might change in a week...

For races, I like human and plane touched:
Human
Aasimar
Tiefling
Ifrit
Oread
Sylph
Undine

Bandw2 wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

So... how do you feel about jumping 10 feet in the air and remaining airborn for 12 seconds, without any sort of buoyancy or additional air resistance or lift

or the DC 30 climb check to climb a paper wall?

This just bugs the hell out of me. PAPER can be climbed but glass or ice can not?

Gloss paper like the inside of your CRB cannot be climbed though.

I like the 12 second hang time... And by like I mean it's absurd. Having a higher movement speed somehow increases the force of gravity too. Vertical distance is the only thing that matters for how long you're in the air, and a 6 second jump is 150 feet up in 3 secs and 150 feet down in 3 secs. There's only one solution unless you change gravity.

Don't let class OR race limit creativity!

Here's my take on a Swashbuckly Drow Oracle for Second Darkness. (And due to what I suspect is a messageboards limit of something like 65536 characters in a post or character sheet, I had to put her crunch in a separate page). And although I haven't read any of the Drizz't Do'Urden novels, I did look him up on Wikipedia to make sure that I wasn't accidentally making the same thing, as well as make sure that she won't break anything in th AP (she never was in the Darklands, and Andoran is an awesome place to start out.)

Up to the DM I guess, but I think you have a mistaken impression about drow PCs not breaking Second Darkness. They really do, and the DM would have a lot of work fixing it. The AP recommends against drow PCs in the strongest terms possible without dropping a bunch of F-bombs, so that's going to be a long shot.

IC knowledge would be that this guy needs to have me cast magic on him to survive, and frankly all he does is fight, we should be paying him bodyguard wages if anything.

(though i quite frankly find this rude OOC)

Yeah the OOC reason is that it's rude to tell someone he can't play that character, and you can work things out to cover a weakness unless the DM is really going all out. Also, in actual play not every character is equally optimized or interested in winning fights and accomplishing party goals so a fighter can end up being more effective than a high level wizard in some parties.

Tormsskull wrote:

From an RP perspective, my characters are trying to survive. They generally want their allies to have the best equipment possible to ensure that the team, and by extension them self, live through the day.

If that's the goal, to survive, the best move is to fire the fighter, monk, and rogue and replace them with a druid, a cleric, and a summoner. But that's not an outcome that most players want to see.

There's actually no way to identify someone's class aside from guessing, OOC knowledge, or house rules. By the time you get enough observational evidence they aren't pulling their weight anymore you're on like book 4-5 of the adventure path and have already given them 10s of thousands of gp in loot. If not 100k+. If you kick them out now, you're not getting any of that back. And if you kill them - well that's evil (which is a problem if your party isn't). No, the best course of action is to stick with that guy until his inevitable demise, at which time you can make your case to his spirit why it should refuse resurrection (so we can't say you didn't try) and just let you take all his worldly possessions that he'll no longer need in the paradise of afterlife.

In all seriousness though, in the RP perspective kicking a guy out of the party gives you no guarantee of finding someone more capable to replace them. The people you need are extremely rare individuals, especially those of a level where martial are no longer effective. Only OOC do you know that player can just make another PC of the same level, or maybe 1 level less - whatever the DMs rule is.

i know no one would actually allow it, but it's an interesting question anyway because of the interaction with vampire rules.

Mortigneous, as far as "returning the skin to the body" yeah I can see how you could interpret that as describing an alternate condition for ending the spell, rather than just what happens when you dismiss while in the same spot. That's not my reading, but sure it makes sense.

As for how vampire gaseous form works... No. Vampire can activate it at will as a standard action, but it also happens automatically when reduced to 0 hit points and is not dismissible until they are in the coffin, at which point they assume solid form and are helpless for 1 hour. "Attempts to escape" is likely a strategy suggestion, but "assumes gaseous form" is a replacement effect for being destroyed, and is therefore no more an action than being destroyed is.

Sorry for the lack of quotes, I'm on my phone which makes it inconvenient to do large quotes.

If the vampire actually cast on itself rather than getting it through touch injection, then it could of course rejoin the body whenever it chose to do so. Although it would be limited to 2 hours if it cast the spell while outside the coffin, due to the helpless gaseous form issue. But really, it would have to be an imbecile to do so - just cast from the coffin.

igorwolfgang wrote:

Yes. Normal undead are destroyed at 0. Vampires go into gaseous form and retreat to coffin within two hours. they then begin to fast heal. The spell disables your body from healing except through regeneration. So a vampire would not be able to heal and would then die.

Wouldn't the smart vampire simply use its standard action to return the skin to its body, rather than go into its gaseous form? After all they aren't forced to enter their gaseous form.

(D) is dismissible by the caster, not the target so the vampire cannot rejoin the skin for 1 hr/level.

Vampires are forced to enter gaseous form. I'm pretty sure "incapacitated" is meant to be read as a non-technical description of the gaseous vampire being incapable of performing most actions. It is also disabled due to being at 0 or fewer hp, but it's not using an action to enter gaseous form. It is automatically made gaseous upon reaching 0 hp as a non-action.

The gaseous vampire becomes helpless, per skinsend, so it is destroyed 2 hours later when it fails to reach the coffin. Until then however, all the usual skinsend rules apply so you pretty much have to fight a 1/2 hp vampire with 3 strength now. When the skin reaches 0 hp it goes gaseous and will return to the coffin like a real vampire. Until 2 hours pass and it's destroyed unless it can find a way to blow its helpless gaseous original body back to the coffin.

chocobot wrote:

MrConradTheDuck wrote:

Jacob Saltband wrote:

Heres the reason why I dont have a problem with the fighter as is and the fighter needing/using items to better fight the tough fights.

Bruce Wayne.

also maybe Tony Stark.

Except Bruces and Tony's WBL is 100X that of their peers who, unlike the them, can just do those things they needs their toys for.

It's like if Doctor Strange just got a bunch of money and gadgets on top of his extreme, godlike power. Now replace "like" with "totally is." and you see why your argument is pathetic. Now if Fighter got built in 100x WBL there'd be no argument and this wouldn't be a thing. But they don't. And it is.

Interesting... so what if everyone's WBL isn't equal. Not that it is, because wizards get crafting feats, but suppose there's a class called Rich Guy with some outside source of income such as a trust fund and with a code of conduct that it must be spent on items only for yourself or you lose your class abilities (I.e your wealth) So this class effectively has say 300% WBL, although they get an equal share of treasure. Is something like that a viable class with little else going for them?

Not necessarily 300% exactly, but just as a general concept your entire class is just guy with a lot of money who buys more magic items for himself than anyone else can. Can it work? You get UMD as a class skill, and maybe even your wealth is charisma based so you have every reason to pump it up.

it's more like when you find a cool new cloaks of resistance or herp derp, i'm calling dibs, and if you just gave an artifact or something from a god to the specific character, i'd say he got the last cool thing so this is my share.

the party makes everyone have equal WBL unless you specifically say this guy needs more and make some gentleman's agreement.

I'm speculating about a possible class or archetype to represent batman/ironman not making a playstyle suggestion.

You wouldn't need a gentleman's agreement, because it would be a rule - a class ability that just gives him more wealth when he levels up. Not that I'm necessarily talking about fighters vs wizards, but it could be a fighter archetype called Wealthy Hero that gets big loads of money (and accordingly higher WBL limits) instead of weapon and armor training.

Jacob Saltband wrote:

Heres the reason why I dont have a problem with the fighter as is and the fighter needing/using items to better fight the tough fights.

Bruce Wayne.

also maybe Tony Stark.

Except Bruces and Tony's WBL is 100X that of their peers who, unlike the them, can just do those things they needs their toys for.

It's like if Doctor Strange just got a bunch of money and gadgets on top of his extreme, godlike power. Now replace "like" with "totally is." and you see why your argument is pathetic. Now if Fighter got built in 100x WBL there'd be no argument and this wouldn't be a thing. But they don't. And it is.

Interesting... so what if everyone's WBL isn't equal. Not that it is, because wizards get crafting feats, but suppose there's a class called Rich Guy with some outside source of income such as a trust fund and with a code of conduct that it must be spent on items only for yourself or you lose your class abilities (I.e your wealth) So this class effectively has say 300% WBL, although they get an equal share of treasure. Is something like that a viable class with little else going for them?

Not necessarily 300% exactly, but just as a general concept your entire class is just guy with a lot of money who buys more magic items for himself than anyone else can. Can it work? You get UMD as a class skill, and maybe even your wealth is charisma based so you have every reason to pump it up.

chocobot wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

A squaddie is a great backstory, but there comes a level that in order to keep adventuring said squaddie really needs to grow beyond it.

Exactly.

Experienced soldiers learn tactics and get promoted. You were a private at first level, but at 4th level you should be taking on a sergeant role. Expecting to stay a pfc for 20 levels is kind of silly.

A fighter never learns to fight in a unit, so is really a poor choice for a soldier. Fighter works (as much as it ever does) for someone dedicated to the art of single combat more like a miyamoto musashi, or a gladiator.

Samurai is a thing, y'know. They don't have to work in a unit and their class features means they excel at one-on-one fights (look at Challenge). They can even take fighter feats. So even for single combat, fighters aren't optimal concept-wise.

Yeah I know samurai is a thing and there is a ronin and sword saint which you could use to build miyamoto musashi, but Fighter can still fill that role just as well, particularly weapon master: huge swing in +attack if opponent uses the same weapon.

Samurai is certainly better at everything other than pure fighting, obviously

Learning to fight in a unit is not a class feature.

Teamwork feats exist, and are perfect for soldiers. Fighters can get more of them then anyone.
Quickly maximizing use of a single weapon is easiest for fighters. Soldiers are typically grouped by weapon mastery, after all.
Wearing heavy armor is a natural for fighters.

Being great soldiers is pretty much the ONLY thing fighters have excellence at doing.

Being champions, hunters, teachers, warlords and bodyguards, the other five primary roles for melees...best to look to other classes.

==Aelryinth

I imagine you're considering the situation where the fighter is with all his fellow soldiers and they all have their teamwork feats coordinated and benefit from having more than anyone. But we don't play our backstories, it just informs our choices going forward and if you actually want to recreate that element of your backstory in play you usually need teamwork sharing. You can probably convince another player to get outflank with you (if you're not in PFS), but how do you convince a summoned monster or npc? So it becomes evident that your character is not a guy with tactical proficiency, he's just worked out a combo move with one other guy.