gnomersy's page

Perhaps so. But then you won't have invested any cash into it, which seems to be one of the sticking points for some.

Again, at least for me and perhaps others, fun is where you find it. A singular feature being removed or changed -- assuming that your table even recognizes the change -- does not kill any fun. I'll just move to the next idea, the next concept, the next avenue for a character.

I wonder how people react when they encounter house rules that remove options from the game? Do you books somehow become less valuable?

Unless there's a good reason for it I generally decline to play with those people. So ... yes I guess?

gnomersy wrote:

It's worth noting though Magic unlike both hearthstone and Pathfinder/3.5 doesn't ever patch individual abilities they errata and FAQ for clarification, they ban for organized tournament play but they never try to recall the card and change the effects. The only time cards get a change is as a byproduct of larger game system changes like the addition of the stack, the change from damage going on the stack to it not doing so etc.

It bears mentioning that Magic did once have some power level errata - for example, the Vintage staple Time Vault once had Oracle text (involving adding and removing time counters) that prevented the kind of Voltaic Key shenanigans it's capable of today. ^_^

That's fair but currently it isn't being made use of in that way because of some of the same issues I have with Paizo namely the disparity between printed text and online text and because it reduces the confidence of the consumer and thus the value of your product. The only big exception I can think of off the top of my head is the Wish spells which technically got a nerf via FAQ to prevent people from bringing their entire collections to tournaments.

Kinda besides the point except that I do feel that paizo is damaging the perceived value of their product by making sweeping nerfs to content that has been out for a long time and is being used by their players. I mean it essentially comes out and tells you that you can't trust them to not remove things you like from your books/games. And while you can always hammer it back in via DM fiat if you're the DM of a home game you can't if you're a player.

It boils down to a simple conflict of attitude and opinion. The stuff you see as "wasted space" that "encourages people to get too caught up on stuff that doesn't actually mean anything" are the very things other people enjoy most (descriptive text that defines the game world).

Dismissing all the non-mechanical stuff as "generally not that important because it doesn't do anything during the game" isn't going to help sell your thesis to that segment of the community. The stuff your dismissing as unimportant is the stuff that makes Pathfinder a role playing game (story plus mechanics) as opposed to a board game (mechanics with no story).

-Skeld

I don't disagree at all about it being a matter of opinion.

But, I will contest that the stuff I dismiss isn't what makes Pathfinder a roleplaying game. The fact is even with all that stuff out there if nobody is actively using it at the table it isn't roleplaying and it's not story. It takes players actively using that stuff to define their character actions and DMs actively using it to define the world around their players to make it roleplaying and honestly the two aren't that related to each other. I've played pathfinder in non Golarion settings and you can still roleplay even when the books aren't telling you how you should feel about life as an elf.

I'm also going to put this out there, I don't think the fluff and the mechanics need to be in the same books. If you were going to take power attack are you going to look at it, be like "oh the warrior can make mighty blows, sign me up for some of that!" before you look at what it does?

I like fluff and I like mechanics but I'd rather read a good story of fluff about the dwarves of golarion in a book I bought for the fluff of the dwarves of golarion than maybe glance at it in passing while I'm looking for the inquisitor archetype I'm trying to use.

Maybe that's just me though.

On average for whom?

Ass you say, that definition will differ between people. People who play PFS make up a small subsection of those that buy the books, I'm willing to wager. An even smaller subsection would be people who only buy the books for one singular feat/item/what have you and find utterly no use from the rest of the book.

What is "useless" tends to differ widely. Some people actually enjoy frippery like art and descriptive text, finding that it enhances their game far more than a cold list of mechanical enhancements for a character.

On average for me obviously.

As far as frippery like art and descriptive text that's generally not that important because it doesn't do anything during the game.

Having a prettied up board and taking art assets to use during gameplay is good but it happens quite rarely and almost never for anything but the monster manual in my experience. Having the game tell you Half elves suffer from the blah blah blah never being at home among elves or humans doesn't mean anything until the GM uses it in the game and if he does he never needed the book to say that. So yeah I think that stuff is wasted space and what's more I think it encourages people to get too caught up on stuff that doesn't actually mean anything like people who want to take the Rogue class just because of the name and not because of the actual rules behind it. What's important for the story isn't some random stuff in the book it's the interaction between the player and the DM it's supposed to be a joint story we're not just reading the lord of the rings while rolling dice.

Now not everyone buys a book for 1 feat but I've bought Weapon Masters Handbook for alternate fighter weapon/armor training options. I got unchained just for the unchained rogue. If they were to go to the Unchained book take unchained rogue and rip out dex to damage leaving it in a state where it wasn't good at doing what I want it to do, I'd feel like the book is useless to me. I'm not using the rest of the stuff in there as is and I currently don't have any plans to use that stuff. Is it still useful to other people? Sure but for me it's no longer doing anything but taking up space until I have a desire to use something else from it.

I enjoy and appreciate the efforts of the Paizo team and the errata/faq.

I also feel really sad that people think a 40/60 dollar book is useless because a feat was changed. As if all the efforts that went into making a book are nothing, and there's no value in it.

That's kind of depressing.

Is this really that surprising to you?

I mean lets evaluate really quickly what being useful means. To be useful something must be of use or something must be used. In any given book how much of the content is useful by that definition? Is it the whole book? Is it a few things? Is it just one page? For every person that definition will be different.

Now let's assume someone only ever wanted to use a single option from a $40 book and the only reason they bought the book at all was so they would be allowed to use it in Society play if you remove that option and they have no interest in the remaining content there is no value in the product for them. I don't really think of that as depressing outside of the fact that paizo used Society play to encourage the sale of the product then banned it thus harming their customer.

And at the end of the day there are so many useless options in every pathfinder book and so much frippery like art and descriptive text and what have you that while there is a great deal of content in every book a much smaller section of that content is useful on average.

Wow. I've always viewed the FAQ/Errata system as a train wreck. They intentionally fragment the system between the forums, the blogs, the faq, and errata system. Its virtually unsearchable unless you are already aware of the rule in question. The FAQ/Errata system largely ignores the non-hardback material (because they don't reprint it). They used large swaths of 3.x rules language. And didn't bothered to address the already existing errata's/faq for that content for years. And it takes multiple years from product release to the issue of corrections.

I did laugh at the original poster saying he came from 3.x and though Paizo was over the top with errata's/faqs. I think Paizo intentionally tries to steer clear of the minefield the errata/faq world. It really is a no win world and you make very few people happy when you issue them. They would much rather push new content, and I believe that is the reason that rulings come out so sporadically and disjointedly.

Where as WotC was releasing them regularly monthly (via Paizo's Dungeon/Dragon magazines for quite a while) and occasionally before the book had even hit store shelves. I think there are some serious rose-tinted glasses going on (or he didn't handle the 3.x material until years after WotC abandoned the edition.)

I think Paizo puts out a good product with Pathfinder. But I find its errata/faq system is a total lost cause.

As the OP I want to volunteer that it's not a case of rose tinted glasses I always knew that 3.5 had it's own clusterf%$% of FAQs and Errata but at the time literally every single person I knew playing the game had and used hardback rulebooks which meant ignoring that stuff was super easy unless you wanted to go look for it.

Since the day we started Pathfinder I've been on pdfs due to space constraints and every single person I know except one DM has been using online rules resources like the PRD or d20pfsrd as their primary rules source which makes avoiding the FAQs or even being able to see the original content much more difficult compared to when I was playing 3.5.

So it's not rose tinted glasses but a change in the way I and the people I know play the game compared to how we did in the past.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Cyrad wrote:

Because suddenly becoming unable to play the character you enjoyed for more than a year is tons of fun.

Talk to your GM about that, not me.

You know, I highly doubt talking to a GM who runs things by-the-rules is going to fix the factor that Paizo deemed certain combinations or power levels of certain options "overpowered," and has an balance ideal of "If we have all of these overpowered options, if we convert some or all of them to underpowered options, then we'll have an equal amount of overpowered and underpowered options! The scales are balanced!"

you should probably just talk to him more.

Clearly making yourself a nuisance totally helps you get what you want I mean it works at restaurants and stores all the time and never causes problems with the people you annoy.

Going from 11 damage to 7 isn't going from perfect to a D, 7 damage is still half a CR 1 creature's HP or so, crit and that's a good chance of killing them. And my Magus is a Kensai.

I still agree it is annoying to lose a feat that you thought would work, especially in PFS where you're arguably paying real money for the book it's from. The heavy-handed errata especially get weird. I had to learn what Crane Style did three times. I really hope they leave it alone now. I looked into making a PFS Summoner, but I couldn't get into the Unchained Eidolon evolutions. Still trying to figure out a psychopomp Eidolon for that. The summoner got slapped hard there. If they ever look at exotic weapons like they do feats, my Kensai might be boned. All I'd need now is estocs not working with Spell Combat.

Some errata is neccesary, but I think the basic rules need errata/revision work first. How exactly does stealth work? What exactly forbids taking 10 besides combat? Why is Combat Expertise even a feat? Why bother with a couple feats that at least do exactly what they say when entire skills are up to table variation in PFS?

** spoiler omitted **

Going from 11 to 7 damage is going down to 63.6% of your damage that is the equivalent percentage shift of going from an A to a D even if 7 damage is half of a CR 1 creature's hp that's still a significant decrease in the possibility of you one shotting the enemy and that's not super impressive particularly when you take into account that you're limited to 2-3 rounds of that damage a day at level one while on every other round where you don't have that spell casting advantage you're going from 7.5 damage with the dex bon to 3.5 without it or a decrease to 46.6% of the damage you would have had before.

Don't get me wrong you can still play the game but you're nowhere in the same league as you were before.

I definitely agree that there are many things I feel could use errata but balance changes get tossed out there much more often than I'd like to see and in a manner that is really awful from my perspective.

As far as Dex Magi go, since they were mentioned upthread, is losing the +4-5 damage from Dex bonus that crippling? My level 1 PFS Magus has an average damage per round of 4.83 without spell combat, sufficient to do about a quarter of a CR 1 creatures suggested HP. Tossing shocking grasp in and I do 6.16 damage per round on average, assuming a target that has the same touch AC as normal AC and non-metal armor. That goes up if they have a lower touch AC or metal armor. Sure, Dervish Dance could add some points to that, but for a 3/4 BAB class, I'm happy to knock 25% expected HP off a CR-equivalent foe on average. Toss in one buddy and the fight will be over in two rounds as often as not.

I agree, finding a cool feat and then getting the rug pulled out from under you sucks, but losing Dex to damage isn't crippling.

Sorry but what? Let's look at your example of a Magi with 4-5 dex bonus and a plain ole rapier. Average on 1d6 is 3.5 damage average on 1d6 from shocking grasp is 3.5 assuming the lower end of dex you lost 4 damage out of 11, more than 1/3rd of your damage output. Is that crippling? Would you call going from a perfect grade in a class to a D a crippling blow?

Over time this certainly ends up being less significant as the bonus damage from spells outweighs the raw damage from stats fairly quickly but even at level 5 with shocking grasp at 5d6 = 17.5 damage +3.5 weapon = 21 the probable 5 dex you have is still roughly 15-20% of your damage. That's still a significant loss. As far as tossing in buddies sure but that doesn't change how much relative power your build lost in the process.

And if we assume that build already wasn't oppressively overpowered in comparison to raging barbarians or warpriests or whatever it's a big deal and it makes it so that the class is even more dependent on spellcasting which impacts the value of its archetypes like kensai which slow down the speed of casting progression as well as reinforces the 15 minute work day because you need to be using more spells per combat to keep up your damage numbers.

These changes have much wider impacts than just the one feat that gets nerfed it changes how characters need to be played it might invalidate entire feat lines. And yes I can just rebuild a new character but it's a constant annoyance to have to do so particularly if I am at all invested in the character and the story sure I could just play him as a s+!*ty version of his old self but why would anyone want to?

For what it's worth it also makes it harder to learn the system because the information you thought you knew is now false and there's a bunch of books out there full of not just slightly wrong information like oh this ability that happened at this level and which you were almost sure replaced that ability does in fact do that but rather oh yeah everything about that archetype is different or that feat doesn't do what it said at all or instead of permanently it does it once a week.

TOZ wrote:

If a FAQ or errata are enough to kill your fun, your fun was a fragile little thing.

Thank you for posting that so I don't have to.

Frankly, if the handful of feats, abilities, and items that get nerfed are the difference between fun and not-fun, I suspect the players involved are overly reliant on the closest-to-broken they can get.

Golly gee wizz thanks for the comment Batman! Unfortunately not all of us can be super special snowflakes like you who have their favorite batarangs blink out of existence from their toolbelt with a smile on their faces.

If you don't understand how losing the parts of your character that actually made it function thus negating everything about that character including the things which you worked into your backstory I suspect you're not human.

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

Frogsplosion wrote:

this is not a competetive game. nerfing things is unecessary. I am 100% on the OP's side and think paizo should knock it off with the obvious power nerfs and let home DMs handle the issues. If they dont like something in PFS, ban it and stop messing with everyone else.

By that logic - balance doesn't matter at all. RPGs should stop worrying about it entirely and they should go purely by 'rule of cool'...

Lots of indie RPGs do that. There's a reason that they don't have significant popularity.

BAlance matter, there are so many options that plain sucks that would benefit from some balancing FAQs, those are almost never seen.

Balance always matters but balance is balance not variance between OP and UP. Taking something OP and making it UP is not balancing the game it's unbalanced particularly when you release new content which hasn't gotten it's turn with the nerf hammer.

And it is worth noting that perfect balance while very important in a competitive setting is relatively less important in a cooperative one. In a game like say DotA or League of Legends balance ensures that games can be fun and tactical. In a game like Pathfinder balancing things into a similar area is important because it makes sure the whole party can have fun together without feeling underpowered compared to their allies.

In PF however it has a great deal of wiggle room because normally people don't share roles. So the key is that everyone feels strong and unique in different ways and part of this is ensuring that classes have balance compared to each other and each individual item feat and power should be evaluated on that grounds and on the grounds of whether or not it is an issue overall for the health of the game.

There have in the past been powers and feats which I approved of nerfing. For example that one divine feat that gave cha to all saves was so overpowered that it needed a nerf or the stone mask item that was like 500gp for a +5 and a +10 skill bonus which was pretty clearly more powerful than all it's competitors even the Jingasa to a degree could have used a minor nerf but in comparison the way that paizo releases its FAQs and Erratas always feels like they take stuff that was a little too strong and then they gut it thematically and power wise until it may as well not be in the game at all.

What is the point? Sure you avoid a little power creep but if the effect is identical to a blanket ban of the item/feat/power what's the point? Just ban it for society and move along. And what's worse often times they nerf things that didn't need it(I'm looking at you fencing grace/slashing grace/brass knuckles/crane wing/mnemonic vestments) often times they do this when an alternative exists that does the same things like say prosthetic limbs or dervish dancing the only difference between those and the generic options is that they limit your choice in terms of flavor which is the exact opposite of what paizo should be doing. I understand needing mechanical balance but if what you're implementing doesn't accomplish that and only serves to limit flavor choices you're doing it wrong.

Snowlilly wrote:

knightnday wrote:

No, errata and/or FAQ are not somehow killing fun.

The magus community would like to speak to you about the Slashing Grace / Fencing Grace erratas.

Didn't they all just go back to Dervish Dance?

Yes which is in fact the exact thing that spawned this post.

I had an old character build that was using a non scimitar weapon(It was going to be either an Aldori Dueling Sword or a Cane Sword) with Slashing Grace that I finally had a chance to use. Frankly the scimitar as a weapon is fine but it's not super exciting and I certainly don't want any dex build I use to use the exact same weapon every time it's just not fun and yes I know I could reskin it or ignore the errata but I prefer to use the rules as written both for convenience and to avoid dumb situations like "Okay a +2 Cane Sword just dropped do you want it?" "Oh yeah uhhhh I can't actually use it I actually use scimitars" "Wait what but what was all that talk about flourishing your cane and whipping out your blade from it to cut down the ambassador yesterday?" "I have to use scimitars because they're the only option that works, the cane is just flavor." "Wait so you were just waving around a sword in his face? What the f..?"

Sadly as a player I don't have the final call on whether or not we use the current errata and since most of the people I've met DMing use d20pfsrd instead of pdfs or hard copies most of the time they prefer to use the rules they can easily reference than old rules that literally can't be found without access to the first printings.

For my home games, I routinely ignore the errata. We have some pre-errata books, and we just follow the printed text most of the time. If something really is game-breaking, only then do we look at the errata & FAQs. Often we don't even use them because a lot of them are contradictory to other staff members. For example, I've seen JJ post reasonable rulings on various questions, only to have the design team oppose it and then there is fallout or edge cases or other issues.

It bugs me that sometimes there are more issues after the errata or FAQ comes out. I feel like they should be patching holes, not making new ones.

I suspect Paizo might even support my habit of using original texts, as it's creating a market for older "first edition" books.

This is exactly my issue with it and it really does make me regret going digital to a certain extent. I mean I just didn't have the room to keep books anymore(ended up donating like half-3/4 of my recreational reading stuff when I moved because there just wasn't space for it) so I switched to pdfs but if my hd fries or I'm over at the game table in someone else's home and want to pull up the pdf to check the rules suddenly I get a bunch of stuff I didn't want which is real frustrating. I just wish there was a good source for the old rules.

So I'll be honest I'm not here to point fingers at the dev or design team or anything of the sort they're doing their jobs and doing what they want to do and that's fine.

I just wanted to see if anyone else shares my opinion about FAQ and Errata content in Pathfinder.

So I've been playing the game for a good long time and overall I genuinely like the base system that pathfinder was founded on. Namely, give the players lots of different options for everything. This is the same base model that D&D 3.5 was designed on and I was a fan of it there too.

Now my issue is that every time I see a FAQ or an Errata it's usually not fixing things it's not oh we wanted to include an "s" over here and "No allies in this particular case doesn't include you" it seems more and more to be "Oh hey look at this ability that made a certain niche build fun and interesting as well as decently viable? Yeah we'd actually really like it if instead you just didn't have fun. Mmmkay thanks. Oh and give us another $10 for our latest pile of new interesting things that you can use for a year or two before we nerf it so hard that it will not be fun or interesting or viable."

I get it they need to do balancing sometimes, but once that thing is out and about for years the time for balancing is over at that point balancing it doesn't accomplish anything worthwhile because anyone who cared already had a fix either sourced off of something like the suggestions forum or their own creation and anyone who didn't was probably happy with it.

Anyways that's how I feel. Does anyone else actually dread it when paizo rolls out new FAQs/Errata and just wish they could get the unedited content more easily so they could not use them(particularly on online indexes like d20pfsrd)?

Then just use a Runestone of power instead. It's twice as much, but that just makes it 1000 gp to craft instead of 500.

True. Honestly I never saw the Runestones of Power though and maybe the OP hasn't either or they might not be legal since they're in a PFS book. But yeah that plus a rod of extend would do the trick for permanent Mage Armor without a houserule.

What's wrong with getting a pearl of power or two and recasting it to last all day? They're like 500gp each to craft.

Sorcerers technically can't use pearls iirc. Which is a load but explains why the player might be trying to permanency it.

Let's say for a commoner, 1 sp = 1$ from now.

So 1gp = 10sp = 10$

An expert level 1, with +5 profession will earn (4x1d20+5)/2 gp each month, on average it's 30gp
300$/month, seems OK for now, it's not modern world heh.

The CRB says 10gp/month for average lifestyle but it seems very wrong... 3gp for a month of average meals, so a rent for 7gp ?!! With peasants earning 300gp a month ?

Commoner with a +5 in a profession is already well to do someone with training and a steady job not your average peasant with no job skills doing odd jobs to make a living.

Also where did you get 300gp? You went from 30gp -> 300sp -> $300 -> 300gp. 4*(1d20+5)/2 = 4*(10.5+5)/2 = 4(15.5)/2 = 62/2 = 31 gold per month average.

Totem Warrior Barbarian:

Issue: The archetype is literally worthless. It does nothing whatsoever and actually just wastes space and makes people think it should do something.

Fix: The archetype should be centered around Totem powers to that end some abilities should be replaced to increase that aspect of the archetype.

Level 2 - Replace Uncanny Dodge with Totemic Attunement - Every Totem Warrior creates their own symbolic Totems, by spending 1 hour focusing upon a totem the Barbarian can change which Totem powers which he has taken that he has access to during his rage. A Totem Warrior may take rage powers from any amount of Totem groups. This Attunement time becomes 1 minute at level 6, a Standard Action at level 9, and a Swift Action at level 12.

Replace Trap Sense with Totemic Synergy - A Totemic Warrior may add 1 additional effect of a lesser totem rage power he knows to his Attuned Powers this is increased by an additional 1 lesser power every 3 levels thereafter.

Replace Improved Uncanny Dodge with Improved Totemic Synergy - A Totem warrior may add 1 second tier Totem power to his attuned powers. Increase this by 1 power at level 12.

Replace Indomitable Will with Greater Totemic Synergy - A Totemic Warrior may add 1 Greater Totem power he knows to his attuned powers when starting to Rage.

Replace Mighty Rage with Totem Master - The Totem Warrior is always attuned with all of his totemic Rage Powers.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not convinced this isn't overpowered since I traded out some garbage for good things but at the same time since it's self limiting until around level 12, I figured it probably wouldn't be too busted also none of the rage powers other than Beast Totem are all that fantastic. Let me know if you'd pick this over Invulnerable Rager normally or if it would only be a flavor pick.

bigrig107 wrote:

I don't think any of us actually believes that original Crane Wing or SWD needed any fixing.

Having seen Crane Wing in performance I applaud the fact it was addressed, but not necessarily how it was addressed. My roommate, who used it quite effectively at my game table, admitted it was broken, but the errata just broke it in the opposite direction.

To be fair Crane Wing was never so bad if you assume that the Master of Many Styles doesn't exist.

In general, some of the changes were due to unclear rules. All of the "must be worn for 24 hours" is a way to individually fix the "same source" blocking of using an item. Mostly because I guess they fear a sweeping "you can't swap out an item for another for an effect" general rule.

I'd assert that, that is not in fact an error but a case of something working as intended but getting reduced in power by making slotted magic items less versatile.

But honestly I've never had a problem with that I never liked the idea of a guy carrying around a stack of spare shirts to get extra move actions or scroll uses and only used one anyways.

For things like the Mnemonic Vestment, where that was the only real change, I'm still happy to use the item. I don't think it needed the nerf but the item still functions, is useful, and priced reasonably that would be an example of a decent change. In comparison for the Jingasa I literally can't think of a situation ever where I'd buy one now and that includes if I was told I could take any items I wanted below 10k for each slot.

From my perspective, poorly written and unclear rules were the biggest problem with 3.5. You couldn't discuss anything rules related online due to so many PunPun/Footsteps of the Divine 144,000 ft movement in a round/9 copies of spells per day due to Ring of Sustenance/100 orange ioun stones and other issues.

The fact that Paizo answers questions (slowly), fixes thing in Errata, and in general makes solid rules in the first place is the main reason I'll keep supporting their products.

I get that some don't like that agenda. I get that some prefer the 3.5 model of "push it out there" and it's broken 6 ways to Sunday. That doesn't seem to be Paizo's desire for their product. I'm glad.

It's a good thing all the changes people are complaining about are poorly written or unclear rules issues ... oh wait ... no the rules that were written for most of these complaints were completely reasonable and easy to understand and most of the rules fixes were just straight hard power nerfs and not at all rules fixes. This was the computer game equivalent of a patch full of nerfs except it's much more inconvenient to keep track of in a tabletop game so there's that.

Insain Dragoon wrote:

I stopped buying Paizo a while ago. Now I just buy 3PP from Drivethrurpg since Paizo stopped deserving money

I personally was going to pick up the second printing at PaizoCon. I stopped subbing for first printings due to the error count they were reaching.

Now I plan on finding a first printing at my FLGS.

Man that is sad TOZ but also very understandable.

Ciaran Barnes wrote:

It's extremely pretentious to even think that your party actually found every piece of treasure in a campaign.

Not to mention it reflects very poor record keeping by the players, and suggests they may not be giving the game their full attention while playing. If you have genuine attention issues (perhaps severe ADD) then maybe ask that a loot tracker and/or record keeper be designated, and maybe don't play the leader/face/whatever requires you to know what's happening all the time.

Eh speaking as the guy who did designated loot tracking for over 3 years because I had a computer and was the most attentive person, nobody is perfect. Mistakes happen even when you have a dedicated loot person who is trying to pay attention it's worse when the DM is mumbling or was drunk that night and decides to retcon stuff or when you're gone that week and nobody else does it.

It's definitely unreasonable to assume you've found everything in an adventure but it's also extremely unreasonable to assume nobody makes a mistake when tracking loot and we still don't know what the list was for or if it was meant to be an inventory because the OP never responded about that.

This entire time Johnnycat nobody should expect their players to be honest about meta-knowledge. Insisting that it should just always be assumed that players have read the module or AP. He has been railing against the argument that meta-knowledge even has a propensity for being problematic.

But why do you need to read ahead in the adventure you're currently playing? Are you so bloody impatient you can't wait till the next session? You can't occupy yourself playing or reading something else?

TLDR: I wouldn't advocate pre-reading the APs and in fact neither did Johnnycat but if you're GMing properly I'd say it's not that big a deal and I don't think it's a problem if somebody wants to do so.

From what I read he just said he wouldn't call this cheating and that he doesn't consider meta knowledge to be all that big an issue. Johnycat is right for several reasons. You shouldn't expect that your players will be honest. You should hope that they are, but you should assume that they aren't, because this is the real world and people will lie to you. If you plan for it with the assumption that they were lying it won't be a big deal if they were in which case why should we really care if they do this to begin with?

And like he says, often times meta knowledge is not an issue even when you ignore it because there are people who can play it properly. If you want to prevent all meta knowledge you legitimately need to write a brand new game system yourself not teach the players the rules and force them to play it while you make all the rolls which is not fun for anyone except maybe the DM.

So yeah meta knowledge is always out there just accept it and have fun, only punish people for it when it has become a problem not before then.

And maybe I am impatient maybe it's been a month and a half since the last time we played and if I start playing or reading something else I'm about 10 minutes from just being like ehhhhh why bother coming back to this game that I no longer have any interest in because I'm now interested in the new hotness ___? Reading the same adventure keeps me invested in that story which makes it easier to come back to said story later and roleplay in that story. Reading something else is more likely to detract from my level of investment than it is to help me stay involved. I don't do this but if a DM okayed it I might. Because I have stopped playing video games because of a loss of interest and I've come back from a month long break IRL and my character has suddenly had a huge attitude shift or I'm just totally not invested in whatever was going on and just want to wrap it up. It happens because staying in RP mode is hard when you don't have resources to help you do that. What I usually do is write side stories for my characters but that only helps so much.

Devilkiller wrote:

I'm surprised by the number of folks who have appeared later in the thread to support reading adventures before you've played them. It seems like an ill-advised practice to me. Cannibalism has its proponents too, but I'm happy to accept it as a taboo and skip further discussion of it.

I'm a bit surprised too. Though the cannibalism hyperbole is a bit much.

Though I suppose they probably advocate reading walkthroughs before playing video games, or reading movie synopses before watching them, or opening to the last pages of a book before reading it.
Or lying to your friends about things they care about just because you feel it's harmless.

I can definitely understand replaying adventures, that's totally fine. I mean you already played it once, but shouldn't be barred from ever playing it again.

And I can understand reading the modules and APs if you're going through a tabletop dry-spell and need your fix of the lore/story. But if you're in an active community, or heck if you have an active group... why on earth would you feel the need to read an AP that you might end up playing? You can't be satisfied with what you're currently playing, so much that you have to spoil something you might play later?

Also the hell is with the opposition to being honest about having read the module or AP? If you've read it, for whatever reason, there's no reason to hide it (unless you're planning to abuse it, or maybe you're just a stubborn and entitled prick) but plenty of reason to inform your GM.

1) Who said to be dishonest about having read the module or AP because there were no posts that I saw that advocated that? I did say that if you are going to cheat then don't tell people. That's just a fact the same way you shouldn't video tape and put on youtube instances of you cheating in a game it's just cheating badly. I'd opt to not cheat if given the choice but if you're going to cheat it's assumed you're trying to cheat well.

2) People enjoy different things, some people love jump scares, and surprises, and cliffhangers, and some people abhor them. Let people enjoy the game however they want to enjoy it as long as they don't ruin it for everyone else. If they have more fun by reading the APs to get in the mood for RP or whatever that's fine. Besides in a game that meet once or twice a month there's an awful lot of empty non RP time between sessions which can really make you feel out of the story your characters are in which kinda sucks.

3) As far as supporting pre-reading adventures eh I don't do it but if someone does I'm not going to support someone else trying to shame them and tell them they're playing the game wrong because I'm not an a%+$@**. Well I'm not always an a@@$#!*.

4) In regards to walkthroughs, synopses, etc. Who cares? If you don't like to play games or read books or watch movies like that then good for you do what makes you happy but if you see somebody look at the last page of the book and then read the rest of it or read a walkthrough then play a game do you run up to them and berate them and tell them they're ruining the experience? If you do I'm very happy I don't know you.

Knowing that giants have low ref saves is knowledge of the game.

The problem the the OP has is knowledge of the story

Can you see the difference?

Who cares? If the issue is he has knowledge of the story the question is whether or not he uses that knowledge to ruin the game for the other players. If he's not ruining the game then it's fine. If somebody wants to see the same story twice why not let them?

And frankly if the person was inclined to cheat in this fashion to gain a benefit from it they would never tell you or show you an indication that they're cheating like an itemized list of loot drops which they claim that you said was okay. The only logical assumption is either this player is a complete idiot when it comes to cheating or more likely that he did believe that the DM allowed it.

And this goes both ways, I've seen characters fluke into doing exactly the right thing when encountering creatures they've never heard of. If you've read the adventure before you've basically eliminated this opportunity. You're either doing what you know is effective, or choosing to not do so.

And then we decide to call it cheating when a player has experience. Because what else could it be when you tell him a creature is huge he uses a spell on a ref. save because he knows that often huge creatures have weaker ref. saves, and he uses fort saves on wizards because likewise, and he doesn't use mundane weapons on ghosts, and he can't keep a bow or potions or wands of healing. Because well when you were a complete newbie you wouldn't have done that! And not taking skill focus basketweaving is clearly cheating.

Just accept it people will have knowledge about the game if you aren't changing things. That's just life, if you are working around this assumption this type of "cheating" laid out by the OP is negligible.

MageHunter wrote:

...1st level campaign where the GM would threaten to send a Froghemoth after us. I normally use Tarrasques.

Make it doubly memorable by delivering the Tarrasque through orbital insertion.

What I find particularly ludicrous about the player's excuse is that it's really, really uncommon for a group of PCs to achieve 100% treasure recovery on a dungeon. People miss rooms, overlook hidden compartments, monsters run away. If I were trying to 'help' or 'make things easy' I'd definitely keep a loot list, but I wouldn't be downloading any files to make sure 'the GM didn't forget any loot'.

I suppose you could apologize to the honest players, explain the next two adventures will have no treasure at all, and explain that you're just following wealth-by-level guidelines after Player A 'made a clerical error', but why pussyfoot around? Tell him he didn't 'help', and if he wants to 'help' and stay in the group he'll delete this bogus list and employ the list of items legitimately acquired. Which is a shame because he won't get to include the twin sun blades you had tucked in an extra, unofficial room.

Eh we honestly have no idea what's going on based on the OP's statements the player made a loot list including all the loot from the AP and claims it was permitted but we don't necessarily know what that list was for. For example this could have easily been a preliminary step to printing out loot flashcards so that the DM could hand them out whenever they were found. Alternatively he could have been trying to check to see what the players had found vs what they had bought because of how the party dealt with loot splitting when they sell items. This issue could have much more to it than we know based on the tiny bit of information we received.

Was this his personal inventory list that magically sprouted new items they never found or is the cheating in question just him having foreknowledge of the AP because he looked through the AP to write up a loot list?

Mind you, you still run into the guy having read the AP issue but that's not really a huge deal since there are plenty of times you have a player who's either played or GM'd an AP before and knows more than they ought to.

As far as how you deal with it I personally think that just following an AP straight out of the book is always a bad call. It's the easiest way to GM but it means the encounters are always balanced wrong for your party, the loot may or may not be any good for them, there could be roleplaying problems that shouldn't come up if you built the encounters, and you run into cheating/knowledge issues like this.

Matthew Morris wrote:

This kind of thought leads to making an organized play system unable to function for new players. As 'best case scenarios' will kill non 'best case characters'

Let me rephrase.

Ignore PFS for the moment, and ignore encounters.

Balancing should (and usually is with design) done with best case scenarios.

If you design all your creatures with to hit and then someone can compile together things to be "only hit on a 20" for all encounters. Something needs to be changed in design. Either the to hit raised (which hurts non optimal builds) or the thing tipping it over the top needs reduced.

This is the worst argument. I'm sorry but logically your statement equates to "Everything should be designed so that even when you make choices, you don't."

If someone puts all their eggs in the AC basket they should be hard to hit that's fine that's what meaningful design allows, if someone puts all their eggs into grappling they should do it well, if someone puts all their eggs into stealth they should be impossible to detect, etc. etc. etc.

If somebody is trying very hard to be good at something let them be good at it that's the f&~%ing point of what they want. If you fail to provide that, that isn't good design it's 5e.

I think the current pricing is about right for what it does if you view it similar to a breath of life scroll. 2k for the deflection bonus, leaving 3k for the crit negation. The scroll costs 1k in broad numbers. I'd say the slot vs broad usage is roughly a wash, so the certainty plus immediate's better action economy than somebody else's standard (plus proximity) puts it in that neighborhood. I'd call it appropriately priced anywhere from 4-7 with the deflection bonus. Like I said elsewhere, I'm not crazy about the specific change in function, but the pricing seems reasonable for what it does now.

Interesting point of view. I'd accept that while a 3k consumable hat which prevented one crit would be reasonable for some characters any deflection bonus which does not scale is inherently worthless, for a spell caster the +1 deflection bonus is too low to make a notable difference in their overall AC for any martial the fact that it doesn't scale means that you almost certainly have a Ring of Protection +2 at roughly the same point in the character's life in which case the Hat is just double charging you for an effect which you can't use.

Had the effect remained a luck bonus and the crit negation become a 1 time deal I could see your point because +1 AC is worth 2.5k in a slot-5k slotless and a one shot crit negation is too rich for my blood at 3k but still usable. As is the item might as well not have the deflection bonus because it isn't a stacking bonus and it doesn't scale, it's just tacked on to inflate the price for no good reason.

The fundamental problem is "don't compare new items to old items that are themselves mispriced."

The AMF is still overpriced by a factor of at least 2 (arguably 4 because weapons are slotless and amulets aren't) for unarmed strikes.

Brawling armor's fair price is somewhere between 4k and 8k flat. As a bonus equivalent enchantment a +2 might have been excused, but a +3 is absolutely ridiculous. Even a +1 equivalent bonus becomes overpriced when you start enhancing your armor for the purpose of keeping you from getting killed.

In fairness the comparison for how much brawling should cost was probably measured against the gloves of dueling of course it does still ignore the fact that you need to buy armor upgrades afterwards if you intend to not die which makes it notably worse and as such pretty much unusable to anyone who has both of those as an option.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

If the problem is that every character is buying the same thing in the same slot, then make more than one thing that people want to put in that slot.

If you have 99 items for a slot and among those items you suddenly realize that there is only 1 item that is so good that everybody uses it, then it's unwise to revise other 98 items or introduce new items.

It's much more easier to fix only one problematic item.

If this statement was true then yes. But on the other hand you have 98 items not worth wasting gold on and 1 item that is worth it for a slot but you always have 6 excellent choices that literally must exist because you can't maintain game balance without them. Nerfing the 1 worth while item will not result in people spending money on the 98 garbage ones, people will use that gold on a different item that is worth buying either from the 6 necessary items or the 1-3 items that are decent in any given slot which you were already planning on getting.

If the problem is that every character is buying the same thing in the same slot, then make more than one thing that people want to put in that slot.

This.

Let's be honest 99% of what goes in the head slot is not worth taking. Even if the Jingasa didn't exist you would see most people just not taking head slot items is that really better for item diversity? If you wanted more diversity just include more situationaly valuable items that would result in people actually wanting those items.

I just got the orientation from the DM:

|OOEO|
|OOOO|
|OTXO|
|OOXO|

So he could have stepped to the right (his left as he faced south) and avoided the Tank.

Okay and did he step backwards away from the the enemy after casting instead or did he just stand still? Because if he backed away it makes some sense if he stands still not so much.

@ MageHunter - Says who? "The best battle is a battle I win. If I die, I can no longer fight. I will fight fairly when the fight is fair, and I will strike quickly and without mercy when it is not." From Faiths of Purity part of the Paladin's Code for Sarenrae. Just because you're good doesn't mean you don't kill people when you feel like the situation warrants it.

Someone up thread said that in the situation there is a reason the women are attacking the PCs but the OP hasn't told us if the characters know that reason yet. As such all they know is that these people have jumped them before and tried to kill them, they're enemies there isn't any reason to keep them alive unless you want to interrogate them.

The OP also said that the party told the sneaky person to "go deal with them" "deal with them" is very commonly used as a euphemism to kill somebody, without further explanation it would be reasonable for the character to assume they wanted the potential threat dead.

gnomersy wrote:

Lay out the positioning this statement doesn't help at all.

|OXX|
|OOT|
|OOE|

O's being empty spaces X's being enemies T being your Tank and E being your so called evil party member. Was this roughly the scenario?

Sorry, I can't remember. I just remember hearing him tell the player he could've avoided it and the player declined, saying something about his character wouldn't care. I know that doesn't help.

*sigh* Well that certainly sounds like the player is playing an evil character with complete disregard for the lives of his allies.

However, if you look at the layout I changed above, a 5ft step to avoid the Tank would allow for two enemies to attack the caster via their own 5ft steps, staying where he was would only allow one enemy to do so. Alternatively if he cast flaming hands where he was and 5ft stepped backwards he could avoid any 5ft steps and attacks from his enemies.

It's entirely possible that a character values his own life above that of his allies and that's understandable, a little evil but understandable.

He wasn't in danger, nor would he have been had he moved. He would have hit only the 2 enemies had he taken it and chose not too, even after it was explained to him.

Lay out the positioning this statement doesn't help at all.

|OXXO|
|OOTO|
|OOEO|

O's being empty spaces X's being enemies T being your Tank and E being your so called evil party member. Was this roughly the scenario?

Eh his argument was pretty lack luster but if you find an unarmed woman sleeping in a dungeon full of female thieves who you've been attacked by it's a reasonable conclusion to reach that she is one of said thieves and as such an enemy it's still pretty s~@~ty to not check but you could justify it. Also when you ask someone to "deal" with an enemy what do you think is going to happen?

Was there a reason he didn't 5ft step? He'd have to be casting in threat, or he'd hit fewer enemies, or he'd be in a more dangerous position? If not, is there a valid reason he'd want to in character kill the tank?

Now that being said simply acting in an evil manner occasionally is not a reason for an alignment shift. A chaotic neutral character will act evilly and goodly over the course of his life. Just like a fundamentally good person will have done something scummy over his life either on accident or on purpose. And even a fundamentally evil person is liable to do something good at some point in their lives. It sounds like a few isolated incidents so far and one of which is justifiable if it becomes a constant thing he might have to be alignment shifted but that's up to your DM.

But I am not bigoted or wrong for saying "every butterfly collector I have met so far has been a dick." Maybe it's a sign I need to get out more, but it doesn't invalidate my previous experience.

just because I want pi for my stats doesn't mean I choose numbers at random. It means I like pi!

You're right saying that "every butterfly collector I have met so far has been a dick." Is not bigoted or wrong, it can be a simple factual statement. However, if you don't intend to generalize that to "Butterfly collectors are generally dicks" the entire statement is pointless, just like saying I've never died in a car crash is a pointless statement sure it's true but the anecdotal evidence can't be used to prove the general statement that car accidents don't kill people, just like it can't be used to prove that butterfly collectors are dicks, or that optimizers are a&@&@*$s.

If you had a sufficiently large sample size you could make the statement that there appears to be a correlation between people who are butterfly collectors and those who are dicks but given that your knowledge of people who satisfy these conditions likely amounts to less than a hundred out of a population of thousands if not millions I'd say you're nowhere near having a statistically relevant sample size.

As far as wanting your stats to be pi ... sure that's not random, that's idiocy.

For something a bit different, you might consider an oracle with the streets mystery or a shaman with the slums spirit. It's definitely different from a rogue or slayer, but it can help to fill the magic niche if your group's lacking it and gives some really neat flavor.

Hmm interesting streets mystery seems alright slums spirit seems weak but I've never tried to make a Shaman so I have no idea how that pans out.

Honestly if I end up playing a divine caster I'm hoping my GM would let me play a Tiefling Outer Rifts mystery Oracle although that would depend on if they fit the campaign.

That's probably generally true, but it doesn't prohibit an exception to the rules for story purposes.

Definitely and if I felt like the character just screamed at me to be an inquisitor I'd run it anyways and find an excuse for why he ended up an inquisitor without all the training.

But for me that kind of character would have much deeper ties to religion or at least an ideal than this common cuttpurse has.

I mean we're talking a kid who stole to feed himself and because he had nobody to fall back on and no real skills and just ended up on the wrong side of the law.

I mean I could work in a story to make him an Inquisitor but I'd be stretching the character and it might just be better to change it entirely so that while I'd fill the same mechanical role I wouldn't have the same roleplaying roots, yknow?

Psychic Detective would definitely work if you want more 'sorcerer-like' casting.

Inquisitor doesn't have to be any older than any other Class, or involve formal training. Maybe he just found resonance with a particular deity, who made a job offer.

Arya Stark, if she existed in Golarion, would probably last about 5 minutes before she got a vision of Calistria and became an Inquisitor (or at least was offered such power) for example.

Hmm I suppose. I've always assumed Inquisitors are at least associated and affiliated with the Church even though they aren't in the hierarchy. And as such I expect that there would be more of a training period mastering the psalms, memorizing the code of conduct, learning the laws of the church, tenets of your god, and then some arms training. This is at least possibly supported by the fact that on the random starting ages chart they fall under the trained category which is the oldest of the three.

Street rat? Riff raff?

Soundrel! Take that!

There is also the possibility of cramming in at least 5 levels of Bolt Ace into one of the builds. Don't know if that would be worth while but it would give the character a good ranged option and that might work with the Slayer if I built it on Dex.

I like Half Orcs and there are definitely some advantages in them. The Strength style build fits them thematically although amusingly I think maxing out the Sacred Tattoo bonus fits best into the Dex build since the fighter levels give you enough feats to feel okay with spending one just to get Fate's Favored. I don't know if it would fit as well into one of the other two options.

Sanctified Slayer Inquisitor I dunno I don't hate the idea in general but it seems awkward on a street kid character unless I fast forward a lot and/or mess with the story.

Eldritch Scoundrel seems more likely I might see if that would work with my GM although the prepared spell casting with a spell book seems awkward in this case.

Investigator hmmm I don't really like it for the base character for the same reason as the above it would make more sense later on but the Psychic Detective definitely sounds much more promising particularly if psychic powers are more native and sorcerer-esque than alchemy.

EDIT: I suppose I didn't mention the possibility of a Ninja so that's also a possibility although I don't know if that's better than an Unchained Rogue and I'd have to refluff ki to something less eastern.

Hi everyone. I believe we're almost done with our current campaign and we might end up rolling up a new one at a low level probably 1-3.

I would like to be prepared to fill any roll we might need although not all in one character.

I know at least one of my friends was hoping to play a pirate so in the interest of something that could fit into that I'm hoping to play a street rat of sorts. I have a couple of ideas but I figured I'd see the general response before writing up anything all the way out to 20. Ideally the character is young 13-15 although statted up as an adult for simplicity often a thief sometimes a cuttpurse but resorts to cutting throats in a pinch. Maybe freed by aforementioned pirate from slave life rowing on a royal ship?

Build guide wise we have 20 points for point buy, all standard races, all classes in the normal book line(not necessarily stuff from the companion series but I could ask), no free traits (but you can take the feat for them). And starting at level 1.

So option 1 - Unchained Rogue - Built off of Dex at least up to 3 levels maybe splashing into Fighter(Lorewarden or Mutation Warrior) afterwards.

Option 2 - Slayer - probably strength based maybe going into the two weapon fighting ranger tree via talents. Kind of a flavor fail because your average street rat isn't benching 300lbs but seems effective overall.

Option 3 - Urban Ranger/ Trapper Ranger - Either one could be going into TWF and has the same issues as the Slayer thematically both can be strong although the Trapper ability is way worse than spells and the Urban Ranger communities ability seems way worse than favored terrain imo.

Anybody got ideas on this, feel free to offer up alternatives in terms of classes if you think of them but no Bards(I'm aware of the Archaeologist but this isn't what I'm looking for for this character). Race wise I assumed human but if another race is superior let me know your reasoning and maybe I'll swap.

Gauss wrote:

You do not have to give up your Wisdom and Charisma boosters to use the Phylactery of Positive Channeling. Just combine them for +50% price tag of one of them. After all, your Headband of Mental Prowess (Wisdom and Charisma) is also the result of the rule below.

CRB p553 wrote:

Adding New Abilities

Sometimes, lack of funds or time make it impossible for a magic item crafter to create the desired item from scratch. Fortunately, it is possible to enhance or build upon an existing magic item. Only time, gold, and the various prerequisites required of the new ability to be added to the magic item restrict the type of additional powers one can place.
The cost to add additional abilities to an item is the same as if the item was not magical, less the value of the original item. Thus, a +1 longsword can be made into a +2 vorpal longsword, with the cost to create it being equal to that of a +2 vorpal sword minus the cost of a +1 longsword.
If the item is one that occupies a specific place on a character’s body, the cost of adding any additional ability to that item increases by 50%. For example, if a character adds the power to confer invisibility to her ring of protection +2, the cost of adding this ability is the same as for creating a ring of invisibility multiplied by 1.5.

Which isn't allowed in PFS. Which is why he said in a home game you could combine them.

Are the stacking stat. Ioun stones legal in PFS? Because that would be a more expensive option if you really really wanted to get it.

31. The dice gods hath opposed thee!

jedi8187 wrote:

Not actually necessary with a light shield or buckler: they leave your hand free.

I see a martial weapon named "shield, light", do you instead me the "Shield, light wooden" or "Shield, light steel"?

What do these look like? How tall are they? I'm all about aesthetics. Things have to look a certain way (I'm extremely picky).

A light shield is what you would think of when you look at a normal round shield strapped to the arm think Captain America's shield. A buckler is a small 8-15 inch round Shield held in the hand with a boss(a round depression where the hand is to allow for more room also useful as a punching weapon) technically but in game terms it is also strapped the arm. A heavy shield would be a kite shield or a larger round shield roughly, larger strapped to the arm on one end and held by a strap in the hand on the other. These would be 15 inches across or larger much more unwieldy.

Light shields are separated into wooden and steel, think Viking shields for traditional wooden varieties and again Captain America's for the steel variety.

The game doesn't really specify the aesthetic of the shield though so keep the classifications in mind and make up your own.

It sounds like bad design that allows one class to do the common skills of another class better than that other class?

*shrug* Life isn't perfect and neither are the rules, deal with it.

But seriously the vanilla Rogue in Pathfinder was a hold over from 3rd ed with all the loopholes which made it situationally powerful removed from the game. It does very little well at all and almost none of that is better than some alternative choice.

For example: the Unchained Rogue(like the vanilla Rogue but actually has the ability to fight and gets dex to damage for free at level 3), the Slayer (see above minus the dex thing), Archeologist Bard(Rogue but with 6 levels of spell casting and a consistent self buff instead of the inconsistent sneak attack), Urban Ranger(Rogue-ish but with spell casting and city based bonuses), Trapper Ranger(Pretty much a Rogue but better in combat and with better saves and mostly better abilities but trades out spell casting for making traps which kinda suck and doesn't have sneak attack), Vivisectionist(weird murder alchemist I don't know about this one personally but I've heard people pick it instead of Rogue), Investigator(Smarter, spell having Rogue).

So on and so forth. There are way too many classes and archetypes that have a Rogue-ish element to them but are just functionally more useful to a party than having a Rogue in them for me to ever suggest that someone should play a vanilla Rogue.

I remember reading about the ranks can't exceed levels. I thought I read something that allowed for the rank to be +1 higher than usual. Maybe a human trait? I can fix that, not an issue.

So if the concern is with the skills I chose, what skills would a rogue choose instead?

I'm uncertain as to why my concept works better as another class. My concept is based on rogue-skills. What does a rogue do that my concept doesn't?

The concern isn't with the skills you chose it's the fact that skills are the weakest of all abilities.

Let's look at two hypothetical characters one is a Rogue with 8 ranks of stealth and a 20 Dex said Rogue has 8 Ranks +3 because it's a Class skill +5 Dex = +16 Stealth, not bad right?

Now consider another character say a Wizard or Bard with 0 Ranks in stealth 10 Dex and the Invisibility spell tossed onto themselves because they can cast it. Suddenly they have +20 Stealth or +40 if they're just hiding in a room.

Now lets look at that same Bard with a 16 Dex and a 16 Cha and 8 Ranks in the Perform Skill that lines up with Stealth via versatile performance 8 Ranks + 3 Class skill + 3 for Cha = +14 to Stealth and then if he needs to he tacks on Invis. for a +34 or +54. Now neither of these characters really put in any crazy effort in fact they could both be trying much harder to max out these skills but that's not really the point.

And then there's the fact that in combat that bard is being at least 2 times more useful than the Rogue even if the vanilla Rogue is built optimally. If that Rogue is built with the idea of not being a combat character, the Bard is easily pushing 3 maybe even 4 times the effectiveness because he's giving a party wide 10-15% damage buff on attacks just by using Inspire. Tag on the fact that said bard can also cast a buff like Heroism or Haste and can still be a pretty solid archer and you're talking 25%+ increase in combat power party wide.

Most other character options have their own ways of overshadowing the vanilla Rogue.