Crane Wing Errata in latest printing


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Cairen Weiss wrote:
That's a very good analogy of the CR system and one of the reasons why I prefer home games to PFS.

Thank you :). It's one of those times I wish the PF forums had a blackboard - I was mentally drawing the tree as I typed out that analogy.

Erick Wilson wrote:
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?

I read somewhere that vivisectionists were banned because people were uncomfortable with some fluff aspects (as in, players would describe actual vivisections) - could be wrong there though.


Erick Wilson wrote:
Felix Gaunt wrote:
Erick Wilson wrote:
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.

Power concerns were a part of it, but I think a lot of the decision to do away with the synthesist had to so with the sheer number of threads arguing about rules interpretation in which no one really understood the class and couldn't come to any kind of consensus. That and DMs b~#*~ing about synthesists face-stomping scenarios.

I don't recall really seeing any of this kind of thing over in the PFS boards about Crane Wing so I'm not sure it actually was PFS spillover. It might have been purely a boneheaded move on the part of the devs.


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Lemmy wrote:
Scavion wrote:
Erick Wilson wrote:

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.

I believe the problem with that is PFS enemies tend to be one trick ponies. Some of them really don't have any other options than to melee attack.

Which imo, is just a problem with PFS encounter design in general which is making Crane Wing look so powerful.


Scavion wrote:


I believe the problem with that is PFS enemies tend to be one trick ponies. Some of them really don't have any other options than to melee attack.

Which imo, is just a problem with PFS encounter design in general which is making Crane Wing look so powerful.

I hear you, but at the same time, shouldn't melee attacking be like the main thing most creatures are doing to you most of the time? Yes, I know there are lots of other things they can and should do, but melee attacks should still be the baseline...


Erick Wilson wrote:
Scavion wrote:


I believe the problem with that is PFS enemies tend to be one trick ponies. Some of them really don't have any other options than to melee attack.

Which imo, is just a problem with PFS encounter design in general which is making Crane Wing look so powerful.

I hear you, but at the same time, shouldn't melee attacking be like the main thing most creatures are doing to you most of the time? Yes, I know there are lots of other things they can and should do, but melee attacks should still be the baseline...

What made that the baseline? There are loads of potential combat options. The fact that melee combat is considered a baseline which isn't deviated from in PFS is a bit sad.

The thing is, Crane Wing or no, melee combat isn't challenging by any means to a well-built character. Conditions, saving throws, spells, maneuvers, supernatural abilities are what brings down characters. Terrain and use of that terrain to your advantage. The list goes on.


Scavion wrote:


The thing is, Crane Wing or no, melee combat isn't challenging by any means to a well-built character. Conditions, saving throws, spells, maneuvers, supernatural abilities are what brings down characters...

See, this right here is the crux of the issue. Many, many people would take the view that if what you say here is true, then the game is in dire straights and needs major fixing.

EDIT: I agree with you on terrain, but I think of that as part of melee, or anyway not entirely a separate entity. It's there to make the melee combat more interesting.

EDIT II: And yes, all that other stuff you mention is important and should be used liberally. But you'd hope that its main function would be setting people up to get taken down by...you got it: melee combat.


Erick Wilson wrote:
Scavion wrote:


The thing is, Crane Wing or no, melee combat isn't challenging by any means to a well-built character. Conditions, saving throws, spells, maneuvers, supernatural abilities are what brings down characters...

See, this right here is the crux of the issue. Many, many people would take the view that if what you say here is true, then the game is in dire straights and needs major fixing.

EDIT: I agree with you on terrain, but I think of that as part of melee, or anyway not entirely a separate entity. It's there to make the melee combat more interesting.

Heh. But really. Think with me here. Take away everything else but two guys with AC and damage. The Player will win every single time unless the monster is ridiculously above CR or one of the *Trick* Cr monsters. An Invulnerable Rager can go toe to toe with anything appropriate by himself if it comes down to just melee combat. If you have a high defense build, such that you only get hit on a 20, then you've trivialized melee combat already with or without Crane Wing.


Sometimes something as simple as giving the enemies a flask of alchemist fire to throw before entering melee can change the nature of fights.

Having slings and bullets can help enemies seek desirable positions to hit the party with.

There are a lot of easy methods to change up the 'I melee attack' problem with PFS, but it seems like they don't want to use it.

Only using melee attacks was a problem even without Crane Wing. Casters of all sorts could drop Grease, Create Pit or other such terrain spells to interfere with movements allowing for ranged allies to get extra rounds of attacks on enemies.

I recall observing one group playing PFS where everyone brought Tower Shields and would set up a horseshoe of Tower Shields around a doorway, then enlarge the Martial so he could use a reach weapon and attack the people stuck in the trap. Meanwhile, the party could drop things like Alchemist Fire or Acid Flasks over the edge of the tower shields, or flaming spheres, fireballs etc.

Odd tactic, and kind of cheesy, but it worked. Crane Style had nothing to do with those tactics.

Sczarni

odd I remember one PFS scenario that involved several alchemists raining fire down... oh yeah and it generally hit the entire party for at least half their hps....


Scavion wrote:


Heh. But really. Think with me here...

I'm not even going to respond because of this opening. Please exercise civility.


Erick Wilson wrote:
Scavion wrote:
Heh. But really. Think with me here...
I'm not even going to respond because of this opening. Please exercise civility.

I don't think it was meant as an insult, Erick. I'd guess Scavion meant something along the lines of "follow my train of thought..." rather than "you are not thinking.", as you seem to have understood it.


Cairen Weiss wrote:

Sometimes something as simple as giving the enemies a flask of alchemist fire to throw before entering melee can change the nature of fights.

Having slings and bullets can help enemies seek desirable positions to hit the party with.

There are a lot of easy methods to change up the 'I melee attack' problem with PFS, but it seems like they don't want to use it.

Only using melee attacks was a problem even without Crane Wing. Casters of all sorts could drop Grease, Create Pit or other such terrain spells to interfere with movements allowing for ranged allies to get extra rounds of attacks on enemies...

Ok, of course. I'm not against any of this. Nobody is suggesting that enemies should only use melee attacks. I'm saying it's a problem if the very idea of melee combat has become trivial. It's especially problematic to people who want to play martial characters that presumably specialize in what? Melee combat. And most of the classes are theoretically there to do this in one form or another.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

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Being unable to deal with characters using melee NPC's means melee is now useless to the GM, and the game is now all ranged combat and spells.

Doesn't sound like much fun, does it?

Crane Wing nerfed too many other things. Things that nerfed Crane Wing, in turn, actually nerfed EVERYONE, so there is no specific tactic you can aim at Crane Wing to shut it down. You're not countering Crane Wing when you do all that, you're attempting to counter the whole party and move the fight to a non-melee basis.

==Aelryinth


Lemmy wrote:
Erick Wilson wrote:
Scavion wrote:
Heh. But really. Think with me here...
I'm not even going to respond because of this opening. Please exercise civility.
I don't think it was meant as an insult, Erick. I'd guess Scavion meant something along the lines of "follow my train of thought..." rather than "you are not thinking.", as you seem to have understood it.

It's possible I'm gunshy from the overall snark levels around these places, particularly since I am working hard not to respond in kind. It's frustrating because so many min/maxers automatically assume you don't understand their argument if you disagree with them, or even try to introduce any nuance whatever.

It's rare that I run into an argument here that I'm not already aware of or haven't considered, so the constant implication that my failure to agree with the min-max gospel is a result of lack of exposure to or awareness of it is tiresome.

Like the assertion by (whoever it was) earlier that GMs who complain about Crane Wing obviously don't understand combat. That's an arrogant, ignorant, ridiculous statement. Some people do not want to play the game the way you want to play it. That's not because they are less informed than you, it's because they do not share your values. Have some respect.


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Aelryinth wrote:

Being unable to deal with characters using melee NPC's means melee is now useless to the GM, and the game is now all ranged combat and spells.

Doesn't sound like much fun, does it?

Crane Wing nerfed too many other things. Things that nerfed Crane Wing, in turn, actually nerfed EVERYONE, so there is no specific tactic you can aim at Crane Wing to shut it down. You're not countering Crane Wing when you do all that, you're attempting to counter the whole party and move the fight to a non-melee basis.

==Aelryinth

How is having 1 less attack per round against 1 specific character make melee useless?


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Umbranus wrote:
Stephen Ede wrote:
Umbranus wrote:
I guess they listened to some guys only playing casters and calling foul every time a martial does something useful.
This type of comment annoys me because it so completely misses the point. Casters didn't care about Crane Wing. Why should they. The counter to Crane Wing is spells, so it makes Casters even more valuable as it was.

My point is that there is hardly alimit to what casters can do. But once matials have a strong option it becomes a problem. If there was a spell of 3rd+ level no one would really care because magic.

The ones complaining about the feat are GMs (mostly PFS).

The problem is that Crane Wing + High AC was a strong Nerf option rather than a strong action option. All it did was nerf the part the encounter they were interested in.

You know what you have when you put 2 Crane Wing + high AC builds against each other? A game of Patty Cakes. Basically each creature needs to roll two natural 20 attacks in a round to get damage through. That's both boring and silly.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

Lemmy wrote:
Aelryinth wrote:

Being unable to deal with characters using melee NPC's means melee is now useless to the GM, and the game is now all ranged combat and spells.

Doesn't sound like much fun, does it?

Crane Wing nerfed too many other things. Things that nerfed Crane Wing, in turn, actually nerfed EVERYONE, so there is no specific tactic you can aim at Crane Wing to shut it down. You're not countering Crane Wing when you do all that, you're attempting to counter the whole party and move the fight to a non-melee basis.

==Aelryinth

How is having 1 less attack per round against 1 specific character make melee useless?

If the GM's meleers can't do beans to your melees, which is basically what a decent Crane build does, why should the GM even bother to play meleers?

Come on, quit tossing the goalposts around. Sure, one attack neutralized isn't much. One attack that would otherwise hit, do great damage, and is all the enemy gets? That's invulnerability.

==Aelryinth


Erick Wilson wrote:
Scavion wrote:


Heh. But really. Think with me here...

I'm not even going to respond because of this opening. Please exercise civility.

My most sincere apologies you believed I was trying to snark you. I really did have pure intentions. But please consider my train of thought.

When broken down to just full attacks and AC, the Player almost always wins unless the RNGods are being particularly spiteful. This to me, means melee combat is unsatisfying and not challenging. As a Martial, I know without a doubt, that if I build for offense, no monster can match me if brought down to AC and HP. That is the massive appeal of the Invulnerable Rager Barbarian since he breaks all fights down to that basic concept. Then he obliterates with his incredible strength, HP, DR, and Saves with Superstition. Same goes with the Paladin. If I can smite you, I can kill you before you kill me since I'm healing every round as well.


Stephen Ede wrote:
Umbranus wrote:
Stephen Ede wrote:
Umbranus wrote:
I guess they listened to some guys only playing casters and calling foul every time a martial does something useful.
This type of comment annoys me because it so completely misses the point. Casters didn't care about Crane Wing. Why should they. The counter to Crane Wing is spells, so it makes Casters even more valuable as it was.

My point is that there is hardly alimit to what casters can do. But once matials have a strong option it becomes a problem. If there was a spell of 3rd+ level no one would really care because magic.

The ones complaining about the feat are GMs (mostly PFS).

The problem is that Crane Wing + High AC was a strong Nerf option rather than a strong action option. All it did was nerf the part the encounter they were interested in.

You know what you have when you put 2 Crane Wing + high AC builds against each other? A game of Patty Cakes. Basically each creature needs to roll two natural 20 attacks in a round to get damage through. That's both boring and silly.

When the first ACG playtest came out, there was a part of me that wanted to build a MoMS 2/ Swashbuckler 18 using Crane and Snake Style and have them fight each other with the original Parry/Riposte mechanic.

It'd be something like....

Swash #1: I attack!
Swash #2: I parry and Riposte!
Swash #1: I parry your Riposte and Riposte myself!
Swash #2: I parry your Riposte and Riposte again!

Repeat


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Cairen Weiss wrote:

When the first ACG playtest came out, there was a part of me that wanted to build a MoMS 2/ Swashbuckler 18 using Crane and Snake Style and have them fight each other with the original Parry/Riposte mechanic.

It'd be something like....

Swash #1: I attack!
Swash #2: I parry and Riposte!
Swash #1: I parry your Riposte and Riposte myself!
Swash #2: I parry your Riposte and Riposte again!

Repeat

Someone with better internet skills find an anime to put this into action for me. I'm imagining those high speed sword clashes right now. It's nice.


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Scavion wrote:
Cairen Weiss wrote:

When the first ACG playtest came out, there was a part of me that wanted to build a MoMS 2/ Swashbuckler 18 using Crane and Snake Style and have them fight each other with the original Parry/Riposte mechanic.

It'd be something like....

Swash #1: I attack!
Swash #2: I parry and Riposte!
Swash #1: I parry your Riposte and Riposte myself!
Swash #2: I parry your Riposte and Riposte again!

Repeat

Someone with better internet skills find an anime to put this into action for me. I'm imagining those high speed sword clashes right now. It's nice.

I'm picturing Dragon Ball Z.


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chaoseffect wrote:
Scavion wrote:
Cairen Weiss wrote:

When the first ACG playtest came out, there was a part of me that wanted to build a MoMS 2/ Swashbuckler 18 using Crane and Snake Style and have them fight each other with the original Parry/Riposte mechanic.

It'd be something like....

Swash #1: I attack!
Swash #2: I parry and Riposte!
Swash #1: I parry your Riposte and Riposte myself!
Swash #2: I parry your Riposte and Riposte again!

Repeat

Someone with better internet skills find an anime to put this into action for me. I'm imagining those high speed sword clashes right now. It's nice.
I'm picturing Dragon Ball Z.

I am too but there needs to be swords.


Scavion wrote:
Erick Wilson wrote:
Scavion wrote:


Heh. But really. Think with me here...

I'm not even going to respond because of this opening. Please exercise civility.

My most sincere apologies you believed I was trying to snark you. I really did have pure intentions. But please consider my train of thought.

When broken down to just full attacks and AC, the Player almost always wins unless the RNGods are being particularly spiteful. This to me, means melee combat is unsatisfying and not challenging. As a Martial, I know without a doubt, that if I build for offense, no monster can match me if brought down to AC and HP. That is the massive appeal of the Invulnerable Rager Barbarian since he breaks all fights down to that basic concept. Then he obliterates with his incredible strength, HP, DR, and Saves with Superstition. Same goes with the Paladin. If I can smite you, I can kill you before you kill me since I'm healing every round as well.

Cool. Thanks for saying so and apologies for overreacting.

And everything you're saying is true, but it's no less true of casting etc. The whole game is math. When you break the math down, melees, archers, casters, whoever...they're all going to defeat (actually, demolish) CR appropriate challenges if they're remotely well built. Partially the game takes this into account. It's supposed to be a game of attrition played over a series of encounters, so obviously individual encounters are not likely to take you down regardless of what you're built for.

But my point is where is the goalpost? If CR isn't reliable, when is a character "good enough" (at melee or whatever else he's doing)? If the GM just keeps upping the challenges as you get more powerful, what's the point of min-maxing? That just sounds like a tedious Red Queen race to me. Why would we want the game to be that?

Alternatively you can look at the whole thing as purely competitive, in terms of trying to be more effective than the other PCs. But the end result of this is we arrive at the One True Build, the most optimized build possible, before which all others are senseless. Again, tedious and frustrating.

This was my thought when, earlier, someone was saying that the Bard/Paladin/Rogue build I presented was "not min-maxed" because if you traded the Rogue levels in for Bard you'd get 3rd level spells. Well, sure...but viewed from that perspective, the build is not min maxed at all because of its failure to trade all of its class levels in for Wizard. Then I'd have 6th level spells! That build routinely curbstomps CR appropriate encounters, to the point that it is capable of soloing many of the tier 10-11 mods. If a build can do that and someone will still call it "not min-maxed" then where are we? This all seems like total madness.


Aelryinth wrote:
Lemmy wrote:
Aelryinth wrote:

Being unable to deal with characters using melee NPC's means melee is now useless to the GM, and the game is now all ranged combat and spells.

Doesn't sound like much fun, does it?

Crane Wing nerfed too many other things. Things that nerfed Crane Wing, in turn, actually nerfed EVERYONE, so there is no specific tactic you can aim at Crane Wing to shut it down. You're not countering Crane Wing when you do all that, you're attempting to counter the whole party and move the fight to a non-melee basis.

==Aelryinth

How is having 1 less attack per round against 1 specific character make melee useless?

If the GM's meleers can't do beans to your melees, which is basically what a decent Crane build does, why should the GM even bother to play meleers?

Come on, quit tossing the goalposts around. Sure, one attack neutralized isn't much. One attack that would otherwise hit, do great damage, and is all the enemy gets? That's invulnerability.

==Aelryinth

Crane gives you +1 dodge bonus to AC and the ability to deflect 1 attack.

In exchange for...

A- Five freaking feats. (2 of which are pretty weak)
or
B- Delaying your BAB, caster level and class features by 2 levels
or
C- Being a Monk with no FoB

All of those are a significant investment.

OH, and no matter what route you take, you still gotta have one hand free, so no 2-handed weapons for you.... Or, if you're using a 1-handed weapon, no extra damage for using it with 2-hands.

Sovereign Court

Erick Wilson wrote:

[

It's possible I'm gunshy from the overall snark levels around these places, particularly since I am working hard not to respond in kind. It's frustrating because so many min/maxers automatically assume you don't understand their argument if you disagree with them, or even try to introduce any nuance whatever.

It's rare that I run into an argument here that I'm not already aware of or haven't considered, so the constant implication that my failure to agree with the min-max gospel is a result of lack of exposure to or awareness of it is tiresome.

Like the assertion by (whoever it was) earlier that GMs who complain about Crane Wing obviously don't understand combat. That's an arrogant, ignorant, ridiculous statement. Some people do not want to play the game the way you want to play it. That's not because they are less informed than you, it's because they do not share your values. Have some respect.

Actually, your above post is the one that is filled with arrogance. The point was that the GMs complaining about Crane Wing are ignoring the MANY ways to counter it. So you insulting me because I pointed it out is what is truly arrogant, ignorant and ridiculous.


Galahad0430 wrote:

Actually, your above post is the one that is filled with arrogance. The point was that the GMs complaining about Crane Wing are ignoring the MANY ways to counter it. So you insulting me because I pointed it out is what is truly arrogant, ignorant and ridiculous.

You're doing it again. You haven't understood my post at all. They are not ignorant of the ways to counter it. They do not want to be forced into adopting those tactics. It's completely different.


Erick Wilson wrote:
They are not ignorant of the ways to counter it. They do not want to be forced into adopting those tactics. It's completely different.

A DM pretty much always has to adapt to a party's play style. To be blunt, my response would be "get over it." As a non-PFS DM you have pretty much an infinite number of viable options to choose from to still challenge the party while letting that defensive player still feel justified.


chaoseffect wrote:


A DM pretty much always has to adapt to a party's play style. To be blunt, my response would be "get over it." As a non-PFS DM you have pretty much an infinite number of viable options to choose from to still challenge the party while letting that defensive player still feel justified.

Not if you want to, say, use published material because you don't have the hours of spare time necessary for the kind of fine-tuning that what you're talking about requires. And that describes a lot of people.

EDIT: I'm somewhat playing devil's advocate here, because I do often put that kind of time into my games, but what you're saying renders large amounts of the published Paizo material worthless. All the mods and adventure paths are far less valuable if you have to go through everything in them with a fine toothed comb and adjust all the challenges to suit your crazily min-maxed party. What do I need them for if I'm going to have to do all that? I'll just write my own from the ground up. Or at least they should just be publishing, like, 2 or 3 page adventure sketches detailing only the rough plot idea and a few basic set-pieces/encounter-inspirations. With some maps, maybe. Since that's all you'll be getting out of their mods anyway.


Add a caster to the all melee enemy group. Oh man, Crane Wing guy will shut down that one T-Rex? Add another that will attack the rest of the party or gang up on him. You don't have to completely rewrite encounters here.

Grand Lodge

Galahad0430 wrote:
Erick Wilson wrote:

[

It's possible I'm gunshy from the overall snark levels around these places, particularly since I am working hard not to respond in kind. It's frustrating because so many min/maxers automatically assume you don't understand their argument if you disagree with them, or even try to introduce any nuance whatever.

It's rare that I run into an argument here that I'm not already aware of or haven't considered, so the constant implication that my failure to agree with the min-max gospel is a result of lack of exposure to or awareness of it is tiresome.

Like the assertion by (whoever it was) earlier that GMs who complain about Crane Wing obviously don't understand combat. That's an arrogant, ignorant, ridiculous statement. Some people do not want to play the game the way you want to play it. That's not because they are less informed than you, it's because they do not share your values. Have some respect.

Actually, your above post is the one that is filled with arrogance. The point was that the GMs complaining about Crane Wing are ignoring the MANY ways to counter it. So you insulting me because I pointed it out is what is truly arrogant, ignorant and ridiculous.

Mind if I ask what those ways to counter it are? As a GM, I can see many ways to counter it, but most of them involve changing up enemies (adding in more mooks, casters, combat manuever users, etc.) or using metagame tactics (run past the monk to get to the wizard, despite the fact that it would result in poor positioning that would guarantee death for the foe). The former requires more prep time and removes a lot of the challenge from some monsters - and some solo "boss" monsters - while the latter requires metagaming.


chaoseffect wrote:
Add a caster to the all melee enemy group. Oh man, Crane Wing guy will shut down that one T-Rex? Add another that will attack the rest of the party or gang up on him. You don't have to completely rewrite encounters here.

You've just recommended doubling the threat of an encounter in order to counter one feat possessed by one character. Going from 1 T-Rex to 2 T-Rexes IS completely rewriting an encounter (at least if, again, CR is supposed to have any value whatever). And incidentally, the 2 T-Rexes ganging up on him will still probably not be able to hurt him nearly quickly enough if he has built for AC.


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I don't really consider CR to have much value, so perhaps that's why I see it as a very minor change. As far as time going into "rebuilding" the encounter into something functional for the party, it took all of about 5 seconds. You know what your party can do better than the person who wrote the CRs; some lower creatures may stomp your party and some higher may be a joke. Such is life.


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I blocked the earth so we don't take fall damage.


chaoseffect wrote:
I don't really consider CR to have much value, so perhaps that's why I see it as a very minor change. As far as time going into "rebuilding" the encounter, it took all of about 5 seconds. You know what your party can do better than the person who wrote the CRs; some lower creatures may stomp your party and some higher may be a joke. Such is life.

If CR has no value, then what's the point of making powerful characters? You may as well take whatever you want, not considering synergy at all, knowing your GM's job is to adjust everything to suit wherever you are at.


I meant that CR has very little value to me in-regards to what would be a challenging encounter for any specific party. The "CR X should consume Y percent of a Zth level party" formula seems to consistently fall flat in my experience.


Erick Wilson wrote:
chaoseffect wrote:
I don't really consider CR to have much value, so perhaps that's why I see it as a very minor change. As far as time going into "rebuilding" the encounter, it took all of about 5 seconds. You know what your party can do better than the person who wrote the CRs; some lower creatures may stomp your party and some higher may be a joke. Such is life.
If CR has no value, then what's the point of making powerful characters? You may as well take whatever you want, not considering synergy at all, knowing your GM's job is to adjust everything to suit wherever you are at.

Oddly enough, I don't have a problem with that. Usually my GMs are the ones who go "Oops! Shouldn't have put you up against that..." though.


chaoseffect wrote:
I meant that CR has very little value to me in-regards to what would be a challenging encounter for any specific party.

Then it has no meaning...


Erick Wilson wrote:
chaoseffect wrote:
I meant that CR has very little value to me in-regards to what would be a challenging encounter for any specific party.
Then it has no meaning...

Then perhaps the CR system is an issue. I don't see how you get "well then we shouldn't even try because the DM will just make us win" from "CR is not necessarily a reliable measure of what the party can face."

Grand Lodge

chaoseffect wrote:
Add a caster to the all melee enemy group. Oh man, Crane Wing guy will shut down that one T-Rex? Add another that will attack the rest of the party or gang up on him. You don't have to completely rewrite encounters here.

Problem is, adding in another T-Rex takes a CR 9 encounter up to CR 11. That's a decent jump in difficulty when one character is problematic, and this is my main problem with Crane Wing. It makes it that much more difficult to balance an encounter, because scaling monsters up or adding in more monsters can potentially lay waste to the rest of the party who has their front-liner tied up. If the T-Rexes are only attacking the Craner, that's fine until one hits and uses its grab/swallow whole, and then there are two T-Rexes that turn towards the rest of the party that no longer have their "defense guy."


MrSin wrote:
Erick Wilson wrote:


If CR has no value, then what's the point of making powerful characters? You may as well take whatever you want, not considering synergy at all, knowing your GM's job is to adjust everything to suit wherever you are at.

Oddly enough, I don't have a problem with that. Usually my GMs are the ones who go "Oops! Shouldn't have put you up against that..." though.

But if this is the case then you should have no problem with the Crane Wing errata, no? It still does roughly the same thing aesthetically. It's just less powerful. But that shouldn't matter...

Sovereign Court

Erick Wilson wrote:


You're doing it again. You haven't understood my post at all. They are not ignorant of the ways to counter it. They do not want to be forced into adopting those tactics. It's completely different.

Actually, I understood your post perfectly. It is the assumed greater knowledge and/or intellect, "It's rare that I run into an argument here that I'm not already aware of or haven't considered, so the constant implication that my failure to agree with the min-max gospel is a result of lack of exposure to or awareness of it is tiresome."

or the refusal to adapt to player tactics, "Some people do not want to play the game the way you want to play it.", that show extreme arrogance on your part. And then you exacerbate it by being insulting to boot.


Erick Wilson wrote:
MrSin wrote:
Erick Wilson wrote:


If CR has no value, then what's the point of making powerful characters? You may as well take whatever you want, not considering synergy at all, knowing your GM's job is to adjust everything to suit wherever you are at.

Oddly enough, I don't have a problem with that. Usually my GMs are the ones who go "Oops! Shouldn't have put you up against that..." though.
But if this is the case then you should have no problem with the Crane Wing errata, no? It still does roughly the same thing aesthetically. It's just less powerful. But that shouldn't matter...

Not even close to the same thing, and that argument works for both sides of the coin, why care enough to errata and why not.


chaoseffect wrote:
Erick Wilson wrote:
chaoseffect wrote:
I meant that CR has very little value to me in-regards to what would be a challenging encounter for any specific party.
Then it has no meaning...
Then perhaps the CR system is an issue. I don't see how you get "well then we shouldn't even try because the DM will just make us win" from "CR is not necessarily a reliable measure of what the party can face."

How do you not come to that conclusion? I'm not being flip, it just seems like the logical result of the train of thought, to me.


Erick Wilson wrote:
chaoseffect wrote:
Erick Wilson wrote:
chaoseffect wrote:
I meant that CR has very little value to me in-regards to what would be a challenging encounter for any specific party.
Then it has no meaning...
Then perhaps the CR system is an issue. I don't see how you get "well then we shouldn't even try because the DM will just make us win" from "CR is not necessarily a reliable measure of what the party can face."
How do you not come to that conclusion? I'm not being flip, it just seems like the logical result of the train of thought, to me.

I'm saying look at what the creature can actually do instead of just doing the CR math. If you have an idea of what your party can do then you can get a better idea of how much difficult the encounter is going to be instead of just assuming that the encounter will be trivial or epic based on what the CR adds up to. With that in mind, I don't see how the natural conclusion is "DM will cuddle us to victory."


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Samuel Stone wrote:
chaoseffect wrote:
Add a caster to the all melee enemy group. Oh man, Crane Wing guy will shut down that one T-Rex? Add another that will attack the rest of the party or gang up on him. You don't have to completely rewrite encounters here.
Problem is, adding in another T-Rex takes a CR 9 encounter up to CR 11. That's a decent jump in difficulty when one character is problematic, and this is my main problem with Crane Wing. It makes it that much more difficult to balance an encounter, because scaling monsters up or adding in more monsters can potentially lay waste to the rest of the party who has their front-liner tied up. If the T-Rexes are only attacking the Craner, that's fine until one hits and uses its grab/swallow whole, and then there are two T-Rexes that turn towards the rest of the party that no longer have their "defense guy."

Alternatively you can not throw in single solo boss mobs?

I mean really it's a fairly well known fact that a solo boss is a joke in terms of difficulty relative to it's CR simply as a result of action economy so if that was your master plan it was a crappy idea before Crane Style even got involved. The only difference is that IF your player uses crane style that single hit that would probably have to take him from roughly 100-0 hp in order for the boss to be a real challenge does nothing.

Frankly I don't see a problem with DMs being punished for bad encounter design.

Grand Lodge

chaoseffect wrote:
Erick Wilson wrote:
chaoseffect wrote:
I meant that CR has very little value to me in-regards to what would be a challenging encounter for any specific party.
Then it has no meaning...
Then perhaps the CR system is an issue. I don't see how you get "well then we shouldn't even try because the DM will just make us win" from "CR is not necessarily a reliable measure of what the party can face."

If CR is malleable to that extent, though, then APs become much less valuable because the CR is too variable. As far as I can tell, Paizo wants to try to balance our CR to be as close as possible to an indication of actual challenge. Crane Wing tends to mess with CR, as it essentially runs off the number of attacks the foe can make (in addition to the usual factors).


12 people marked this as a favorite.

Wanna know what really kills me in this thread?

Okay, so in like, 99% of the REST of the Pathfinder forums, you'll notice two truths:
1 - AC is a bad investment, because eventually monsters WILL hit you because their stats way outpace yours.
2 - A single attack is bad in a game that is designed to full-attack.

Except, apparently, in this thread. In this thread (and no other) it seems the opposite is true! In this thread:
1 - AC is stopping almost all the attacks! Except for that one single one that just barely managed to get through, and that's where CW comes in handy.
2 - A single AoO is HUGE and makes you capable of keeping up with Pouncing Barbarians!

I just...
Really?


MrSin wrote:


Not even close to the same thing, and that argument works for both sides of the coin, why care enough to errata and why not.

I agree, and that's exactly my point. A lot of people often get upset about characters they perceive as too weak. They often talk about having to "carry" such characters, or complain about suffering consequences because of their ally's relative weakness. But if there's no meaningful, established goalpost for effectiveness, then what right do they have to be upset about this?

I'm playing devil's advocate here. I think characters can be too weak. But I would define that as them being unable to contribute their fair share to most published, CR appropriate encounters. But if this makes sense, then the opposite does too. Coming in too far above par (i.e. CR competency) should be seen as equally undesirable.

All of which basically means, I guess, that people should, on the whole, be in support of a whole lot of errata, since generally things have become way too powerful. That said, most of said errata should probably be aimed at spells, etc. Which it won't be.

EDIT: Point is, the last thing people should be doing is asking for stuff to become more powerful, which seems to be what most of the pro-CW contingent wants to see.


Scavion wrote:
chaoseffect wrote:
Scavion wrote:
Cairen Weiss wrote:

When the first ACG playtest came out, there was a part of me that wanted to build a MoMS 2/ Swashbuckler 18 using Crane and Snake Style and have them fight each other with the original Parry/Riposte mechanic.

It'd be something like....

Swash #1: I attack!
Swash #2: I parry and Riposte!
Swash #1: I parry your Riposte and Riposte myself!
Swash #2: I parry your Riposte and Riposte again!

Repeat

Someone with better internet skills find an anime to put this into action for me. I'm imagining those high speed sword clashes right now. It's nice.
I'm picturing Dragon Ball Z.
I am too but there needs to be swords.

There actually doesn't. The point of Snake Style was to turn unarmed attacks into "light or one handed piercing weapons" for the purposes of the Swashbuckler class features.

Between Crane Style, Snake Style and Parry/Riposte from the Swashbuckler, there would be tons of potential parrying, ripostes, and AoO from missing each others' high ACs.


Neo2151 wrote:

Wanna know what really kills me in this thread?

Okay, so in like, 99% of the REST of the Pathfinder forums, you'll notice two truths:
1 - AC is a bad investment, because eventually monsters WILL hit you because their stats way outpace yours.
2 - A single attack is bad in a game that is designed to full-attack.

I, for one, have never said either of these two things, both of which (especially the second) seem foolish.

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