I've only read the first page so far. Are there honestly people believing Weapon Specialization is a 'must have'?
Weapon Focus - +1 to hit at level 1. Meh, and weak, but not too bad.
Weapon Spec - +2 to damage at level 4. +2 damage is exactly equal to +1 to hit. The problem of course is that it's the level 1 bonus again at level 4.
Greater Weapon Focus - +1 to hit, level 8. Same bonus, now later again, where it means less again.
Greater Weapon Spec - +2 to damage, level 12. You know the drill.
Summary: Waste of feats.
Now consider, the Fighter really isn't much better. Net gain over 3.5 = +4 attack and damage, +4 AC. (I'm ignoring the minor saves vs fear and minor DR, as these are not significant) Problem is, what few tricks he had got nerfed. PA is weaker. Improved Trip gives half its previous bonus and no longer lets you attack the downed enemy meaning you have to burn an attack action on it. Also, the wording for trip implies that if you fail by 10 or more, you are tripped even if you have Improved Trip. All in all, it seems to be making Fighters even more about the bland auto attack routine, except instead of just pressing a button and getting a sammich, you have to sit there saying 'I attack!' over, and over, and over again. *insert eye rolling smiley here*
Because of the fact he has lost what few tricks he has, for small number gains that don't make up for it, he's actually weaker overall. Meanwhile, druids look about the same, wizards are better... Huh? *stare*
I'm intentionally ignoring the bits about it being too good on the basis of being better than direct damage of all things, and the bits about True Strike being too good because spending two rounds to attack once but be practically assured of hitting is over the top on the basis that words cannot express how horribly, horribly wrong such beliefs are.
Crusader, I think you need to become the Inquisitor. Teach the heretics some respect and all that.
Crusader, I think you need to become the Inquisitor. Teach the heretics some respect and all that.
The only person here who has really warranted a smiting here thus far is The Authority. And... he got it. Being wrong doesn't deserve being smacked.
I think, changing PA was not as good, as it could be, but they had to change the fact that in 3.5 you were able to create all these crazy combinations of feats and prestigeclasses that were based on PA. To me the reason to change PA would be to destroy the completly overpowerded combinations of the Shocktrooper feat, the lion of Talisid, the Berserker, Eye of Grumsh,... Sadly the most of these builds have such a high strenght-score, that PA is still as good as it was before. Only for the poor fighter, who needs PA to put out some damage, it is fatal!
Apart of that I like that Pathfinder brings us new feats like those based on Overhandchop or Vital Strike. I never liked the spiked chain and these tripmonkeys, because it was always the same and I did not like the style of such a fighter. So I´m looking forward for the new rules for trip and disarm and so on.
But if you take something from the fighter, a very weak class in 3.5, and you give every class something good in return without taking something from them, you have to give back something to the fighter! OK, he has some new cool stuff, but in the end he is weaker than before, while the wizard is even more powerful! The new fighter should at least have the same power, like the warblade from The Book of Nine Swords. I love this class, because it gives you an individual fightingstyle, without making a cripple out of your fighter. Overhandcop or Vital Strike are steps in right direction, but there must be more such cool combatfeats and they need to be more powerful, then a normal full attack.
To me a fighter of level 15 or higher, who survives a bite of a T-Rex and who just cuts his way throu the belly of the beast, after he has been swallowed, should have massive attacks in meele. It´s cool to use a full round and just make one blow, but this blow, which needs about 6 seconds, has to be really powerful. If it´s not, than no fighter would learn such a feat and instead use the boring full attack action.
So in the end the change of PA is OK, but then the new combatfeats need to be more exiting.
It's not overpowered if it is required to do enough damage to kill enemies before they kill you. This is where chargers come on. The uber chargers are pointless, except to show off a big number.
Anything that could be considered a replacement ends up being precision damage based. Ergo they are more situational and thereby less useful. More to the point, it makes them weaker Rogues (at least Rogues get to do things other than hitting the thing with the other thing in addition to their highly situational damage). Seeing as Rogues already exist, and anyone that wants 90% of their effectiveness shut off is playing one, why make the other guys Rogues as well and not even do it as well?
Yes, PA is not overpowered at all, but there are all these charger and Barbarianbuilds, that are based on PA. So the one way ist to change everyhing, that gives you the chance of such a build, but the other is to change PA. To me it would be better, if PA was less dangerous, but instead the new Combat Feats should become more dangerous. On high levels they should give high bonusdamage, like the Diamond Nightmare blade or strike of perfect clarity, from the book of nine swords. I think these classes show how you could do high damage, with out using a charge with full PA.
Ultimately it is basic math. There is one way to make a melee that does enough damage to keep up and thereby be at least half decent. That way requires PA. That way has been removed. 1 - 1 = 0. Always. Always. Always. Yes, I did say the same thing three times. That's how important it is. Now, you could try to replace it with something else but since most of the cases against it is that it does 'too much' damage and not 'just enough' damage you'd just hit the same issue of 'Fighters do not get nice things'.
I've found many of the same people who say this think 1d6 damage a level with a save for half is great. In other words, they haven't looked through the MM HP and Reflex save entries.
But the very best Maneuvers from Book of Nine Swords are much stronger than this. For example the last maneuver from the Tiger Claw Style: You make a Jumpcheck (DC is AC of the enemy) and then an Attackroll. If both hit, your enemy must make a fortitude save. If he fails, he is instandly slain, death! If he succeeds you instead deal + 20W6 Damage. I think this kind of Attack is really cool and dangerous, too. Other Maneuvers give you a Double Full Attack in one Round, or an Attack that does 2W6 constitutiondamage. So there are a lot of good maneuvers, which you can choose, but normally you can use them only once per encounter. And that is what I like about the Book of Nine Swords. If your in Battle with a 3.5 Fighter you go to the enemy and use the Full Attack until he is dead or you are. That is boring, so PA like it is in 3.5, is the best way for a fighter to do a lot of damage, but if you can choose between this option and many others that do the same amount of damage or a little less, but give you another bonus, to AC for example, than you must choose and fight with tactics. This is why the new Combatfeats should do more damage, while PA should be less strong, in my opinion.
Is that supposed to be D? Anyways, ToB does give them actual options. But they can't use ToB as a source to draw from since it isn't OGL. So you have to make the most of what is available.
Yes, of cause, but they can create Combatfeats, which are as powerful as maneuvers are. They do not have to use the same rule-mechanic, but giving a fighter some powerful tricks, that he can use only once per encounter would change the way of fighting a lot. But as long as PA is the only true source of power, every fighter will use the boring Full Attack to bring his foes down. So if PA is not that effective anymore, a fighter has to look for some other ways of doing a lot of damage. The point is, that right now there exist no such other ways. It is like you said: 1 - 1 = 0 , so the + 1 should be better Combatfeats.
Ok. So let's say those do get made, and actually work. Since it's only 1/encounter you now need several to keep going the entire time. Still a net loss.
And this is a good thing for the fighter. With all those Bonusfeats it should not be a big problem for a fighter to get a lot of Combatfeats, while other classes have other attacks.
Actually, Crusader makes some good points, and I've actually made a point to introduce more and more feats geared towards fighters which give them more options in combat that work similar to class features and/or maneuvers.
Examples include feats that replace weapon specialization, but make it scale with your Fighter levels (so a Fighter 12 gets more out of it than a Fighter 4), feats which allow you to chain special attacks into your usual attacks (Swift Action knock backs), feats which give a single attack with bonus damage dice as a standard action (damage scales up with character level), a feat to upgrade to the ability to add the bonus damage dice to a single attack as a swift action instead (for full attacking).
Other examples include feats allowing you to get your full strength bonus on both weapons when dual wielding (which Pathfinder's Double Slice does the same), feats which improve shield based fighters, and more warrior based feats which cause effects such as Stunning, Dazed, Tripped, Bleeding effects, Ability Score damage, or inflict penalties on opponents (all with the intent to give your party members a tactical advantage).
I'm happy to see that the Pathfinder design team is including more feats which give similar abilities (the Dazzling Display, Deadly Stroke, and Double Slice feats spring to mind). This is a good direction to take the fighter, both in 3.5 and in Paizo's revision.
Furthermore, I never once had a problem with power attack or comabat expertise. In fact, most of the melee character that I have run games for needed those feats to keep up with damage and AC against tougher enemies. Seriously, a 20HD outsider is likely to have well over a +20 to hit, and to be honest your AC doesn't go up quickly, and neither does your damage (that's where those feats come in). Incidentally, it's difficult to use both at the same time to extreme effect, so if you're going for tanking and for damage output, you're going to need to be a warrior based class (perfect BAB) and be good at your job.
In fact, I never even had a problem with those crazy charger builds, because they are one trick glass cannons. Seriously, in one of my games, the party had a barbarian who had a horse, feats, spells (through items and party), and even managed to get things like Pounce (full attack on charge). Had frenzied berserker levels, used feats like leap attack, shock trooper, spirited charge, a big lance, and raged (and due to some of his feats, his HORSE RAGED too)! His horse could FLY! Run on walls! Wore FULL PLATE BARDING!!
He could deal over a thousand damage a hit! He could single handedly obliterate ANYTHING in the monster manual in a single blow, and many things from the epic level handbook would be at his mercy if he could get a clear charge at them...
But y'know what? His AC was in the negative when he did this (-20 from shock trooper, -2 from charge, -1 from size as he was always big, and so forth), and while he could kill anything in a charge, he was horribly vulnerable to groups of enemies. Even as a frenzied raging berserking barbarian, he had a hard time with more than 1 enemy, because the 1st would be dead, but the 2nd would kill him (Full Attack vs AC -5 = owned). Anything that disrupted his charge (redied action + wall of iron /stone/force, spheres, prismatic whatchamahoosits) messed up his thing.
In fact, the entire party actually built tactics around using him as their ace-card weapon. The party would set it up as often as possible for him to annihilate enemies while remaining safe from his frenzy, or try to set up a charge path for him (which included the party's warblade throwing enemies, bulls rushing, etc, or the party's monk grappling nearbye badguys so they don't murder the charging barbarian on their turn, or the spellcasters removing protections and so forth). He also greatly disliked incorporeal and things that were blurred or mirror imaged.
What is the point of all of this?
Even with all of this cheese, power attack was still "not-borked".
^___^
So,the whole party was completely fixed on the Berserker.The only thing they did, was building a freeway to the big enemy and throw the smaller guys around or grapple them. And that is what I don´t like about the Berserker. With this guy in your team, you will allways be his slave somehow, because the center of every fight is he. what if I wanted to play a fighting Cleric or use more damaging spells with the Wizard? Everything a normal Charakter does seems to be a joke, if you compare it with the damage of the Berserker. If I was the Warblade, I would have killed the Berserker at Night... ;)
So,the whole party was completely fixed on the Berserker.The only thing they did, was building a freeway to the big enemy and throw the smaller guys around or grapple them. And that is what I don´t like about the Berserker. With this guy in your team, you will allways be his slave somehow, because the center of every fight is he. what if I wanted to play a fighting Cleric or use more damaging spells with the Wizard? Everything a normal Charakter does seems to be a joke, if you compare it with the damage of the Berserker. If I was the Warblade, I would have killed the Berserker at Night... ;)
Actually I was the one focusing on the berserker, in this post. I neglected to mention (now an obvious error on my part) that the party didn't REVOLVE around the barbarian, but that everyone worked well with him. For example, like I said before (perhaps poorly worded), the wizard always had a resiliant sphere prepared 'cause he liked how it worked with the berserker, the warblade was known to chuck hard to kill enemies out into the open where they were clear for charge (though, the warblade was also known for throwing enemies off cliffs, towers, into pools of acid, lava, whatever - he liked throwing into harms way, more or less), the party's healer obliterated undead (especially the incorporeal kind) that were giving the warblade and barbarian grief.
That's what a party does, work together. I can quote some other fun strategies which focus on other party members too. For example, the barbarian / warblade tag-team works both ways, without the warblade to clear the path and protect the barbarian, the uber damage doesn't occur, while the warblade would BREAK anti-magic fields so that summoned monsters could eat wizards, or grapple with enemies and tear them up in Wolverine stance (use weapon regardless of grappled condition) with a big two handed weapon, or give all the party members buffs.
No one in the group complained when the party's wizard meta-magiced the heck out of a super-acid-fireball, and utterly obliterated a room full of tough enemies, the walls, and the floor to that room (allowing the party to get to the next level of a tower as they descended), to which the party's barbarian/berserker went "Wow, that was awesome! Jay's !".
The same way no one actually complained when the party's summoner/SoD lady dropped a Flesh to Stone spell on a crazy spellcaster bombing the party with her own bad juju, and added a new statue to her quickly growing collection. She never complained when the party's warriors intimidated them beforehand (-2 to saves from Shaken), or when the party's other spellcaster would strip enemies of their spell defenses so her SoD spells would destroy them outright.
Or how about this crazy one? For one of the big final bosses of the campaign, the party went up against an outsider of behemoth size (gargantuan), who was very powerful (strong attacks, AC, Saves, spells, the works). The creature was effectively a very high CR from it HD/Stats/Powers/Qualities/Special Attacks. This creature was intended to be a solo-vs-party encounter, and he was quite beastly (intentionally geared to be very enduring) with its spell resistance, fast healing, high hit points, saves, resistances, and all that junk.
The battle went something like this...
The party's barbarian was taken down a couple of rounds into the fight, as the creature was not an easy mark for a charge, and hit the barbarian with a number of harsh spells, taking him out at least for a time - but not before the barbarian slaughtered the evil spellcasters who summoned the fiend. The creature's spell resistance (based heavily on HD) was in the way of most of the party's spells against it, and combined with his high saves made the party's summoner/SoD caster's SoDs a futile endeavor. The party's healer was pretty sure he could banish the fiend, but its HD / SR / Saves were again to high. What did the party do?
The healer buffed the warblade with Death Ward, as he grabbed his trusty Life Drinker axe, charged into and began hacking away with his most accurate attacks (getting a hit or two per round, inflicting -1 level on the fiend with each hit, while being guarded from the drawback by the healer's Death Ward spell). The warblade was taking a heinous beating, but summoned monsters helped lessen some of the beating by continuously aid-another and trying to grapple / hinder the uber-fiend, while the healer healed the warblade when needed. The wizard continually kept the fiend debuffed and dispelled or taking strong amounts of damage (using damage spells fine tuned with metamagic), while the party's kobold sorcerer transformed into an adult dragon and pestered the fiend with more summoned monsters, the random damage, or party buffing.
In the end, after several rounds of pounding on both sides, they had inflicted about 14 or so negative levels, at which point the party chained their attacks up as the party's SoD caster nailed him with her favorite "Flesh to Stone" breaking his weakened SR and Saves (-14 each), as the party's healer cast Banishment in the same turn, sending the fiend back to the hells which spawned him.
It's true nothing in the MM compared to this particular creature well, since it was custom built (using standard guidelines however) to be the big-ugly for the campaign, and again was very resilient to harm, but then again nothing in the MM is a suitable solo-encounter for a group of 20th level characters, beyond perhaps the oldest of red or gold dragons.
However, the point stands that every member of the party was exceptionally powerful (from the homebrewed sorcerer who gained racial powers as they leveled - sort of like pathfinder's alterations, in concept but implemented differently, to the frenzied berserker, to the strait-classed warblade, to the blaster and SoD summoner, even the healer - who would bend liches and other undead over his knee). Each one was probably capable of bringing an army to its knees in one way or another, single handedly. In fact, the kobold intended to become a benevolent god of a cult of kobolds he had formed.
In fact, I apologize if this sounds insulting, but I'm glad you weren't playing the Warblade if you play like that, especially over such a petty thing as "he can deal more damage than I do". The rest of the party sure as heck wouldn't have let that fly, and the warblade would have been beaten down for being a terrible traitor, and the barbarian returned to life one way or another, or we would have paused the game and gave you a chance to rethink your action or let you know that we'll miss you at the next game.
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Finally, after much typing, my point is - there's nothing wrong with power attack or combat expertise. They're not abusable by themselves in core 3.5, and even with all the splat-book power boosts to power attack (the only real boost I can think of for combat expertise being the improved version which allows you to dump more BAB into it than -5), it's not a problem.
Fortunately, thanks to the power of house ruling, I will always be using the original versions, but it's nice to not have to deal with troublesome conversion issues when moving from game to game (it can be hard enough getting a DM to allow you to play using non-standard stuff from official books) because it's not "part of the game".
So,the whole party was completely fixed on the Berserker.The only thing they did, was building a freeway to the big enemy and throw the smaller guys around or grapple them. And that is what I don´t like about the Berserker. With this guy in your team, you will allways be his slave somehow, because the center of every fight is he. what if I wanted to play a fighting Cleric or use more damaging spells with the Wizard? Everything a normal Charakter does seems to be a joke, if you compare it with the damage of the Berserker. If I was the Warblade, I would have killed the Berserker at Night... ;)
Correction: The Berserker performed well enough to get noticed, despite being a one trick pony and became a relevant part of party plans. Seeing as casters get this by default essentially, having the non magic guy not be completely trivial sounds like a good thing to me. Though it could have been done in a non one trick pony way, as that tends to backfire (See: Barb vs Uber Demon).
Also, we've been over this before but it bears repeating. If your strategy is damage, you lose. Simple as that. Or put another way... a save or die is the same as doing enemy HP + 10 all at once. Seeing as enemies have hundreds, or even thousands of HP given sufficient level... Taking the enemy out of the fight for 2 rounds or so is just as good as killing them, as that's two rounds of free shots from everyone - easily good enough to kill anything with a CR of your level +2 or less and likely the +3s and +4s as well.
If I were in the party with you, my contingency plan to deal with betrayers would kick in. And since both I, and my character would be exceptionally intelligent and the latter has a great deal of power as their disposal I would ensure an optimal success rate in negating the threat you pose to my still loyal allies. Enjoy your no save, you die courtesy of your friendly neighborhood caster. ;)
Why? Because I'm the mother ****ing Batman, and no one messes with my team.
Noooo, I would not really kill him ... just a little ;)
What I wanted to say, is that it is frustrating for a normal Fighter, when he sees, what the Berserker does. It is also frustrating for the Rouge or every other melee Charakter. especially if you get killed by the mad Berserker... But the Warblade in this Gamegroup will allways be the number 2 in the Warrior Ranking, because there if you use all you have and deal about 300 damage while the Berserker only needs a little charge and deals more than 1000 damage is frustrating somehow.
I played a Lion of Talisid to Level 18. Feats were PA and shock trooper, and combined with Divine Might, it was so powerful, that I did more than double the damage of the Fighter. That was why I did not take Jumpattack as a feat, because to double my PA damage again would be much to frustrating, to the DM, the Fighter and all the other players. What job is the better one? To kill the big bad monster or to clear the way for the one who kills the monster? and that all the time! I like to be the one who kills the big one but if everybody else just has to clean the way for me, this is no more teamplay. It´s the game of a Berserker and his slaves.
A normal anything is useless beyond level 5 at the absolute latest. Level 6 and beyond require extraordinary abilities. Period. I'd still take the Warblade, because 300 damage will still 1 round most stuff, and I can do it a lot more often. The only purpose doing more damage than enemy HP can possibly be like that is to circle jerk to big numbers. There is no actual benefit aside from bragging, as you kill the enemy in 1 round regardless.
The normal Fighter is lucky he isn't dead yet, and should consider turning his WBL into a tavern to settle down before it's too late.
Arrg...it ate my post.
I think that putting a cap on Power Attack isn't a bad thing. Because no matter HOW wildly someone swings their sword, there is only so much force they can get from that swing. I just don't like the "All-or-Not" way of working. I understand that it speeds up game play, but I would like My warriors to have some variety in their Power Attacks. My Idea is for Power attack to have two tiers:
Power Attack for Half: Add an amount equal to half your Strength modifier rounded down to your melee damage rolls for one round. Subtract the same amount from your melee attack rolls
for 1 round.
Power Attack for Full: Add an amount equal to your Strength modifier to your melee damage rolls for one round.Subtract the same amount from your melee attack rolls
for 1 round.this would give some variety, with bogging down game play.
p.s. This just one feat.
I like this idea, it dose give an option w/out slowing game play
I don't mind the change to limit to BAB or Str bonus (which ever is less) but why take away choices from the already choice limited hand-to-hand types?
Figuring out the optimal PA to use against a critter was half the fun.
More Choices = More Fun!