RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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While I have no particular experience with this warpriest guide, I do think the Guide To The Guides would be improved by sorting out old material. For example, the list currently contains seven guides for the cleric and rogue, and nine each for the monk, paladin, and wizard. Several other classes have five or more guides.
Since most of those are years old and rather outdated (e.g. not accounting for subsequent errata or newer options), I believe it would be more helpful to players to list only the newest guide for each class, or only those guides that have been updated in the last year; and move the rest to a separate archive list.
No one likes playing the medic of the party. It's not flashy or glamorous but every party needs one.
This is, IMHO, simply wrong. There are a million threads discussing this topic to death, which I won't reproduce here, but I'll refer anyone interested to TarkXT's various tactics guides. There is no more need for a dedicated medic in a Pathfinder party than there is for a dedicated drum majorette --- a properly played cleric/oracle will be a lot more effective protecting and buffing and thereby preventing damage before it happens.
And then afterwards, use wands to clean up the mess.
No one likes playing the medic of the party. It's not flashy or glamorous but every party needs one.This is, IMHO, simply wrong. There are a million threads discussing this topic to death, which I won't reproduce here, but I'll refer anyone interested to TarkXT's various tactics guides. There is no more need for a dedicated medic in a Pathfinder party than there is for a dedicated drum majorette --- a properly played cleric/oracle will be a lot more effective protecting and buffing and thereby preventing damage before it happens.
And then afterwards, use wands to clean up the mess.
That's one of the aspects of guides that is incorrect. In an idealized world, where everyone plays their character perfectly, yeah, you don't need a healer. In reality, you need a healer. Maybe not heal-bot healer, but you always need someone who either dedicates a part of their resources to healing, or can swap it on the fly, like a Cleric.
you always need someone who either dedicates a part of their resources to healing.No one likes playing the medic of the party. It's not flashy or glamorous but every party needs one.This is, IMHO, simply wrong. There are a million threads discussing this topic to death, which I won't reproduce here, but I'll refer anyone interested to TarkXT's various tactics guides. There is no more need for a dedicated medic in a Pathfinder party than there is for a dedicated drum majorette --- a properly played cleric/oracle will be a lot more effective protecting and buffing and thereby preventing damage before it happens.
And then afterwards, use wands to clean up the mess.
Yeah. A wand is 750 gp.
Yeah. A wand is 750 gp.you always need someone who either dedicates a part of their resources to healing.No one likes playing the medic of the party. It's not flashy or glamorous but every party needs one.This is, IMHO, simply wrong. There are a million threads discussing this topic to death, which I won't reproduce here, but I'll refer anyone interested to TarkXT's various tactics guides. There is no more need for a dedicated medic in a Pathfinder party than there is for a dedicated drum majorette --- a properly played cleric/oracle will be a lot more effective protecting and buffing and thereby preventing damage before it happens.
And then afterwards, use wands to clean up the mess.
Such a wand does squat to keep a party going in combat once you get beyond 5th level.
The fact of the matter is, s&+~ happens, players roll badly, GMs roll hot, spells fail to go off, or don't work. TarkXt's post is a guide, nothing more. It's not a fool-proof method of winning games, it's something that should guide how you play, but it's not something that handles every situation equally.
Buffing and debuffing are often times mutually exclusive. Lots of people talk about how X class should do Y and Z, but there are only so many actions you can take. You often cannot cast 2 or 3 buffs and 2 or 3 debuffs in a single fight, which means, your 'idealized scenario' often never pans out. You still need healers. Not heal bots, but you still need them. The less skilled and optimized a group is, the more likely they are to need a full blown healer.
you always need someone who either dedicates a part of their resources to healing.No one likes playing the medic of the party. It's not flashy or glamorous but every party needs one.This is, IMHO, simply wrong. There are a million threads discussing this topic to death, which I won't reproduce here, but I'll refer anyone interested to TarkXT's various tactics guides. There is no more need for a dedicated medic in a Pathfinder party than there is for a dedicated drum majorette --- a properly played cleric/oracle will be a lot more effective protecting and buffing and thereby preventing damage before it happens.
And then afterwards, use wands to clean up the mess.
This is not true. A Cleric/Oracle does not need to dedicate a part of their resources to healing, they even have a specific class feat to avoid having to do so.
I'd advice you to read or re-read those tactic guides, as you seem to miss some of the crucial points in their reasoning.
That's one of the aspects of guides that is incorrect. In an idealized world, where everyone plays their character perfectly, yeah, you don't need a healer. In reality, you need a healer. Maybe not heal-bot healer, but you always need someone who either dedicates a part of their resources to healing,
Reading skills, they're a thing.
I personally view "the party is doomed without a dedicated healbot" to be a sign of poor game design, poor scenario design, or poor GMing. No player should ever feel obligated to play a specific kind of thing "because the party needs one" since "I am playing this character, instead of the character I want because the rest of the players wanted me to" is a good way to create intraparty strife, which results in everybody having a worse time.
I'm not sure what this has to do with the guide to the guides, though.
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Can we not have this derail here?
I'm in agreement, I could see an archive section for guides that have gone X amount of time without being updated since there's quite a few that are really old and out of date with even older material.
I find those older guides as useful--sometimes more depending on the guide--as the newer guides.
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I have a new guide, this one to Hybrid Archetypes (combining multiple archetypes for a new concept) for the Monk.
Added.
Guys talking about healers: Take your discussion to this new thread. It's a derail on this thread. Please, no more discussion about it.
Re: Archiving old guides: I'm not opposed to the idea, but I see my work as more curatorial than anything else. If a few of you guys made a few suggestions as to guides that should be archived, I'd definitely take a look. Feel free to make those comments in this thread, and include your rationale.
My personal opinion is that guides made irrelevant by errata should be archived (only a few I hope), but guides that are simply old and do not include new content should stay. I'm happy to hear other opinions though.
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I'm in agreement, I could see an archive section for guides that have gone X amount of time without being updated since there's quite a few that are really old and out of date with even older material.I find those older guides as useful--sometimes more depending on the guide--as the newer guides.
I can actually agree with you here, as treantmonk's guides are as useful now as they ever have been for the basics of the class. I actually thought about calling out TM's guides in my post, but I thought otherwise.
Older guides can be helpful, but I think it goes into the volume of guides for a class too. Between my alchemist guide and BZ's, Ogre's guide simply doesn't need to be on the list anymore as I feel like it presents an option that isn't really valid anymore.
There are just some guides that don't benefit the community anymore such as those invalidated by FAQ/Errata and such which I think the Warpriest guide falls into. I might look through some of the other guides and see if there's any that I think would be better archived.
I would be really interested in a new Warpriest Guide, but I don't know much about the class. Most of what I've seen people talking about the class was really hardcore optimizers discussing how it's not very good now that the Sacred Fist was "nerfed" which is going to color people's opinions of the class (since it's not like the core monk or anything).
It stands out as the only class that doesn't really have any sort of a useful guide right now
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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Re: Archiving old guides: I'm not opposed to the idea, but I see my work as more curatorial than anything else. If a few of you guys made a few suggestions as to guides that should be archived, I'd definitely take a look. Feel free to make those comments in this thread, and include your rationale.
Well, the thing is that if you're trying to help out players build a class, clearly showing them eight or nine guides isn't all that helpful, because then they still have to figure out which guide they should use first. But as Blake's Tiger points out, several of the old guides are still relevant.
What would be great is, instead of listing a few acronyms of books covered (UM, ACG, etc), to show the year the guide was last updated, and then sort the list for each class by age, newest on top. That way, a novice player can easily find the most recent guide, and the older ones stay accessible.
Furthermore, I suggest that any guides that are clearly incomplete (and not actively worked on any more) be moved to an archive; and that any guides that are actually about one or two builds instead of the entire class belong in the Guide To The Builds instead. This fits well with curating the list.
For example, looking over the five barbarian guides, I find that Anger Management (from 2013) and Elewan's guide (from 2011) are incomplete, with whole sections missing. And of course they miss all the material from the last two or three years; these two should be archived. Aside from that, Barbarian Am Smash (2013) focuses on two specific builds instead of the class as a whole; and Kcmorris's guide (2012) is specifically about the Titan Mauler build; these two should be moved to the Guide To The Builds because they just aren't a full class guide.
That leaves Lord of Rage (2014), which is indeed a good guide. Other classes could well have two or three full guides, but that is better than listing nine of them including incomplete and single-build guides.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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Going from the top and looking for long sections, the next one is cleric, with seven guides listed.
Looking over these guides, it's clear that Brewer's Guide and the Hangover Cleric are about a specific build instead of the whole class; these should be moved to Guide To The Builds. Likewise, Pupsocket's guide (2014) is not a guide for clerics, but a guide for other classes to dip into cleric. This really belongs in the section for 'general character building' below.
Axe's guide has incomplete feats and equipment sections, and is from 2010; this should be archived. Beckett's guide (2010) is mostly about spells; while it talks about feats and items it lacks a comprehensive list on either. I'm somewhat in doubt on this one but it should probably be archived.
This leaves us with Tark's (2013), and Rogue Eidolon's (2010) guides as a good baseline for cleric information.
I second the person asking for the warpriest guide to be removed. The author of the guide is inactive and the guide itself is beyond flawed with the changes and errata made to the class. Warpriest desperately needs a new guide but the old one absolutely needs to be removed.
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That leaves Lord of Rage (2014), which is indeed a good guide. Other classes could well have two or three full guides, but that is better than listing nine of them including incomplete and single-build guides.
Lord of Rage is on semi hiatus, right now I'm searching for a new theme that I like (which is really my biggest issue) since I'm not happy with the old theme or pictures being used for it. I do plan on getting back to it once a new theme has been selected (and I'm not so busy with other projects.)
Really sad we don't have a good Warpriest guide, I'd do one if I had the time, but I doubt that'll happen anytime soon.
If I had any capablity of producing a guide I would try to do one for the warpriest. It is a good class and deserves a guide showing the many ways of playing one.
Some of the other classes from the ACG could use updating or polish. I just read the Bloodrager guide over lunch and it's missing:
- Content from Advanced Class Origins (so no discussion of Kyton or Black Blood Bloodlines)
- Discussion of Race options that aren't the core races (and of the core races it's obvious right away that small races or races with a CON or CHA penalty are bad, which leaves humans & humankin, which are generally always at least pretty good for any class)
- Discussion of any feats, spells, equipment that helps you, or any build guidance.
Some of this stuff is listed as "coming soon" but it hasn't arrived. I have to wonder if the mountain of errata that arrived for the ACG dissuaded people from updating those guides. As it stands the OA class guides are much more complete and polished than the ACG class guides, despite the former book coming out ~11 months later.
I second the person asking for the warpriest guide to be removed. The author of the guide is inactive and the guide itself is beyond flawed with the changes and errata made to the class. Warpriest desperately needs a new guide but the old one absolutely needs to be removed.
Honestly it wasn't helpful pre-errata. Bleh. It's just a build thread rather than a proper guide.
Lord of Rage is on semi hiatus, right now I'm searching for a new theme that I like (which is really my biggest issue) since I'm not happy with the old theme or pictures being used for it. I do plan on getting back to it once a new theme has been selected (and I'm not so busy with other projects.)
Personally I would just go with Heavy Metal. I know it's more the Bloodrager's thing than the Barbarian, but it's awesome. Also I honestly think a Barbarian guide might as well have the Bloodrager in it. A lot of the time you would just end up repeating yourself if in a hypothetical world you made guides for both.
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Well - for the first time ever (I think), I'm removing a guide. War priest guide is gone, as people say it's misleading.
For removing other guides: I'm only really interested in removing guides that are misleading or just plain bad. If a guide is short or doesn't cover everything, I'm fine with it. That's why there are multiple guides around.
However, I could possibly rank each guide in each class. I think the most helpful thing for me would be:
1: Find any guides that are significantly wrong in their core, such as the Warpriest guide.
2: List the guides for a given class in order of usefulness. I don't need a whole lot of explanation, just a sentence or two and a ranking. If I get a few for a class, then I'll rearrange, and possibly add stars.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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For removing other guides: I'm only really interested in removing guides that are misleading or just plain bad. If a guide is short or doesn't cover everything, I'm fine with it. That's why there are multiple guides around.
Sure, but since you're also keeping the Guide to the Builds, would you please consider moving guides there that cover only one build instead of being a full class guide? Just put them in the category where they fit best.
List the guides for a given class in order of usefulness. I don't need a whole lot of explanation, just a sentence or two and a ranking. If I get a few for a class, then I'll rearrange, and possibly add stars.
I'd be happy to help.
I agree with this call, but at the same time I agree with those expressing that the keystone build is terribly out of date with errata.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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That's a good call. I'll keep my eyes peeled, but if people point out guides that just service one build, I'll move them to the guide to the builds.
Ok; the following guides are about a specific build rather than the class:
Kcmorris's barbarian guide (titan mauler).Brewer's cleric guide (reach cleric).
Hangover cleric guide (hangover cleric).
Kcmorris's bard guide (dervish dancer).
And in a bit of an odd case, Pupsocket's cleric guide is not a guide for clerics but a guide for other classes that want to dip cleric. So it really isn't much help for a cleric player. There's a section on your Guide To The Guides that is about general character building; it would fit there better.
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There don't seem to be any Investigator guides listed. Here's a few I found:
The Investigator's Grand Turnabout: N. Jolly's guide-addendum to the Pathfinder Investigator
Elementary! A Handbook to the Pathfinder Investigator
RPG BOT Pathfinder - Investigator Handbook
I don't know how good they are, but it's a start.
Added Elementary, but we already had N. Jolly's and RPG BOT as a note at the bottom. Make sure you aren't looking at the front page of this thread, but rather at:
I would be really interested in a new Warpriest Guide, but I don't know much about the class. Most of what I've seen people talking about the class was really hardcore optimizers discussing how it's not very good now that the Sacred Fist was "nerfed" which is going to color people's opinions of the class (since it's not like the core monk or anything).
It stands out as the only class that doesn't really have any sort of a useful guide right now
I was just going to talk about why this class gets not love for guides or builds is it that bad it looks good on the surface.
I was just going to talk about why this class gets not love for guides or builds is it that bad it looks good on the surface.
Having thought about it a bit, it seems like the core lever of the class is that it can buff itself as a swift action and then go run up and whack people, but the 3/4 BAB hurts it there, and the fact that this is the best thing that it does means that it's not as interesting to a lot of people as the classes that have more kinds of tools (particularly by comparison to other 6 level casters).
It seems like it kind of is a victim of getting caught in the middle again and again. It's caught between the cleric and paladin in both martial and casting power, and both of those are classes with a really big footprint (since it's not like clerics and oracles can't be competent on the front lines, and the best healer in the game is at least 50% paladin), so the warpriest ends up suffering. That the ACG was kind of rushed out necessitating a lot of fixes through errata, and these were generally perceived as "nerfs" doesn't help it any. It seems like a lot of the guides for ACG classes weren't updated for errata.
But hopefully someone who has played a bunch of the Warpriest and loves it can come along and correct what I've got wrong here, since I don't really have any experience with the class. If I were going to pick a 6 level caster for a game tomorrow I probably wouldn't pick it though (since there are a lot of really good 6 level casters.)
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They should have left the warpriest with the full BAB it had in playtest.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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That's a good call. I'll keep my eyes peeled, but if people point out guides that just service one build, I'll move them to the guide to the builds.
Feel free to start posting rankings on the thread!
Here are some ratings,
Anger Management is somewhat outdated, incomplete, and has poor layout; 2/5.
Barbarian Am Smash is a build guide, not a class guide.
Lord of Rage is somewhat outdated, comprehensive, and has decent layout; 4/5.
Elewan's guide is outdated, incomplete, and has decent layout; 2/5.
Kcmorris's guide is a build guide, not a class guide.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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For clerics,
Axe's guide is outdated, incomplete, and has decent layout; 2/5.
Beckett's guide is outdated, incomplete, and has poor layout; 1/5.
Brewer's Guide is a build guide, not a class guide.
Pupsocket's guide is a dipping guide, not a class guide.
Rogue Eidolon's guide is outdated, comprehensive, and has decent layout; 3/5.
Tark's guide is somewhat outdated, comprehensive, and has decent layout; 4/5.
The Hangover Cleric is a build guide, not a class guide.
Awesome.
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I always appreciate your theme choices for your guides N. Jolly, but this time I think I may just explode from the smile on my face! Gurren Lagann is my jam, I am going to go build a Warpriest now.
Guess who's working on a new project?
Very much appreciated and needed.
Guess who's working on a new project?
Awesome start, I can't wait to see it finished.
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Small correction - quicken blessing won't work with dimension hop as written. Quicken blessing mentions standard action. Dimension hop is a move action.
Thanks for the heads up, but since I figure this might get a bit crowded and I've already done a slight amount of work on it, please put comments about Piercing the Heavens in its new thread.
And as always, thanks for the feedback!
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Guess who's working on a new project?
Added.
I should be able to go through recommendations for the GttG within the next two weeks or so. When labeling something a "build guide" make sure it only covers a single build - as it, it probably doesn't bother ranking feats, abilities and such that it doesn't make use of.
I'm thinking of doing an Unchained Monk guide, but since I'm very lazy, I'd probably just use my Brawler guide as a base and just modify stuff to apply to the UnMonk.
How frowned upon would this be?
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I'm thinking of doing an Unchained Monk guide, but since I'm very lazy, I'd probably just use my Brawler guide as a base and just modify stuff to apply to the UnMonk.
How frowned upon would this be?
Why don't you ask my Investigator guide(-addendum)? It's fine as long as you're getting everything across that someone will need to play the class.
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Well, if that's the case, here it is then...
OMAE WA MO SHIN-- I mean,