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This is a derivative of the LoC thread. I derailed a bit with this topic.
I don't quite understand the criteria for banning say the master summoner but not the druid, or at least nerfing its ability to fill the table with summons.
Similarly, I don't see banning LoC when there are magical linage: shocking grasp magi running around.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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This is a derivative of the LoC thread. I derailed a bit with this topic.
I don't quite understand the criteria for banning say the master summoner but not the druid, or at least nerfing its ability to fill the table with summons.
Similarly, I don't see banning LoC when there are magical linage: shocking grasp magi running around.
It's my speculation (and nothing more) that banning requires one of the following conditions to be met:
A) It disrupts the setting/conflicts with canon in some way. This is the same as any home GM saying that only XYZ will be allowed because of the type of campaign it's going to be. For instance, this is why drow-based half-elf racial options are banned.
B) It disrupts the necessary functions of organized play. For instance, the campaign avoids most item crafting for logistical reasons.
C) It disrupts the play experience. For instance, the Master Summoner, when played in the default way it's supposed to be played (as opposed to a corner case or unusual build), slows the game waaaaaay down. It's inherent to the archetype's modus operandi. Similarly, the primary feature of the Wild Rager barbarian archetype inherently conflicts with established "No PvP" norms.
So, you ask about summon-spamming druids? That's not inherent to the class. Druids are not all about filling the table with critters. Summoning on the fly is an option in their toolbox, but using it to the point of bogging down the game is a player decision. If someone abuses a druid, it can be dealt with on an individual level, and—this is the important part—refraining from that behavior is not a de facto ban on the class.
That is, if a druid is summoning too much and the GM asks him to stop, the player can choose to do other things and still be playing his druid. Try to handle a Master Summoner the same way, and you're effectively telling him to stop using that archetype. Better to just ban it in the first place than to say it's legal but block him from using it.
Same with magi using Magical Lineage (shocking grasp) builds: if they get out of hand, you can ask the player to simply behave differently. If they do so, they still get to play their magus. So there's no need to address it at the class level.
Does that help at all?
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PFS cannot issue errata, nor does the campaign management like issuing rulings that change the way a feature of the game works. This is because one of the basic tenets of PFS is that it adheres to the core rules as closely as possible.
With that in mind, if something is sufficiently out of line or unclear in the core rules, the option to ban it is usually preferred over trying to modify it and change the core rules.
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We all know that all magus came from Minata. All of that training as a Wayang Spellhunter gave them the Magical Lineage to make their shocking grasps all the more poweful. In matter of fact, I think that the majority of spellcasters come from Minata...
That would explain where all the funny hats that Pathfinders wear come from, as well.
-Matt
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It's based on Mike Brock's whims.
Sometimes it's planned, like the discussions that no doubt went into banning Master Summoner.
Sometimes someone mentions Blood Transcription on a barely-related thread and it's immediately banned.
It varies.
Fortunately that works both ways; someone (Jiggy?) recently made an excellent case for un-banning Magical Knack and Mike did so on the spot.
Either way, there's no set criteria.
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I don't think you're going to get a simple answer. I think when the majority of the VO's are sick and tired of a certain character creation or magical item option unduly affecting the game experience on multiple occasions, a discussion starts and action happens.
When a proudly and flamboyantly broken option is placed in a book, such as the Quickrunner's Shirt (or Stony Mask :cough cough:), it often gets nipped in the bud before it can impact PFS.
Mattastrophic: That Jingasa is ridiculous, isn't it? There's an ongoing debate in my zone about whether everyone has to wear these classically Asian conical hats, or whether the Jingasa can be made into more conventional Inner Sea headwear. I am pretty sure one particular Knight is going to be heading into battle with at least four of the silly conical hats tied to his belt, ready to be swapped out as the situation requires.
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Mattastrophic: That Jingasa is ridiculous, isn't it? There's an ongoing debate in my zone about whether everyone has to wear these classically Asian conical hats, or whether the Jingasa can be made into more conventional Inner Sea headwear. I am pretty sure one particular Knight is going to be heading into battle with at least four of the silly conical hats tied to his belt, ready to be swapped out as the situation requires.
I've considered this question myself, actually, as my aristocrat could do well with a ladies' hat or nice-looking lucky hairclip.
If only that hat wasn't so unbecoming.
-Matt
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PFS cannot issue errata, nor does the campaign management like issuing rulings that change the way a feature of the game works. This is because one of the basic tenets of PFS is that it adheres to the core rules as closely as possible.
With that in mind, if something is sufficiently out of line or unclear in the core rules, the option to ban it is usually preferred over trying to modify it and change the core rules.
Usually, sometimes it is altered though and makes the subject in question much worse. Take Racial Heritage, a human feat. It is a subject of errata in which normally it would perfectly find to have a Half-Elf take the feat and become a Stonelord Paladin which is Dwarf only. However its been errata-ed so that cannot happen. Its about worse then the (Orc/Elf) Blood racial feature at the moment as one is a racial trait that is free and the other costs you your first feat. When in fact it would be better to just ban the feat but allow anyone with a chronicle sheet that had the feat in question access to it and being able to use it as it was intended.
I don't think Paizo is bad at their job when it comes to balancing certain things for PFS, I just am sometimes caught off guard by sudden ban choices like Blood Transcription that seem to come from out of left field and other choices that I myself would wonder what make certain things ban worthy.
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There is no errata for Racial Heritage in PFS. You simply can't use it, or any other feats/abilities/spells/whatever, to grab goodies from the ARG.
If it were not an errata their would be no need to correct it in a way that made it not work as originally intended which would be a correction or an erratum. To suggest their is not an errata or erratum for this means that it is perfectly fine the way it is and does not need to be corrected at all when regarding PFS in this case.
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It doesn't, and isn't. Humans, Half-orcs, Half-elves, and even Aasimars with the Scion of Humanity alternate racial trait may take Racial Heritage and use its benefits without restriction*.
*Except when it comes to the Advanced Race Guide.
It is not Racial Heritage that has been errated in PFS. It is the ARG that has been limited. Those are two entirely different things, and worth understanding.
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It's not that the Jingasa is ridiculous, it's that people are buying more than 1. The rules should be altered to say that you can only benefit from this type of magic once per day.
Huh. Isn't that almost primarily why the Quick Runner's Shirt went down? If a 1/day item is good enough that people buy multiple copies?
WHEN I SAY SO!
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I've yet to see a player in my area with more than one Jingasa -- it honestly seems like a waste of money to have a second.
This. I currently have two PCs that own one, and they really can't afford to be blowing 5k a pop on extras. And I have never once heard a player announce "I take of my jingasa and put on another one".
If people want to spend that kind of dough to negate more than one crit or sneak attack per day, I say let 'em. They're probably less powerful than if they'd spent that cash on more relevant items.
Seriously, if (as in an above example) someone has one on their head and four on their belt, that's 20,000gp they spent on extra crit negations per day. What the frick were they thinking? Do you realize what they could accomplish with that 20k if they weren't so terrified of getting critted more than once per day?
There's also a WORLD of difference between the main feature of a class being spamming minions and a tertiary feature that is often forgotten being able to be used to summon. It's an issue of an ease, focus, and commonality.
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Some stuff might be also a bit too powerful in pfs play. For example, the rage power, Lesser Celestial Totem. It allows a raging barbarian to heal an extra amount of hit points equal to th caster level of the healer. This includes channels and lay on hands. Combine this with other healing bonuses like Fey Foundling or Fast Healer, and you have a really tough cookie.
Other reasonings can be that it one-ups the starting game, like Rich Parents.
Implying that Mike makes his decisions based on whims just shows how out of touch you are with the decision making process.
10 foot pole probably. It is under someone else's control, whether we agree or commentary on the practice may not be wise.
I would also like to point out that when people make educated, thoughtful and well reasoned arguments on why something should nor should not be banned you are much more likely to have Mike consider your point of view more than when you just complain and whine and whatnot.
Sometimes though it feels like there isn't even a straight answer as to why something is banned. Makes it difficult to make an argument without knowing why.
Didn't notice that Celestial Totem wasn't legal. I had a concept to make an Elven Barbarian and combine that totem with Fey Foundling to make up for the -2 Constitution. Oh well.
But fiendish is. Its a sign, they want you to be evil!
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There's also a WORLD of difference between the main feature of a class being spamming minions and a tertiary feature that is often forgotten being able to be used to summon. It's an issue of an ease, focus, and commonality.
Really? Could have fooled me. I've never seen a good druid player forget that they can spontaneously summon. A while their full-powered animal companion is out. I'm not seeing a world of difference. Both the master summoner and the *generic stock druid* are completely capable of filling the board with summons.
Yep, really. It's not an issue of capability. It's an issue of use. You don't see the druid flooding the battle. Every. Single. Battle. And if you do, that's abnormal. But that's what you see the master summoner doing, since that's what the archetype does. That's the norm.
Yep, really. It's not an issue of capability. It's an issue of use. You don't see the druid flooding the battle. Every. Single. Battle. And if you do, that's abnormal. But that's what you see the master summoner doing, since that's what the archetype does. That's the norm.
In my personal experience, supposedly I'm not allowed to do it unless everyone else at the table is taking a coffee break. Its just that annoying.
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My oracle from Haruka (the summoning province of Thassilon) sometimes summons a lot. So does Linda's preservationist. At Paizocon Siege of the Diamond City special, I had several choices to bring and our group vociferously wanted me to bring the oracle (Linda was definitely bringing her alchemist). In the last encounter, we had out tons of summons, but everyone was in favor of that, and as everyone was surprised, we are very very fast at running multiple copies of our favorite summons, having memorized their stats. Our table still finished an absurd amount of material at a fast pace (our GM was also very fast), and everyone was happy.
However, the true moral is that I asked people first and let them know my oracle's only combat trick is to summon (Lore Mystery doesn't much give you in-combat stuff to do), and they all got to decide if I brought him, not me.
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Yep, really. It's not an issue of capability. It's an issue of use. You don't see the druid flooding the battle. Every. Single. Battle. And if you do, that's abnormal. But that's what you see the master summoner doing, since that's what the archetype does. That's the norm.
To me, it is absolutely an issue of capability. Capabilities determine class capabilities, and I find that druids in general have too many capabilities. Including one that got an archetype *banned*.
I guess at the end of the day, it's going to boil down to druid being core and the master summoner is not.
I agree with Mark that good players can make summons chug along at a reasonable pace. Summons, are, in fact, a good way for a group to survive difficult scenarios with no cleric or life oracle.
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Sometimes though it feels like there isn't even a straight answer as to why something is banned. Makes it difficult to make an argument without knowing why.
If they had to explain and reexplain every time someone asked why something was banned, and get into "discussions" about it, they'd never get any work done. So they aren't in the business of explaining why they ban what they ban. It saves a lot of trouble.