Since everyone else is doing it (only including classes I've personally played or played with, in order of my experience with them):
Samurai: I've been playing a samurai in our RotRL campaign (started at level 5, currently at level 12) and really enjoy the class. My experience is that they are capable and resilient front line combatants. I think of them as falling roughly between the fighter (consistently excellent in combat but narrow in focus) and paladin (situationally excellent in combat and more diffuse in focus).
Consider the challenge mechanic, for example. It's similar to a paladin's smite in some respects (+CL bonus to damage) and different in others (affects non-evil enemies, doesn't pierce DR, no CHA based bonus to hit, melee only, recharges resolve, has other effect based on samurai's order). The upshot is that situationally the Samurai's damage is boosted by his class features to be comparable to that of a fighter optimized around a single weapon system. Challenge damage (along with power attack and a high strength bonus) doesn't care which weapon the samurai is wielding and so you are free to switch things up a lot more. My samurai consistently switches fighting styles and weapons systems since his feat choices aren't restrictive in that sense.
Mount: A samurai in heavy armor has a movement of 20 ft. When you're in a dungeon this probably doesn't matter too much. When you're outside having a horse with 50 ft of movement to get you into combat (hopefully while charging) is a wonderful thing. At early levels in a dungeon crawl campaign you'll probably forget about the horse for a while. By levels 7 or 8 you'll be fighting larger monsters and dungeons open up considerably and your loyal horse will once again be there.
Witch The witch is the other long-term survivor of our RotRL campaign (started at level 4, currently at level 12). At earlier levels the witch primarily used hexes to stay relevant in combat, often to very good effect. At later levels, as more and more powerful spells have become available the witch is the hub around which our party turns (no surprise given that she is a prepared full arcane caster) and she primarily uses hexes out of combat for mobility, scouting, weather control, and healing.
[Oops, ran out of time and have to head to work]
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My Opininons, I like them, I like them alot. I think that the is simply untrue that they represent power creep. I think if you take their average and the average of the core rules classes, you end up somewhere around the same place.
More specifically:
Alchemist: I love this class, its something that wasnt possible without it and I love the mad bomber/jekel and hyde themes.
Cavalier: I am kind of neutral on the cavalier. It's pretty cool, and I think it needs to be in the game. I just dont think its a good player class most of the time (mounts and dungeons dont mix). But it is great for npcs and even pcs in wilderness campaigns like kingmaker.
Inquisitor: Probalby my favorite class to be produced by paizo. A nice mix of warrior, divine, and skilled. Its a very flexible class that is great for small parties, or for the player that ends up filling multiple roles because his party members want to play a barbarian, a fighter, and a monk.
Magus: Best execution I have seen for a fighter mage. It works, and it is a balanced class (so long as you dont allow the 15 minute work day). Yes they can do alot of spike damage, but they also have to watch their resources, because without them, they are just 3/4bab lower strength/dex warrior.
Oracle: I prefer spontaneous to prepared casting, and I like the flavor of the curses and revalations. I havent played one yet but its been at my table and I like it.
Summoner: I like the idea behind the class. I like summoning, I like conjuration magic, and i like the idea of having a big bruising pet do your fighting for you as a caster. And despite reports, it is just about even with the druid IF the druid optimizes heavily. The problem is that paizo tried to make it too free. Where as most classes get some abilities they may or may not want (like a fighters bravery, a rogues uncanny dodge, or a druids wild empathy) where the ability isnt neccessarily bad, but just probably doesnt add to whatever the character tries to do most of the time in combat, the summoner is more or less completely modular. It can select just about every piece of the class from a big list. And all those evolutions could add up to an overpowered eidolon. If paizo has created some kind of restriction on how many evolutions could add to combat prowest, and required instead some things like blind sense, or the skilled evolution, to be mixed in with MOAR CLAW ATTACKS!
I think it probably would have been a better idea if the summoners eidolon was based on templates around various kinds of outsiders like druid animal companions. But on the plus side, the synthesist, though problematic on its own, has given me some great ideas for a steam punk stlye mecha suit class.
Witch: I really like this class. I dont know what to say beside this. It is again a great class for the player in the group that ends up filling in missing roles. A mix of cleric and wizard, with its own little flair. I very much like the mechanic of hexes and find they are great for limiting the 15 minute work day that pathfinder has worked hard to make more sensible.
Edit:
To the OP: I think your pay for play comment is completely out of line. Paizo has taken great pains to offer people affordable alternatives. Every one of the classes they have created are in fact available for free, you dont have to give paizo a dime if you dont want to. They also offer inexpensive PDFs of their rulebooks as well that with the new 'light' versions work well on ipads, and kindles and such that are fast being ubiquitous amongst gamers. Whether or not you think it is power creep, to say that it is a money grab is categorically false, and something paizo works hard to avoid even the appearance of.
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My Opininons, I like them, I like them alot. I think that the is simply untrue that they represent power creep. I think if you take their average and the average of the core rules classes, you end up somewhere around the same place.
More specifically:
Alchemist: I love this class, its something that wasnt possible without it and I love the mad bomber/jekel and hyde themes.Cavalier: I am kind of neutral on the cavalier. It's pretty cool, and I think it needs to be in the game. I just dont think its a good player class most of the time (mounts and dungeons dont mix). But it is great for npcs and even pcs in wilderness campaigns like kingmaker.
Inquisitor: Probalby my favorite class to be produced by paizo. A nice mix of warrior, divine, and skilled. Its a very flexible class that is great for small parties, or for the player that ends up filling multiple roles because his party members want to play a barbarian, a fighter, and a monk.
Magus: Best execution I have seen for a fighter mage. It works, and it is a balanced class (so long as you dont allow the 15 minute work day). Yes they can do alot of spike damage, but they also have to watch their resources, because without them, they are just 3/4bab lower strength/dex warrior.
Oracle: I prefer spontaneous to prepared casting, and I like the flavor of the curses and revalations. I havent played one yet but its been at my table and I like it.
Summoner: I like the idea behind the class. I like summoning, I like conjuration magic, and i like the idea of having a big bruising pet do your fighting for you as a caster. And despite reports, it is just about even with the druid IF the druid optimizes heavily. The problem is that paizo tried to make it too free. Where as most classes get some abilities they may or may not want (like a fighters bravery, a rogues uncanny dodge, or a druids wild empathy) where the ability isnt neccessarily bad, but just probably doesnt add to whatever the character tries to do most of the time in combat, the...
...and the last said - re: money...I WANT them to keep cranking out material...you see, I WANT them to stay in business. What I don't really want is Pathfinder 2.0...2.5...3.0...ad absurdem.
For the business model to work, they need to keep giving us options.
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I like the new classes, they allow various things:
- DMs can rule to do no-arcane-caster or no-divine-caster campaigns without rewriting existing core classes. (Because Mages or Worshippers are hunted down in that country.)
- Players get more options to individualize: I like the change of pace from flashy bard to infiltrating inquisitor, or from University-School-Wizard to Hedge-Magician-Witches. Sure you can rewrite the background, but feats and skills don't make enough of a difference to actually FEEL the difference between two wizards or two rogues or two bards. especially when your group gets hung up on class names and force you back to stereotype playing:
no sneaky bard
because bards have to sing loudly, I tried "oratory" to inspire through dogmatic talk or dancing to inspire all who can see me instead of hear me -> they would not have it:
"can you do your bard SONG?"
... "I don't sing, I dance"
... "yes, you do... use your bard song, dancing is crap because we might not see it"
... "there are no facing rules" *hate/desperation*
charismatic sorcerers
I can't even begin to count the amount of uncharismatic sorcerers, who are abysmal at diplomacy, I've seen. Usually these players get a high charsima for the casting because they want that cool dragon-blood spontaneous caster and then simply forget everything else about that attribute.
rogues
you've got the sneaky flanker or the feinting swashbuckler... and that's about it for playstyles, everything else is just numbers or fluff (like weapon choice)
fighters
you choose the weapon, which only changes the damage dice, but not much else
I could go on like this... what I like about the new classes is: CHOICE, something NEW and DIFFERENT.
I've played the old/classic classes since AD&D2 back in 1996... I'm tired of them and have tried pretty much any background/fluff there is, I don't want to recycle the old just changing names/origin/minor details, I want something new and fresh and different.
It's wrong to assume the new classes are copied from MMOs, imho.
Most MMOs (except GuildWars2, which was the first to get rid of it, to an extend) uphold the old-fashioned holy trinity of tank/heal/damage...
Make this a Fighter/Cleric/Arcane + Rogue(Skillmonkey) Quartet.
This is as close as it could possibly get!
The new classes actually go away from this:
Witch is about debuffing and is as bit of Damage as well as Healer.
Inquisitor is a mix of Cleric and Ranger(Fighter).
Magus is Arcanist+Fighter.
Alchemist is an odd-one-out.
Summoner is again odd-one-out.
and the list goes on like this, the new classes either being mixes of existing concepts or totally new ideas/flavors.
Alchemist - Love it. This is a concept that's nigh undoable with just core and as such a welcome addition to my table.
Cavalier - Like it in theory but reliance on a large sized mount is clunky in practice. Still it's nice to have the option.
Inquisitor - Have yet to see one played. Looks powerful but reasonably so. As looks like it has a lot of weird fiddly bits you have to keep track of. I do like that it adds a divine caster who gets a good amount of skill points.
Oracle - meh. It's a spontaneous cleric. Personaly I'd rather play a cleric but I get why some people like it. Not really my thing though.
Summoner - In the hands of a reasonable non-optimizer player a fun and unique class. In the hands of a min-maxer totally broken.
Witch - An arcane caster with good healies, yes please. Also comes dripping with flavor. Yum Yum
Magus - Love it in concept. Not a fan them ending up in full plate. *edit* also not a fan of them being tied to high crit range weapons by a built in class feature.*edit*
Samurai - I find it silly that they based it on the cavalier. If I wanted to play a samurai he wouldn't be tied to a mount.
Ninja - Kicks the crap out of the rogue but then I'd been meaning to give the rogue a boost for awhile. this made me get around to it and I suppose if you want a mystical assassin in your game this will do the job.
Gunslinger - I don't like the mechanics of paizos firearms rules so I've never given this class a chance. A pity because I'd really like to have good gun rules to use if I wanted them.
- Torger
Personally, I like more the new classes than the classic ones, specially the divine ones. I find Oracle or Inquisitor far more interesting that Cleric. And Ninja over Rogue. The class I play more often is surely Witch.
Gunslinger is a strange case. I have nothing against the class or the presence of fire arms, but really dislike the rules for those arms. The only new class I really dislike is the Summoner; too complex and cause too many problems. The cavalier seems a bit bland.
But right now, playing Pathfinder without Inquisitor, Oracle or Witch? That would seem a totally different game. I love how Paizo have integrated the post-core class on the game, with nearly the same presence as the core ones.
Edit: I think we have a nearly perfect class quantity right now; not few, not too much. The only one I miss is the swashbuckler one.
..and the last said - re: money...I WANT them to keep cranking out material...you see, I WANT them to stay in business. What I don't really want is Pathfinder 2.0...2.5...3.0...ad absurdem.
For the business model to work, they need to keep giving us options.
Personally, I hope their business model can survive on more fluff and less crunch. More APs and modules and setting books and the like. Less new classes and feats and spells and such.
The more options and combinations of options you have the harder it is to keep it all coherent and vaguely balanced. Feature bloat is a bad thing
mtg handles it through banning cards for organized play, I imagine the same will prove true over time for organized pathfinder play. My DM does the same for home games...we either ban it or modify it by campaign...and I did the same when I was running thing.. As long as you are open minded and willing to revisit banned material at certain intervals, I really appreciate new options. Sure there Is the unintended combinations issues that crop up from time to time, but we handle those fine.
I guess to me there are no bad options...just unreasonable people that don't get there is a time and place for all things. I really do wonder if some of the class hate is attached to a person or people who tried to shoehorn something into a home game that actively worked on a raw nerve making an option that was just not a favorite into something that is Anethma.
I like the new classes. And from my experience the powerlevel depends much more who is playing than what is being played. Any class can be strong and any class can be weak and I never had the feeling that one class would overshadow another. It's more the players behind the characters that matter.
Also don't get why people are upset about things like eastern flavor for for example Ninja and Samurai, because at the end of the day its just the mechanics behind the game. You still say who your character is.
For example Ki abilities may very well come from magical blood instead of intense training, if it fits your setting better.
And in the end the people playing at the table have to agree how they want to play. And I hate it when you have an idea for a character but do not even get a chance to discuss it, because the GM simply does not like a mechanic you used. Usually things can be worked out if people talk with each other.
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Just curious, of the objectors there seems to be a great many that don't like a class because it doesn't fit their desired setting of Arthurian Fantasy. There is a lot of gunslingers and alchemists are too modern, or ninja are to Asian in bent. My question is why the vitriol against these options existing?
I am actually one of those people who gripes about the Eastern classes that were added. But just to be clear, I don't mind them existing. Variety is good, and I like having the options to bring my fantasy out of the realm of the Arthurian.
However, what bothers me is that every single Asian thing was BETTER than its counterpart. Supposedly the Rogue---mechanically the weakest class in the game---is 'balanced', and yet the Ninja comes out and just does everything it does but better.
All of the Eastern classes get access to what were initially exotic Asian weapons that were exotic because they were mechanically superior to the weapon list martial characters had access to. A rogue has to blow a feat just to start to catch up to the ninja's proficiencies, and he can't even do so until 3rd level thanks to the +1 BAB requirement of EWP.
I know, we could just 'reskin' it but A) That leaves it up to GM discretion, and therefore has the option snatched from you if you have a GM who hates Eastern stuff and isn't interested in reworking anything B) Doesn't work at all for Society play.
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..and the last said - re: money...I WANT them to keep cranking out material...you see, I WANT them to stay in business. What I don't really want is Pathfinder 2.0...2.5...3.0...ad absurdem.
For the business model to work, they need to keep giving us options.
Personally, I hope their business model can survive on more fluff and less crunch. More APs and modules and setting books and the like. Less new classes and feats and spells and such.
The more options and combinations of options you have the harder it is to keep it all coherent and vaguely balanced. Feature bloat is a bad thing
That's fine, but those things don't tend to be as big of sellers. Now...Paizo has made a lot of their reputation on some of the best scenarios...something WoTC really abandoned. They do play on that...but I'm not sure if it'll be enough, say, 3-4 years from now. Maybe they could expand into new settings...that's certainly an age-old tradition.
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Huh, are we talking about alternative classes here too? I guess I need more rant then.
Samurai I like more than the cavalier, but I still think orders should be a thing outside of class features. Anyone can be part of an order after all. He looks torn between a dozen styles, but at least he has an archetype that specializes in swords. Too bad iajutsu is awful and just weird. How does he have 4+ skill points and fighter and paladin don't?
Ninja has a lot of things rogues probably should have. A pool from which to use cool powers, good acrobatics, and a chance to stealth in combat that scales? That's all good things. You could probably merge the two and give it all the powers of both and it wouldn't change their place in life much.
Anti-Paladin, once you get past the restrictions, I actually like a lot. The code of conduct allows for a lot of freedom. His class features are all useful, and he can smash just as well as the paladin. He could probably use 4+ skill points like every other non int based class however.
One thing that really gets me however, is when people say classes are Asian and there fore should be banned. Classes are not Asian. They are as Asian as you make them out to be. I'll say it 100 times, ninjas don't wear PJs. The fact its called a ninja or the samurai is called a samurai is about the only Asian thing about it. If I called the ki pool a guile pool would it suddenly be not Asian? If I call my samurai a knight does he lose all his samurai class features? If I call my fighter a samurai do I gain resolute and 4+ skill points per level?
That's fine, but those things don't tend to be as big of sellers. Now...Paizo has made a lot of their reputation on some of the best scenarios...something WoTC really abandoned. They do play on that...but I'm not sure if it'll be enough, say, 3-4 years from now. Maybe they could expand into new settings...that's certainly an age-old tradition...and the last said - re: money...I WANT them to keep cranking out material...you see, I WANT them to stay in business. What I don't really want is Pathfinder 2.0...2.5...3.0...ad absurdem.
For the business model to work, they need to keep giving us options.
Personally, I hope their business model can survive on more fluff and less crunch. More APs and modules and setting books and the like. Less new classes and feats and spells and such.
The more options and combinations of options you have the harder it is to keep it all coherent and vaguely balanced. Feature bloat is a bad thing
eventually, it is either going to be, experiment with new classes and races, or make a new edition.
and since third edition survived 8 or 9 years due to splatbook life support, PF i'd guestimate, has been out 4 years, and is about anywhere from 3-7 years away from a new edition based on how much new crunch they churn out and how often they release it.
a new hardcover supplement with say 8-12 new base classes, a handful of feats and new spells, new archetypes for the new classes, 8-12 new races with alternate racials and favored class bonuses for each, and new gear, could, if released every year, over a 3 year span buy them a total of 7 years worth of system life support with hardcore fans playing the old system after the new one is released. the big seller being the new and possibly experimental base classes.
Just curious, of the objectors there seems to be a great many that don't like a class because it doesn't fit their desired setting of Arthurian Fantasy. There is a lot of gunslingers and alchemists are too modern, or ninja are to Asian in bent. My question is why the vitriol against these options existing?I am actually one of those people who gripes about the Eastern classes that were added. But just to be clear, I don't mind them existing. Variety is good, and I like having the options to bring my fantasy out of the realm of the Arthurian.
However, what bothers me is that every single Asian thing was BETTER than its counterpart. Supposedly the Rogue---mechanically the weakest class in the game---is 'balanced', and yet the Ninja comes out and just does everything it does but better.
All of the Eastern classes get access to what were initially exotic Asian weapons that were exotic because they were mechanically superior to the weapon list martial characters had access to. A rogue has to blow a feat just to start to catch up to the ninja's proficiencies, and he can't even do so until 3rd level thanks to the +1 BAB requirement of EWP.
I know, we could just 'reskin' it but A) That leaves it up to GM discretion, and therefore has the option snatched from you if you have a GM who hates Eastern stuff and isn't interested in reworking anything B) Doesn't work at all for Society play.
I actually think the Ninja was a stealth fix for the Rogue. It's mechanically better in every way because the Rogue wasn't balanced. I see it as outlier because of the need for a better Rogue, but I get your point, though I believe it the exception not the rule.
I know, we could just 'reskin' it but A) That leaves it up to GM discretion, and therefore has the option snatched from you if you have a GM who hates Eastern stuff and isn't interested in reworking anything B) Doesn't work at all for Society play.
Except "is Asian" isn't a class feature. In PFS you can be a ninja without being from Tian, unless theres been some crazy thing about it since I last played. No need to reskin what isn't Asian...
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Pathfinder, doesn't have enough base classes for me, at least without tapping into third party, and third party can only get so experimental before it becomes unbalanced or highly disallowed.
in fact, balanced third party, is going to be banned, far more, than completely broken first party. which is bad for the smaller companies who make third party material.
most third party material, is even more fringe than the first party stuff. and DMs who for example. ban third party, or even PFS, who bans third party, are hindering other companies's ability to show off the wonders of the OGL. and third party support, spreads fans to the main product, which encourages more people to purchase the main product.
and third parties tend to be smaller companies with more to lose by doing so, while lacking the resources to fund their own RPG, so they gamble every time they produce for a more well known group.
plus, TTRPGs in general have to deal with such things as Piracy, Torrents, SRDs, and free rules samples, which cut into their profits heavily.
third parties have to be especially wary, because their companies are even smaller.
..and the last said - re: money...I WANT them to keep cranking out material...you see, I WANT them to stay in business. What I don't really want is Pathfinder 2.0...2.5...3.0...ad absurdem.
For the business model to work, they need to keep giving us options.
Personally, I hope their business model can survive on more fluff and less crunch. More APs and modules and setting books and the like. Less new classes and feats and spells and such.
The more options and combinations of options you have the harder it is to keep it all coherent and vaguely balanced. Feature bloat is a bad thing
mtg handles it through banning cards for organized play, I imagine the same will prove true over time for organized pathfinder play. My DM does the same for home games...we either ban it or modify it by campaign...and I did the same when I was running thing.. As long as you are open minded and willing to revisit banned material at certain intervals, I really appreciate new options. Sure there Is the unintended combinations issues that crop up from time to time, but we handle those fine.
I guess to me there are no bad options...just unreasonable people that don't get there is a time and place for all things. I really do wonder if some of the class hate is attached to a person or people who tried to shoehorn something into a home game that actively worked on a raw nerve making an option that was just not a favorite into something that is Anethma.
For me, I find it leads to option paralysis. It's not so much that there are some options that need to be banned. It's that there are 474 feats I need to look through to decide what to take. I need to do it all, for the entire build progression before starting the character and I need to revisit it all again every time a new source comes out.
Classes don't bother me so much, at least in PF, since there's a smaller number of them and you can just pick one and go. In 3.5, where...
. That's probably where we fundamentally differ. I don't go looking for feats to build a character around. I come up with an idea and then set out looking for feats to make it happen. Once i have my build I cease to care what else is out there. I certainly could see it being daunting for those with your approach, and now sort of get that point of view. but I could care less about building the better mouse trap, if mine already looks and functions the way I want it to I won't go shopping for better nuts and bolts. Your reasoning makes total sense, but if you look at it from my perspective, I want all the options I can get so that when I get my idea there is already a way to make it easily with limited outside the rules tinkering.
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Personally, I see the new base classes as being cool in terms of flavor and conception, but also symptomatic of system failure in two areas:
(1) Multiclassing. If this worked correctly, you could "build" a viable cleric/rogue, and wouldn't need the Inquisitor. And you could "build" a viable fighter/sorcerer or fighter/wizard, so you wouldn't need the Magus (or the Eldritch Knight, for that matter). At the more extreme end of things, it's tempting to imagine the Alchemist as a barbarian (mutagen)/rogue (bomb)/wizard (extracts).
(2) Customization. In my opinion, the gunslinger, cavalier, and samurai should have been "buildable" using fighter archetypes or a menu of "fighter talents," without the need to bill them as separate classes.
Instead, we have cries of "backwards compatibility!" and the need for a separate base class or prestige class or archetype for pretty much every possible non-vanilla idea you can come up with. Which is great from the standpoint of wanting to churn out more books, but lousy from the standpoint of wanting to have a toolbox useable for creating non-standard characters.
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.....and the last said - re: money...I WANT them to keep cranking out material...you see, I WANT them to stay in business. What I don't really want is Pathfinder 2.0...2.5...3.0...ad absurdem.
For the business model to work, they need to keep giving us options.
Personally, I hope their business model can survive on more fluff and less crunch. More APs and modules and setting books and the like. Less new classes and feats and spells and such.
The more options and combinations of options you have the harder it is to keep it all coherent and vaguely balanced. Feature bloat is a bad thing
mtg handles it through banning cards for organized play, I imagine the same will prove true over time for organized pathfinder play. My DM does the same for home games...we either ban it or modify it by campaign...and I did the same when I was running thing.. As long as you are open minded and willing to revisit banned material at certain intervals, I really appreciate new options. Sure there Is the unintended combinations issues that crop up from time to time, but we handle those fine.
I guess to me there are no bad options...just unreasonable people that don't get there is a time and place for all things. I really do wonder if some of the class hate is attached to a person or people who tried to shoehorn something into a home game that actively worked on a raw nerve making an option that was just not a favorite into something that is Anethma.
For me, I find it leads to option paralysis. It's not so much that there are some options that need to be banned. It's that there are 474 feats I need to look through to decide what to take. I need to do it all, for the entire build progression before starting the character and I need to revisit it all again every time a new source comes out.
Classes don't bother me so much, at least in PF, since there's a smaller number of them and you can just pick one and
Yes. I get like that, too. Sometimes it'll be inspiration from a feat, or a class feature...maybe a spell...and I'll take it from there...but often as not, it's not even born of a rule mechanic at all...it's just a 'wouldn't it be cool if I could...'
eventually, it is either going to be, experiment with new classes and races, or make a new edition.
and since third edition survived 8 or 9 years due to splatbook life support, PF i'd guestimate, has been out 4 years, and is about anywhere from 3-7 years away from a new edition based on how much new crunch they churn out and how often they release it.
a new hardcover supplement with say 8-12 new base classes, a handful of feats and new spells, new archetypes for the new classes, 8-12 new races with alternate racials and favored class bonuses for each, and new gear, could, if released every year, over a 3 year span buy them a total of 7 years worth of system life support with hardcore fans playing the old system after the new one is released. the big seller being the new and possibly experimental base classes.
Of course, 1st edition also survived about 10 years with only a handful of new classes and less new crunch than 3.x.
Similarly 2E lasted 11 years with few new base classes, though it started the splatbook explosion and introduced kits.
The vast explosion of classes and prestige classes in 3.x only kept it going for 7 years, with a reboot in the middle, allowing them to rerelease all the old material tweaked.
4th also had plenty of new classes and only lasted about 5 years.I'm not sure the evidence shows that it's new classes (or even new mechanics) that keep editions going.
WotC's problem was they produced a splatbook every month without playtesting, didn't put much thought into them, and tried to flood the market.
one hardcover splatbook a year, with say 12 PC races and 12 PC classes, for a 3 year span. isn't so bad. it provides options, but provides nothing compared to WotC bloat
and 2E's kits, were basically new classes with a different name.
it's not new classes that keep a system going, it's new crunch that provides the company the profit to produce more new stuff and pay it's bills.
Personally, I see the new base classes as being cool in terms of flavor and conception, but also symptomatic of system failure in two areas:
(1) Multiclassing. If this worked correctly, you could "build" a viable cleric/rogue, and wouldn't need the Inquisitor. And you could "build" a viable fighter/sorcerer or fighter/wizard, so you wouldn't need the Magus (or the Eldritch Knight, for that matter). At the more extreme end of things, it's tempting to imagine the Alchemist as a barbarian (mutagen)/rogue (bomb)/wizard (extracts).
(2) Customization. In my opinion, the gunslinger, cavalier, and samurai should have been "buildable" using fighter archetypes or a menu of "fighter talents," without the need to bill them as separate classes.
Instead, we have cries of "backwards compatibility!" and the need for a separate base class or prestige class or archetype for pretty much every possible non-vanilla idea you can come up with. Which is great from the standpoint of wanting to churn out more books, but lousy from the standpoint of wanting to have a toolbox useable for creating non-standard characters.
Not trying to belabor your point, but I really want to know why these two points matter so much. if the end result character are functionally so similar why does it matter so much to so many of you that the end result is a new class or a multi-class, or a fighter with spiffy new feats. It goes back to a toss away point I made in an earlier post. I don't understand the hang up on nomenclature.... It seems like tossing the baby out with the bath water when you ban the Alchemist but then in the same breath say it would be fine if it was an alternate Wizard. Not saying your doing that, but I ask you because you seem to be approaching the broader issue from that perspective.
For me personally, it's far more important that Paizo continues producing adventures and campaign setting material than rulebooks. I only buy the rulebooks because they're used in the adventures, and it saves me having to convert them (I buy bestiaries either way, because monsters are cool).
For instance, if it hadn't been for the first four APs being so good that I wanted to keep buying future APs, I would likely never have bought the Pathfinder Core Rulebook.
I'm not sure how many are more interested in flavor and adventures than in rules, but I do think there are more than just me, and there might just be enough of us to support the edition even if no/few new rules are released :)
Edit: Don't get me wrong; there are several things in each of the rulebooks that I like. But it's not the rules material that keeps me interested.
Personally, I see the new base classes as being cool in terms of flavor and conception, but also symptomatic of system failure in two areas:
(1) Multiclassing. If this worked correctly, you could "build" a viable cleric/rogue, and wouldn't need the Inquisitor. And you could "build" a viable fighter/sorcerer or fighter/wizard, so you wouldn't need the Magus (or the Eldritch Knight, for that matter). At the more extreme end of things, it's tempting to imagine the Alchemist as a barbarian (mutagen)/rogue (bomb)/wizard (extracts).
(2) Customization. In my opinion, the gunslinger, cavalier, and samurai should have been "buildable" using fighter archetypes or a menu of "fighter talents," without the need to bill them as separate classes.
Instead, we have cries of "backwards compatibility!" and the need for a separate base class or prestige class or archetype for pretty much every possible non-vanilla idea you can come up with. Which is great from the standpoint of wanting to churn out more books, but lousy from the standpoint of wanting to have a toolbox useable for creating non-standard characters.
I am personally very glad to see this shift. I think that filling niches with mutliclassing is ultimately a flawed approach when dealing with a class based system. You end up with all sorts of balance problems the more you allow people to mix and match abilities. With single classes, developers have a reasonable scope of potential class abilities to consider when creating a given ability. If every class ability that is developed can be effectively combined with EVERY OTHER class ability, you either have to make every ability luke warm and similar to prevent broken combinations, or you end up with the mess that was 3.5 options, where playing a single classed martial character was almost always beneficial over playing a single class.
It also makes a DM's job MUCH harder when creating npcs. The more customizable the system, the longer it takes to make high level npcs, at least with single class focused systems, you have some guidance on what to take. I want a roguey cleric, i'll create an inquisitor, look at that I only have to choose a domain and a few spells. If I have to do it by combining two very flexible rogue and cleric classes thats alot more work. Which is less problematic for PCs who are the singular focus of a player usually put together over time, and is a HUGE problem for DMs putting together several per session.
Its why I stopped playing saga edition, the talent/feat system for everything is too modular in my opinion, and makes system mastery an absolute must, and drives up the time and effort required to create characters. And for me, anything that makes a dm's life harder, is simply bad for the game.
Not trying to belabor your point, but I really want to know why these two points matter so much. if the end result character are functionally so similar why does it matter so much to so many of you that the end result is a new class or a multi-class, or a fighter with spiffy new feats. It goes back to a toss away point I made in an earlier post. I don't understand the hang up on nomenclature.... It seems like tossing the baby out with the bath water when you ban the Alchemist but then in the same breath say it would be fine if it was an alternate Wizard. Not saying your doing that, but I ask you because you seem to be approaching the broader issue from that perspective.Personally, I see the new base classes as being cool in terms of flavor and conception, but also symptomatic of system failure in two areas:
(1) Multiclassing. If this worked correctly, you could "build" a viable cleric/rogue, and wouldn't need the Inquisitor. And you could "build" a viable fighter/sorcerer or fighter/wizard, so you wouldn't need the Magus (or the Eldritch Knight, for that matter). At the more extreme end of things, it's tempting to imagine the Alchemist as a barbarian (mutagen)/rogue (bomb)/wizard (extracts).
(2) Customization. In my opinion, the gunslinger, cavalier, and samurai should have been "buildable" using fighter archetypes or a menu of "fighter talents," without the need to bill them as separate classes.
Instead, we have cries of "backwards compatibility!" and the need for a separate base class or prestige class or archetype for pretty much every possible non-vanilla idea you can come up with. Which is great from the standpoint of wanting to churn out more books, but lousy from the standpoint of wanting to have a toolbox useable for creating non-standard characters.
If you think it's just a matter of nomenclature, you're missing my entire point. My stance is that, to make a sneaky divine part-caster, I shouldn't have to pore through three chapters each in six different splatbooks in order to find the "correct" archetype, prestige class, or new base class that lets me do that. If multiclassing worked to begin with, I wouldn't need all that; I'd be able to do it using the core rules.
The more I have to shell out for supplemental references just to play the game, the less the core rules are actually worth. Even outside the $ issues (given that one could use the PRD), there's still a not-inconsiderable issue of time spent Googling "is there a combination in Pathfinder that will let me play X" -- only to sometimes find something close, sometimes find something pretty far off, and sometimes finding nothing.
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I am personally very glad to see this shift...
While I still disagree (as DM, I'd personally rather have a more wide-open toolkit than a collection of niche ideas), I respect the fact that you provide a logical, reasoned argument to support your stance -- and that you responded directly to what I actually posted, rather than just to what someone imagined I might have posted.
In short, I feel that some kudos are due for your response. Good form!
Personally I love the witch as that is the only class that I have played from the APG. I do think that they are balanced with other classes since their hexes are limited (for the most part).
...and the last said - re: money...I WANT them to keep cranking out material...you see, I WANT them to stay in business. What I don't really want is Pathfinder 2.0...2.5...3.0...ad absurdem.
For the business model to work, they need to keep giving us options.
I want them to get more material out there, but I also do NOT want this to turn out like Rifts, with OCC's and RCC's in every. damn. supplement.
Its why I stopped playing saga edition, the talent/feat system for everything is too modular in my opinion, and makes system mastery an absolute must, and drives up the time and effort required to create characters. And for me, anything that makes a dm's life harder, is simply bad for the game.
Heh, this is actually exactly the reason I dislike the multitude of archetypes ;)
Inquisitor: I love how the image is of a Warhammer witch hunter, complete with hat with the proper symbol. I've never seen it in play though. Seems a little too similar to the paladin mechanically
It has no auras, uses wisdom, is a skill monkey, and has 3/4 bab. How is it mechanically similar to a paladin?
And new crunch leads to bloat and bloat leads to new editions.
You can handwave that by saying only bad crunch is a problem, but you have to throw away most of the evidence to do so. 3.0, 3.5 & 4th had the shortest lifespans of D&D editions and produced the most new crunch.
I'd also say that kits were closer to archetypes than to new classes. They generally just changed or added a couple of things, rather than introduce new mechanics. They varied though. Some crossed the line.As I've said before in this thread, I hope Paizo can sustain itself largely on fluff. On adventures and settings. With only minimal new crunch. I think that will actually stave off a new edition longer than another 36 races and classes will.
true. another problem with those 3 systems, was they literally flooded the players with new crunch. and forced a reboot because they churned out ideas way too quickly.
the key to splatbook release, is to control how many you release in a given time, to know your buyers, and to include options for different buyers.
flooding is bad for a system.
but archetypes and kits, aren't too different from alternate classes. and considering their archetype approach at second glance. they are about 3 or 4 years away from needing a system reboot.
If you think it's just a matter of nomenclature, you're missing my entire point. My stance is that, to make a sneaky divine part-caster, I shouldn't have to pore through...Not trying to belabor your point, but I really want to know why these two points matter so much. if the end result character are functionally so similar why does it matter so much to so many of you that the end result is a new class or a multi-class, or a fighter with spiffy new feats. It goes back to a toss away point I made in an earlier post. I don't understand the hang up on nomenclature.... It seems like tossing the baby out with the bath water when you ban the Alchemist but then in the same breath say it would be fine if it was an alternate Wizard. Not saying your doing that, but I ask you because you seem to be approaching the broader issue from that perspective.Personally, I see the new base classes as being cool in terms of flavor and conception, but also symptomatic of system failure in two areas:
(1) Multiclassing. If this worked correctly, you could "build" a viable cleric/rogue, and wouldn't need the Inquisitor. And you could "build" a viable fighter/sorcerer or fighter/wizard, so you wouldn't need the Magus (or the Eldritch Knight, for that matter). At the more extreme end of things, it's tempting to imagine the Alchemist as a barbarian (mutagen)/rogue (bomb)/wizard (extracts).
(2) Customization. In my opinion, the gunslinger, cavalier, and samurai should have been "buildable" using fighter archetypes or a menu of "fighter talents," without the need to bill them as separate classes.
Instead, we have cries of "backwards compatibility!" and the need for a separate base class or prestige class or archetype for pretty much every possible non-vanilla idea you can come up with. Which is great from the standpoint of wanting to churn out more books, but lousy from the standpoint of wanting to have a toolbox useable for creating non-standard characters.
If you think I missed your point I didn't honest, and if you think I am attempting to be disrespectful of your opinion I am not...I am trying to get to the heart of the matter that confuses me and i felt your opinions are close to the matter of what i struggle with. To me it really sort of is a matter of nomenclature. I see two tool boxes that will ultimately need more and more tools in them to get to the same result. Or to take or more apt anology to my mind I see a lot of people advocating selling bricks and a bunch of other people advocating selling walls and in the end your both are still ending up with a house.
Honestly I am not being obtuse, from the outside looking in I see your way taking more pouring through books because I begin with a starting template that is farther from my goal. I can search for feats, and archetypes and traits to make my cleric/ rogue into a Inquisitor analogue, or I can start with an Inquisitor to begin with. I don't think there is a right or wrong here...I am just trying to understand why you think your way is simpler, and beyond that why it troubles you that both ways exist....the existence of the Inquisitor doesn't prevent you from doing it your way, but it does facilitate doing it mine.
Inquisitor: I love how the image is of a Warhammer witch hunter, complete with hat with the proper symbol. I've never seen it in play though. Seems a little too similar to the paladin mechanicallyIt has no auras, uses wisdom, is a skill monkey, and has 3/4 bab. How is it mechanically similar to a paladin?
it still gets the composite longbow, cestus, and longspear. which are all generic martial class weapons that paladins, clerics, and oracles can also get
it gets judgement, which is packaged akin to smite, being a per day mechanic that grants divine flavored bonuses.
it gets a lot of stacking buffs, which are akin to a WoW Paladin
its primary purpose is killing things, like a paladin or oracle
it is a fairly decent face like a paladin or oracle, due to its ability to get Wis to social skills
gets Wis to a lot of things in a fashion similar to how a PF paladin gets Cha to a lot of things.
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Inquisitor is the best of the class design I've seen from Paizo, as far as execution of the idea. The mechanics are all synergystic, and never, as a player, are you in a position where the mechanics hinder you from doing what (in my mind) an Inquisitor should be able do.
It's just a great class, and it sets the bar pretty high for anything following it.
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AD&D, esp 2nd ed is a great game for roleplaying, Tactically- not so much.That is one of the Best things I have heard said about AD&D Second Edition. :)
I may be one of only a few here to say it, but I really miss those old boxed sets. Nothing against hardbound books but was neat having so many handouts, maps, and different books for different things all in the box.
Lot of great memories using my Heroes of the Lance boxed set =)
IMO, Summoner is just broken. No other class can you re-choose all your class options from just-shy-of-the-ground-up each level. Plus you can cast a spell and attack (from the eidolon/summoned monster) in the same round (yes, the druid's animal companion can do that too, but one is an animal, the other is an outsider with a bunch of abilities like spells, energy resistance, no comparison). All this for the trade off of being a 6-level caster, which is really a 9-level caster smushed into 6.
All the other APG classes+magus, I'm cool with.
Gunslinger, Ninja and Samurai don't work for me, flavor-wise.
Many of its unique abilities (judgement, etc) are very close to paladin abilities. I see it like a "bard variant" of the paladin. More spells, more skills, less combat ability.Inquisitor: I love how the image is of a Warhammer witch hunter, complete with hat with the proper symbol. I've never seen it in play though. Seems a little too similar to the paladin mechanicallyIt has no auras, uses wisdom, is a skill monkey, and has 3/4 bab. How is it mechanically similar to a paladin?
Skill monkey divine caster makes more sense to me than paladin like. Judgement is far different to smite, and their self only buffs are different from auras. Full BAB and non action buffs are nifty!
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My late thoughts;
1) Alchemist - I wanted a skill-based alchemist, that progressed off of the pre-existing Craft (alchemy) skill to advance (and add to) the various alchemical fire's and tanglefoot bags, etc. to keep them relevant as levels increased. I got a Jekyll-and-Hyde bomb throwing poison-using semi-spellcaster, that feels like at least three good ideas mushed into one strange, strange thing. And surprisingly little *alchemy* for a class named 'Alchemist.'
2) Cavalier - I have no opinion on melee classes. I don't play them. I give them kudos for not having or using spells. I get that spells and spell descriptions take up ridiculous amounts of pagecount, at the end of the day, but does *every* class have to use that mechanic?
3) Inquisitor - Another very 'busy' class with a lot going on. I kind of dislike classes that have dribs and drabs of spellcasting, as it leads to high CR encounters being met with 1st and 2nd level spells (because it's all the Paladin/Ranger/Inquisitor has) and higher level Cleric / Druid / etc. spells being 'downleveled' to be made available to hybrid casters who only are getting 3rd level spells at 10th level (which later results in cheap access to wands and potions, etc. of that spell, or even access to potions and wands of spells that otherwise would never have been available, since they are 4th and 5th level Cleric and Wizard spells). I think I would have liked the Inquisitor (and Paladin and Ranger, for that matter) better if it had some thematic powers, but no spellcasting.
4) Oracle - Like the Sorcerer, it gets its spells a level late for no real reason. Unlike the Sorcerer, whose tiny list of spells known is at least theoretically balanced against a Wizard having to pay for each of his potentially infinite spells and lug around a (potentially Achilles heel) spellbook, the Oracle has the same tiny list of spells known, and is 'balanced' against the Cleric or Druid, who knows every single one of their potentially infinite spell lists automagically, and never has to worry about buying their spells or losing their spellbooks. I'd never play a Sorcerer over a Wizard, because of the handicapped 'nerfed by committee' nature of the Sorcerer, and the Oracle is, compared to the Cleric, many times worse.
On the upside, it's an order of magnitude better than the Favored Soul.
5) Summoner - The class itself has it's bugbears, and the occasional 'meta' moment when one wonders what the thematic tie is between 'specialized conjurer' and 'I just happen to know, oh-so-conveniently, in addition to conjuration spells, a select smattering of the very best transmutation buffs, like bull's strength and haste.' But, of them all, it's my favorite, not just for what it *is,* but for what it can become. Tweak the spell list, replacing conjurings with necromancies, and remake the outsider eidolon into an undead creature, and you have a completely different school-themed 'pet-wizard' with the same basic chassis. Tweak it in the direction of transmutation, and make the eidolon a construct or animated object or 'greater homonculus,' and you've done it again, taking the Summoner chassis and building an 'Artificer' for Pathfinder. As a class, it's pretty cool.
As a toolkit, it's fantastic.
6) Witch - There's a part of me that thinks this would be a fine Wizard variant, instead of being a class unto itself, but that's the same part of me that thinks that a Barbarian or a Ranger would be fine Fighter variants, instead of classes unto themselves. That ship hit an iceberg and sank with all hands lost long ago.
Games have, for decades, gone in the direction of more specialized classes (archetypes/roles/professions/whatever), rather than more versatile classes.
I like the hexes mechanic, more so than the 'wizard lite' spell list, and if there was a hex that did damage, I'd probably abandon spellcasting entirely with this class and just go all-hex all-the-time.
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Personally I love the witch as that is the only class that I have played from the APG. I do think that they are balanced with other classes since their hexes are limited (for the most part).
I tried rolling up a Witch inspired by Beatrice but found that the hexes were too geared to the Baba Yaga/European-themed hedge witch kind. Cackle seemed to fit, but I just went with Bard instead.
Personally I love the witch as that is the only class that I have played from the APG. I do think that they are balanced with other classes since their hexes are limited (for the most part).I tried rolling up a Witch inspired by Beatrice but found that the hexes were too geared to the Baba Yaga/European-themed hedge witch kind. Cackle seemed to fit, but I just went with Bard instead.
Huh, trying to imagine what witches would look like if they resembled shounen and magical girl series...