shory's page

Copy+Pasted from the GitP forums:

Personally, I feel like as they are, the Katana Expertise and Polearm Dancer feats are rather useless by virtue of being so darn expensive. To use them effectively, you need three feats - Weapon Finesse and Deadly Agility on top of the third one that makes that specific weapon finesseable.

Three feats is a very, very steep price for something that effectively doesn't make a difference power-wise - though your AC and Reflex saves will be higher, your damage will suffer very considerably compared to simply going Strength-based by virtue of 1.5x damage and Power Attack, of which Katana Expertise and Polearm Dancer don't have an equivalent to, since not even Piranha Strike works with them - nor will you get higher damage courtesy of having more attacks with them like you would with TWF. It's possible to Power Attack on a Dex-based build, but that requires another feat and a 13 in an otherwise useless stat.

My suggestion is to simply make those feats replace Weapon Finesse - make the wording something like "With an appropriately sized katana/weapon from the polearm or weapon groups, you may use your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier on attack rolls. In addition, you may treat this feat as Weapon Finesse for the purpose of prerequisites."
I feel like two feats is a much more reasonable price for this.

I think that's a fair point. The problem lies in how you prevent people, especially newbie players, from making snap judgments like that. Of course something like taking immediate actions to prevent attacks is going to get those reactions from inexperienced players, but how do you stop that from happening?

I think restricting your design to try and stop putting out abilities that could make someone go 'Oh, that's too powerful' even when it's not is a bit backwards to be honest, especially if people, especially newbies, misjudge things _all the time_ and it's not a phenomenon that's limited to PoW or 3pp, which is probably one of the reasons why blasting is so popular when they start playing wizards.

Again, I would love for more groups to use 3pp comfortably, and for less people to say 'Oh, 20 damage at level 4 with a standard action with a min damage roll?! Overpowered!' but I don't think Dreamscarred Press should put more chains on their design decisions to try and achieve that goal more than they are already if those misconceptions and snap judgments will more than likely happen regardless of the content. I would love to see it, but I can't see how it can be done in a way that doesn't sacrifice too much in trying to achieve the goal of 'stopping people from perceiving stuff on a different power level than it is'.

I can definitely see your point though. This is probably, to a certain extent, personal preference - I would rather have them keep their design more 'free', but part of that certainly stems from already sort of knowing about the game and knowing that most of that content really isn't all that bad.

To start off with, I want to talk about using the core classes as a balance point. I can definitely see why you wouldn't just want to say "these classes are bad, screw them", but in reality can you really restrict yourself by saying that because Fighter and Monk exist, there cannot be any martial classes that out-class them despite their innate poor balance? Furthermore, if you really commit yourself to using the core classes as a base for power, what do you choose? A blasting sorcerer? An archer barbarian? A wizard focusing on Enchantment spells? Do you just go with 'what's popular'? The classes are so varied even within themselves that using _anything_ as a baseline would likely end up sorely lacking in scope, if you ask me.

However, moving past that, I want to respond to "or every group that knows the game inside out and can run numbers, there are infinitely more who haven't got a clue, who might only have had a core rulebook and a few others and hear good things about your product from word of mouth. Those are the people who will be hopefully buying your book as well. You should be catering to them to increase YOUR customer base. Not those of us who run numbers, and are going to buy the book regardless." in particular.

My experience to Pathfinder is, admittably, rather limited. I have never gotten to run a game in real life, and have only been involved in two or three online that have lasted past a month, as a GM or a player. I am, or rather was when I made the decision to buy Path of War, for all intents and purposes, part of the 'infinitely more who haven't got a clue'.
This is where my question lies - why would people not want to buy that book if they don't know much about the game? I don't really understand your point here, especially as someone who did just that. Path of War isn't only for experienced players to create more balanced martial options in comparison to spellcasters, it is very much also for newbie players to look over and say 'Hey, I love customising my characters and this book offers exciting and flavourful options for that!' without thinking of number-crunching for even a second. That's actually why I came to PoW - I wanted to make a cool 'noble duelist' character and found the existing options to be lacking.

I think Dreamscarred Press, while their product certainly is not perfect, does an admirable job achieving just that - catering to not only the players who do number-crunching and min-max their characters by offering (relatively) balanced options that help them keep up with spellcasters while still fulfilling a martial concept, but also to the casual players who look past numbers and look at fluff and 'what can I do' only - it does that in offering options that are just plainly awesome fluff-wise, and having content that is, and this is admittably based on taste, very easy on the eye and readable.

To add to that newbie friendliness, the PoW classes have a very comfortable power floor - it is hard to mess up a Warlord to be really bad, and infinitely easier to do so with a Fighter or Monk. You'll pretty much always be useful, and it makes for a fulfilling experience whereas playing Fighter or Monk without guidance will more likely than not end up frustrating in the end.

I can see the point that Dreamscarred Press shouldn't look past the new players in favor of the experienced ones that do number-crunching, and I can see how they shouldn't alienate customers by completely dismissing all other martial classes.
I just can't see how they're doing that with this book.

When a single ability can compete with a class who builds towards the same thing, it is a bad sign. We aren't talking a "main" ability, but one random option in a sea of options which can be swapped out as needed.

"What is 'A wizard', Alex?"

Whether 'You roll a Skill check that you have spent time and money improving to counter something 95% of the time' or 'You counter something 95% of the time' is better design, I won't get into that, seems to be just taste. Personally I like the feeling that those skill points actually matter.

As for power and reliability, I really don't see the problem here. Yes, it is incredibly obvious that the PoW classes out-class any other mundanes - that's because they mostly suck, and the PoW classes _still_ don't come close to the power that already exists in Core. Most of those skill check maneuvers aren't strong enough that you have to say 'Darn, we can't let them have that as a reliable or 100% option' especially if you look at the levels they come online.
Yes, using skill checks for your maneuvers is very reliable, especially if you spend GP on improving said skill. You know what else is really reliable? Spells.

Hi,

Pathfinder in Germany seems to be a little... barren to say the least, though not quite a lost effort entirely. I live around half an hour (by train) away, so I might be interested if any other people come up.

Hello,

i'm searching for a good adventure that will only need one session to be played through (so probably six hours maximum) - this is mainly not because the people I will be GMing for are beginners, but because I am a beginner at GMing, and this will be my first time doing it so I don't want to jump into something like Rise of the Runelords straight away because we might drop that if I find out that GMing is just not made for me. I also would prefer it to be a low-level adventure for very similar reasons, say Level 1-3. So basically i'm searching for something that will break me into this GMing thing. Could anyone help out with that?