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Things pre-errata Crane Wing completely hosed:
- Powerful Charge. Any creature, no matter how powerful, whose offense was centered on this, has no powerful charge.
- Any reasonable use of True Strike in melee.
- Monsters with single natural melee attacks.
- Vital Strike and all its improvements, for melee.
- Spring Attack
- Cleave (if Crane Wing is the first target, it never even goes off)
- pretty much any of the grabbers, like a wolf
- move action and standard attack
If you're looking at around APL 6, this is a lot of stuff.
Flying is not all that. Flying against wolves in a forest is actually pretty terrible.
Flying is not all that. Flying against wolves in a forest is actually pretty terrible.
It sounds pretty awesome to me. I can keep firing at them with ranged weapons (or hitting them with a reach weapon) while all they can do is growl at me and realize they are out of reach every time they try to attack.
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Casters are limited resources, when you say "spend four feats" I read "spent two-three feats, the other two IUS and Dodge were something I would of taken anyhow"
complaining about the feats leading up to it is a bit silly as so many things can give IUS or count as it. Likewise acting like dodge is some onerous tax is again ridiculous. If you were a wizard trying to make use of it... yeah it's rough, any serious martial class didn't break a sweat trying to get this going.
People are consciously aware that in the grand scheme of things Crane Wing wasn't that powerful right? People make it seem like it ended entire campaigns, killed everything in sight, raised the player to near Godhood, got them the girl/guy, saved the Princess/Prince. lol It's actually pretty funny. :-P It's almost like people were somehow slighted by CW. lol
It was extremely powerful when used in the kinds of builds I mentioned earlier. Crane Wing was a big nudge from "really hard to hit" to "nigh indestructible" for a decently defensive melee build. Take the sample character above. It's not like you can ignore her, even at CR 11, when she's doing 25 damage a hit with two attacks and a very solid attack bonus (and that's when she's not flanking, smiting or hasted and hasn't critted your ass, the latter of which she did on approximately 1 in 4 hits). And flyers? No problem. All of her damage enhancers (Arcane Strike, Discordant Voice, Battle Dance, Smite Evil and Deliquescent Gloves) boost her bow attacks too. All of which would be fine if it wasn't a complete waste of time to attack her, which with her AC it was when she's auto-deflecting the strongest attack that actually managed to hit every round.
There are no three feats (replacing Imp Unarmed, CS and CW) that such a character could take for the same return on investment in terms of indestructibility. The only argument that's going to make that kind of stuff seem reasonable is "casters can do even crazier stuff." Which is true, but if we start balancing everything against spells it's quickly going to render about 75% or more of the existing feats completely obsolete.
Well, I had Crane Riposte on a Hungry Ghost Monk, with a two level dip in fighter, barbarian, and one level of Cleric. His HP was okay, but his AC was fairly poor; Crane Wing (total = -0 to his attack when fighting defensively, and he got +4 AC) helped, and Crane Wing mixed with Stunning Fist and Punishing Kick really helped keep some melee off of him. Deflect Arrows wasn't bad, too. When he was hit, he just flurried with his katana to bring back some HP. I liked him, but unless something is done with Crane Riposte, I'm going to have to change him up drastically (get rid of all the Crane Feats), and I really didn't want to have to :(
Are you serious? I have exactly zero characters that bought IUS as a feat. I doubt very many people take dodge as a feat. Most combat builds are very tight and if you have room to take feats like IUS and dodge, you aren't making a min/max combat build.
Nothing wrong with Dodge. It's okay on its own when you really want to push your AC over the top, plus it's a prereq for lots of things. And see my sample Bard/Paladin/Rogue, above, for a pretty min/maxed combat build that took Crane Wing without dipping MoMS.
Played with a color spray oracle lately? That cancels out all of those attacks and more. But somehow the number one complaint of PFS GMs is Crane Wing?
Maybe they've all just grown acquiescent of spell casting and supernatural abilities?
More seriously, its harder to ban core materials or materials already in game. Likely you won't see slumber or color spray banned, but things from the player companions are much easier to ban(example: Mind Buttressing). Similarly, they don't like to ban things that have been around for a while, if I remember correctly.
Remember, PFS is a beast of its own. That's why it bothers people that its actually seeped in and affected their own games.
I'm not saying it's not good, it is. That's why I said a good compromise is leave it for Monk's only (say level 4 or 5). Doing what they did to it is an extreme case of over-kill. Also yes I know no one wants to bring up spells, but there are a bazillion things better than Crane Wing that are readily easy to acquire. Heck I've seen 50+ AC Players with mid 20's to all their saves. lol
Gonna have to ask to see some math on that last claim, at least if we're talking PFS levels (11-). And bear in mind that the builds in question have to also present a reasonable offensive threat in order to not just be ignorable.
But yes, I completely agree the nerf went way too far. On the other hand, how do you limit it to Monks without also nerfing MoMS (which I think would be a huge mistake)?
Remember, PFS is a beast of its own. That's why it bothers people that its actually seeped in and affected their own games.
It is, but at the same time the PFS issue raises a major issue with the game as a whole: Does CR matter? I mean, yes, in a home game you can adjust encounters to challenge players by raising them above the theoretically appropriate CR. But is the game not essentially broken if you're having to do that? CR is theoretically a major game element, which if nothing else is supposed to save GMs a considerable amount of time calibrating challenges. If it no longer functions as a way to do this, what does that do to the game as a whole? That's the big question posed by PFS's existence.
I'm not saying it's not good, it is. That's why I said a good compromise is leave it for Monk's only (say level 4 or 5). Doing what they did to it is an extreme case of over-kill. Also yes I know no one wants to bring up spells, but there are a bazillion things better than Crane Wing that are readily easy to acquire. Heck I've seen 50+ AC Players with mid 20's to all their saves. lol
Gonna have to ask to see some math on that last claim, at least if we're talking PFS levels (11-). And bear in mind that the builds in question have to also present a reasonable offensive threat in order to not just be ignorable.
But yes, I completely agree the nerf went way too far. On the other hand, how do you limit it to Monks without also nerfing MoMS (which I think would be a huge mistake)?
Well, it's been suggested before to errata MoMS so that they still have to meet BAB or Monk level requirements on Style feats. This stops the level dippers cold. It also stops the 'Crane Wing at level 1' shenanigans people have been using in PFS.
while there might be many "broken" game elements besides Crane Wing they obviously can't all be fixed at once. Instead of seeing this errata as Paizo singling something out I prefer to hope that it is just part of an ongoing process to hone and evolve the game.
Flying in particular seems to have been mentioned a lot in this thread though. Flight is a classic and pretty much essential element of the game, and creating a version of flying which doesn't get you out of the reach of melee opponents on the ground would be difficult. Luckily a lot of dungeon settings have low ceilings, traps, monsters (or gold?) on the ceiling, etc. Crane Wing doesn't seem like an essential element of the game, and creating a version of Crane Wing which is less powerful than the original doesn't seem difficult. In fact, Paizo has already done it. The difficult part might be getting people to accept it.
That said, I wonder if the new printing of Ultimate Combat has gone to the printers yet. If so this discussion might be moot. If not maybe something like allowing the +4 dodge bonus to be used reactively might be considered. I don't have any strong feelings about the errata, but I hate to see so many folks upset over it and wonder whether some sort of compromise might help.
It is, but at the same time the PFS issue raises a major issue with the game as a whole: Does CR matter?Remember, PFS is a beast of its own. That's why it bothers people that its actually seeped in and affected their own games.
We've known for quiet a few years that CR isn't perfect, if that's what your asking.
*We being an awkward term.
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Are you serious? I have exactly zero characters that bought IUS as a feat.
yeah it's free from soo many sources, why spend a feat on it...
I doubt very many people take dodge as a feat. Most combat builds are very tight and if you have room to take feats like IUS and dodge, you aren't making a min/max combat build.
The fact that crane wing fit in with min/maxing combat build tells you something about it's old form.
Oh do please show me a straight lvl 5-6 barb/ranger/pally make use of it without a sweat.
you understand I meant mostly monks/fighters etc, but sure let's do that.
Barbarian Brawler rage power (has improved unarmed strike), lvl 1 dodge, lvl 3 crane style, lvl 5 crane wing. bam.
Ranger (that's harder, but a one lvl dip in fighter(unarmed)solves it), but baring that human, lvl 1 dodge and IUS, lvl 3 crane style, lvl 5 crane wing, and toss in all your other bonus feats... it's actually still pretty optimal, specially if you go natural weapon style.
Paladin same as ranger. hell there's even a prestige class that you could go for that works well... although it does pretty much require a dip into monk.
There's actually not a single class that can't get into crane wing by lvl 5 that's a BAB 20 class and not perform well while using it, complaining you can't fit in two to five other feats into that build is a bit dishonest, when that's kind of the point of the game. not to have everything but to do something very well or do a bit of everything.
Feel free to also insert the feat taxes everybody needs, like power attack, weapon focus, possibly arcane strike somewhere along the line, if you can. I'd love to see that.
I guess when you set the requirements of "build a min/max build" that has x feats in it and work in crane wing but dont' splash any classes... you're creating a situation where it's very hard to "win" the argument. Specifically when you're excluding fighters/monks from the argument, even though they were arguably the only ones truely hit by the change...
That build was really not min/maxed. Take 2 extra levels in bard instead of 2 levels of rogue and you'd have gotten 3rd level casting, (which has many excellent spells), 1 more BAB, Versatile Performance to make up for the lost skill points, 2 more caster levels which may have meant another +1 to arcane strike (if you took magical knack trait), more bardic performance rounds to work with, and like a bazillion stuff I'm probably not even thinking of.
Traded all that away for... an extra feat and situational +3,5 damage.
That's terrible. I think eventhough 2 pally levels would have given less than the bard but still loads more in this situation.
2 more caster levels would not increase Arcane Strike's bonus. The BAB point I'm fine with losing. I never saw her need more performance rounds than she had already. Also, which feat would you give up? It matters. Crane Wing? Discordant Voice? Cautious Fighter? They're all major. And you've neglected to consider evasion, which is clutch. So nah, your version is only slightly better if at all. The build is fine.
It is, but at the same time the PFS issue raises a major issue with the game as a whole: Does CR matter?Remember, PFS is a beast of its own. That's why it bothers people that its actually seeped in and affected their own games.
We've known for quiet a few years that CR isn't perfect, if that's what your asking.
*We being an awkward term.
I'm perfectly aware of that, but organized play brings the issue rather sharply into focus. More importantly, the issue is not that CR "isn't perfect." It's that it seems drastically broken.
EDIT: Incidentally, Mr. Sin, what is your issue? You want to complain about PFS impacting home games, but don't want to have the conversation about why that's happening. When I try to get it going, you make a snarky comment. I'm trying to remain civil towards you. Please do the same in return.
It is, but at the same time the PFS issue raises a major issue with the game as a whole: Does CR matter? I mean, yes, in a home game you can adjust encounters to challenge players by raising them above the theoretically appropriate CR. But is the game not essentially broken if you're having to do that? CR is theoretically a major game element, which if nothing else is supposed to save GMs a considerable amount of time calibrating challenges. If it no longer functions as a way to do this, what does that do to the game as a whole? That's the big question posed by PFS's existence.Remember, PFS is a beast of its own. That's why it bothers people that its actually seeped in and affected their own games.
CR is only a theoretical approximation of power. Only experience can teach the true value of creatures.
As an example, take a look at the Dark Stalker. It's a CR 4 threat all by his lonesome. For an APL 4 party, this is an average encounter and should be pretty easy right?
Wrong.
See, the Dark Stalker has Deeper Darkness at will and the ability to See in Darkness, including that of Deeper Darkness. So your party is in a dark warehouse using light, and then everything turns supernaturally dark. Even those with Darkvision (Half-orcs, Dwarves etc) can't see... but the Dark Stalker can.
He can come in using use his superior vision to start dropping sneak attacks on the party. He can full attack, and then 5-foot step away, and the party will stumble around in the dark trying to find this guy.
It takes a 3rd level spell (available at 5th) to counter Deeper Darkness, and this is something the party doesn't have.
How about an APL 8 party? They have access to Daylight, sure, but how many times? Maybe once if they know to bring it ahead of time? In this situation, the Dark Stalker could bring two allies with him (3 Dark Stalkers = CR 8 threat) or another Dark Stalker and 4 Dark Creepers. You know have 6 enemies with See In Darkness and the Dark Stalkers can use their at will Deeper Darkness to dispel any Daylight spells the party may have.
In the mean time, the full on Crane Style, Crane Wing, Crane Riposte character is crying somewhere as he's denied his dex, dodge and Crane Wing defense. The party is being ambushed by monsters in the night that, and the Dwarf and Half-Orc in the party are, for the first time in their career, scared of the shadows.
There are other such things that exist in this game. The Ghaele Azata is a CR 13 creature that can fairly reliably kill CR 15 - CR 16 creatures with minimal effort or threat to herself. Any creature that can't fly or attack at range can be taken down by a weaker dragon.
Templates added to creature only exacerbate the problem. You can take a Kobold and add 4 different templates before it even reaches CR 2. Then you can toss on 2 levels of warrior and you've got a pretty bad-assed Kobold Conquerer running around. Toss the Advanced and Fey Creature Template on a Kobold with 2 levels of warrior and give them a bow, a CR 1 creature, and watch them make parties cry with their ambushes.
The CR system is imperfect. It only measures the DPR and defenses of a creature, and doesn't take into account spells, spell-like abilities, supernatural abilities, or other abilities the monster may have.
I have mentioned this numerous times before but I will mention it again, if you readied an action to attack someone using crane wing you would hit them before they could deflect the attack. Any creature or character could do this, it's not like a great sword wielder with one attack couldn't get his one attack in.
CR is only a theoretical approximation of power. Only experience can teach the true value of creatures.
As an example, take a look at the Dark Stalker. It's a CR 4 threat all by his lonesome. For an APL 4 party, this is an average encounter and should be pretty easy right?
Wrong.
See, the Dark Stalker has Deeper Darkness at will...
I know all of this. I would go further than you have gone and say that CR is not only imperfect, it's become barely useful if not actively misleading. So the question is: how can you have a meaningful system of organized play when this is the case? The non-PFS community is going to continue to be affected by what happens within PFS, so I'd say this issue is pretty important. Unless of course you think that there can be no meaningful organized play, which is also an interesting conversation. If that's the case, then organized play should be abolished as it is meaningless in and of itself, yet impacts home style play.
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It is, but at the same time the PFS issue raises a major issue with the game as a whole: Does CR matter? I mean, yes, in a home game you can adjust encounters to challenge players by raising them above the theoretically appropriate CR. But is the game not essentially broken if you're having to do that? CR is theoretically a major game element, which if nothing else is supposed to save GMs a considerable amount of time calibrating challenges. If it no longer functions as a way to do this, what does that do to the game as a whole? That's the big question posed by PFS's existence.
Think of optimization level as a tree that branches left and right - the left side is the low end of optimization, and the right side of the tree is the high end of optimization. The height of the tree represents levels, and the trunk CR.
As you start off the tree is low and the branches are relatively close to one another. As the tree grows higher the branches on both the left and the right side move further away from the trunk. More distance builds between the left and right branches as well.
Similarly CR struggles at low-medium levels and ultimately fails at high-very high levels to account for how different parties can handle different levels of opposition. However it was never going to succeed at that - the system is far too flexible, varied, and ultimately imbalanced, to allow any such system. That doesn't mean that challenge ratings are useless, or broken.
CR is absolutely useful, but it's useful as a guideline - not a straightjacket. If your party is tooting a TWF fighter who thinks nunchucks are the bomb, a bard who fights people by beating them with his lute, and a rogue who has a hand crossbow sniper thing going on - you might need to adjust down a bit.
Conversely if your party is stacked to the gills with optimization guides, Paragon Surge sorcerers, GOD wizards and all the other paraphernalia - you might need to adjust up a bit.
However, you can still use CR as a good start-off point. Odds are most parties will be in the general ballpark of what the CR states - you can always fine-tune it later on when you get a better grasp of what your party can and can't handle.
I know all of this. I would go further than you have gone and say that CR is not only imperfect, it's become barely useful if not actively misleading. So the question is: how can you have a meaningful system of organized play when this is the case? The non-PFS community is going to continue to be affected by what happens within PFS, so I'd say this issue is pretty important. Unless of course you think that there can be no meaningful organized play, which is also an interesting conversation. If that's the case, then organized play should be abolished as it is meaningless in and of itself, yet impacts home style play.
CR is only a theoretical approximation of power. Only experience can teach the true value of creatures.
As an example, take a look at the Dark Stalker. It's a CR 4 threat all by his lonesome. For an APL 4 party, this is an average encounter and should be pretty easy right?
Wrong.
See, the Dark Stalker has Deeper Darkness at will...
The problem is PFS isn't being kept separate from Pathfinder. PFS comes with a list of houserules long enough that it could probably be entirely published as it's on Player Companion.
It's always struck me as odd that people want to bring up PFS in balance debates when PFS has a history of balancing itself. I think PFS should use it's power more often to ban or change problem feats, spells, classes etc, but only for PFS!
During playtests and other such things on the boards, if someone uses a house rule in their examples, they are held up as less credible an example than those who didn't. PFS has a HUGE number of house rules, yet still gives valid feedback?
I mean, in PFS, if you have a staff, it's assumed to be recharged between scenarios, even if the scenarios are linked together and/or take place on the same day. In this way, people can abuse things like the Staff of the Master to get free metamagic on their characters.
Best part? If a character has cheese like this going on, the GM can't really say, "No, that feat/spell/class/item/ability isn't allowed at my table". If it's a legal PFS option, then it's a valid strategy and can't really be stopped. Sure, a GM could choose to evict the person from the table, but that just furthers the GM vs. Players mentality.
It is, but at the same time the PFS issue raises a major issue with the game as a whole: Does CR matter? I mean, yes, in a home game you can adjust encounters to challenge players by raising them above the theoretically appropriate CR. But is the game not essentially broken if you're having to do that? CR is theoretically a major game element, which if nothing else is supposed to save GMs a considerable amount of time calibrating challenges. If it no longer functions as a way to do this, what does that do to the game as a whole? That's the big question posed by PFS's existence.Think of optimization level as a tree that branches left and right - the left side is the low end of optimization, and the right side of the tree is the high end of optimization. The height of the tree represents levels, and the trunk CR.
As you start off the tree is low and the branches are relatively close to one another. As the tree grows higher the branches on both the left and the right side move further away from the trunk. More distance builds between the left and right branches as well.
Similarly CR struggles at low-medium levels and ultimately fails at high-very high levels to account for how different parties can handle different levels of opposition. However it was never going to succeed at that - the system is far too flexible, varied, and ultimately imbalanced, to allow any such system. That doesn't mean that challenge ratings are useless, or broken.
CR is absolutely useful, but it's useful as a guideline - not a straightjacket. If your party is tooting a TWF fighter who thinks nunchucks are the bomb, a bard who fights people by beating them with his lute, and a rogue who has a hand crossbow sniper thing going on - you might need to adjust down a bit.
Conversely if your party is stacked to the gills with optimization guides, Paragon Surge sorcerers, GOD wizards and all the other paraphernalia - you might need to adjust up a bit.
However, you can still use CR as a good...
That's a very good analogy of the CR system and one of the reasons why I prefer home games to PFS.
No offense, but you guys aren't telling me stuff I don't know. You're giving extremely lucid and valuable explanations of the problem, and that's cool. But I'm asking what the solution is. If the game is too customizable to have a meaningful standardization of challenges (even if only beyond a certain level) without the guiding hand of a GM, then meaningful organized play would seem to be unobtainable. But if people continue to like and want organized play, then the things that happen there are going to go on affecting the rules, to the continued frustration of home game min-maxers. So where does that leave us?
Do we need to develop far stricter rules for organized play character creation? Do there need to be, essentially, two separate standards?
Do organized play GMs need considerably more latitude to alter scenarios?
How do we solve this?
Do we need to develop far stricter rules for organized play character creation? Do there need to be, essentially, two separate standards?
Those two separate standards already exist; all you have to do is look at PFS's custom rule set of what is and isn't allowed. As some people said before, just adding Crane Style to the banned list would have been an acceptable solution.
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Also, Brawler does not count as IUS
you might need to read up on a few thigns that have been stated by developers and faqs etc.
If you have it, even temporary it functions. now in the barbarian situation, he can't use crane wing except while he's raging because during other points he does not have all the pre-reqs.
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As long as they change Crane Riposte to say that you can use it on any missed attack that you applied Crane Wing to, then I am kinda OK with the change. I still think it was unnecessary because there are so many ways around Crane Wing. It is somewhat depressing that there were so many GMs that were against it. That just tells me there are a lot of GMs that need to learn the combat rules better.
Do we need to develop far stricter rules for organized play character creation? Do there need to be, essentially, two separate standards?Those two separate standards already exist; all you have to do is look at PFS's custom rule set of what is and isn't allowed. As some people said before, just adding Crane Style to the banned list would have been an acceptable solution.
This seems like a departure from most of what they've banned so far though. From what I can tell, most of the banned entities in PFS are banned for reasons other than that they are overpowered. Vivisectionist, for instance, lets you make minions, which is problematic in organized play. In the cases where things were banned for being overpowered, it has generally been because of outright typos and the like (i.e. the staves from APG). I think that's why this change seems so significant to a lot of people, no?
It is somewhat depressing that there were so many GMs that were against it. That just tells me there are a lot of GMs that need to learn the combat rules better.
I know plenty of GMs who know the rules intricately and understand your argument, but still oppose Crane Wing. It's a matter of style. Some people think that the nature of the game is adjusting challenges specifically to cater to your party's abilities. Other people think, conversely, that the game is not functioning properly if you are being forced to do this. Both sides understand the game. It's a matter of perspective and sensibility.
How do we solve this?Easy, it's solved by how the PFS Organizers are doing it now, they make exceptions and adjustments specifically for PFS play. The issue here is (apparently) mostly a PFS issue, and sadly seems to have trickled into global Pathfinder and caused a ruckus. PFS banned Synthesist, it wasn't banned in Pathfinder...
I don't know for sure, but I suspect they banned Synthesist more because it was ill-understood and the implementation of its central ability caused confusion during play, rather than because it was considered OP. This change is different.
No offense, but you guys aren't telling me stuff I don't know. You're giving extremely lucid and valuable explanations of the problem, and that's cool. But I'm asking what the solution is. If the game is too customizable to have a meaningful standardization of challenges (even if only beyond a certain level) without the guiding hand of a GM, then meaningful organized play would seem to be unobtainable. But if people continue to like and want organized play, then the things that happen there are going to go on affecting the rules, to the continued frustration of home game min-maxers. So where does that leave us?
Do we need to develop far stricter rules for organized play character creation? Do there need to be, essentially, two separate standards?
Do organized play GMs need considerably more latitude to alter scenarios?
How do we solve this?
Hm. I don't care for PFS, but I'd solve it with interchangeable parts of each scenario. Essentially a low power or high power set up.
Like..."If your party is pretty bad ass, use these creatures in your encounters, or if your party is toting a hand crossbow wielding Rogue and a vanilla monk, you should probably use these creatures for this encounters."
And the synthesist is most definitely overpowered and probably banned as such. If it were banned for something as trivial as misinterpretations over it's central ability, an online clarification could have solved that.
Hm. I don't care for PFS, but I'd solve it with interchangeable parts of each scenario. Essentially a low power or high power set up.
Like..."If your party is pretty bad ass, use these creatures in your encounters, or if your party is toting a hand crossbow wielding Rogue and a vanilla monk, you should probably use these creatures for this encounters."
I've been pushing hard for something like this for a while, but there has been determined resistance from the devs. They did that only once, with the Season 4 finale, and I thought it was great.
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No offense, but you guys aren't telling me stuff I don't know. You're giving extremely lucid and valuable explanations of the problem, and that's cool. But I'm asking what the solution is. If the game is too customizable to have a meaningful standardization of challenges (even if only beyond a certain level) without the guiding hand of a GM, then meaningful organized play would seem to be unobtainable. But if people continue to like and want organized play, then the things that happen there are going to go on affecting the rules, to the continued frustration of home game min-maxers. So where does that leave us?
Do we need to develop far stricter rules for organized play character creation? Do there need to be, essentially, two separate standards?
Do organized play GMs need considerably more latitude to alter scenarios?
How do we solve this?
Hm. I don't care for PFS, but I'd solve it with interchangeable parts of each scenario. Essentially a low power or high power set up.
Like..."If your party is pretty bad ass, use these creatures in your encounters, or if your party is toting a hand crossbow wielding Rogue and a vanilla monk, you should probably use these creatures for this encounters."
That'd be a nice idea... But even better would be an simple observation saying "Feel free to adapt the enemy's tactics to your party. e.g.: If melee combat is ineffective, have them draw their bows".
Give more freedom for the PFS GMs to adapt to different tactics and suddenly, no one tactic will be dominant all the time.