RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Why do you assume it's only due to PFS? I've put in my two cents about this feat before PFS was ever played by us.Because of the designer that posted this problem arose in PFS.
There's a difference between "PFS put this issue on our radar" and "this was only a PFS problem".
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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My original point is, outside of MoMS and Unarmed Fighter, characters aren't getting early access to Crane Wing. I want to know how many of these complaints that PFS had involved level dips into MoMS for early access to Crane Wing.
Crane Wing is only really 'super strong' at low levels. Around 5th level is when you start seeing multiple attack monsters more reliably, and at 6th level, any full BAB class gets 2 attacks.
Crane Wing becomes less effective as the number of attacks a creature is threatened with increases. Crane Wing was has BAB 5 or Monk level 5th for a reason, because that's what the feat was designed for. If it was designed to be accessed at level 1, it would probably resemble what it is now.
I firmly believe it's the level dips into MoMS that is turning the molehill that is Crane Wing into a mountain of a problem for PFS.
As someone who's been running an AP for a player with Crane Wing, I can tell just hasn't the been the case in my particular experience. Crane Wing was still causing issues up to 11th level (which is when the player retired the character).
Getting extra attacks at 6th doesn't help because the extra attacks have such a low chance of hitting the Crane Style-er, so the net result is the same. Even creatures with multiple natural attacks didn't fare very well, since they still needed to roll high to hit, and high rolls didn't come often enough to exceed the 1 deflection per round.
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it doesn't matter that crane wing gets less effective the more attacks a monster has though.
The first attack is the most likely to hit. let's say the first attack has a 80% chance to hit and he has a total of 4 iterative attacks.
Against crane wing prior the odds of each attack were as follows
0%, 55%, 30%, 5%
While the character got only a 1/10 chance less of hitting with all of his attacks.
Now unless he does total defense the odds are:
60%, 55%, 30%, 5%
I realise these are aproximations, but if the character really wants to not get hit, he can still do it. He just can still be the full offense machine he once was.
it doesn't matter that crane wing gets less effective the more attacks a monster has though.
The first attack is the most likely to hit. let's say the first attack has a 80% chance to hit and he has a total of 4 iterative attacks.
Against crane wing prior the odds of each attack were as follows
0%, 55%, 30%, 5%While the character got only a 1/10 chance less of hitting with all of his attacks.
Now unless he does total defense the odds are:
60%, 55%, 30%, 5%
I realise these are aproximations, but if the character really wants to not get hit, he can still do it. He just can still be the full offense machine he once was.
See, this is where we are going to have to agree to disagree. I am not going to be able to convince you that Crane Wing wasn't too powerful, and you're never going to convince me that it was too powerful and/or this nerf was a good thing.
As it stands, at this point, I know of 5 different people who have either asked for a rebuild (in home games) or retired/torn up their charactersheets for PFS. Fortunately, myself and another have GMs that can see reason and are ignoring this errata in this game (as I will when it's my turn to run games again).
Only one of the guys dipped MoMS for Crane Wing, the 6 others (including myself) took the long way and took all the pre-requisites. These guys (including myself) have sunk between 4-5 feats of their characters 10 standard feats into gaining the full Crane chain, and now they feel the changes to Crane Wing and Crane Riposte are so utterly worthless (myself included) that they've either abandoned their character, torn up their sheet, or asked for a rebuild.
Out of these 7 players, I'm the closest that comes to an 'optimiser' in that I pick the most optimal choice for my character, if it makes sense. I won't muchkin the guy into supreme power, but I will build a guy who is good at what he does. So we have 7 players in 4 different groups that are now unwilling to use this errata.
To me, that says something. It is of course an anecdote, and not an all inclusive statistic of every player world wide, but it still says something to me.
There is no way I can support this decision. I feel it is wrong, and short-sighted. I've supported previous design decisions in the past that Paizo has made, even if I didn't like it (for instance, armor spikes) but I cannot support this.
I've said it before, and I'll repeat it here. I feel strongly enough about opposing this design influence, that if I ever GM a PFS game again (unlikely) I will not hold players to this errata and encourage them to use the original version.
it doesn't matter that crane wing gets less effective the more attacks a monster has though.
The first attack is the most likely to hit. let's say the first attack has a 80% chance to hit and he has a total of 4 iterative attacks.
Against crane wing prior the odds of each attack were as follows
0%, 55%, 30%, 5%
One issue there; you're assuming iterative attacks when a lot of monsters with multiple attacks are going to be using natural attacks, which don't have the same drop-off in hit chance after the first swing.
Well, I guess I'm retiring my monk character now. Three feats have been rendered pointless thanks to this "improvement."
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I'm a little disappointed in the pathfinder community... Why so much hate? Yes it's different, but it's not bad. Give it a little time, play with it, but don't judge a book by it's cover.
The reasons have already been given. erratas like this kill diversity, pick on the weak and by that cement the excisting power gap.
I'm a little disappointed in the pathfinder community... Why so much hate? Yes it's different, but it's not bad. Give it a little time, play with it, but don't judge a book by it's cover.The reasons have already been given. erratas like this kill diversity, pick on the weak and by that cement the excisting power gap.
And enforces the idea that unless you are using a full attack, as a martial character your other options *will* be subpar; Hit stuff really well and suck at everything else.
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I don't think anyone ever claimed the change was an improvement "king" of the crossroads... it's a nerf for sure.
I'm assuming iterative attacks because if it's natural attacks, you're still outright blocking one attack that would hit regardless
so let's change the comparison then for your benefit.
80% 80% 80% is the monster
0% 80% 80% old crane wing
55% 80% 80% new crane wing while fighting defensively
0% 70% 70% new wing (to negate and nothing else)
Or lets go one further.
(scenario with old crane wing)
Let's say you're against a purple wurm and you're lvl 5.
You riposte it's bite (that negates the grab also) and just take a single poison attack every turn while you merily beat on it with the rest of your team hoping you hit it's 26ac (you do this like 1/10th of the time) meanwhile the rest of your party can heal it's dmg it's doing to you while others beat on it.
(scenario with new crane wing)
Let's say you're against a purple wurm and you're lvl 5.
You riposte it's bite (that negates the grab also) and just take a single poison attack every turn while focus on pure defense and staying alive... meanwhile the rest of your party can heal it's dmg it's doing to you while others beat on it.
Which of the two scenarios feels more like a team fight and which feels like one person is rambo and the rest are the supporting actors?
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The Purple Worm is also, apparently, utterly stupid to keep attacking something that isn't attacking him back while others are doing more damage.
That's one of the problems people have with this feat. In order to Riposte, it requires for the enemy to be stupid and attack a non-attacking foe, instead of someone who is attacking.
If you enter Total Defense, you are removing yourself as a threat for that round of Combat.
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The Purple Worm is also, apparently, utterly stupid to keep attacking something that isn't attacking him back while others are doing more damage.
That's one of the problems people have with this feat. In order to Riposte, it requires for the enemy to be stupid and attack a non-attacking foe, instead of someone who is attacking.
If you enter Total Defense, you are removing yourself as a threat for that round of Combat.
This.
The feats was ok in its old version because most of the time it was just a reason to attack someone else.
I don't think anyone ever claimed the change was an improvement "king" of the crossroads... it's a nerf for sure.
I never claimed it was, "lan" tzkev. :-/
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Just as an example last night of my play group of why this irritates the hell out of me:
1. Lvl 12 Hungry Ghost Monk (my character):
My rounds consisted of the following: Flurry attack. Spend ki point on extra attack. Deflect one attack that comes at me.
On crit heal hit points and ki.
This is what I did round after round as a monk.
2. Lvl 12 Oath of Vengeance Paladin: Pre combat: Improved his weapon with holy and flaming.
During the course of the combat: Cast Paladin's Sacrifice to save the cleric from dying to a critical hit. Cast shield other on the cleric to keep him alive. Cast blessing of fervor to buff the party.
Healed himself with LoH a few times to keep him up and healed the cleric to keep him up.
Fought off six charmed guards alone because his AC is high with Full Plate armor and Shield.
Granted the entire group Smite Evil to destroy our enemies.
Kill a couple of vampires himself with Smite Evil and enhanced sword.
3. Lvl 12 Bladebound Magus:
Pre-combat: Buffed blade to +5 with keen. Cast displacement on himself. Works against melee and ranged attacks.
Cast a fireball to soften targets in room as monk opened door.
Enhanced blade to add damage with Black Blade Strike as free action with intelligent blade.
Hit two vampires killing them in one round with shocking grasp and normal attacks. Killed over half the vampires by himself due to damage output.
When displacement was dispelled, cast greater invisibility to renew his defenses.
Used Arcane Accuracy to boost his chance to hit as needed.
Due to the fact that my monk is the least of the offensive threats with the fewest number of options for either enhancing the group or outputting offense, I mostly fought the lower level mooks while the main NPC baddies went after the cleric, paladin, and magus.
That's what really makes this all so astounding. Crane Wing looks like a joke compared to doing all that a Magus and Paladin can do during a combat both offensively and defensively. Yet somehow it is causing all these problems in games. Very difficult to comprehend save in very low level games. Crane Wing is the least of anyone's concerns in my group compared to what other classes can do. It's a one trick pony feat that provides something interesting for monks and single-weapon defensive martial builds. They're great against opponents swinging weapons at them. They are weak to average against everything else, while other martials shine like bright stars.
My original point is, outside of MoMS and Unarmed Fighter, characters aren't getting early access to Crane Wing. I want to know how many of these complaints that PFS had involved level dips into MoMS for early access to Crane Wing.
Crane Wing is only really 'super strong' at low levels. Around 5th level is when you start seeing multiple attack monsters more reliably, and at 6th level, any full BAB class gets 2 attacks.
Crane Wing becomes less effective as the number of attacks a creature is threatened with increases. Crane Wing was has BAB 5 or Monk level 5th for a reason, because that's what the feat was designed for. If it was designed to be accessed at level 1, it would probably resemble what it is now.
I firmly believe it's the level dips into MoMS that is turning the molehill that is Crane Wing into a mountain of a problem for PFS.
As someone who's been running an AP for a player with Crane Wing, I can tell just hasn't the been the case in my particular experience. Crane Wing was still causing issues up to 11th level (which is when the player retired the character).
Getting extra attacks at 6th doesn't help because the extra attacks have such a low chance of hitting the Crane Style-er, so the net result is the same. Even creatures with multiple natural attacks didn't fare very well, since they still needed to roll high to hit, and high rolls didn't come often enough to exceed the 1 deflection per round.
If Crane Wing was the primary problem your group caused enemies at lvl 11, I don't understand that.
What is your group composition that your Crane Wing character was causing problems? What were your casters doing? What class composition do you have in your group?
Are flying, invisible casters less of a problem? Or a pouncing barbarian? Or some archer unleashing insane damage at range? Your Crane Wing player was your biggest problem?
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Looks like a good change to me. The complaints about 'Crane Wing now being useless' don't hold up to examination IMO.
For full defense the feat hasn't changed at all. If you are in a one on one situation with someone getting a single attack per round you can still go full defense, deflect their single attack, and (with Crane Riposte) get an attack of your own... you get one attack every round and they get none. That would actually still be massively unbalanced EXCEPT that it is unlikely to happen very often given the need for three feats to accomplish it will create little or no window before even single opponents are getting two attacks per round. Even against two attacks this setup would result in the attacker getting one attack against a very high AC and the Crane defender getting one attack against a normal AC... still a clear advantage for Crane Wing. At three or more attacks per round Crane full defense may or may not be advantageous, depending on many other factors.
Fighting defensively obviously got nerfed, but frankly that is entirely appropriate. Otherwise, the Crane 'defender' is getting all of their attacks at -2, plus an extra attack, while their opponent is getting one fewer attack than normal and all attacks at -3. Given that the Crane defender can also choose to deflect their opponents highest attack bonus strike each round it also effectively added an additional -5 to all attacks. That was clearly unbalanced... for ALL levels and nearly all situations. The 'nerfed' form still allows the Crane all attacks at -2 while the attacker makes all at -3 (or -7 for one chosen by the Crane)... and thus still provides a clear advantage to the Crane in nearly all situations... just not as massive an advantage.
There might have been other ways to re-balance the feat (e.g. still allow one deflection on fighting defensively if the attack missed by 10 or more), but it obviously needed adjustment and this update isn't bad overall. Crane style is still very useful, and no longer blatantly unbalancing compared to other melee options.
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Full defense is so highly situational that it can be safely ignored as a benefit.
As for the bonuses to fighting defensively, we're talking about *five* feats to fight with a -1 penalty to attack and a +4 bonus to AC. You'd have a +5 Dodge bonus at all times, no penalty to attack, no need to actually swing your weapon, and you wouldn't need to keep a hand free, if you could simply take Dodge five times. How many people would consider that a worthwhile use of their feats, let alone blatantly unbalancing?
It might have been good compared to other melee options, but that's setting the bar really low. Sure a lot of Swashbucklers, Monks, and Duelists took this line. But the best martials, namely Barbarian and Paladin, weren't exactly clamoring for this.
Also, don't forget that this is a Swift Action to activate, which either uses up your surprise round action or has to wait until the first turn of combat. Many classes like Bard and Swashbuckler have other abilities they'll want to activate with their swift action as soon as combat begins.
On top of all this, it locks you into unarmed fighting, or keeping a hand free. Not the most powerful of configurations to begin with.
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Magus Mirror Image vs. Monk Crane Wing still seems like a fairly fruits-to-fruits comparison to me.
And those fruit have been compared. When a mundane fruit surpasses a magic fruit in taste you know something has gone wrong:
No specifically, but mirror image is a known quantity for us. It is range personal, easily foiled by some relatively common spells, brought down on a miss, and generally limited to a pair of character classes that are not exactly known for rushing into combat.Lets stay on topic.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Mirror Image is
-EASILY foiled by COMMON spells-Extremely limited quantity to use
-LIMITED to MAGIC USERS, people who were either born special or applied their genius intellect through many years of study
on the other hand Cran'es Wing
-works inside an antimagic field
-has no limitations, is on every round, 24 horus a day
-ANYONE can learn it, even a below average intelligence kobold could learn "I swish my sord" and surpass a genius WIZARD in defensive ability!
Looks like a good change to me. The complaints about 'Crane Wing now being useless' don't hold up to examination IMO.
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There might have been other ways to re-balance the feat (e.g. still allow one deflection on fighting defensively if the attack missed by 10 or more), but it obviously needed adjustment and this update isn't bad overall. Crane style is still very useful, and no longer blatantly unbalancing...
I didn't understand or recognize where you were getting your figures from, but why would you need to deflect an attack that missed?
I didn't understand or recognize where you were getting your figures from, but why would you need to deflect an attack that missed?Looks like a good change to me. The complaints about 'Crane Wing now being useless' don't hold up to examination IMO.
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There might have been other ways to re-balance the feat (e.g. still allow one deflection on fighting defensively if the attack missed by 10 or more), but it obviously needed adjustment and this update isn't bad overall. Crane style is still very useful, and no longer blatantly unbalancing...
He probably meant 'treat as a deflection' for the purposes of activating Crane Riposte.
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As someone who's been running an AP for a player with Crane Wing, I can tell just hasn't the been the case in my particular experience. Crane Wing was still causing issues up to 11th level (which is when the player retired the character).Getting extra attacks at 6th doesn't help because the extra attacks have such a low chance of hitting the Crane Style-er, so the net result is the same. Even creatures with multiple natural attacks didn't fare very well, since they still needed to roll high to hit, and high rolls didn't come often enough to exceed the 1 deflection per round.
It's interesting to see that the Pathfinder DESIGNERS, RPG superstar top contestants, and highly experienced society GM's all come into agreement about Crane Wing, yet people without this intimate familiarity with Pathfinder design are the ones who disagree with the errata.
on the other hand Cran'es Wing
-works inside an antimagic field
-has no limitations, is on every round, 24 horus a day
-ANYONE can learn it, even a below average intelligence kobold could learn "I swish my sord" and surpass a genius WIZARD in defensive ability!
Yes, and it works on golems.
But disintegrate and wish are still stronger. And casters get more spells than monks get feats.| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's interesting to see that the Pathfinder DESIGNERS, RPG superstar top contestants, and highly experienced society GM's all come into agreement about Crane Wing, yet people without this intimate familiarity with Pathfinder design are the ones who disagree with the errata.
Perhaps that's because those same people keep on saying that rogues are as strong as wizards. Which tends to undermine their credibility.
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As someone who's been running an AP for a player with Crane Wing, I can tell just hasn't the been the case in my particular experience. Crane Wing was still causing issues up to 11th level (which is when the player retired the character).Getting extra attacks at 6th doesn't help because the extra attacks have such a low chance of hitting the Crane Style-er, so the net result is the same. Even creatures with multiple natural attacks didn't fare very well, since they still needed to roll high to hit, and high rolls didn't come often enough to exceed the 1 deflection per round.
It's interesting to see that the Pathfinder DESIGNERS, RPG superstar top contestants, and highly experienced society GM's all come into agreement about Crane Wing, yet people without this intimate familiarity with Pathfinder design are the ones who disagree with the errata.
Having a title does not make one infallible. Look at the Flurry of Blows debacle. It was the Pathfinder DESIGNERS that created that mess, and it was the people without such titles who forced them to fix it.
Pathfinder's Development team is very good at their. However, this does not make them perfect. There are many little mistakes that are made, through-out the years, that is up to the people to correct.
As an example, a minor issue I've known for awhile is the Invisibility Purge FAQ made back in 2011. In the FAQ it mentions creatures with natural invisibility are susceptible to invisibility purge and specifically mentions Invisibile Stalkers, Will-o-wisps, and Pixies.
However, this is in contrast with the actual rules for Natural Invsibility:
Natural Invisibility (Ex or Su) This ability is constant—the creature remains invisible at all times, even when attacking. As this ability is inherent, it is not subject to the invisibility purge spell.
Format: natural invisibility; Location: Defensive Abilities.
It's a minor mistake, and not one probably care too much about. In fact, it probably makes the game better, as this means creatures like Pixies, and Will-o-wisps are ungodly powerful at low-levels.
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Also, what makes a PFS GM have more authority than a non-PFS GM? When you stop and think about it, PFS operates under more house-rules than, I would say, the majority of tables. The GM of a PFS game is less 'Game Master' and more of living computer to play a video game.
The PFS GM can't manipulate the adventure on the fly. He can't change the encounters. He can't add more encounters or more HP or more AC to opponents. Hell, he can't even alter the tactics of an enemy if published.
The PFS GM is not a Game Master, he's a narrator, a living DVD player. Personally, if someone only GMs for PFS, his opinion is worth less than that of someone who GMs home games.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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Frankly, I'm quite offended at the insinuation that us PFS GMs aren't actually GMs. While it's true that we can't edit encounters, tactics can be modified to respond to the party, and GMs can add their own personal touch in narration or in response to player actions. We are far from a VCR, and I promise you that if you sat down to two different GMs running the same scenario, you would walk away with vastly different experiences.
Unfortunately, locking down encounters is the only way to allow for a uniform organized play campaign. If they weren't locked down, players could come to conventions and face wildly different levels of difficulty even when playing the same scenario. That's not really fair to the players, who may be required to spend extra gold that their fellows may not have to.
I really wish people would just leave PFS out of all of this. PFS is simply where the problem was most notable, but that doesn't mean that it's the only place where a problem existed. APs and home games often feature humans with single attacks at low levels, and GMs shouldn't be expected to rewrite entire encounters from scratch just to deal with a single obscure feat.
The PFS GM is not a Game Master, he's a narrator, a living DVD player.
Heh. I dunno if I would go that far.
I have gotten the impression, mind, from the various PFS threads that eventually get moved to the main boards, or vice versa, that there's as little scope given as is practical. That's an outsiders perspective, though, I never play PFS and if PFS didn't seem so closely tied up in this particular issue, I wouldn't be thinking about it much more often than I play it.
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APs and home games often feature humans with single attacks at low levels, and GMs shouldn't be expected to rewrite entire encounters from scratch just to deal with a single obscure feat.
If the Crane Style guy is singlehandedly ruining your entire encounter's ability to do anything... I don't get that. It sounds like hyperbole to me. We're not talking about Color Spray, here, this is a defense, not an offense.
Surely, even in dire straits, you can just do the basics, even in PFS... swing at someone else from time to time. And let it work other times.
That's the same approach you might take with a low level guy in full plate with a shield, or a magus who just cast mirror image, or whoever else may be particularly well defended in a certain situation.
Surely even PFS must allow this level of discretion. Or do they write the tactics for you too?
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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APs and home games often feature humans with single attacks at low levels, and GMs shouldn't be expected to rewrite entire encounters from scratch just to deal with a single obscure feat.If the Crane Style guy is singlehandedly ruining your entire encounter's ability to do anything... I don't get that. It sounds like hyperbole to me. We're not talking about Color Spray, here, this is a defense, not an offense.
Surely, even in dire straits, you can just do the basics, even in PFS... swing at someone else from time to time. And let it work other times.
That's the same approach you might take with a low level guy in full plate with a shield, or a magus who just cast mirror image, or whoever else may be particularly well defended in a certain situation.
Surely even PFS must allow this level of discretion. Or do they write the tactics for you too?
They do write tactics, but we're free to ignore them if they are no longer valid, which I do fairly frequently. The problem is, these are not merely defensive builds - they often come with high offense as well (at least, higher than average.) The bigger problem is one I posted in another thread, in which monks would run around the battlefield, provoking as may AOOs as possible so that they got an insane number of counterattacks. That interrupted game flow and made for very, very long turns. These long turns are boring to other players. The only real GM defense there is to stop taking the attacks of opportunity. That makes the player with the monk rather angry, as he feels the GM is unfairly invalidating his build.
Also, walking around a martial isn't always that easy. If the martial character has a high enough attack, it may be impractical to eat the attack of opportunity from running past the monk. Sure, you get to the back lines, but then you're at half HP and the monk can just run up behind you. It's really not a solution.
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I like to think of myself more as a living Bluray player. I am more high tech. My husband is quite pleased though because he GMs the majority of our home gaming. I, on the other hand, am one of those PFS people. So he alone can make all of the heavy lifting decisions.
As far as Crane Wing goes I mostly ignore the guy with it after a couple unsuccessful attacks. If this is the change the want to make then I'll roll with it. The game is still fun.
Magus Mirror Image vs. Monk Crane Wing still seems like a fairly fruits-to-fruits comparison to me.
So, Quickened Mirror Image. Ok, well, you can't do that as a reaction, so I guess it needs to be even higher level. So, equivalent to a 6th level spell or so? Yeah, I could buy that.
[....]
If it was a +2 dodge bonus against a single opponent or if the +4 could be added after the fact [...]
+1
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It's interesting to see that the Pathfinder DESIGNERS, RPG superstar top contestants, and highly experienced society GM's all come into agreement about Crane Wing, yet people without this intimate familiarity with Pathfinder design are the ones who disagree with the errata.
Oh, come on, dude, you really are serious with this nonsense, aren't you? A lot of us people who disagree with this ruling have been playing and tinkering with the 3.x edition for close to 14 years by now as players and GM's. I have a masters degree in socio-economic history. Cheap appeals to authority like yours are just as meaningless as me mentioning that title.
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I am a GM of 13 years, In our home games I've had many players take crane wing. I have seen how it can be abused. This is no different than many of the other options in the game(I personally found snake style at higher levels, combined with a +10 or 20 item to sense motive to be for more powerful). I always liked the dynamics and flavor of the style feats as it brought the ability to create martial characters able to do impossible stunts. In my, and my groups opinion, these sorts of stunts or feat investments represented a level of mastery attainable by martials, that was the equivalent of spell perfection, or as we play it archmage tier.
Nevertheless we tweaked crane style to allow for loop holes in martial fight against it. We made it so that a person had to threaten the target for it to be employed. This resulted in all sorts of weird feat combinations from lunge to combat patrol, that created an escalating arms race of martial mastery. This proved to be very fun for my players and made a title like Blade Master or Sword Lord mean a little more than "I hit with big weapon". I agree that the feat could be abused and could have used some tweaking, I think the change makes it highly undesirable for the investment, especially if you are not a monk. I would also not like to see this feat be condemned to only being used by unarmed combatants as it was on of the cool options weapon based fighters could take. Just my 2 coppers
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Mirror Image is
-EASILY foiled by COMMON spells
-Extremely limited quantity to use
-LIMITED to MAGIC USERS, people who were either born special or applied their genius intellect through many years of studyon the other hand Cran'es Wing
-works inside an antimagic field
-has no limitations, is on every round, 24 horus a day
-ANYONE can learn it, even a below average intelligence kobold could learn "I swish my sord" and surpass a genius WIZARD in defensive ability!
You may also wish to add:
Crane Wing is:
- Easily foiled by simple combat tactics (feinting, invisibility, surprise, or just beating your opponent in initiative)
- Is, in fact, limited due to the above
I would also like to add that being born "special" or being a "genius" magic user is not a very good rational for why game mechanic balance should not apply to some characters.
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OgreBattle must have a max-out bluff, since he's gotten just about everyone on this thread at least once. He's anti-errata... He's just pointing out a commonality that most of us find very telling, but he's doing so in a way that won't get him banned or the post pulled. So he must have a high Int to go along with his Cha/Bluff...It's interesting to see that the Pathfinder DESIGNERS, RPG superstar top contestants, and highly experienced society GM's all come into agreement about Crane Wing, yet people without this intimate familiarity with Pathfinder design are the ones who disagree with the errata.Oh, come on, dude, you really are serious with this nonsense, aren't you? A lot of us people who disagree with this ruling have been playing and tinkering with the 3.x edition for close to 14 years by now as players and GM's. I have a masters degree in socio-economic history. Cheap appeals to authority like yours are just as meaningless as me mentioning that title.
Actually if he is just using extreme positions to point out the absurdity of some of the pro-nerf arguments, he fumbled his diplomacy check here, because he outright endorsed an appeal to authority without any trace of apparent irony in his post.
I was unaware that dragons existed in real life. Or that crashed space ships could be found in the primeval hinterlands of Europe.Pathfinder is based in Real Life, and Real Life isn't "fair". In real life a dog with a bow and a longsword is just strictly superior to a cat with crossbow and dagger.
There's a game called "Fourth Edition D&D" that is all about 'fairness' instead of modeling reality, maybe you should be playing that instead of Pathfinder.
Fixed that for you.
==Aelryinth
Heavy feat investment for a one-trick pony isn't a disadvantage?
(I think we all agree MoMS is the problem, not CW.)
You'd be wrong. MoMS is ALSO a problem.
==Aelryinth
Heavy feat investment for a one-trick pony isn't a disadvantage?
(I think we all agree MoMS is the problem, not CW.)
You'd be wrong. MoMS is ALSO a problem.
==Aelryinth
MoMS is okay. If CW is such a problem (and I'm not convinced it is), then it's the combination of MoMS + CW that is problematic, not MoMS or CW by themselves.
Is MoMS the problem, or is the problem that many of the "middle" feats in some styles are just filler that you would skip if given the chance?
Or is the problem that these feats are meant for any fighting class (hence the BAB requirement as an alternative to Monk levels), but if you aren't a Monk you have to burn feats to qualify?
So, Quickened Mirror Image.
Magus Mirror Image vs. Monk Crane Wing still seems like a fairly fruits-to-fruits comparison to me.
I actually had Spell Combat in mind rather than Quicken Spell, as per my earlier post on the same subject. Thus taking the magus as the case study. It's completely unforgivable and not at all understandable that you didn't catch that in such a small and slow moving thread.
Spell Combat is more the martial approach (thus, Magus) whereas Quicken is the wizard's approach. It was an attempt at offering a more direct comparison than is offered by "Crane Wing vs. that which is available to a 9-level caster"
Full defense is so highly situational that it can be safely ignored as a benefit.
As for the bonuses to fighting defensively, we're talking about *five* feats to fight with a -1 penalty to attack and a +4 bonus to AC. You'd have a +5 Dodge bonus at all times, no penalty to attack, no need to actually swing your weapon, and you wouldn't need to keep a hand free, if you could simply take Dodge five times. How many people would consider that a worthwhile use of their feats, let alone blatantly unbalancing?
It might have been good compared to other melee options, but that's setting the bar really low. Sure a lot of Swashbucklers, Monks, and Duelists took this line. But the best martials, namely Barbarian and Paladin, weren't exactly clamoring for this.
Also, don't forget that this is a Swift Action to activate, which either uses up your surprise round action or has to wait until the first turn of combat. Many classes like Bard and Swashbuckler have other abilities they'll want to activate with their swift action as soon as combat begins.
On top of all this, it locks you into unarmed fighting, or keeping a hand free. Not the most powerful of configurations to begin with.
This is a completely facetious example.
You are spending 5 feats to: be able to attack while not holding any weapons (yes, you can IUS with that free hand) AND you can 2h any weapon on your turn, releasing it at the end of the round; gain a +5 dodge bonus to ac with a -1 to hit; completely neutralize one attack that actually does manage to hit you; and gain an AoO against any melee attack you do neutralize, effectively doubling your damage output.
vs gaining a +5 dodge bonus to AC with 5 dodge feats.
I know which combo I would take.
==Aelryinth
Keep in mind one other thing.
The above combination of Monk w Crane Wing vs Paladin vs Magus is comparing 3 characters, one of whom gets his power from his feats, and is using a class with substandard combat potential; the next is using a Paladin with class features; and the third is a Magus using class features.
the correct combination would have been Monk using Crane Wing; Paladin using Crane Wing; and Magus using Crane Wing.
In all cases, the latter two examples would have worked EXACTLY THE SAME...with the addition of Crane Wing's invulnerability to the mix.
Which is because class features for the paladin and magus are better then the class features of the monk, NOT because of anything to do with Crane Wing.
==Aelryinth
So, Quickened Mirror Image.
Magus Mirror Image vs. Monk Crane Wing still seems like a fairly fruits-to-fruits comparison to me.I actually had Spell Combat in mind rather than Quicken Spell, as per my earlier post on the same subject. Thus taking the magus as the case study. It's completely unforgivable and not at all understandable that you didn't catch that in such a small and slow moving thread.
Spell Combat is more the martial approach (thus, Magus) whereas Quicken is the wizard's approach. It was an attempt at offering a more direct comparison than is offered by "Crane Wing vs. that which is available to a 9-level caster"
It is a fair comparison, and the first I notice is that spell combat/Mirror Image requires you to expend a resource and incur numerous opportunity costs. You have to already have mirror image, and you have to have enough uses to last the entire combat. Also, mirror image has a chance of failure. So, in conclusion, pre-errata Crane Wing is so much better than spell combat/Mirror Image it's really hard to make a comparison in what ways specifically it's a problem.
The PFS GM is not a Game Master, he's a narrator, a living DVD player.
Heh. I dunno if I would go that far.
I have gotten the impression, mind, from the various PFS threads that eventually get moved to the main boards, or vice versa, that there's as little scope given as is practical. That's an outsiders perspective, though, I never play PFS and if PFS didn't seem so closely tied up in this particular issue, I wouldn't be thinking about it much more often than I play it.
It is true to a larger extent than you might think. I have played plenty of PFS and DM'd both PFS and real campaigns in a home group. The best PFS DM's are in fact great DMs who can make a possibly mediocre scenario come alive and be a memorable experience and I assume they would be just as great running a real campaign. Yet it is undeniable that by removing the ability to adjust pars of RAW that are stupid or just don't work as well as the potential for meaningful collaboration between the players and DM that the framework of PFS kicks out the most important leg of good DMing. That's where Cairen is coming from in his criticism and it is completely valid.
What undermines it slightly is another failing of PFS, namely that for most of the rules disputes mentioned on the fourms as well as all sorts of dumb shit that should not even be in question the answer is "expect table variation". In a campaign where we put up with all sorts of stupid restrictions and house rules for the sake of uniform play the DM still basically gets carte balnche to house rule a bunch of stuff at their own table. That lets us see which of even the big name PFS DMs are actually any good and which are just DVD players.
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asaaand with Mirror Image you actually have a chance at doing damage to the wizard with your one attack.
Not so with Crane Wing.
I'd also like to point out as a corner case that if you have Uncanny Dodge, invisibility, ambush, surprise and losing init don't help you against the Crane Chain, but that's a secondary argument.
I would also note that all those situations are niche and work against ANYONE. The problem with Crane Chain is that you are virtually FORCED TO EMPLOY THEM TO BE EFFECTIVE.
Which sucks for the whole party.
==Aelryinth