Now, who has something constructive to say to me?Eh, I dunno that you'd see it (or anything else responding to your thoughts of the moment), but I'd say some time away from the keyboard this weekend would be a good thing, judging by the volumes of text on this page alone. You might win an argument, but victories in online arguments are hollow, from my experience. No jelly or custard on the inside. Not even Mallow.
Maybe do some tabletop role-playing. It's fun.
The point of this post is _________.
Fill in the blank for the court. Because it's looking like you're yet another troll trying to start the flames back up after my remark to end them.
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For the record, Aubrey = Authority. Aelryinth isn't the same person though.
Does this constitute defamation?
It might, if I knew who the hell he was on about.
Since I don't frequent the Character Masturbation boards, I'll never know.
From the context of the earlier posts, I have to assume it was not complimentary.
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The point of this post is _________.
Fill in the blank for the court. Because it's looking like you're yet another troll trying to start the flames back up after my remark to end them.
Whoops! Sorry, I accidentally cut off some of my post while editing it. Should read as, "Eh, I dunno that you'd see it (or anything else responding to your thoughts of the moment) constructive at the moment, but..." where the bolded stuff is what was unintentionally snipped. I hope it makes more sense now.
Another misstep on my part: when someone is expressing forceful views on a public forum and then says, "I'm done on this topic," nobody else who's a part of said forum is allowed to respond to them. Even when said initial poster makes a baited invitation like, "Anyone else have something they want to say?" in the relative same span of time as the wrap-it-up edict. Wait, now....
Kidding and needling aside, the point of my post is a constructive comment to you in particular: enjoy life and enjoy the game without getting yourself and others so worked up. (And yes, Mallow Cups are fine snacks.)
Now for my constructive comment on the topic of the thread. Though I'm not playing "RotRL" with Beta I am DMing "CotCT" with the Beta rules. Our fighter is a beast with his adamantine earthbreaker. Crits on Power Attacks have been extremely punishing. Looking ahead to things like Devastating Blow (Beta p. 84) and Vital Strike (Beta p. 96) have me cringing. But really, these are big boom attacks against single targets at levels 11+. Arcanists can dish out comparable damage against multiple targets without making attack rolls (and with feats like Spell Penetration to punch through Spell Resistances that are often lower than ACs). The Fighter needed and deserved some boosts to make it an attractive class, even if it'll be forever maligned by the maxi-optimizers. Tough guys who're handy with weapons are forever woven into the fantasy milieu, and so there's got to be some sort of class to support them. D&D/PFRPG needs the Fighter. Paizo's done a fine job of it. "Tome of Battle" is fun but not to everyone's taste and not appropriate for every fantasy campaign.
(If you disagree with my usage of "edict" or "milieu" that's okay.)
'Anyone have something constructive to say to me?' is only baiting if you consider trying to shift the topic back to something productive as such. I don't.
With that said Fighters certainly needed and deserved some boosts. It is a shame they didn't get any of them, and in fact got knocked down further. In addition, it is either 'Tome of Battle' or nothing because 'guy with a sword' automatically hits its expiration date after level 5, and anything more advanced than that is going to come out like the Tome of Battle.
Oh and if you're comparing them to blasting casters you're doing it wrong. The baseline being horribly off target leads to any assumptions stemming from it being similarly inaccurate.
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'Anyone have something constructive to say to me?' is only baiting if you consider trying to shift the topic back to something productive as such. I don't.
To be fair, that would have worked better without "to me" then, because you're making the topic about you. The "to me" alone comes across as confontational as well.
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Oh and if you're comparing them to blasting casters you're doing it wrong. The baseline being horribly off target leads to any assumptions stemming from it being similarly inaccurate.
You see, I think it is statements like this that are causing people to respond to you and not your argument. There's a book that I recently read that I'd like to recommend to you. It is called 'Crucial Conversations: How to say what you really mean when the stakes are high'
One of the points it makes is that we often take numerous pieces of evidence and composite them into a whole. For example, your wife might find a receipt for a hotel, $400 in unexplained credit card purchases in lingerie and smudged lipstick on your shirt collar and assume you're having an affair. Is she right? Probably. But when she confronts her husband and says 'You're having an affair!', where do you think that conversation is going to go? What if he wasn't?
Now, if she explained how she got to that conclusion, maybe we'd find out what was happening. This is partly based on a real example. It could be that the restaurant they ate at last month was owned by the hotel and the receipt shows the hotel name rather than the restaurant name. The gifts might be for their upcoming anniversary and he hadn't given them to her yet. And finally the lipstick might be dorito smudge that he accidentally got there while fixing his collar after lunch.
In any case, you say that a blaster is a bad baseline. I generally agree with you. But your declaration means nothing since you haven't provided any evidence to substantiate it. And sometimes just because the baseline is off you might end up landing on target (maybe by going the wrong direction). And why is a blaster the wrong baseline rather than a controller? Why not nerf controllers? Those are opinions and not 'irrefutable'.
In any case, I'd like the fighter to get some love. But honestly, I think that the Pathfinder fighter is mostly a step in the right direction. If we can only get the 4+ skill points a level, I'll be happy. They may not be perfect, but I think we could develop a line of 'fighter feats' that take out some of the trouble spots a little down the road. I don't think trying to make fighters and casters 'equal' is the right approach. I think it is better to figure out what a fighter ought to be able to do and then make the class around that. Maybe it does involve increasing the power level, but at least the reason is not 'class balance' but instead 'class function'. If we do a good job of having 'roles' than each class should be relatively equal when we figure out what they should do and how they can do that.
The fundamental question I find myself asking myself is: how in the world did all us grognards who've played fighters since the 80s ever get along without the min-maxers to tell us what we were doing wrong?
Gosh...all those years without Bo9S seem so hollow now.
The fundamental question I find myself asking myself is: how in the world did all us grognards who've played fighters since the 80s ever get along without the min-maxers to tell us what we were doing wrong?
Because in 1e, the fighter was a perfect wizard-killer: spells were disrupted automatically on any hit, and damage for multiple attacks was probably greater than the wizard's total hp anyway. The disparity didn't really appear until 3e, when all the hp went way up (but the fighter's damage really didn't), and casting spells while being whaled upon became trivially easy via Concentration checks. And rogues became reliably able to deal more damage in combat (not just a 1/combat backstab). 3rd edition made the fighter obsolete; up until then, he was king of the battlefield.
Except for the cardinal rule of 3.0/3.5: there's a feat for that. :)
Except for the cardinal rule of 3.0/3.5: there's a feat for that. :)
There should be!
Benefit: Add your BAB to the DC of Spellcraft checks to cast defensively from squares you threaten. Add 1/2 your BAB to Spellcraft rolls to avoid losing spells when you damage a caster in combat.
Prerequisite: BAB +6
Benefit: When making a full attack, you can choose to trade one or more attacks for 10 ft. of movement each.
Prerequisite: Fighter level 6th.
Benefit: You may "save" movement and/or iterative attacks for use as immediate actions later in the round.
Or you could adopt Monte's AE/BoXM variant for casting defensively: the DC is equal to opponent's attack bonus (minimum 10) + spell level. Thus higher level fighter or whatnot are more difficult to avoid provoking attacks of opportunity from.
Or you could adopt Monte's AE/BoXM variant for casting defensively: the DC is equal to opponent's attack bonus (minimum 10) + spell level. Thus higher level fighter or whatnot are more difficult to avoid provoking attacks of opportunity from.
That's better than the current model by far. I'd even like it to be 10 + 1/2 BAB + spell level, but that probably wouldn't garner much support.
I have a wizard player who really squawked when I instituted that rule. Before the rule nothing could get an attack of opportunity because his Concentration was so high. Now, he no longer "flies solo" and depends more on his allies (especially the knight with here ability to control the battlefield around her).
I have a wizard player who really squawked when I instituted that rule. Before the rule nothing could get an attack of opportunity because his Concentration was so high. Now, he no longer "flies solo" and depends more on his allies (especially the knight with here ability to control the battlefield around her).
When the skills and/or wizard/sorcerer discussion open up, let's lobby to make that change official in Pathfinder.
Agreed. When I saw Monte was on board I was hoping this would come up. He uses something similar for tumbling to avoid AoO, too.
Agreed. When I saw Monte was on board I was hoping this would come up. He uses something similar for tumbling to avoid AoO, too.
YES! I want that, too!
P.S. Was hoping to see more of Monte's and Sean's input into the feats and combat areas. Jason has done a bang-up job with most of the classes and the new skills system (although the latter needs some tweaking to bring other skills up to the usefulness of Acrobatics and Perception); those really seem like his big areas of strength.
'Anyone have something constructive to say to me?' is only baiting if you consider trying to shift the topic back to something productive as such. I don't.
To be fair, that would have worked better without "to me" then, because you're making the topic about you. The "to me" alone comes across as confontational as well.
I don't even remember the exact wording I used, and don't feel like checking. Regardless, you are still derailing the topic. Stop it, or alternately stop being hypocritical and not post at all if you cannot refrain from constantly poking at me.
Oh and if you're comparing them to blasting casters you're doing it wrong. The baseline being horribly off target leads to any assumptions stemming from it being similarly inaccurate.In any case, you say that a blaster is a bad baseline. I generally agree with you. But your declaration means nothing since you haven't provided any evidence to substantiate it. And sometimes just because the baseline is off you might end up landing on target (maybe by going the wrong direction). And why is a blaster the wrong baseline rather than a controller? Why not nerf controllers? Those are opinions and not 'irrefutable'.
In any case, I'd like the fighter to get some love. But honestly, I think that the Pathfinder fighter is mostly a step in the right direction. If we can only get the 4+ skill points a level, I'll be happy. They may not be perfect, but I think we could develop a line of 'fighter feats' that take out some of the trouble spots a little down the road. I don't think trying to make fighters and casters 'equal' is the right approach. I think it is better to figure out what a fighter ought to be able to do and then make the class around that. Maybe it does involve increasing the power level, but at least the reason is not 'class balance' but instead 'class function'. If we do a good job of having 'roles' than each class should be relatively equal when we figure out what they should do and how they can do that.
I feel no need to insult the entire forum population's intelligence, including my own by stating the blatantly obvious. Anyone with eyes can see how and why blasters are horrifically weak. They are a horrific baseline because they are even worse at dealing damage than melees of the non charger or tripper varieties, who are in and of themselves woefully inadequate. If A is not high enough, and B is lower than A, clearly B is not high enough by a larger margin. Very basic logic there. Nerfing controllers just means the melee guys are no longer playing clean up for effectively dead enemies and therefore lose the full attack contest in 2 rounds. In other words, die violently. This is not a fix. This is another kick to the Fighter while he is down. Ain't no opinion about it buddy. If you want the effectiveness of something raised you do not pick a lower baseline than it already has. You pick a higher baseline.
This is why the Pathfinder Fighter is actually nerfed compared to 3.5. Somehow they got the idea the way to improve something is to adjust it to a lower baseline... alternately, they rolled a natural 1 with critical fumble house rules, and that's why it came out all wrong. Either way. I don't know, and am not sure if I want to know why you think that is 'the right track'.
The fundamental question I find myself asking myself is: how in the world did all us grognards who've played fighters since the 80s ever get along without the min-maxers to tell us what we were doing wrong?
Gosh...all those years without Bo9S seem so hollow now.
Back then 1d8+6 was actually pretty damn good instead of horrifically weak. Then you get to attack 6 times or so give or take 1 on a full attack, all at full THAC0 as a Standard action so you didn't automatically suck if you moved more than 5 feet that round. To get the same effect in 3.5 you'd need a Hasted Pouncer doing at least 100 damage a hit, and even then the fact the secondary attacks are taking penalties messes you up. 88 HP then is about 880 now you see, therefore you must deal 10 times as much damage to have the same effect. This also naturally resulted in anything else that didn't scale such as 1d6 Flaming going from incredible to utterly useless, and blasting spells like Fireball's 1d6/level going from solid to utterly useless.
Rogues don't do more damage than Fighters though, provided you're doing it right.
I have a wizard player who really squawked when I instituted that rule. Before the rule nothing could get an attack of opportunity because his Concentration was so high. Now, he no longer "flies solo" and depends more on his allies (especially the knight with here ability to control the battlefield around her).
Which sounds good on paper, except there is no 'Knight' in Pathfinder, ergo the wizard's allies have no means to protect him and he's still 'flying solo'.
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Which sounds good on paper, except there is no 'Knight' in Pathfinder, ergo the wizard's allies have no means to protect him and he's still 'flying solo'.
I have a wizard player who really squawked when I instituted that rule. Before the rule nothing could get an attack of opportunity because his Concentration was so high. Now, he no longer "flies solo" and depends more on his allies (especially the knight with here ability to control the battlefield around her).
There's no Book of Nine Swords or Warmage either. And yet you still go on and on about that being the only solution to Fighters. Practice what you preach for a change.
Edit: Actually, there is a Knight in Pathfinder. As Pathfinder is backwards compatible, the existing Knight class does exist. It can't be referred to in official product, but it can appear in people's home campaigns without a problem.
Dude, I was using an example from my own campaign rather than making a blanket statement.
I think your username pretty much says it all: you are not interested in a solution. The debate (crusade) is your meat and drink.
A little more on topic: suppose at the levels a fighter gets his weapon training perhaps include an option where instead of getting another weapon group and an upgrade on his plusses he can instead choose to have a higher critical multiplier with weapons from a weapon group he already has. So Joe Longsword Specialist would have a x3 crit multiplier instead of x2.
But in that regard I would be most vehemently against reinstating the stacking of Improved Critical and the keen weapon property. Which was suggested somewhere here or in some other thread.
When did I ever mention the Warmage? Hell, when did I ever mention blasting as good, or even remotely worth considering? ToB yes. Regardless the point was that not much changes.
I also forgot to mention the earlier editions were very tactically simple. Walk up and auto attack actually works, unlike the later editions where most enemies shut that down by pure accident.
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When did I ever mention the Warmage? Hell, when did I ever mention blasting as good, or even remotely worth considering? ToB yes. Regardless the point was that not much changes.
I also forgot to mention the earlier editions were very tactically simple. Walk up and auto attack actually works, unlike the later editions where most enemies shut that down by pure accident.
You are correct. I meant Warblade. Don't know how I wrote Warmage instead.
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'Anyone have something constructive to say to me?' is only baiting if you consider trying to shift the topic back to something productive as such. I don't.
To be fair, that would have worked better without "to me" then, because you're making the topic about you. The "to me" alone comes across as confontational as well.
I don't even remember the exact wording I used, and don't feel like checking. Regardless, you are still derailing the topic. Stop it, or alternately stop being hypocritical and not post at all if you cannot refrain from constantly poking at me.
Okay, you can't check the wording quoted in the post you're responding to? Someone tries to help you and he's derailing the topic or "hypocritically" "poking" at you?
Dude, calm down. It's this overreacting that gets things off-topic.
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2. I'd almost want to make it a quick fix by saying "the fighter has SR equal to 11 + his class level against spells and spell-like abilities cast by opponents." (Paladins could get something similar as an aura, eventually). If that's TOO much, some sort of mechanic like yours could work... write up a description if you get a chance and we (meaning you, people here, and, most importantly, the designers at Paizo) can take a look at it.
I've always treated SR as an active firewall. Blocks access attempts of unknown sources and allows authorized attempts. Perhaps SR can be changed to read 'Any spell the subject is aware of can be allowed to automatically bypass the subject's SR as a free action'?
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This should scale fairly well and make it a better than even chance for the fighter to succeed at taunting an opponent to engage them rather than anyone else.My issue with taunt is less with the mechanics than with the underlying silliness. OK, pretend I'm an intelligent guy, I know the enemy wizard can wipe out my whole group with one spell. So what do I do? I attack some armored bozo who sticks his tongue out at me? Strains my in-game suspension of disbelief, unless it's magic, in which case it should be (and is) a bard spell, not a fighter ability. (Also, so many critters are immune to mind-affecting effects that I don't think it will get as much use as it should).
The fighter needs to be able to intercept enemies; otherwise he's not doing his job. One option is of course the "taunt," which embraces the fighter's low mobility as a virtue, and brings the enemies to the fighter. Another, more dynamic option for the fighter's player is to give the fighter, through a feat/feat chain, the ability to make a full move as an immediate action, and stop moving/charging enemies cold with a subsequent combat maneuver (like a trip, but they're not necessarily prone, just "checked"). As soon as feats are opened up for discussion, I'll post drafts for discussion and/or critique.
Some fair points there Kirth, still think I'll try my hand when the feat/skill section rmaps up.
I'm also thinking of some sword and board feats that allow players to block movement through all their threatened squares. This effectively gives a fighter a 15 foot frontage of blockage. Cast enlarge on them and youve got 30 foot frontage of completely blocked terrain.
I also have a similar idea to yours with the move to block option. I actually don't see these as self excluding. I think it works towards two different possible builds. Static defender with movement block and taunt, or your more mobile interceptor. I guess this is why it'll come into the feats section. After all, the more options available the better the gmae can be.
cheers
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I've always treated SR as an active firewall. Blocks access attempts of unknown sources and allows authorized attempts. Perhaps SR can be changed to read 'Any spell the subject is aware of can be allowed to automatically bypass the subject's SR as a free action'?
2. I'd almost want to make it a quick fix by saying "the fighter has SR equal to 11 + his class level against spells and spell-like abilities cast by opponents." (Paladins could get something similar as an aura, eventually). If that's TOO much, some sort of mechanic like yours could work... write up a description if you get a chance and we (meaning you, people here, and, most importantly, the designers at Paizo) can take a look at it.
Hehe, I liked that analogy. I know some of my players will enjoy that mechanic if it ever comes into play. Maybe my next campaign we'll give it a try.
I've always treated SR as an active firewall. Blocks access attempts of unknown sources and allows authorized attempts. Perhaps SR can be changed to read 'Any spell the subject is aware of can be allowed to automatically bypass the subject's SR as a free action'?
2. I'd almost want to make it a quick fix by saying "the fighter has SR equal to 11 + his class level against spells and spell-like abilities cast by opponents." (Paladins could get something similar as an aura, eventually). If that's TOO much, some sort of mechanic like yours could work... write up a description if you get a chance and we (meaning you, people here, and, most importantly, the designers at Paizo) can take a look at it.
That is a reasonable houserule, however discussing houserules in a subject about the standard rules isn't valid as not everyone uses that houserule.
Mikaze, I am nowhere near angry. I am annoyed with the swarm of serial attackers.
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That is a reasonable houserule, however discussing houserules in a subject about the standard rules isn't valid as not everyone uses that houserule.
This is quite true. I should remember to put it forth in the appropriate forum. I just haven't had anything else come to mind worth putting forth on this discussion.
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This is quite true. I should remember to put it forth in the appropriate forum. I just haven't had anything else come to mind worth putting forth on this discussion.
That is a reasonable houserule, however discussing houserules in a subject about the standard rules isn't valid as not everyone uses that houserule.
Actually, putting forth ideas and possible solutions to a percieved problem in a playtest, is really nothing more than trying to get some house rules across. Especially if you've actually playtested the rule in your home games so you know the types of effects it has.
If a person currently house rules an idea and it seems to mitigate, or heaven forbid, even solve a problem, let them propose them in an open playtest forum because maybe the developers will like them.
It's also perfectly acceptable since the topic came up in this forum and he's merely pointing out other ways to mitigate possible weaknesses that you yourself tried to point out. A valid point as far as I can see.
I like the concept TriOmegaZero and I liked your analogy. It was relevent to part of the discussion that was occuring. Good Job!
Cheers
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I feel no need to insult the entire forum population's intelligence, including my own by stating the blatantly obvious.
And you don't have to. But if you want people to listen to you, you will. You see, what you think is blatantly obvious may not be. Heck, some people may have never experienced a wizard that wasn't a blaster. Or they played with a psionic blaster and never saw anything more broken.
You can assert anything you want. You can even say it is a fact and not an opinion. But if you don't explain how you got there it doesn't seem like it is a fact, and it can remain a point of contention. As you so assidiously pointed out above, if you start with an incorrect premise you're unlikley to arrive at a correct conclusion. If a reader disagrees with your premise they will dismiss your conclusion out of hand. On the other hand, if you explain why you began with that premise, they might agree with you.
Anyone with eyes can see how and why blasters are horrifically weak. They are a horrific baseline because they are even worse at dealing damage than melees of the non charger or tripper varieties, who are in and of themselves woefully inadequate. If A is not high enough, and B is lower than A, clearly B is not high enough by a larger margin. Very basic logic there. Nerfing controllers just means the melee guys are no longer playing clean up for effectively dead enemies and therefore lose the full attack contest in 2 rounds. In other words, die violently. This is not a fix. This is another kick to the Fighter while he is down. Ain't no opinion about it buddy. If you want the effectiveness of something raised you do not pick a lower baseline than it already has. You pick a higher baseline.This is why the Pathfinder Fighter is actually nerfed compared to 3.5. Somehow they got the idea the way to improve something is to adjust it to a lower baseline... alternately, they rolled a natural 1 with critical fumble house rules, and that's why it came out all wrong. Either way. I don't know, and am not sure if I want to know why you think that is 'the right track'.
You see, this is where I'm lost. What lower baseline are they using? I didn't even know that they were comparing the fighter to anything other than the fighter. Are you talking about certain feats not working the way they did in 3.5? The feats haven't been discussed yet, so it could still change. But if we're just saying that Power Attack is the only thing that the fighter had that was any good at all and that's gone, I would agree that is a problem. But the availability of feats could still be addressed.
If you meant that the fighter's strength (access to feats) is eroded because now everyone has more feats, that may also be true. Having 21 feats as a fighter in Pathfinder isn't that much more of an increase than having 18 in 3.5 - especially if there is nothing good to get with those three extra feats.
In any case I'm not trying to derail the conversation. I was hoping to point out that your contributions may be ignored as a result of the presentation. While you could argue that would be a loss for the rest of the boards, it would also mean you won't have the game that you want. If I were you, that would make me sad.
I still can't believe people debate this and actually try to put up in-game situations with folks who want to argue only on the theoretical.
Note that the example given earlier was characters w x y & z going through a scenario where the fighter was useful in a way the other characters were not, or could not have been.
The first step in this theoretical argument is of course to bash the original character selection... in this case character "x" is pronounced arbitrarily worthless right off the bat when in real gameplay, even a terribly built character is rarely worthless all the time if ever. You know this when you actually play as opposed to run battle scenarios all day.
The next step of course is to remove the setting, previous play, and the future challenges and boil it down to a single encounter where all items are potentially available, strategy of the enemy is laid out by what the creator deems as "logic", the play of the DM is considered unchanged, time is not a factor, and all possible combinations of strategy and skills are ready for use instantly. If any of these bizzare preconditions are not met or agreed upon, then the player, DM, or entire setting is deemed "stupid and bad at the game" when in reality games are NEVER played like this. I've never in my life even seen people playing an RP in this fashion, much less my own group.
These arguments are not based on metagaming...metagaming actually happens all the time and this does not. This is some superset of metagaming taken to an absurd extreme. This is why regardless of how many arguments are made for this type of massive imbalance you never actually see this level of imbalance at the table rolling dice.
You are not stupid, bad at the game, or don't understand some underlying brilliance that the people who make up these scenarios have. The reason you don't see it is because the actual game never under any circumstances plays out like this.
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I still can't believe people debate this and actually try to put up in-game situations with folks who want to argue only on the theoretical.It's not theoretical. In my experience, blasters are useless (blasting damage does not keep par with high hit points), fighters cannot protect anyone (they have no tanking mechanism) and are easily marginalized (smart spellcaster = dead fighter).
There are 3 types at my table that put up the highest damage numbers, Fighters of the TWFing type, TWFing rogues, and Evokers. 12th level they all produce around 150hp+ in damage in a full attack except the evoker who has made his fireballs into 75-100hp+ monsters that bypass fire resistance and can burn creatures immune to fire for 1/2 damage. Conjurers are even better since the splat books managed to skirt SR by making conjuration into the new and improved evocation.
Obviously it happens both ways. My experience is different from yours. Might be the players we have and not the game.
TWF Fighters = no bonus damage = automatically fail. The fact they have to light a bunch of resources on fire to still be inferior to peon with a greatsword is just gravy. The poster before me covered the rest.
I feel no need to insult the entire forum population's intelligence, including my own by stating the blatantly obvious.And you don't have to. But if you want people to listen to you, you will. You see, what you think is blatantly obvious may not be. Heck, some people may have never experienced a wizard that wasn't a blaster. Or they played with a psionic blaster and never saw anything more broken.
You can assert anything you want. You can even say it is a fact and not an opinion. But if you don't explain how you got there it doesn't seem like it is a fact, and it can remain a point of contention. As you so assidiously pointed out above, if you start with an incorrect premise you're unlikley to arrive at a correct conclusion. If a reader disagrees with your premise they will dismiss your conclusion out of hand. On the other hand, if you explain why you began with that premise, they might agree with you.
Psionic blasters are actually worse than magical blasters. If you want a 10d6 effect you have to burn 10 PP, or effectively cast a level 5.5 spell. Wizard gets it as a 3rd level spell, he just needs a CL of 10. Therefore, Wizard blasts more efficiently. Psion also has to expend his psionic focus in order to apply any metamagic feat which means he cannot do it round after round unless he also has Psionic Mediation and never moves more than 5' (see also: why Fighters suck when they move faster than 0.568 MPH) and cannot do it with more than one metamagic at once as they only have one psionic focus to expend.
Now, consider this. 1: It is an outright, hardset requirement to apply a long list of metamagic effects to blasting spells to make them remotely relevant. Not great, not good, just worth considering at all due to the rapidly scaling HP and low, linearly scaling blasting. 2: It is impossible to apply nearly enough metamagics to matter without further hyperspecialization into metamagic cost reduction effects en masse. 3: Psionics barely has access to any such effects, much less enough to get this effect. Magic does, provided you turn your character into a subpar one trick pony.
Conclusion: It is literally impossible to make psionic blasting even viable, much less overpowered.
You see, this is where I'm lost. What lower baseline are they using? I didn't even know that they were comparing the fighter to anything other than the fighter. Are you talking about certain feats not working the way they did in 3.5? The feats haven't been discussed yet, so it could still change. But if we're just saying that Power Attack is the only thing that the fighter had that was any good at all and that's gone, I would agree that is a problem. But the availability of feats could still be addressed.
If you meant that the fighter's strength (access to feats) is eroded because now everyone has more feats, that may also be true. Having 21 feats as a fighter in Pathfinder isn't that much more of an increase than having 18 in 3.5 - especially if there is nothing good to get with those three extra feats.
In any case I'm not trying to derail the conversation. I was hoping to point out that your contributions may be ignored as a result of the presentation. While you could argue that would be a loss for the rest of the boards, it would also mean you won't have the game that you want. If I were you, that would make me sad.
Someone compared them to blasting casters. I shot that down hard because making them 'comparable to blasting casters' would be yet another nerf.
It's actually Power Attack and Improved Trip they had and now don't. Those were their only two tricks ever, and now they're gone.
Feats... the Fighter has always been irrelevant in this regard assuming core only. There are about 6 core feats worth considering, 3 of which are already mentioned (the third is Combat Expertise, which is only on the list because Improved Trip requires it). The others are Improved Initiative, Combat Reflexes, and EWP: Spiked Chain. There are other worthwhile core feats that aren't relevant to the Fighter, and there might be one that is relevant I'm forgetting about, but regardless the point is that the default load out of 7-8 feats is enough to cover everything that matters without touching the Fighter, therefore the Fighter feats can only give you junk as you have exhausted all the worthwhile options already.
In non core, which is the only way you're getting a remotely relevant beatstick character Fighter dips were sometimes used in 1, 2, or 4 levels to get a few extra feats so that the melee characters could get access to a few of the new worthwhile feats such as Leap Attack and Shock Trooper for a melee who wants to be offensively relevant, or Stand Still for ones that want to be relevant in protecting their allies. 1, 2, or 4 levels of Fighter gives 1, 2, or 3 feats. Except everyone gets 3 more feats, so now they can get real class features instead of otherwise dead levels.
I'll have the game I want regardless by the way. The only people that are relevant in getting me that here is the developers, and regardless of how they react to my words I can still houserule it to whatever I damn well please to get what I'm after. It still isn't my loss. It is the loss of others as not everyone has the optimization skills to perform the necessary adjustments properly, therefore they will be stuck with even more irrelevant non casters, and even more broken casters. Everyone that is not a developer has no influence, so if some random poster decides to ignore me it makes no difference whatsoever at best and is their loss at worst.
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Just curious, but what has your experience with 2-handed weapon fighters been like?
They are usually close to the TWFers in damage output, sometimes above by a bit, sometimes below a bit, but I have none in my current game so I excluded them from my statement.
I currently have a TWFing rogue type, a TWFing fighter type, a grapple-monster Druid/monk who likes menacing tentacles and alligators(just to be different from every other tiger/pounce, bear/grapple druid) with a grapple modifier of 39ish and a bard cohort, a caster who abrupt jaunts out of every danger, has an AC in the high 20s and loves to sculpt lower level spells with his boosted DCs that make them very effective (DC23ish sculpted glitterdust hitting 4 10' squares is nasty) with a cleric cohort, and a warlock/sorcerer who swears he will be really powerful by 18th level (the campaign will be ending at 15th and he knows it).In the game I play in I have an evoker with a severe pyromaniac personality who throws some of the most outrageous damage I have ever seen from evocation spells, and a bunch of more reasonable characters.
THF below TWF? Something's off there, because TWF starts below THF and never moves above it. Further, if you don't keep setting resources on fire you fall further below it. Exception: Bonus dice on every hit, such as sneak attack. But then the THFer is still better than the TWFer Rogue, just there's little point in the Rogue being a THFer.
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Just curious, but what has your experience with 2-handed weapon fighters been like?
They are usually close to the TWFers in damage output, sometimes above by a bit, sometimes below a bit, but I have none in my current game so I excluded them from my statement.
I currently have a TWFing rogue type, a TWFing fighter type, a grapple-monster Druid/monk who likes menacing tentacles and alligators(just to be different from every other tiger/pounce, bear/grapple druid) with a grapple modifier of 39ish and a bard cohort, a caster who abrupt jaunts out of every danger, has an AC in the high 20s and loves to sculpt lower level spells with his boosted DCs that make them very effective (DC23ish sculpted glitterdust hitting 4 10' squares is nasty) with a cleric cohort, and a warlock/sorcerer who swears he will be really powerful by 18th level (the campaign will be ending at 15th and he knows it).
In the game I play in I have an evoker with a severe pyromaniac personality who throws some of the most outrageous damage I have ever seen from evocation spells, and a bunch of more reasonable characters.
WE found similar things with our level 15 party Fakehealer. We have two characters using TWF (a fighter and a ranger). We also have a Barbarian with Greataxe. All of these guys are throwing out massive damage per round, easily in the 100 plus area. The barabarian is truly scary as he is a shifter. When he shifts and rages and is hasted, no one wants to stand near him I can tell you. (4 attacks with the great axe, one with the bite all at big strength mods and most of them hit). Two weapon rend is something both my TWF love, but they were dissapointed it got reduced to once per round.
However, in the interest of full disclosure, I do house rule that the fighter types can spend iterative attacks to get an extra 5 feet movement and still use the rest of their attacks. With haste this can mean an extra ten foot movement per attack spent (if you interpret the haste ability as allowing double the move rate for 5 foot steps as well). We argued long and hard about the haste spell and 5 foot steps but I eventually succumbed to the players logic on it. Now, my guys can spend an attack (lowest bonus) and move up to twenty feet for a near full attack.
Cheers
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THF below TWF? Something's off there, because TWF starts below THF and never moves above it. Further, if you don't keep setting resources on fire you fall further below it. Exception: Bonus dice on every hit, such as sneak attack. But then the THFer is still better than the TWFer Rogue, just there's little point in the Rogue being a THFer.
There aren't as many options for increasing damage potential for THF whereas TWF seem to have a plethora of options spread across many supplements to increase damage, defense, cause conditional effects, etc... THFing hasn't gotten near the love that TWFers have. In my experience anyway. Combine that with a couple optimizing players and they all seem to prefer TWFing in my games.
THF below TWF? Something's off there, because TWF starts below THF and never moves above it. Further, if you don't keep setting resources on fire you fall further below it. Exception: Bonus dice on every hit, such as sneak attack. But then the THFer is still better than the TWFer Rogue, just there's little point in the Rogue being a THFer.There aren't as many options for increasing damage potential for THF whereas TWF seem to have a plethora of options spread across many supplements to increase damage, defense, cause conditional effects, etc... THFing hasn't gotten near the love that TWFers have. In my experience anyway. Combine that with a couple optimizing players and they all seem to prefer TWFing in my games.
Incorrect. THF gets various PA boosters in PRCs, Leap Attack, and Shock Trooper just to name the basic examples in early books. It goes up from there. TWF mostly gets trap options like 'set resources on fire to get extra attacks, except you'd do more damage just by holding a greatsword with no feats instead of attacking once with each weaker weapon' (ITWF, GTWF), 'set resources on fire to get very minor defensive boosts superseded by a buckler or floating shield and therefore pointless' (two weapon defense), and 'set resources on fire to do minor little things, except even with all these feats sunk into TWFing you'd still be better off just holding a greatsword with no feats' (whatever I missed).
If these really are optimizers they would never take TWFing without bonus damage. So if they're anything other than a Rogue, a Scout, or similar they aren't really optimizers.