Also, it's at most 20 additional points of damage a turn, cry me a river.What? You surely mean per attack, and even then its 40 (at lvl 20).
And by "certain situations" you surely mean "almost every combat", right?
Sorry, I was tired when I wrote that. Umm... no, it wouldn't be 40 every attack, it's 40 for one attack, and 20 for the rest. Keep in mind the only thing that the 40 points triggers on is Evil Dragons, Evil Outsiders and undead. Have you not read the FAQ on this?
Again, cry me a river.
Of course I have. And that would be errata, not the FAQ.
Still, you wrote nonsense, not me (note that I especially not wrote "every attack", but "(at most) 40 per attack", which is completely correct). No reason to be impolite.
Dude, that's at 20th level. How is this any more hair-raising than AM BARBARIAN?
No one said that. The point is that smite (and aura of justice) are base class abilities that normal players get to use. AM BARBARIAN is munchkin-silliness that will not see the light of day in 99%+ of groups.
That's very context-dependent, especially at higher levels. The biggest variable is whether the party is tapped out or not. A party that has used its smites, alchemist bombs, rages, channel-energies, and high level spells is a party that is potentially vulnerable to a lower CR opponent.
Maybe. But my group just doesn't like the grind that leads to such a "tapped out" state, and I am sure we are not alone in that.
Also:
Note that you have to hit a party with CR > APL fights to even get them to use a significant portion of their resources.
At 20th level, characters should be fighting demon lords or the equivalent on their home planes.
With all of the minions at their beck and call a paladin would wind up using all of those smites fighting the higher-level chaff.
If your players don't care for fighting summonable minions then you aren't using the big-bad's correctly and your problem is caving to the players' desires, not the paladin's smite evil ability.
Just as an example, Maphistal, a CR 21 Demon Lord from Tome of Horrors Complete can summon 4d10 dretches, 1d4 hezrous, 1 nalfeshnee, 1 glabrezu, 1 marilith, OR 1 balor 1/day. This is without taking into consideration his at-will abilities for undead or his ability to create greater undead 3 times per day.
A 20th-level paladin could, at most, put a hurting on Maphistal's back-up, and deservedly so... THEY'RE A FRAKKIN' PALADIN!
Don't nerf the paladin. Beef up your tactics!
That's very context-dependent, especially at higher levels. The biggest variable is whether the party is tapped out or not. A party that has used its smites, alchemist bombs, rages, channel-energies, and high level spells is a party that is potentially vulnerable to a lower CR opponent.
Maybe. But my group just doesn't like the grind that leads to such a "tapped out" state, and I am sure we are not alone in that.
Also:
Note that you have to hit a party with CR > APL fights to even get them to use a significant portion of their resources.
Again, your problem is an artifact of play style, not class abilities.
The paladin's Smite Evil ability is only overpowered in your games because you allow it to be. So yeah, for YOUR games remove the ability to ignore DR. But realize that it's not a fundamental problem with the game as it's intended to be played.
I am not talking about a problem at lvl 20 (I don`t especially care for high level play), but sth. that is problematic from the mid-level range on.
Regardless, whats your argument? A paladin should not be able to use his smite vs. the big bads? He should have used it up on their minions, so that in the big climatic endfight he cannot use his iconic ability, because it would ruin the fun of this encounter? And grinding all the smites out of him is "good ("beefed up") DM tactics"?
Is that really what you are saying?
Again, your problem is an artifact of play style, not class abilities.The paladin's Smite Evil ability is only overpowered in your games because you allow it to be. So yeah, for YOUR games remove the ability to ignore DR. But realize that it's not a fundamental problem with the game as it's intended to be played.
I refuse to accept that grind is "the game as its intended to be played".
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
15 min work days can't be helping your problem. If the paladin isn't running out of smites I can only imagine what the casters are doing to make you want to pull out your hair.
|
Gotta admit, it may be my over-bearing amount of free time, my long history with RPGs in every form, or just the sheer amount of books I've read, but I almost never encounter anything that I don't have a prepared weapon for. Hell I had a barbarian once who had a adamantine +1 furious holy weapon that allowed me to bypass pretty much everythings DR. (+3 enhancement when raging so counts as cold iron, silver, adamantine, magic and good aligned for the purposes of bypassing dr) and that's only a total +4 weapon.Fair enough, but this is why I like encumberance rules. It helps curtail that. I like keeping track of mundane resources so they need to have camping gear as well. Basically I leave it at the party making sure they have enough rations for the trip, I don't dwell on it. By using the equiptment rules you can get around melee weapon swiss army knives.
it is wise to carry more than one weapon, but without encumberance rules it can get a little crazy.
Actually, if a character is investing resources on alternative weapons, that means thier main weapon isn't as strong as it could have been. making theoretical DPR a lot less important. don't penalize a PC for planning such contingencies, encourage it.
i beleive that every martial of 7th level or higher should have, in addition to thier main melee weapon, 3 magical backup weapons of 3 different types, and a magic ranged weapon. spiked gauntlets do not count towards this.
I still don't see why it's so bad to let a player shine when they are supposed to shine. I also don't see why, if this is such a MAJOR problem, that you can't just adjust the alignment of your bad guys. Make them not evil and Smite Evil falls right off them.
Congratulations, you've made the game harder, just because you don't like one ability, what's next, are you going to give everything spell resistance or spell immunity? Just because spells are powerful?
Keep in mind that all the nasty things the Paladin specialize in killing, are also the toughest and meanest creatures in the game.
If you have such a brobdingnagian problem with Smite Evil, then why not just take it out of the game? I'm sure people will still play paladins in your game after you do that.
Then I see people online saying "I hate this, so I'm nerfing it." without taking into consideration what that will do to the game, and that is one of my pet peeves. To make things worse, the people who make these decisions also tend to not listen to reason, and that drives me nuts, because it is my single biggest pet peeve.
|
I refuse to accept that grind is "the game as its intended to be played".
We are arguing that RAW and the game as played do not require the paladin smite ability to be nerfed to make games challenging for players and paladin characters.
It does not need to be grind. That is one option. Back when I had the time to play 8-10 hours on a Saturday that was a valid option. Now...not so much. I have to play 4 hours on a weekday night. The game changes with the group's needs.
If your group's style does not let smite work then house rule it for your next campaign and see how that works for you. If it works, then great for you guys because you added to everyone's fun. RAW does not work for lots of people. Even now I am trying to house rule the rogue into relevance...I don't quite have it but I will get there (see my thread in homebrew to critique). My house rules are two pages consisting mostly of campaign traits, character creation rules, and a couple class, feat and skill tweaks. None of that is necessary to run a PF game but it is necessary to run the campaign as I envision it.
I refuse to accept that grind is "the game as its intended to be played".
Again, your problem is an artifact of play style, not class abilities.The paladin's Smite Evil ability is only overpowered in your games because you allow it to be. So yeah, for YOUR games remove the ability to ignore DR. But realize that it's not a fundamental problem with the game as it's intended to be played.
I didn't realize that 5 opponents in one combat was a "grind".
I am not talking about a problem at lvl 20 (I don`t especially care for high level play), but sth. that is problematic from the mid-level range on.
Regardless, whats your argument? A paladin should not be able to use his smite vs. the big bads? He should have used it up on their minions, so that in the big climatic endfight he cannot use his iconic ability, because it would ruin the fun of this encounter? And grinding all the smites out of him is "good ("beefed up") DM tactics"?
Is that really what you are saying?
*sigh*
No. My argument is to actually use everything an opponent has available to them (and that the CR is based off of). The other thing I mentioned was that if you refuse to play the game as it's balanced then houserule it. The game as published does not need to be balanced for your playstyle. Just your home-game does.
In any case, you're currently arguing your position so you're "right" rather than accepting constructive criticism, so I'll bow out of this thread.
|
|
Karkon, to answer your statement- If all four players decide they want to play plate armored fighters, that's their decision not mine. I'll decide there is a chasm to cross, and then 20 goblins, and then an undead encounter, then a social encounter, and then a boss encounter. I expect them to develop a reasonable array of skill sets to counter the encounters they traditionally will meet while playing a game.
If they don't have a way across the chasm- they go back to town and hire a way, or they get creative. I'm not going to poof in a bridge just because they all decided to optimize for damage. If they DO have a way to one hit-kill the final boss, I'm not going to add a second final boss. I make adjustments all of the time to encounters as well- but it's based on overall party power, not specifications.
But modifying each encounter based on class specifications could get frustrating really quick-"I'm sorry druids and rangers, but these are ALL special animals that can't be calmed. Ditto on the undead, Miss cleric." Wouldn't that sort of water down the class differences?
I dislike the "pin the blame on the OP" nature of any overpowered underpowered discussions. "That's YOUR job to adjust" just isn't a valid argument, in my opinion. Sure, I can give everyone anti smite boots, or anti wish spell hats, but that's compensating not balancing. That I have the ability to adjust in game to something doesn't really counter any such discussion.
From my own experience, the lack of a range limit to smite is the dealbreaker- at least in outdoor campaigns. The stupid 20 foot tall gorilla demon thing in Serpent's Skull took 100 damage before he even got within blasphemy range- from a non archery specced paladin (who was outdamaging the ranger 3 to 1).
The encounters you list could all be done by plate fighters. So those are really straw men. Adjusting based on party power is really the point though. If the paladin's smite makes the encounter too easy you are within your rights as a DM to adjust it somewhat. Poofing in a new boss is silly but lots of other options exist.
Let's take the animal scenario. Sometimes you gotta let classes like that feel like certain abilities are getting used (similar to your gnome example). If you want them uncalmable then you need to add in someone who is angering them up. Let the cleric be effective against the undead. If you want the fight to be tougher you can up the turn resistance on a few. But don't run to the board to claim OMG turning is OP against undead.
Who needs anti-smite boots? Tons of tactics exist many of which can be used without changing things much or at all.
Here is the thing though. Even if I do all that adjusting and fiddling sometimes fights just end fast because a player is clever or lucky or prepared. I had one fight where the party faced a demon and a dragon plus some drow. The demon was the real threat. The cleric had been preparing banishment for ages for just such a scenario. Still the demon would only be banished on a 1 or 2. I let the player roll it for the extra drama. Boom, it failed. Demon gets sucked back to the abyss. The rest of the fight was just a formality. It was awesome. They cheered and the cleric player was the hero of the day. That stuff is fun.
The math on this has already been done.
Click there for charts.
A 20th level paladin is awesome. But he's not obviously and hugely more powerful than any other 20th level character.
Doug M.
As mentioned before I was not talking about 20th level characters. They do not matter to me at all.
As mentioned before I was not talking about 20th level characters. They do not matter to me at all.
A 20th level paladin is awesome. But he's not obviously and hugely more powerful than any other 20th level character.
Doug M.
Switch out 20th with any other level and his sentence remains true.
Switch out 20th with any other level and his sentence remains true.As mentioned before I was not talking about 20th level characters. They do not matter to me at all.
A 20th level paladin is awesome. But he's not obviously and hugely more powerful than any other 20th level character.
Doug M.
Yes, thats probably not debatable. But this was not my claim. My claim was that smite evil in conjunction with "ignore any DR", "gives the DM a headache". I could expand with: "makes the game less fun", which is of course a subjective statement, but that makes it no less true.
If aura of justice comes into play it makes matters worse.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Caster+SoS/SoD=GM headache
Rogue with High Init+Sapmaster feats=GM headache
Synthesist w/pounce=GM headache
Barbarian +beast totem= GM headache
See where I'm going there are inumerable combinations that people complain about on these boards and yet so far all that ever gets agreed on is that they are only a headache if you choose to let them be by not varying things up.
Ya know the defination of insanity has been said to mean trying the same thing over and over hoping for different results. If you BBEG arent changing it up then they are insane.
Talonhawke:
I have also not claimed that its the only problematic thing in the game*. Guys, read my OP. I have NEVER claimed that the paladin is hugely more powerful than all other classes, broken or the only thing in the game which can give the DM a hedache. Why are you all so defensive?
*The builds you listed are munchkin garbage though (although I am not sure what #1 is), and will not see the light of day in my game. So they are not problematic for me.
|
The math on this has already been done.
Click there for charts.
Very interesting.
There is the small factor that the graph don't factor the deflection part of smite evil. It is more relevant at lower level, where he probably don't have a deflection ring, but it still mean the Paladin will get +1/+2 AC against his target, not bad against a boss monster.
First off #1 is Save or Suck/Save or Die spells.
Second i love how anything remotely effective is munchkin in fact I'm surprised that using a thw and PA isn't considered a munchkin tactic on some of these threads.
First off #1 is Save or Suck/Save or Die spells.
I have had no problems with those so far.
Also calling aberrations like greater beast totem + lance charge "remotely effective" is just funny.
When did i say +lance charge???
I said Barbarian + beast totems thats it just a barbarian with natural attacks a good weapon and pounce.
Switch out 20th with any other level and his sentence remains true.As mentioned before I was not talking about 20th level characters. They do not matter to me at all.
A 20th level paladin is awesome. But he's not obviously and hugely more powerful than any other 20th level character.
Doug M.
Yes, thats probably not debatable. But this was not my claim. My claim was that smite evil in conjunction with "ignore any DR", "gives the DM a headache". I could expand with: "makes the game less fun", which is of course a subjective statement, but that makes it no less true.
If aura of justice comes into play it makes matters worse.
If "ending combat very quickly once in awhile" isn't fun, then obviously we have different definitions of fun. Also, it's a roleplaying game, not a rollplaying game, meaning that you don't have to have everything be combat. It's a headache for a GM who thinks their players will use it every chance they get, will rest between battles so they can use it again later, or that the game is only about combat, or blah blah blah, the GM who gets headaches from it is (for lack of nicer terms) narrow-minded.
If you can't think your way around a class ability, then you probably shouldn't be a GM, it's not a nice thing to say, but it's a simple, predictable, static, ability that you can easily account for in your encounter. The stubborn refusal to add that into the equation is a critical failing point as a GM. I also think you are taking it too seriously if you get a headache from it.
The GM has all the powers of god and if they can't use those powers to get over something as predictable as smite evil, then they probably need to do something else. Even within the rules.
I can't really think of a nicer way to say that. So I apologize for being rude and blunt. Use that stuff between your ears and you will go far, hypothetically speaking anyway.
When did i say +lance charge???
I said Barbarian + beast totems thats it just a barbarian with natural attacks a good weapon and pounce.
Well, I have no problems with that.
If "ending combat very quickly once in awhile" isn't fun, then obviously we have different definitions of fun. Also, it's a roleplaying game, not a rollplaying game, meaning that you don't have to have everything be combat. It's a headache for a GM who thinks their players will use it every chance they get, will rest between battles so they can use it again later, or that the game is only about combat, or blah blah blah, the GM who gets headaches from it is (for lack of nicer terms) narrow-minded.
If you can't think your way around a class ability, then you probably shouldn't be a GM, it's not a nice thing to say, but it's a simple, predictable, static, ability that you can easily account for in your encounter. The stubborn refusal to add that into the equation is a critical failing point as a GM. I also think you are taking it too seriously if you get a headache from it.
The GM has all the powers of god and if they can't use those powers to get over something as predictable as smite evil, then they probably need to do something else. Even within the rules.
I can't really think of a nicer way to say that. So I apologize for being rude and blunt. Use that stuff between your ears and you will go far, hypothetically speaking anyway.
Nice. All the standard accusations/insults ("roll"player, bad GM, stupid) one gets in these forums if one dares to criticize any aspect of the game all in one post.
Maybe the Paizo boards are not the place to go if one wants to discuss the game, since they are too fanboy-infested.
We aren't playing 3.5. Its not epic DR anymore but artifact DR. So I guess having your weapon temporarily have a +6 enhancement doesn't give it artifact status...
Tarrasque: DR/15/epic
Titan, Thanatotic: DR 15/lawful and epic
Damage Reduction (Ex or Su): ... A few very powerful monsters are vulnerable only to epic weapons—that is, magic weapons with at least a +6 enhancement bonus. Such creatures' natural weapons are also treated as epic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.So it is not "artifact", it is epic.
I don't consider a furious or bane weapon a epic weapon as the bonus is situational, but that is another matter.
Oh sorry... I mixed that one up with the Regeneration because I always thought they had changed epic to artifact because of the fact that no epic weapon exists in Pathfinder (except for Artifacts...)
Nice. All the standard accusations/insults ("roll"player, bad GM, stupid) one gets in these forums if one dares to criticize any aspect of the game all in one post.
Maybe the Paizo boards are not the place to go if one wants to discuss the game, since they are too fanboy-infested.
Going straight for the nerf bat is the worst possible response a GM can have for any given situation. That is the absolute truth in any game system.
This isn't about system, this isn't about favorite system, this isn't about anything but basic GMing, which is in all roleplaying systems, and your inability to overcome one incredibly predictable element (seriously, it's probably the most quantifiable class ability in the game... aside from maybe rage, weapon training, and favored enemy) is not good.