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Hey what did I do? and where did that d come from?now I expect to see a new cult of Caldira form up in my local PFS. Thanks guys.Besides you and Findlanderboy, who else in our area actually reads the boards that close?
Don't sweat it Fin, that's all part of the Kyle pessimistic demeanor. I like your fine-tooth comb just dandy.
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Lessons of Chaldira is a trait from Faiths of Purity. It's legal in Pathfinder Society, and requires the character to follow a NG deity called Chaldira Zuzaristan. It's a halfling deity, but you don't have to be a halfling to become a follower. You need to be of LG, NG, CG or N alignment, though.
Your studies of Chaldira Zuzaristan’s exploits have given you a knack for avoiding trouble. Once per day, when you fail a saving throw, you can reroll the saving throw. You must take the second result even if it is worse.
This can be compared to Improved Great Fortitude, Improved Lightning Reflexes, or Improved Iron Will. They have the same mechanics, except that Lessons of Chaldira can be used to any type of a saving throw, and can be used after a failed saving throw. Which means that it's better than any of those three feats. Traits should be as effective as half of a feat. This alone makes the trait clearly overpowered.
There's no question about the above, and should be enough of a reason to ban the feat from Pathfinder Society. The following is my evaluation of how overpowered the trait is.
Lessons of Chaldira doesn't have feat prerequirements, but you need to follow a specific deity. In my opinion these prerequirements balance each other out, give and take.
The fact that Lessons of Chaldira can be used on any saving throw makes it about as good as all three Improved saving throw feats combined. Sure, you get more rerolls with three feats, but it's highly situational when you need to use more (different types of) rerolls than 1/day. I'd say it's about as situational as how often you benefit from the ability to know whether the saving throw failed or not. Thus, IMO, Lessons of Chaldira is worth about three feats.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU Sam! I may not have found this little treasure on my on. Time to go buy Faiths of Purity and make a NG character:)
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my wolf has this trait. its not that bad. (it took additional traits to get this, and adopted by halflings to get helpful)
I don't think an animal can usually count as part of a religion in PFS (maybe the paladin's mount if it comes from Chaldira?). I know it has been definitively ruled that a companion doesn't count as part of a faction for such purposes, even an intelligent paladin's steed.
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Please excuse a silly question, but...
NPCs can't get traits right? (and a wolf would be an NPC, so....) even with the feat "additional traits".
Otherwise this is cute! I've seen PCs with the back story "adopted by wolves...", but never a wolf with the back story "adopted by ..."!
By the book, NPCs just don't usually get starting traits. But there is no exclusion on the feat "Extra Traits" at all. So it is a legal choice. An Eidolon could take it, Animal Companions, Cohorts (for homegames with Leadership, not PFS of course) and so forth.
I actually also have a mount (paladin bonded mount) that was adopted via extra traits. I actually think it's a bit silly, but I justified it in-game because it was a "new" mount after my previous one died.
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It is what it is, and it will never be more. So, what exploit is it that you're so sure is going to end up happening if we don't prevent it?
Never thought the world would end. But the trait is not balanced against the 2+ feat chain in the CRB you'd need to get a similar result, and that's enough for me. I don't think you need to prove "OMG you broke the game!!" to justify keeping an unbalanced item out of circulation, no matter how small, or whether it combos nicely with something else.
But that's my view. Maybe the PFS GMs disagree! Maybe balance only matters to them in REALLY egregious cases with "in the wild" abuses (eg, weapon cords). I don't know, I certainly can't tell from looking at Additional Resources (re: the cauldron example, which seemed like a pre-emptive strike).
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Please excuse a silly question, but...
NPCs can't get traits right? (and a wolf would be an NPC, so....) even with the feat "additional traits".
Otherwise this is cute! I've seen PCs with the back story "adopted by wolves...", but never a wolf with the back story "adopted by ..."!
By the book, NPCs just don't usually get starting traits. But there is no exclusion on the feat "Extra Traits" at all. So it is a legal choice. An Eidolon could take it, Animal Companions, Cohorts (for homegames with Leadership, not PFS of course) and so forth.
I actually also have a mount (paladin bonded mount) that was adopted via extra traits. I actually think it's a bit silly, but I justified it in-game because it was a "new" mount after my previous one died.
It is very silly, but it's definitely legal. And Adopted is pretty clearly legal too. I'm just saying a Religion specific trait probably isn't.
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It is what it is, and it will never be more. So, what exploit is it that you're so sure is going to end up happening if we don't prevent it?Never thought the world would end. But the trait is not balanced against the 2+ feat chain in the CRB you'd need to get a similar result, and that's enough for me. I don't think you need to prove "OMG you broke the game!!" to justify keeping an unbalanced item out of circulation, no matter how small, or whether it combos nicely with something else.
But that's my view. Maybe the PFS GMs disagree! Maybe balance only matters to them in REALLY egregious cases with "in the wild" abuses (eg, weapon cords). I don't know, I certainly can't tell from looking at Additional Resources (re: the cauldron example, which seemed like a pre-emptive strike).
I'm completely with you that the trait isn't balanced. That said, here are my thoughts on this, Nik.
If someone had noticed how good this trait was and pointed it out when it was in the process of getting added to Additional Resources, I imagine it would never have been made PFS legal. That is usually how things work. That's why the quick runner's shirt was never (or was for like a week maybe?) PFS legal.
However it wasn't really noticed for a long time. And, as many others have pointed out, it isn't really game breaking -- it's just good. In the end, it's existence really isn't *that* big of a deal. Because of that, at this point banning it from PFS would cause more headaches than it would alleviate.
Perhaps if there's a "purging" of overpowered traits in the future, we'll see Lessons of Chaldira get the ax. In the meantime, I'm just going to ignore it.
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It is what it is, and it will never be more. So, what exploit is it that you're so sure is going to end up happening if we don't prevent it?Never thought the world would end. But the trait is not balanced against the 2+ feat chain in the CRB you'd need to get a similar result, and that's enough for me. I don't think you need to prove "OMG you broke the game!!" to justify keeping an unbalanced item out of circulation, no matter how small, or whether it combos nicely with something else.
But that's my view. Maybe the PFS GMs disagree! Maybe balance only matters to them in REALLY egregious cases with "in the wild" abuses (eg, weapon cords). I don't know, I certainly can't tell from looking at Additional Resources (re: the cauldron example, which seemed like a pre-emptive strike).
Really, the problem isn't the trait Lessons of Chaldira being overpowered, it is that the saving throw feat chains are so underpowered.
Really, those feats are so bad, overall, that they are mainly used by NPC builds, and those builds are usually underpowered for what they should be doing. And it usually doesn't provide enough of a boost to the save, anyhow, when the die hits the table.
Iron Will is recommended for Fighter builds, because their Will save is so bad. Guess what? A +2 to the save won't, overall, make much of a difference. Even a chance to reroll a failed Will save, for this Fighter, won't likely make much difference.
The main niche of this trait, really, is going to be for that Paladin or Monk of Chaldira, and they will have plenty of other issues that a single failed save reeroll won't help them with.
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It is what it is, and it will never be more. So, what exploit is it that you're so sure is going to end up happening if we don't prevent it?Never thought the world would end. But the trait is not balanced against the 2+ feat chain in the CRB you'd need to get a similar result, and that's enough for me. I don't think you need to prove "OMG you broke the game!!" to justify keeping an unbalanced item out of circulation, no matter how small, or whether it combos nicely with something else.
But that's my view. Maybe the PFS GMs disagree! Maybe balance only matters to them in REALLY egregious cases with "in the wild" abuses (eg, weapon cords). I don't know, I certainly can't tell from looking at Additional Resources (re: the cauldron example, which seemed like a pre-emptive strike).
Really, the problem isn't the trait Lessons of Chaldira being overpowered, it is that the saving throw feat chains are so underpowered.
Really, those feats are so bad, overall, that they are mainly used by NPC builds, and those builds are usually underpowered for what they should be doing. And it usually doesn't provide enough of a boost to the save, anyhow, when the die hits the table.
Iron Will is recommended for Fighter builds, because their Will save is so bad. Guess what? A +2 to the save won't, overall, make much of a difference. Even a chance to reroll a failed Will save, for this Fighter, won't likely make much difference.
The main niche of this trait, really, is going to be for that Paladin or Monk of Chaldira, and they will have plenty of other issues that a single failed save reeroll won't help them with.
Iron Will is actually quite good. Let's say you're playing in a 10-11 and you get targeted by 3 DC 17 harpy songs. The harpies have a plan to section off the people who failed their saves and kill them helplessly. Your level 10 Fighter read the guides, and he's sporting a 12 Wisdom, a +4 Cloak of Resistance, and he may or may not choose to bring Iron Will along for the ride. Without Iron Will, you have a 21.6% chance of being unaffected by the harpy triumverate. With Iron Will? 34.3%, so you raised your odds by over half. Add Lessons to that? It nearly doubles your chances, way better than Iron Will--it swings you up to a 65.17% chance to succeed, so now you're quite likely to come out of it uncaptivated.
Had these been DC 15 songs instead, Iron Will raises your chance from 34.3% to 51.2% (once again, by about half) and Chaldira raises you to 92.16%, or nearly as likely as a single save that you only fail on a 1!
DC 15/17 and you can afford a +4 cloak? That just doesn't sound right. 16k out of your 23.5k WBL and against DC 15 you shouldn't even afford it. Had to be picky... Also the more saves you make the less valuable the trait is, the same with improved iron will.
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Though we have this trait for people to use, I am curious on how many people worshipping Chaldira actually know how her faith works. As the friend of Desna, she rushes into combat recklessly. It is through her random luck or sheer coincidence that she gets saved by her allies.
Now with that, do the people with the Religious trait follow in her "lessons"? You can sort of question a person's religion with that, and possibly question a Paladin or Cleric on why they did not recklessly enter into combat If they chose to stay on the back and only support the party.
I have a halfling fighter who, though does not have Lesson of Chaldira, has Call for Help, another religion trait. Because of this, I worked my character to where he is in the front, frantically trying to get the enemy's attention. This has caused some chaos at times, but he knows that he is trying to believe in his deity as much possible so that he can to have his faith answered. He is currently in Eyes of the Ten, so he need as much of Chaldira's luck as possible.
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DC 15/17 and you can afford a +4 cloak? That just doesn't sound right. 16k out of your 23.5k WBL and against DC 15 you shouldn't even afford it. Had to be picky... Also the more saves you make the less valuable the trait is, the same with improved iron will.
WBL at level 10 is 62k. A +4 Cloak is pretty usual for PFS Fighters at that level that I've seen. Also, I have actually run two different 10-11s before that actually had multi-harpy spam with DCs of 17 and 15 in them, so I didn't just pull them out of thin air.
DC 15/17 and you can afford a +4 cloak? That just doesn't sound right. 16k out of your 23.5k WBL and against DC 15 you shouldn't even afford it. Had to be picky... Also the more saves you make the less valuable the trait is, the same with improved iron will.WBL at level 10 is 62k. A +4 Cloak is pretty usual for PFS Fighters at that level that I've seen. Also, I have actually run two different 10-11s before that actually had multi-harpy spam with DCs of 17 and 15 in them, so I didn't just pull them out of thin air.
Harpies are CR 4 though was my point, and as far as average DCs is concerned blahblahblah it doesn't actually matter.
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Fickle Winds is also a great spell for harpy related situations.
Fickle winds is an OP spell for any situation where there's a possibility of archery. If it weren't for how overpowered archery itself is, the spell would really need banning. As-is, whenever bad guys have limited or full wishes in PFS, you'll see in every GM advice thread that they could use them to cast fickle winds. That in and of itself shows how ridiculous the power is, since it hard-counters archery with no way around it unless the other side can dispel your spell.
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Harpies are CR 4 though was my point, and as far as average DCs is concerned blahblahblah it doesn't actually matter.DC 15/17 and you can afford a +4 cloak? That just doesn't sound right. 16k out of your 23.5k WBL and against DC 15 you shouldn't even afford it. Had to be picky... Also the more saves you make the less valuable the trait is, the same with improved iron will.WBL at level 10 is 62k. A +4 Cloak is pretty usual for PFS Fighters at that level that I've seen. Also, I have actually run two different 10-11s before that actually had multi-harpy spam with DCs of 17 and 15 in them, so I didn't just pull them out of thin air.
And despite this, I've heard of heavy deaths or even TPKs from harpies in 7-11s. In fact, I very nearly killed someone with a harpy myself in 10-11, and in another, I killed the cleric's animal companion three times in the same fight (two breaths of life). Of course, many of these have plenty of class levels, but that generally doesn't change the DC too much.
And despite this, I've heard of heavy deaths or even TPKs from harpies in 7-11s. In fact, I very nearly killed someone with a harpy myself in 10-11, and in another, I killed the cleric's animal companion three times in the same fight (two breaths of life). Of course, many of these have plenty of class levels, but that generally doesn't change the DC too much.Harpies are CR 4 though was my point, and as far as average DCs is concerned blahblahblah it doesn't actually matter.DC 15/17 and you can afford a +4 cloak? That just doesn't sound right. 16k out of your 23.5k WBL and against DC 15 you shouldn't even afford it. Had to be picky... Also the more saves you make the less valuable the trait is, the same with improved iron will.WBL at level 10 is 62k. A +4 Cloak is pretty usual for PFS Fighters at that level that I've seen. Also, I have actually run two different 10-11s before that actually had multi-harpy spam with DCs of 17 and 15 in them, so I didn't just pull them out of thin air.
Save or dies tend to kill people yeah. Not the best monster unfortunately and it has confusing writing.
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Save or dies tend to kill people yeah. Not the best monster unfortunately and it has confusing writing.
Grr - not save or die, save or take no action and maybe walk somewhere you shouldn't go.
On-Topic: Save feats are useful, but are rarely taken - not sexy enough. They get a bit better when you've already paid for the +5 cloak of resistance and you need more. Lessons of Chaldira appears to be equivalent to having all three of the +2's, or all three of the reroll ones (actual need for a reroll in multiple saves vs. reroll after failure is known).
Is Lessons of Chaldira overpowered? Yes. Are The Powers That Be in PFS organized play likely to ban it? No, as they are (quite sensibly in my opinion) much slower to ban things that keep players alive. It's why you can buy a wand of cure light wounds for two PP.
It is overpowered. It should not be banned.
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Is Lessons of Chaldira overpowered? Yes. Are The Powers That Be in PFS organized play likely to ban it? No, as they are (quite sensibly in my opinion) much slower to ban things that keep players alive. It's why you can buy a wand of cure light wounds for two PP.
It is overpowered. It should not be banned.
A synthesist summoner keeps players alive too. Why did that get banned?
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Because its method of keeping people alive also kept other players from playing the game. Making your save doesn't keep other people from having fun.
Was also a somewhat complicated class that brought back memories of druidzilla.
Making your save doesn't keep other people from having fun.What about the players who like to fear and get scared by save-or-die spells? Or the players who like tense combats versus spellcasters?
The ones who like to fail their saves are free to not take it. Heck, plenty of the ones that don't won't take it I'd wager. Other people making their saves probably won't kill your fun, but falling asleep mid combat and having 10 or so minutes to go get coffee, pizza, or whatever poison of choice you have might. Synthesist on the other hand could outperform other classes and do so very openly.(or at least that's what I think Jiggy was getting at)
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Making your save doesn't keep other people from having fun.What about the players who like to fear and get scared by save-or-die spells? Or the players who like tense combats versus spellcasters?
They should probably also avoid paladins, monks, divine casters in general, protection from evil, heroism, and plenty else. Lessons of Chaldira is the least of their worries.
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The ones who like to fail their saves are free to not take it. Heck, plenty of the ones that don't won't take it I'd wager. Other people making their saves probably won't kill your fun, but falling asleep mid combat and having 10 or so minutes to go get coffee, pizza, or whatever poison of choice you have might. Synthesist on the other hand could outperform other classes and do so very openly.(or at least that's what I think Jiggy was getting at)
If I choose not to ignore saving throws, but everyone around me chooses to ignore saving throws, I am still playing in an team-based combat environment where saving throw spells are a total paper tiger.
Lessons of Chaldira outperforms the other traits AND saving throw feats. Both Synthesist and LoC outperform their assigned game role with an intent to make combat safe (read here: boring and often a waste of gaming time). I do not understand why special excuses should be made for traits that ignore game balance.
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They should probably also avoid paladins, monks, divine casters in general, protection from evil, heroism, and plenty else. Lessons of Chaldira is the least of their worries.
Now take all the examples you just quoted and add LoC into the mix, and you can see we're quickly making PFS a game system where saving throws are to be laughed at, not feared.
They should probably also avoid paladins, monks, divine casters in general, protection from evil, heroism, and plenty else. Lessons of Chaldira is the least of their worries.Now take all the examples you just quoted and add LoC into the mix, and you can see we're quickly making PFS a game system where saving throws are to be laughed at, not feared.
Actually saving throws more can easily throw you out of the game and make it not fun. Even a tiny risk isn't too hot. Can't tell you how many guys I've taken down with color spray in my life. Freakin' rainbows man. Its also a very hyperbolic argument hoping for slippery slope.
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Now take all the examples you just quoted and add LoC into the mix, and you can see we're quickly making PFS a game system where saving throws are to be laughed at, not feared.
What's this 'we' you're going on about?
My cleric failed his save against blasphemy thanks to a 2 on the die, and then a 1 on my shirt reroll.
When he ran through The Waking Rune that save against plane shift was a scary thing, even with his massive bonuses.
Someday I'll learn how to go mythic.
I saw my first sub-BBEG coup de grace'd because he failed a (DC 18) Hold Person. Kinda took the wind out of the combat...
