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It leads to the question, is the monk broken or is the default action system? If the monk could move and fury without the need for feats or spending other resources. As far as I know the only ability that allows a full attack at the end of a movement is pounce, I could be forgetting something, but I'm sure someone will remind me if I am. This alone would give the monk the default roll of skirmisher, and his other abilities makes him survivable as well. In the original pathfinder playtest it was suggested that a player could give up one of their attacks to perform a full movement. I thought it was an excellent idea, but others disagreed.
And who's to say the insurance adjuster isn't also a RPG designer? I'm sorry but the reality is that RPG design doesn't require significant investment of time or effort (compared to say, engineering or medicine). The Bar isn't set very high. That isn't a knock on RPGs or their designers, it is simply a reflection of the fact that games designers are not experts (because the field rarely displays the depth necessary for there to be "experts" in the sense you are using the term in), or at least very few of them are.
I wouldn't presume to tell an astrophysicist his business, He's an expert after all, and I'm not qualified in that field. However, I and many others on this forum are perfectly qualified to discuss pen & paper RPGs on equal footing with Paizo (and WotC for that matter) staff.
You know, having “been there and done that” I can say that this is very doubtful. Try it. Harder than it looks.
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It leads to the question, is the monk broken or is the default action system? If the monk could move and fury without the need for feats or spending other resources. As far as I know the only ability that allows a full attack at the end of a movement is pounce, I could be forgetting something, but I'm sure someone will remind me if I am. This alone would give the monk the default roll of skirmisher, and his other abilities makes him survivable as well. In the original pathfinder playtest it was suggested that a player could give up one of their attacks to perform a full movement. I thought it was an excellent idea, but others disagreed.
I think combat manuevers are things you can do at the end of movement, and while yes you risk AoO if you don't take the feats, sometimes it doesn't matter if the wizard hits you with his staff or not on the AoO.
It leads to the question, is the monk broken or is the default action system? If the monk could move and fury without the need for feats or spending other resources. As far as I know the only ability that allows a full attack at the end of a movement is pounce, I could be forgetting something, but I'm sure someone will remind me if I am. This alone would give the monk the default roll of skirmisher, and his other abilities makes him survivable as well. In the original pathfinder playtest it was suggested that a player could give up one of their attacks to perform a full movement. I thought it was an excellent idea, but others disagreed.I think combat manuevers are things you can do at the end of movement, and while yes you risk AoO if you don't take the feats, sometimes it doesn't matter if the wizard hits you with his staff or not on the AoO.
It was spell storing, had disintegrate. Also his contingencies kick in.
Anyways, I did make my own suggestion. Combat Maneuvers aren't always the best option. They require large investment, ad they certainly don't help you if the creature is immune. They also don't have a high rate of success at higher levels.
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20 Point buy monk
To keep it open, we'll remove race.
16, 14, 13, 12, 10, 10
Throw your +2 around (or move your various racial bonuses around to make one of those 14 into a 16 and you have.
16 Str
13 Dex
12 Con
10 Int
16 Wis
10 Cha
By 10th base is (This is personal preference)
18 Str
13 Dex
12 Con
10 Int
16 Wis
10 Cha
Gold is 62,000
Headband of inspired wisdom +4 is 16k
Belt of Physical perfection +2 is also 16K
So we are at
20 Str
15 Dex
14 Con
10 Int
20 Wis
10 Cha
With 30k gold left.
And that is with no scores under 10.
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It leads to the question, is the monk broken or is the default action system? If the monk could move and fury without the need for feats or spending other resources. As far as I know the only ability that allows a full attack at the end of a movement is pounce, I could be forgetting something, but I'm sure someone will remind me if I am. This alone would give the monk the default roll of skirmisher, and his other abilities makes him survivable as well. In the original pathfinder playtest it was suggested that a player could give up one of their attacks to perform a full movement. I thought it was an excellent idea, but others disagreed.I think combat manuevers are things you can do at the end of movement, and while yes you risk AoO if you don't take the feats, sometimes it doesn't matter if the wizard hits you with his staff or not on the AoO.It was spell storing, had disintegrate. Also his contingencies kick in.
Anyways, I did make my own suggestion. Combat Maneuvers aren't always the best option. They require large investment, ad they certainly don't help you if the creature is immune. They also don't have a high rate of success at higher levels.
And Schrodinger's wizard appears!
As far as I know the only ability that allows a full attack at the end of a movement is pounce, I could be forgetting something, but I'm sure someone will remind me if I am.
It's the only core method I think. There's a magic item in a splatbook that lets you take a move action a few times per day. It caused some hubub as to whether or not it was overpowered (it's not overpowered really, it's just that having it is so critical to actually being able to move and still do something meaningful).
Psionics allows for moving and full-attacking. There's a power called hustle which is a swift action and gives you a move action. It costs some juice but it can allow you to move and full attack in the same round. It's one of the reasons this psionic monk actually makes a pretty solid skirmisher if you want to go that route.
And Schrodinger's wizard appears!It was spell storing, had disintegrate. Also his contingencies kick in.
Anyways, I did make my own suggestion. Combat Maneuvers aren't always the best option. They require large investment, ad they certainly don't help you if the creature is immune. They also don't have a high rate of success at higher levels.
Contingencies aren't schrodinger's wizards. They weren't abnormal for play when I played 3.5. The meat of the post was about you know, combat maneuvers not being the best option and not having a high rate of success, also requiring large investment even to do in the first place. When you fight a giant centipede, you can't trip him, and if you try to grapple him he eats you alive with natural attacks.
Headband of inspired wisdom +4 is 16k
Belt of Physical perfection +2 is also 16KSo we are at
20 Str
15 Dex
14 Con
10 Int
20 Wis
10 ChaWith 30k gold left.
And that is with no scores under 10.
Base AC 19 at 10th level. Hmm. I guess 9,000 gp for +3 armor bracers, 8,000 gp for +2 ring of protection, another 8,000 gp for natural armor +2 on some other body slot besides neck. I guess that leaves us with 5,000 gp for a [i]+1 amulet of mighty fists[/url]?
That brings use to...
Hp 68.5
+13-16 to hit at 1d10+6.
AC 26.
Stunning Fist DC 20.
Against a CR 10 average that gives him about a 65% chance to hit when using Flurry of Blows, and the enemy has a 70% chance to save. The chances of landing a stunning blow during a flurry are about 45.5%. The chances of him landing it when he's not using flurry are about 35%.
For the enemy, the chances to hit the monk are about 65% for 29.25 per full attack.
That's what the base monster creation chart gives us. It's a little worse in general if you're actually fighting fully fleshed out monsters with actual abilities and such, but it gives us a nice starting point.
Contingencies aren't schrodinger's wizards. They weren't abnormal for play when I played 3.5. The meat of the post was about you know, combat maneuvers not being the best option and not having a high rate of success, also requiring large investment even to do in the first place. When you fight a giant centipede, you can't trip him, and if you try to grapple him he eats you alive with natural attacks.And Schrodinger's wizard appears!It was spell storing, had disintegrate. Also his contingencies kick in.
Anyways, I did make my own suggestion. Combat Maneuvers aren't always the best option. They require large investment, ad they certainly don't help you if the creature is immune. They also don't have a high rate of success at higher levels.
Yeah grappling creatures with natural attacks is usually a really bad idea. Hell, grappling creatures with 1-handed weapons is often a really bad idea too (generally they can full attack your face while you have to not full-attack them to continue trying to maintain the grapple).
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As far as I know the only ability that allows a full attack at the end of a movement is pounce, I could be forgetting something, but I'm sure someone will remind me if I am.It's the only core method I think. There's a magic item in a splatbook that lets you take a move action a few times per day. It caused some hubub as to whether or not it was overpowered (it's not overpowered really, it's just that having it is so critical to actually being able to move and still do something meaningful).
Psionics allows for moving and full-attacking. There's a power called hustle which is a swift action and gives you a move action. It costs some juice but it can allow you to move and full attack in the same round. It's one of the reasons this psionic monk actually makes a pretty solid skirmisher if you want to go that route.
Sill begs the question, is it the monk that's broken or the action economy system? Lets say that a fighter/rogue/monk/cavalier/barbarian/any other martial character, had the option to give up only one of his attacks in order to make a movement up to his movement rate, and still attack with the remaining iterative attacks. Would this drastically change the the balance within the game? I'm just curious you know more about the rules then I, I believe it would, but you may feel different.
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Okay, answer this for me then: Why does anyone want this job at all? My impression is you really aren't going to be raking in big bucks, or even average middle class money. You are lucky to get full time and 30k a year.
Because, in the end, you do get to write really cool things and get paid for it. You make a steadier paycheck than a freelance writer normally does, and you get health insurance with that sub-par paycheck from most publishers.
Every person who works publishing games has taken a genteel vow of poverty to do what they love for about half of what they'd make working as an entry level tech writer.
Some of us value working on Interesting Things more than money...but we don't get to JUST play games all the time or talk about game mechanics.
There are two natural sizes of game companies; 2-6 people and 30-40 people. Intermediate sizes rapidly move to one or the other of those extremes. At the bigger end, it's more like an office job - you get more time to write need things...but now you're accountable to a lot more stake-holders who want to ensure that the product hits the widest market segment possible.
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@Ashiel- Or I have 9 feats. So what shall we do with them.
4 Monk feats, so one will be dodge (base is now 20 before we add anything)
5 Regular feats, one will be toughness, so throw on another 10...make it 20 since I'll take the hit point for favored class.
So I have 7 feats left (3 monk, 4 regular) assuming I'm not human of course.
Also, I'd rather you not spend my money for me, thanks. Maybe you can make your own build?
Why buy an amulet when I could go Quingong and give up the slow fall for Barkskin for +3 for 100 minutes a use. But if that is "too much" let me know. I will pick up the bracers for 9k, but I really only want a +1 ring at this point as I need the money for a monk robe, which adds another 1 to AC, as well as more damage and stunning fist.
So base is now 21 with the robe on, +3 for bracers, +1 for the ring so 25, and then when barkskin is up 28. That would leave me with only the +1 AoMF, so I'm on the fence about the robe. I'll think about it.
I also will probably pick up a cloak of resistance +1, because why not?
And again, if you would like to post your ubercaster build, since you have found fault with my monk, that would be awesome :)
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Contingencies aren't schrodinger's wizards. They weren't abnormal for play when I played 3.5. The meat of the post was about you know, combat maneuvers not being the best option and not having a high rate of success, also requiring large investment even to do in the first place. When you fight a giant centipede, you can't trip him, and if you try to grapple him he eats you alive with natural attacks.And Schrodinger's wizard appears!It was spell storing, had disintegrate. Also his contingencies kick in.
Anyways, I did make my own suggestion. Combat Maneuvers aren't always the best option. They require large investment, ad they certainly don't help you if the creature is immune. They also don't have a high rate of success at higher levels.
Schrodinger's wizard is when you come up with a reason it won't work after the fact.
Post a 10th level wizard and we can discuss it. I put my money where my mouth is.
Sill begs the question, is it the monk that's broken or the action economy system? Lets say that a fighter/rogue/monk/cavalier/barbarian/any other martial character, had the option to give up only one of his attacks in order to make a movement up to his movement rate, and still attack with the remaining iterative attacks. Would this drastically change the the balance within the game? I'm just curious you know more about the rules then I, I believe it would, but you may feel different.As far as I know the only ability that allows a full attack at the end of a movement is pounce, I could be forgetting something, but I'm sure someone will remind me if I am.It's the only core method I think. There's a magic item in a splatbook that lets you take a move action a few times per day. It caused some hubub as to whether or not it was overpowered (it's not overpowered really, it's just that having it is so critical to actually being able to move and still do something meaningful).
Psionics allows for moving and full-attacking. There's a power called hustle which is a swift action and gives you a move action. It costs some juice but it can allow you to move and full attack in the same round. It's one of the reasons this psionic monk actually makes a pretty solid skirmisher if you want to go that route.
It's the action economy. It has been pretty much forever. It was less noticeable in 3E because haste allowed an extra standard or move action (then called partial actions). Since every martial under the sun had some means of haste at at higher levels (and in the iconic 4 person party you probably had it from 5th level and up) you could move and full-attack.
3.5 removed the ability to take an extra move with haste. Martials have been crippled ever since. So much so that martials who get the ability to move and attack seem leaps and bounds better than any who cannot. This is also one of the reasons ranged attackers dominate the scene (they don't have to move to get their full-attack on so it's much harder to avoid them unless you can get total cover).
There is a funny fact that while every other class gets relatively stronger as they gain levels, martials get relatively weaker. You will never - ever - kill things as efficiently as you can at 1st level. At first level moving and using a standard attack can slay a single CR 1/3 opponent in a single blow. By 11th level, moving and using a standard attack wouldn't slay a CR 5 enemy with with any reliability.
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Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you in full technicolor.
Zombie Ninja's New Totally Radical Action System
Here's how it works. All characters roll intuitive as per typical rules. When a player's turn comes around she gets a countdown 5 to 1 (5,4,3,2,1). In that amount of time the player can insert actions at each stage of the countdown. For example (attack, attack, attack, move, potion). The countdown doesn't change as she levels up, it starts at 5 at 1st level and it stays at 5 at 20th level, but the number of actions of a given type may increase, so at first level only one action may be an attack, but the others could be used on other options. As the character levels up she may perform more actions of a specific type up to the maximum of 5., basically at 6th level our character (lets say she's a cavalier) can make a second attack at -5 bab (exactly as an iterative attacks work) ie. attack, attack, three other things.
Anything you do counts as an action, with one exemption. You can get a free action, but it only counts as a 6th action, which means if you want to make two free actions the second counts as a standard action (so you could sing a bard's song while raging if you where a barbarian/bard multi-class, but only one would be for free). Certain feats like two weapon fighting would allow you to use your of hand weapon as that special 6th (free) action, and a 5ft step could be used as one under the condition that you made no other movement actions that round. Summoning could also work, the summoner calls in his pet and that pet gets a 6th (free) action, if the summoner wants the pet to make other actions, he has to give up some of his own.
If I can figure a way to make spells work well within the system it could be it feasible action system. But, would it help in game balance?
Okay, answer this for me then: Why does anyone want this job at all? My impression is you really aren't going to be raking in big bucks, or even average middle class money. You are lucky to get full time and 30k a year.
If it isn't a "fun" job, if there is any iota of pita to it, why stay in it? I mean what happens when you get old, and you have bounced from company to company because of the WOTC-style reorganizations, companies going under, etc.
You can wind up 50 with not much in the bank, and no pension prospects. Plus unless you are an anomaly I doubt you have much in an IRA or 401k.
I'm not sure I'd agree with the assumption that it isn't a fun job. Even people turfed out by WotC seem to have enjoyed much of their jobs. At the very least, they say positive things about it and the people and projects they worked with. Is that just putting a positive spin on things? I doubt it.
My guess is people work in game design because they have a passion for it. That covers over a lot of ills or otherwise sub-optimal behavior - kind of like the way people have played fighters, rogues, and blaster wizards all through D&D's 3e/PF history despite the internet peanut gallery calling such characters sub-optimal. Being able to eke out a living doing what you love to do is often more enjoyable than making more money doing something that you don't like as much.
Y'know, I've never felt this so-called push to have to full-attack every single turn. I've never had an issue with only doing around 10%-20% of the bad guy's health in a blow, rather than around 35-40% you'd get with a full-attack. Granted, the full-attack will net you more damage (if you can land the iteratives), but to be able to do a constant 1/10 - 1/5 of the BBEG's health in damage to them is still pretty good. This is especially true since you have three to four other players in your party that are helping out. Whether it's another martial, or a caster with buff spells, or a caster with save-or-suck spells, you've got plenty of damage and abilities being thrown at the BBEG. It's why I don't fret if my fighters can't get a full-attack off for one round because I'm still hitting the BBEG for a sizable chunk of health. Now, fighters getting a way to pounce would be pretty cool, and I wouldn't say no to that. But, I also don't find myself being pressured to have to full-attack every round at higher levels like people seem to say.
Also, unrelated, but the "X class is a culture, not a class" is one of the dumbest arguments I've ever heard. By definition, classes themselves are based on cultural folklore and stories that are popular amongst a group of people. It's like complaining the paladin class is nothing like the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne, or bards being more than just minstrels, or the cavalier being more than a Royalist supporter of Charles I.
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Maybe I'm just missing something but shouldn't standing in one place and hitting something over and over do more damage than moving and hitting something? I mean, a round is six seconds, shouldn't movement take up some of that time? Are you wanting to move as a free action, or full attack with a standard? What if nobody could make more than one attack per round (unless two-weapon fighting)? Would that be more balanced, less fun, both, neither?
Adding a restriction like that would only serve to make martials extremely weak at higher levels, unless you did something to make up for the loss. If melee damage scaled in a way, that might be mitigated. I'm not sure what the math or what the proper damage would be, and it would definitely hurt static damages that grow when you have more attacks such as weapon enhancements and feats.
Also, unrelated, but the "X class is a culture, not a class" is one of the dumbest arguments I've ever heard. By definition, classes themselves are based on cultural folklore and stories that are popular amongst a group of people. It's like complaining the paladin class is nothing like the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne, or bards being more than just minstrels, or the cavalier being more than a Royalist supporter of Charles I.
Acknowledging that this is off-topic, but.... wtf?
"Fighter" is not a culture, or more accurately, fighters exist in every culture. Rogues exist in every culture, whether we're talking about diplomats, thieves, or confidence tricksters. Any culture that believes in miracles -- which is probably 99% of them, historically -- has something akin to clerics who invoke and interpret the will of the gods, whether this god be Apollo, YHVH, or Coyote Trickster. And similarly, wizards and sorcerers are universal.
As are aristocrats, commoners, warriors, etc.
i literally can't imagine any group where a big guy with the ability to take a punch would be out of place.
You're right, the paladin class is strongly culture-bound; it's basically King Arthur's Round Table or the Peer's of Charlemagne. But this isn't an argument for allowing samurai where they don't belong. If I were running something based on the Hopi migration tales, I'd probably disallow paladins as well as a samurai. But fighters, rogues, witches, sorcerers, clerics, wizards, and so forth should all be fine.
A samurai needs a supporting culture for the class to make sense. In that sense, it's indeed a culture as much as a class. By contrast, any culture can support a fighter.
(Oh, and cavalier is simply misnamed if you think it's got anything to do with Charles I. Cavalier, the class, is basically a knight-errant, which is much broader and deeper than 17th century England....)
Samurai and Cavalier don't have much to do with cultures either really. Its attaching fluff to classes that doesn't exist. All that's important for those two is that some sort of mount exist. I suppose if there aren't any forms of mounts then you really couldn't have one, but orders could be many things.
It's important to keep in mind enemy HP. When you're not full-attacking you are not dealing meaningful damage at higher levels. Just as an example to Odraude, let's say you have a 9th level Fighter (+9/+4 BAB).
Now let's say this fighter began with an 18 Strength (do-able on 15 pb with a +2 racial), and has increased his Strength to 22 (2 level increases and a +2 item). Now he's hitting at +15 for +9 damage with his two-hander (let's give him a greataxe 'cause axes are cool). Now let's give him a nice +2 weapon. That's +17 for 1d12+11 damage. Now let's give him Power Attack for another +9 damage, bringing him to +14/1d12+20 damage. Dat is some serious damage you might say! But wait, we're not done yet, we toss on Weapon Training (axes) for +1, and weapon specialization and greater weapon focus!
Muahaha, behold your mighty 1d20+17 to hit and 1d12+23! Mucho damage eh!? :D
Except...you're level 9. The average CR 4 enemy has enough HP to survive one of your attacks (40 hp). The average CR 7 enemy has enough HP to survive a few of your hits (85 hp). The higher the CR of the encounter goes the less you matter because HP scales faster than damage. The more dynamic the encounter you face, the less you matter because the more foes and/or tricks an enemy has the less likely it'll matter.
If you encounter a pair of Ogre Magi (a "challenging" encounter, merely APL+1, each with 95 hp each plus regeneration), moving up and hitting them will deal around 22.5 points of damage on a non-crit. You have dealt about 22.5/190 total HP for the enemy encounter. But since enemies aren't just HP bubbles the ogres move away from you in flight (one takes a withdraw action into the air and heals 5 hp from regeneration). And so on and so forth.
At very high levels it's even worse. You probably won't deal 20% of a mook's HP per swing.
The strongest you will ever be relative to the enemies you face will be at 1st level where a single move+attack has a good chance of removing a whole creature from a fight, even if that creature is near your CR.
Samurai and Cavalier don't have much to do with cultures either really. Its attaching fluff to classes that doesn't exist. All that's important for those two is that some sort of mount exist. I suppose if there aren't any forms of mounts then you really couldn't have one, but orders could be many things.
Well, not really, A cavalier is specifically a mounted warrior who leads and empowers a team of lesser warriors and specializes in ritual combat against a single enemy. (Relevant class features : Mount, Tactician, and Challenge, respectively.) While you're right that the orders could be refluffed, I'm not sure how you refluff the challenge aspects....
Samurai and Cavalier don't have much to do with cultures either really. Its attaching fluff to classes that doesn't exist. All that's important for those two is that some sort of mount exist. I suppose if there aren't any forms of mounts then you really couldn't have one, but orders could be many things.Well, not really, A cavalier is specifically a mounted warrior who leads and empowers a team of lesser warriors and specializes in ritual combat against a single enemy. (Relevant class features : Mount, Tactician, and Challenge, respectively.) While you're right that the orders could be refluffed, I'm not sure how you refluff the challenge aspects....
I don't get why it has to be ritualistic. You could just call them out. Point or give them a mean look and go "You there!" or something really cool. That's how I've always seen the challenge. From that point on he's is your focus, and your martial trainings(order) give your challenge special qualities. Anyone can call someone out.
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It's important to keep in mind enemy HP. When you're not full-attacking you are not dealing meaningful damage at higher levels. Just as an example to Odraude, let's say you have a 9th level Fighter (+9/+4 BAB).
Now let's say this fighter began with an 18 Strength (do-able on 15 pb with a +2 racial), and has increased his Strength to 22 (2 level increases and a +2 item). Now he's hitting at +15 for +9 damage with his two-hander (let's give him a greataxe 'cause axes are cool). Now let's give him a nice +2 weapon. That's +17 for 1d12+11 damage. Now let's give him Power Attack for another +9 damage, bringing him to +14/1d12+20 damage. Dat is some serious damage you might say! But wait, we're not done yet, we toss on Weapon Training (axes) for +1, and weapon specialization and greater weapon focus!
Muahaha, behold your mighty 1d20+17 to hit and 1d12+23! Mucho damage eh!? :D
First, kudos on coming into the math, if only to attack others rather than post your own. It is at least a step.
Second, not really because that isn't the math. Which might be your problem.
If we look at an actual 9th level two handed fighter with 22 str (your numbers not mine) they start with as you said +9/+4.
Now add 6 for strength and we are at +15/+10.
Then add 2 for weapon training and we are at +17/+12
Add that +2 weapon you gave him (or her) and we are at +19/+14
Add Weapon focus (pre-requisite for Weapon Specialization) and we are at +20/+15.
With your layout.
As to damage, 1d12 +9 starting off for two handed.
+2 for weapon training = +11
+2 For the weapon = +13
+2 For weapon specialization = +15
Now we add power attack. A two hander is going to likely have furious focus, so that first attack stays +20, second one drops to 12.
So for a power attack it would actually be +20/+12 1d12 + 24
Wait, you gave greater weapon focus too.
So +21/+13 1d12+24
Did I miss anything?
As an aside, I'd have gone with a Falcion for the crit range.
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Druids were the priests of a different culture other than the Anglo-Saxon and Roman. Technically, a Monk is a priest of a very specific discipline in Asia.
Technically, a Monk or a Druid is whatever Paizo says they are. The fact that real-world druids and monks don't match up with the class is mostly irrelevant.
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Why is an ogre mage doing basically nothing in a round bad for the group?
If you encounter a pair of Ogre Magi (a "challenging" encounter, merely APL+1, each with 95 hp each plus regeneration), moving up and hitting them will deal around 22.5 points of damage on a non-crit. You have dealt about 22.5/190 total HP for the enemy encounter. But since enemies aren't just HP bubbles the ogres move away from you in flight (one takes a withdraw action into the air and heals 5 hp from regeneration). And so on and so forth.
Don't discourage, we actually got real numbers to look at. Wrong numbers, but baby steps!
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but but but, In a group of 4 character vs two monster, one monster doing nothing is like a gift.Don't discourage, we actually got real numbers to look at. Wrong numbers, but baby steps!Why is an ogre mage doing basically nothing in a round bad for the group?
If you encounter a pair of Ogre Magi (a "challenging" encounter, merely APL+1, each with 95 hp each plus regeneration), moving up and hitting them will deal around 22.5 points of damage on a non-crit. You have dealt about 22.5/190 total HP for the enemy encounter. But since enemies aren't just HP bubbles the ogres move away from you in flight (one takes a withdraw action into the air and heals 5 hp from regeneration). And so on and so forth.
It kind of is a gift, since the Ogre mage has spell resistance :)
Plus with the correct math the Fighter auto hits on anything but a 1.
Which is why I go with the Falcion and pick up improved critical.
It's important to keep in mind enemy HP. When you're not full-attacking you are not dealing meaningful damage at higher levels. Just as an example to Odraude, let's say you have a 9th level Fighter (+9/+4 BAB).
Now let's say this fighter began with an 18 Strength (do-able on 15 pb with a +2 racial), and has increased his Strength to 22 (2 level increases and a +2 item). Now he's hitting at +15 for +9 damage with his two-hander (let's give him a greataxe 'cause axes are cool). Now let's give him a nice +2 weapon. That's +17 for 1d12+11 damage. Now let's give him Power Attack for another +9 damage, bringing him to +14/1d12+20 damage. Dat is some serious damage you might say! But wait, we're not done yet, we toss on Weapon Training (axes) for +1, and weapon specialization and greater weapon focus!
Muahaha, behold your mighty 1d20+17 to hit and 1d12+23! Mucho damage eh!? :D
Except...you're level 9. The average CR 4 enemy has enough HP to survive one of your attacks (40 hp). The average CR 7 enemy has enough HP to survive a few of your hits (85 hp). The higher the CR of the encounter goes the less you matter because HP scales faster than damage. The more dynamic the encounter you face, the less you matter because the more foes and/or tricks an enemy has the less likely it'll matter.
If you encounter a pair of Ogre Magi (a "challenging" encounter, merely APL+1, each with 95 hp each plus regeneration), moving up and hitting them will deal around 22.5 points of damage on a non-crit. You have dealt about 22.5/190 total HP for the enemy encounter. But since enemies aren't just HP bubbles the ogres move away from you in flight (one takes a withdraw action into the air and heals 5 hp from regeneration). And so on and so forth.
At very high levels it's even worse. You probably won't deal 20% of a mook's HP per swing.
The strongest you will ever be relative to the enemies you face will be at 1st level where a single move+attack has a good chance of removing a whole creature from a fight, even if that...
I was taking into account HP growth as the levels go up. And what I found both playing and running was that even into the higher levels, a fighter could do meaningful damage into the late teens of high-level play if they can get only one hit in. Feats like power attack, Improved Crit, Weapon Specialization, Vital Strike, etc, as well as magic weapons and items to add more damage help greatly. Now granted, this isn't to downplay some of the dangers mentioned above (flying in particular), because those would also affect a pouncing barbarian (though, not an archer). Much like how weather, darkness, and spells like wind wall will affect archers more so than it would a melee fighter. But, at least when I build a fighter, I try to work around that either with feats, magic items, or my caster teammate.
Now that I mentioned Vital Strike, I would like to say that I do agree it should be applied to charges. Unsure on Spring Attack, but definitely charges.
Also, unrelated, but the "X class is a culture, not a class" is one of the dumbest arguments I've ever heard. By definition, classes themselves are based on cultural folklore and stories that are popular amongst a group of people. It's like complaining the paladin class is nothing like the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne, or bards being more than just minstrels, or the cavalier being more than a Royalist supporter of Charles I.Acknowledging that this is off-topic, but.... wtf?
"Fighter" is not a culture, or more accurately, fighters exist in every culture. Rogues exist in every culture, whether we're talking about diplomats, thieves, or confidence tricksters. Any culture that believes in miracles -- which is probably 99% of them, historically -- has something akin to clerics who invoke and interpret the will of the gods, whether this god be Apollo, YHVH, or Coyote Trickster. And similarly, wizards and sorcerers are universal.
As are aristocrats, commoners, warriors, etc.
i literally can't imagine any group where a big guy with the ability to take a punch would be out of place.
You're right, the paladin class is strongly culture-bound; it's basically King Arthur's Round Table or the Peer's of Charlemagne. But this isn't an argument for allowing samurai where they don't belong. If I were running something based on the Hopi migration tales, I'd probably disallow paladins as well as a samurai. But fighters, rogues, witches, sorcerers, clerics, wizards, and so forth should all be fine.
A samurai needs a supporting culture for the class to make sense. In that sense, it's indeed a culture as much as a class. By contrast, any culture can support a fighter.
(Oh, and cavalier is simply misnamed if you think it's got anything to do with Charles I. Cavalier, the class, is basically a knight-errant, which is much broader and deeper than 17th century England....)
Alright, admittedly, some classes (bard, paladin, monk, samurai, ninja, druid, and maybe inquisitor?) have more "cultural baggage" than the fighter, wizard, rogue, etc. My point was that getting hung up on the name doesn't matter, because you can always refluff a class to suit your needs. That was my point with the cavalier. I was pointing out the sheer absurdity with complaining about a class because of some cultural roots in the name. Especially since the druid in D&D is nothing like the druids from ancient times, really only sharing a name with the original concept (much like the bard). Like with any class, you could easily refluff the druid as a Native American witch doctor, or a Vodou bokor, or a shaman, or even a yamabushi aesthetic. In fact, the only time I ever played a Celtic druid was when I was in a Roman Empire-inspired campaign. I'd hazard to say that of the classes with cultural baggage, the druid probably has the easiest time with refluffing. But any can really have it. A ninja could be more like the hashashin of the Middle East, a samurai a bogatyr of Slavic lore, and a paladin or cavalier can be a youxia from Chinese folklore.
Essentially, my point is that getting hung up on cultural ties with name is absurd, and only limits yourself in what you can really do with these classes.
Why is an ogre mage doing basically nothing in a round bad for the group?
If you encounter a pair of Ogre Magi (a "challenging" encounter, merely APL+1, each with 95 hp each plus regeneration), moving up and hitting them will deal around 22.5 points of damage on a non-crit. You have dealt about 22.5/190 total HP for the enemy encounter. But since enemies aren't just HP bubbles the ogres move away from you in flight (one takes a withdraw action into the air and heals 5 hp from regeneration). And so on and so forth.
It's not bad. But it's not particularly special. In this example the ogre mage is lower in CR than the fighter himself. If the ogre mage backs up and gives some ground, the fighter trades his action for his enemy's.
At 1st level, if a fighter fights an enemy that is CR 1/2, more than likely he traded his action for ALL of the enemy's actions. Because he just killed the enemy or put the enemy into critical condition (where most creatures sentient or not are not going to fight it out unless posed no other choice).
I'm not saying anyone is useless. I'm saying you are relatively less powerful and less capable of doing your job than when you were 1st level. The amount of enemies and Hp that you can meet in fair combats far outweighs your ability to neutralize a threat. Even if that threat is nothing more than a trash-mook.
Now that I mentioned Vital Strike, I would like to say that I do agree it should be applied to charges. Unsure on Spring Attack, but definitely charges.
I like the idea of Vital Strike. Unfortunately it diminishes the benefit of class features like Weapon Training and favors big weapons in the extreme. It also generally means you move, attack, get ravaged by someone else's full attack (but then this is a general problem with the move+attack situation).
I suspect their Playtest sessions are both more effective and efficient, as well.In my experience, generally not.
One of the things that happens in small game companies is that the days are long, and you're *staring* at this stuff for hours every day. By the time your "recreational" time comes around, all of your co-workers are also a little crispy around the edges.
What usually happens is someone says "I've got a mod for rule X."
And everyone else is too busy doing the thirteen other jobs they have to do around the office to really give a good sounding board. There will be company-mandated playtest times, often unpaid save for company provided pizza. You get more sounding board time when you're the amateur.
Playtesting isn't as fun as just playing. Playtesting with the guys at the office is a great way to get a serious case of "everyone I know plays it this way" blinders, too. Because everyone "knows" the rules and how they're supposed to work, and the guy who goes "Look! I can kill a Balor in the surprise round!" generally isn't hired by the game company at all, so isn't present in the game company playtest sessions.
Every playtest group needs a small salting of annoying pricks. Not just "power gamers" but actual annoying pricks who get their ego boo out of proving they're "smarter" than the asshat dev who wrote the rule.
Every playtest group also needs a handful of village idiots, the guys who'll read rules and go "OK, what does that mean?" You know, the player in your group who you swear never reads the rules based on what they do.
I have a feeling I didn't explain myself well. I didn't mean that professional rpg designers just sit around playing all day, nor that its easy to get a Playtest session happening. What I meant is that they know what kinds of feedback to give. They know the rules well enough to anticipate where problems are going to arise.
If you want someone to look over your product, Sean Reynolds is going to give you better feedback than me. Hands down. Admittedly this bit of your post:
"Every playtest group also needs a handful of village idiots, the guys who'll read rules and go "OK, what does that mean?" You know, the player in your group who you swear never reads the rules based on what they do."
Is a pretty good description of our group. Nonetheless, although its no doubt useful to know, the way the rules read to the clueless isn't that important, surely. One of the joys of playing the way we do is that obscure or contradictory rules make very little difference to us. We won't get it right anyway, so we just skim read them and do something roughly in line with the book.
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I have a feeling I didn't explain myself well. I didn't mean that professional rpg designers just sit around playing all day, nor that its easy to get a Playtest session happening. What I meant is that they know what kinds of feedback to give. They know the rules well enough to anticipate where problems are going to arise.
Only to a point. They can anticipate where problems they've previously encountered before will arise. They can spot the obvious "problem" feats that are too good. They can miss ones that render other feats obsolete.
Compare Penetrating Strike to Clustered Shots.
There is never a situation where Penetrating Strike is better than Clustered Shots, yet it has a much steeper curve to get to (12th level is the earliest access point)
Both of these feats are good, but Clustered Shots is something that everyone just takes.
What Ashiel understands better than most is that Pathfinder is an overlay of multiple effectiveness curves: Hit points accumulated versus damage, healing versus damage, To-Hit numbers versus AC. Ash understands the numbers behind the system as a systematic whole.
Of the game devs I've interacted with at Paizo? Few do, because to them, the overlapping curves aren't The Game, they're just how things are, and they can't actually change them without doing a massive new edition...which the company is going to put off for as long as possible, and forever is something they're hoping for.
Dev teams who work with this stuff on a day to day basis really don't like dealing with either of the key ingredients of a playtest group: The annoying prick breaking the rules, and the village idiot.
What happens when they playtest is that they playtest with people they know and play styles they know, and if their friends don't experience problems, well, the problems don't exist.
Except that they do. It's a blind spot and an acknowledgement that Phases 2-3-4 are necessary...and often skipped when doing this under deadline pressure.
We won't get it right anyway, so we just skim read them and do something roughly in line with the book.
When I play RPGs, I prefer lighter weight ones that are more descriptive based than mathematics based. Pathfinder Society is the major exception, because I can always find players for it.
I would far rather someone just buy a "+3 to damage" bonus or a "can blind someone" bonus and let them describe how it works, and make the trigger for "does this work?" be a very subjective heuristic of "Was this cool? Was it appropriate to the scene we're having?"
Of course, that gets pilloried here as BadWrongFun or "Playing in Candyland!" or somesuch. :)
Stunning fist has really bad DCs and actually hitting is a special event with the monk so I'm not sure what you're trying to say there.I think the options are there, but at a certain point if you move to effects and away from damage you increase the rocket-tag aspect. At this point, you can get basically 25% status effect with damage with the crit stuff (or rogue talents if you go that way). Plus "the" mobility class (monk) has status effects as part of the attack currently.
I also don't agree with the premise that casters were made to be blasters, and while I do understand the issue presented, I'm not sure I'm seeing enough evidence that it is actually a problem.
At what level and at what expectation do we have for what can be done?
Stunning fist save DC is your 10 + your wisdom modifier + 1/2 your monk level.
Normal spells save DC is 10 + spell level (which for full casters is 1/2 level give or take on the highest level spell, less for 3/4 casters) + caster's ability score.
A 10th Level monk with a 20 Wisdom has a save DC of 20
A 10th Level Wizard with a 20 Int has a save DC of 20 on the highest level (5th) spells they cast that day, lower on lower level spells
A 10th Level Bard with a 20 Charisma has a max of 19 on the highest level (4th) spell they can cast.
If you have low Wisdom, yes it has a low save. If you don't, it doesn't.
Plus, it still counts as an attack that does damage when you use it.
At what level and at what expectation do we have for what can be done?
Stunning fist at tenth is realistically going to be about 19 vs fortitude. So, if you hit, you're likely targeting a strong save.
A Monk has many equipment concerns before he even gets to a headband, and unlike spellcasters can't craft magic items.
Stinking cloud ( a 3rd level spell BTW) meanwhile doesn't require an attack roll at face smashing range, and could easily hit DC 23 (start at 20 int, +2 int from level, +4 int from crafted headband, +4 effective int from GSF) vs fortitude. Oh yeah, and it's an AoE. And it can completely trivialize an encounter.
Ashiel actually explained it better, But it seems that you managed to dodge the actual content of that post with great skill.
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What Ashiel understands better than most is that Pathfinder is an overlay of multiple effectiveness curves: Hit points accumulated versus damage, healing versus damage, To-Hit numbers versus AC. Ash understands the numbers behind the system as a systematic whole.
Thank you AdAstraGames. That is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me on the Paizo boards. (^-^)