So, after having kicked off a new pathfinder game, I have a few concerns. Maybe they're unfounded, but that's why I want to bring them up with the community, as maybe I can get a better understanding as to why things are the way they are.
Paladin. Between the ability to wield a nice sword and make it even nicer, which is pretty cool all in all, but also the smite-until-dead? And for 2x damage on outsiders and dragons? Paladins got a huge boost.
Linguistics. The level 3 wizard in the party is running out of languages to learn. Combined with his normal bonus languages for intelligence, being human for an extra language, plus 3 more for points in this skill... I'm thinking he might have to start taking pig latin. Or maybe he'll learn to speak Modron.
Skills. To a lesser extent, skills as a whole. Consolidating some of the skills was a good thing, but now the Rogue's 8+int skills or even other classes 6+int seems like a lot of power.
Dazzling Display. Maybe I'm just not seeing it right, but the fighter's ability to make a CMB check to scare stuff? I think the better way to handle this would be will save DC 10 + 1/2 character HD + cha mod (like most special attacks), fear effect so another fighter's bravery bonus would come into play.
Linguistics. The level 3 wizard in the party is running out of languages to learn. Combined with his normal bonus languages for intelligence, being human for an extra language, plus 3 more for points in this skill... I'm thinking he might have to start taking pig latin. Or maybe he'll learn to speak Modron.
Yeah, I had a similar reaction when I saw this, "Gee where am I gonna find 20 languages for someone that maxes this, nevermind going Epic!"
There are only about a dozen or so racial and planar languages (lots of lizardy/snakey races speak Draconic not a specific racial language, Celestial covers all the upper planes, etc.), so a DM may have to work a little harder to invent sufficiently different racial dialects (as in Greyhawk), and/or add some Ancient/Dead tongues that can be learned and used to make up the extras.
Or just tell the poor Bard spending points in linguistics he already knows all the languages and thats that.
Cheers!
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Mylon, Do the humans in your world only speak one language? Using humans cultures, you could have an endless array of new languages. For example, the world of Golarian has Hallit, Kelish, Osiriani, Polyglot, Tien, Skald, Varisian, Vudrani, and the dead languages of Ancient Osiriani, Azlanti, Jistka, Tekrittanin, and Thassilonian.
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I haven't run a Paladin and I don't tend to have an overwhelmingly high amount of outsiders so I haven't really seen that in actions so I will stay mum on that.
Linguistics. In my mind this skill actually reflects two thoughts that I have always had relating to languages.
If the baseline human is 10, and you have a character walking around with a high intelligence, then wouldn't they know tons of languages? Especially if they train in them? At the same time, the skill is still relevant for all of the forgery detection and deciphering stuff. All in all it strikes me as a skill you really don't need to be sinking points into all character long.
Skills - I have three players that come back to my table over and over and they love their skills. With PF I have found that because the rank investment is capped, the maximum bonus to check is scaled and so challenges are, in fact, challenging. I had this weird problem in 3.5 where my "multi-purpose" rogue players were always lagging behind because they had to invest in two sets of skills for a lot of actions(Balance and Jump, etc.) or they were so focused in particular skill sets that I had a hard time legitimately challenging them. My rogue in my current PF game is pretty good at a wide group of things, and because the investment is capped, he actually has in invested in some "other" skills not directly related to traditional 'roguing' as my players have previously played.
Dazzling Display - I don't have a rulebook on me but I thought it was a full round action intimidate check. Are there rules to allow you to use CMB instead of the skill or am I missing something?
I haven't run a Paladin and I don't tend to have an overwhelmingly high amount of outsiders so I haven't really seen that in actions so I will stay mum on that.
Linguistics. In my mind this skill actually reflects two thoughts that I have always had relating to languages.
If the baseline human is 10, and you have a character walking around with a high intelligence, then wouldn't they know tons of languages? Especially if they train in them? At the same time, the skill is still relevant for all of the forgery detection and deciphering stuff. All in all it strikes me as a skill you really don't need to be sinking points into all character long.
Skills - I have three players that come back to my table over and over and they love their skills. With PF I have found that because the rank investment is capped, the maximum bonus to check is scaled and so challenges are, in fact, challenging. I had this weird problem in 3.5 where my "multi-purpose" rogue players were always lagging behind because they had to invest in two sets of skills for a lot of actions(Balance and Jump, etc.) or they were so focused in particular skill sets that I had a hard time legitimately challenging them. My rogue in my current PF game is pretty good at a wide group of things, and because the investment is capped, he actually has in invested in some "other" skills not directly related to traditional 'roguing' as my players have previously played.
Dazzling Display - I don't have a rulebook on me but I thought it was a full round action intimidate check. Are there rules to allow you to use CMB instead of the skill or am I missing something?
Paladins went from 1-4 well-augmented attacks total in 3.5 to perhaps 10 well-augmented attacks per smite, possibly more. Before it felt kinda weak, now it feels too overpowered. And then when the big bad evil shows up, the paladin's smite gets even better. I think stripping the bonus to attack and changing the outsider/special damage to 1.5x might be better. Lots of ways to change this ability.
Linguistics covers a lot of ground. My thoughts is that it should, at the least, be every other other point for a language. Before in 3.5, a character hand to dedicate 2 skill points to nothing else but learning a language.
Rogues could survive with being cut to 6 points per level. Stealth, perception, disable device and acrobatics will cover most rogue-type things. Add in a social skill and UMD (arguably the most powerful skill in the game) and that covers tons of ground. And this is before intelligence is factored in, or human skill point, or favored class.
Sorry, Dazzling display is an intimidate check, so it ends up being (for a focused character) Level + 3 + cha mod + misc mods (weapon focus) against enemy's CMD. The synergy of the resulting -2 to saves would be a huge boon to the casters of the group.
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Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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There's been a LOT of discussion on how "broken" the paladin is now.
I don't buy it.
I've been playing a paladin in James' campaign for a few months. I've used the smite ability a total of 4 times now. Each time, James utters a "oh no!" for his undead or outsider beasty. I get the one good hit in, and think, "I am going to make quick work of this one!"
And then James shows he is a creative GM. One time, the monster paralyzed the paladin, effectively removing him from combat. Another time, the bad guy was levitating out of reach. The last time, the evil bad guy was up in a tree, and flew out of reach as the paladin spent a full round action just to get up to the creature. The only truly successful smite thus far was a single hit that took down a wight. Now, if I was playing a paladin in light armor or something, perhaps his mobility would not hinder his ability to race all over, and jump up trees and off cliffs. But then, that really wouldn't be paladin-like, my "tank for God".
So, for all this talk of how super-broken and powerful the paladin is now....really? Perhaps it just requires the GM to make an adjustment of your encounters. Honestly, from all I've seen and played, the PF barbarian is likely the most powerful class, in terms of melee.
Just my impressions thus far....
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Paladins went from 1-4 well-augmented attacks total in 3.5 to perhaps 10 well-augmented attacks per smite, possibly more. Before it felt kinda weak, now it feels too overpowered. And then when the big bad evil shows up, the paladin's smite gets even better. I think stripping the bonus to attack and changing the outsider/special damage to 1.5x might be better. Lots of ways to change this ability.
Linguistics covers a lot of ground. My thoughts is that it should, at the least, be every other other point for a language. Before in 3.5, a character hand to dedicate 2 skill points to nothing else but learning a language.
Rogues could survive with being cut to 6 points per level. Stealth, perception, disable device and acrobatics will cover most rogue-type things. Add in a social skill and UMD (arguably the most powerful skill in the game) and that covers tons of ground. And this is before intelligence is factored in, or human skill point, or favored class.
Sorry, Dazzling display is an intimidate check, so it ends up being (for a focused character) Level + 3 + cha mod + misc mods (weapon focus) against enemy's CMD. The synergy of the resulting -2 to saves would be a huge boon to the casters of the group.
Yeah I know there are many Paladin debates going on, I have been reading with interest but I have only had two players play one in 15 years. One was AD&D so a whole different beast than what we are doing in PF. The other wasn't a very good test case as he got killed doing something very "Paladin" after 3 sessions...so I've never had one over the long haul to have to deal with as a DM...I can see where it would be a serious monkey wrench though. I'll be curious to see what the community comes up with.
I could see the 2 points Linguistic thing working. My only players who ever paid attention to languages (past character creation) were wizards so I have mostly experienced this situation where language is a huge barrier for most of my group and then the wizard would just wave his hand and it would be completely circumvented. As a player I never had GMs use languages as a very effective device. The fact that the PF version is tied to more than just knowing languages probably means it is worth having persistent investment but you would come out knowing an awful lot of languages at its current incarnation. Is it too much for an epic character to know 20 + Race Bonus + Int languages? I never really thought about it before...
Your Rogue point is well taken. I'll have to watch my current Rogue and see if he is producing irregularly to my last couple of Rogue skill monkey types.
Dazzling Display. The -2 is a decent hit to a group but at the cost of a full round of fighter level damage and other CM actions? I would have to see it at the table to see if it is "too much" but to be honest it seems like the higher the level the less this is a problem if the fighter is chewing up all of his time to wave his weapon around. *thinks about it* I feel like this is one of those hard abilities to gauge - it might really be an issue at some tables while not much at others, IMO. If you do/have run into it being de-stabilizing to I would like to hear about the circumstances.
Well... if you play in Golarion, pages 220–221 lists 33 different languages, and that's not even touching some of the Darklands languages (that's about 8 more) and various other specific racial languages like aboleth and dark folk. There's plenty of languages out there.
Yeah, but there should probably be less languages known by character. Perhaps a bard as a class should get more as they travel the world gathering knowledge
One thing to remember: This game (and I am referring to D&D) began with the idea of the DM (now GM) using the rules as a guideline and houseruling where they see fit. There is no reason whatsoever to abandon this sentiment. Anything you see as a concern, just houserule it. Coming from the oldschool, the group and I find Pathfinder to be a fun game. I posted a thread on ENWorld about my game world (and would like to hear about others) as I think I should keep my posts here to a minimum. Sometimes the threads disappear or some posts are deleted after I post something.
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Owner - D20 Hobbies, Representative - D20 Hobbies
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1) Paladin ... Paladins got a huge boost.
2) Linguistics ... plus 3 more for points in this skill
3) Skills. To a lesser extent, skills as a whole.
4) Dazzling Display. Maybe I'm just not seeing it right, but the fighter's ability to make a CMB check to scare stuff?
1) Paladins needed the boost, they sucked so bad in 3.5 no one would play LG unless they wanted the "roleplay" element. Now someone might want to deal with LG (especially since Paladin Code got toned down also) to get the benefits of a Paladin.
2) Say an 18 INT and human, that means 4+1+(2+4+1)*2 = 19 points by 3rd level. So if the wizard spends ALL of his first 2 levels of skills he can get all but 2 of the langs? I've no idea what you mean by the +3more comment, but it doesn't mean you get 3 more languages if Linguists is a class skill if that is what you think.
3) Beautiful fix, skills were borked in 3.5. Too many skills requiring too many ranks to be useful. 3.p require less ranks to be "ok" with more skills. That is a good thing.
4) It isn't a CMB check, it is an Intimidate check.
A level 3 wizard can put 3 points into Linguistics, and learn 3 languages. That's what I was referring to.
As for Dazzling Display, I was lazy and did not look it up.
It's intimidate as a whole that's the issue, as Intimidate DC is 10 + target's HD + target's wis mod.
So to intimidate a stone giant it's DC 27 (10 base + 12 HD + 4 size + 1 wis). A level 8 fighter built for it will have +11 from skill, +2 from stat, +5 from an item (custom item creation rules is only 2,500 gold for such a thing) +3 from skill focus, for +21 versus that DC 27. I guess the player is building their character to do that, so that's their specialty and should be allowed to do it, but it seems too easy.
So to intimidate a stone giant it's DC 27 (10 base + 12 HD + 4 size + 1 wis). A level 8 fighter built for it will have +11 from skill, +2 from stat, +5 from an item (custom item creation rules is only 2,500 gold for such a thing) +3 from skill focus, for +21 versus that DC 27. I guess the player is building their character to do that, so that's their specialty and should be allowed to do it, but it seems too easy.
I would think you'd be happy that the fighter is wasting time doing nothing but giving your enemies a -2 to hit for a round or two, instead of actually attacking them and killing them.
Paladin. Between the ability to wield a nice sword and make it even nicer, which is pretty cool all in all, but also the smite-until-dead? And for 2x damage on outsiders and dragons? Paladins got a huge boost.
There have been many posts about this topic, but my understanding from those that have crunched the numbers is that they are not as powerful in game play as they look on paper. On a side note though, I don't think the 2x damage was needed, and was perhaps a little bit of overkill. A feat that allowed you to pick 1 of the ranger's favored enemies type to gain this benefit would perhaps have been better.
Linguistics. The level 3 wizard in the party is running out of languages to learn. Combined with his normal bonus languages for intelligence, being human for an extra language, plus 3 more for points in this skill... I'm thinking he might have to start taking pig latin. Or maybe he'll learn to speak Modron.
I think acquiring languages this way was a poor way to gain them. (Basically it's too good). Sure now people actually can decipher scripts, which was an under-used skill in the past. On the plus side, now your wizard will also be useful as a translator. Just need to add the binary language of moisture vaporators to the list to fully flesh out the languages.
Skills. To a lesser extent, skills as a whole. Consolidating some of the skills was a good thing, but now the Rogue's 8+int skills or even other classes 6+int seems like a lot of power.
Yep, rogues got too good of a deal on that. They should have been reduced to 6. I will probably house rule that.
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3) Beautiful fix, skills were borked in 3.5. Too many skills requiring too many ranks to be useful. 3.p require less ranks to be "ok" with more skills. That is a good thing.
My problem is that there's not much differentiation between classes now.
Take a 20th rogue and a 20th level wizard. If they both dump skill points into a single skill, the rogue might be +3 ranks ahead of the wizard. That's all. (Of course there are stat bonuses and the armor check pen, but those are negligible.)
In 3.5, the rogue would still effectively have 23 ranks (assuming a class skill) and the wizard would have 10 ranks (assuming a cross-class skill). Now there's some differences between the two classes.
There's already a problem with the DCs on skills being too low when used from a 3.5 source. In 3.5, there were less often used skills that might have a low DC. But with PF's plethora of skill points and no real penalty for cross-class skills, I find that check DCs need to be bumped by 4 points or so (we've gone through 8th level in our PF Beta/Final campaign so far). I'm guessing they'll need to go up another couple of points by the time the PCs reach 15th level or so.
So to intimidate a stone giant it's DC 27 (10 base + 12 HD + 4 size + 1 wis). A level 8 fighter built for it will have +11 from skill, +2 from stat, +5 from an item (custom item creation rules is only 2,500 gold for such a thing) +3 from skill focus, for +21 versus that DC 27. I guess the player is building their character to do that, so that's their specialty and should be allowed to do it, but it seems too easy.I would think you'd be happy that the fighter is wasting time doing nothing but giving your enemies a -2 to hit for a round or two, instead of actually attacking them and killing them.
That level 8 fighter can then whack enemies, causing them to be flat footed. Which gives the rogue of the party an easy sneak attack target. Meanwhile the wizard pulls out Phantasmal Killer or some other spell and has a much greater chance of success. -2 to attacks and saves is a huge penalty, and part of a chain. The only part I was worried about is how different this is resolved compared to a spell (and that it is repeatable).
Skills. To a lesser extent, skills as a whole. Consolidating some of the skills was a good thing, but now the Rogue's 8+int skills or even other classes 6+int seems like a lot of power.
Yep, rogues got too good of a deal on that. They should have been reduced to 6. I will probably house rule that.
I could not POSSIBLY disagree with this more. There are STILL WAYYYY too many skills a rogue could want to be able to max them all.Acrobatics, Escape Artist, Diplomacy, Bluff, Climb, Swim, Intimidate, Linguistics, UMD, Stealth, Perception, Disable Device, appraise, disguise, sense motive, sleight of hand, survival
You know, I could probably dig up another two or three if I really looked.
Whenever I play a rogue I can't possibly get enough skills and languages, I tend to go human or elf, pick up more intelligence than I probably should, and always put the favored class bonus into skill ranks and I STILL don't have enough!
Honestly, I find the skillset about right now. Every rogue can afford the bare minimal roguish things, and has a fair amount of skillpoints to spare on custom options. No rogue can ever have all the skills he wants (at least not without taking the headband of int the wizard was supposed to get, been guilty of that before lol and ended up eating a cloudkill in my sleep for it)
Well, no one is saying that you have to max out your skill ranks every level in all your skills. The +3 trained skill bonus also really helps with this. In my opinion, for game balance, a rogue should only be a master at a few skills, and perhaps proficient in a handful of others. With the Acrobatics, Perception and Stealth groupings, the rogues already have a pretty good deal. I think 6 would have been more balanced because of these reasons, however I don't think that 8 is necessarily "unbalancing" -- it just means that the rogue is likely going to be a Master at a few more skills (or a really good jack of all trades).
That level 8 fighter can then whack enemies, causing them to be flat footed. Which gives the rogue of the party an easy sneak attack target.
Only if he beats the DC by 5 or more, which means it's a DC 32 check vs a skill of 21, or a 50% chance. That sounds reasonable for wasting an entire round of combat.
And Rogues always have easy sneak attack targets. I have never seen a Rogue have a problem getting sneak attacks off unless the enemy has some special protection (Improved Uncanny Dodge, blur, etc). Having the Fighter waste two whole rounds of combat to make a single creature flat-footed is incredibly inefficient compared to the Rogue's already-existing options. At 8th level, the Rogue can just get the Wizard to cast greater invisibility on him and he can sneak attack anything at any time.
Also note that the Intimidate DC goes up by 5 for every time you've attempted to Intimidate that creature within the last hour, so it really isn't repeatable.
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Owner - D20 Hobbies, Representative - D20 Hobbies
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In 3.5, the rogue would still effectively have 23 ranks (assuming a class skill) and the wizard would have 10 ranks (assuming a cross-class skill).
In 3.5, half the time to create a high level character would be ordering skills to meet PrC requirements.
The change (dropping the 0.5 ranks) was required, and I can't imagine going back to the 3.5 way.
That +3 bonus only lets the rogue be competetive to, at best 5th level Kor.
Much beyond that and skills NEED to be maxed to be competetive. Oh sure some skills have fixed DC's, though thankfully Pathfinder reduced those.
I just find it... disturbing to think that rogues could be believed as having too many skill points when I can never get enough, and most rogue players I know would agree with me.
Rogue is my favorite class to play, and yes as a player I wish they had 12 skills per level... and even that might not be enough.
Player-greed aside though, in over-all class balance I think they could be balanced better with less skill points. The option to make an INT-based rogue is still possible though, to get more skill points.
Rogues already got a significant boost in class power due to the changes in the rules of what can be sneak attacked. Add in rogue talents and you have a pretty decent class. I'm not necessarily saying they are getting too many, but it is my belief that due to the skill amalgamations that they are getting too good of a deal. (Well okay, perhaps indirectly I'm saying they are getting too many).
However, I'm not lobbying for a change to their skill points, I am quite happy with the 8 they do get. If for some reason a Pathfinder RPG 2nd edition ever hit the shelves (I'm sorry for mentioning that dirty word), and amongst the class balance changes, there was a decrease in rogue skill points to 6, I could at least understand why they did it. (And yes, the boards would be lighting up people disliking the change, almost as much as those who dislike the loss of heavy armor prof to clerics -- but alas -- sometimes overall class balance has to be taken into account).
Take a 20th rogue and a 20th level wizard. If they both dump skill points into a single skill, the rogue might be +3 ranks ahead of the wizard. That's all. (Of course there are stat bonuses and the armor check pen, but those are negligible.)
Oh, I missed this one. The effective -3 penalty taken by a CC skill is pretty big. It at least allows CC skills to be relevant. That wizard with 10 ranks would be pretty useless in that skill at level 20.
Consider the most powerful skill in the book, UMD. Rogue takes it and has +23 at level 20. A 3.5 fighter takes it and has +10. They try and activate a heal scroll at DC 31. The fighter can't activate it at all, while the rogue has a 65% chance. This is before charisma is factored in. This makes the feat only useful as a CC for someone that has the charisma to compensate.
Now, the +3 class skill bonus in PF is mostly a legacy from 3.5 rules. If some attention was paid to skills this bonus could be scaled upwards to better represent training. But as it stands I think it works quite well.
Paladin. Between the ability to wield a nice sword and make it even nicer, which is pretty cool all in all, but also the smite-until-dead? And for 2x damage on outsiders and dragons? Paladins got a huge boost.
I house-ruled that smite lasts for a number of rounds equal you your Cha mod. I have 2 17th level Paladins in my RotRL campaign and the Smite until death rules were making a mockery out of some of the encounters. It could seem a bit OTT because I have 2, and because there are a lot of somewhat static meat shields in the adventure for them to attack. YMMV.