The change was not for PFS. The change was made because data from PFS proved to the designers that it was not appropriately balanced.
Perhaps this really proves that PFS encounters are not appropriately varied and that restricting GMs to run PFS encounters as written results in problems when faced with characters who require different tactics to challenge.
Please do not take PFS data as representative, because it's not. There are things I love about PFS, and there are things I hate about PFS. So far, the good outweighs the bad.
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Till I can be sure otherwise, the Change was most definitely for PFS, it just applies to everyone this time.I can't tell Jason. I can't tell whether your team took into account PFS moreso than home games. I can't tell whether you're telling me the truth or not even with this message.If you're not going to take Jason at his word, there's not much point in continuing the discussion. You can't have a reasonable conversation if you believe the other party is being dishonest with you.
We are taking Jason at his word. He says "the change was not made for PFS" and then explains the reason for the change was do to imbalances caused in PFS.
Till I can be sure otherwise, the Change was most definitely for PFS, it just applies to everyone this time.I can't tell Jason. I can't tell whether your team took into account PFS moreso than home games. I can't tell whether you're telling me the truth or not even with this message.If you're not going to take Jason at his word, there's not much point in continuing the discussion. You can't have a reasonable conversation if you believe the other party is being dishonest with you.
How can I? It's been pointed out. MagnusJanus said it pretty well.
How can you say you get a baseline from them and more uniform feedback from them while still maintaining that their feedback is not of greater worth? Because getting what you describe as more accurate feedback inherently makes what they have to say more valuable... especially on an issue that, as you admit, they were the ones to point out. Because it really kinda looks like this is a PFS-only issue that you fixed.
Lead Designer
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How can we serious be expected to believe that this change was not for the premium PFS players?
Whether or not you chose to believe us is up to you. I can't convince you of that. We made the change based on an issue that was brought to our attention from PFS. We fixed other parts of this book based on other feedback from the boards, from internal emails, from private messages, and from conversations between the designers. Parsing changes into one camp or another is not worthwhile.
We get feedback from a lot of sources. We weigh them all individually. I can't state it any more clearly than that. This will be the last I post on the "source of the change is PFS issue". There is not much more to say.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
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Out of curiosity Jason what changes were made based off of board feedback. Was it prone shooter?
We are taking Jason at his word. He says "the change was not made for PFS" and then explains the reason for the change was do to imbalances caused in PFS.
Depends on your definition of "we".
How can I? It's been pointed out. MagnusJanus said it pretty well.
The reason was not imbalances caused in PFS. It was imbalances uncovered in PFS. Do you understand that distinction?
Thanks Jason sorry to get off topic but I don't get a chance like that often.
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We are taking Jason at his word. He says "the change was not made for PFS" and then explains the reason for the change was do to imbalances caused in PFS.Depends on your definition of "we".
The reason was not imbalances caused in PFS. It was imbalances uncovered in PFS. Do you understand that distinction?
How can I? It's been pointed out. MagnusJanus said it pretty well.
Of course I do. Do I believe them? No.
PFS features a majority of humanoid enemies with single or iterative attacks. Especially from the low levels where Master of Many Styles could be used to abuse that fact. So yes. Crane Wing is going to look very powerful in PFS. It's not a bloody wonder that PFS "uncovered" it. Anyone could see that very obviously.
This should have been a PFS Ban than an entire rewrite.
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How can I? It's been pointed out. MagnusJanus said it pretty well.The reason was not imbalances caused in PFS. It was imbalances uncovered in PFS. Do you understand that distinction?
Oh I understand that. The problem is that the "problem" was unique to PFS do to the nature of PFS not pathfinder.
Well never played a single PFS game (Registerd just never played) and I can say my experiance in home games was that the feat was far to good for what it did so clearly it was not just a problem with PFS.
Was it through Master of Many Styles or through the feat Prerequisites?
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I still don't understand how this feat couldn't have been brought in line with something as simple as
a natural 20 still always hits
That negates it working in the situation that was described as the problem, while still making it really good and worth taking.
I could even get behind an errata that states that MOMS monks need to be level 6 before taking this feat.
Well never played a single PFS game (Registerd just never played) and I can say my experiance in home games was that the feat was far to good for what it did so clearly it was not just a problem with PFS.
Same here.
Feat was too good simple as that.
Also, I've never even registered for PFS.
Well never played a single PFS game (Registerd just never played) and I can say my experiance in home games was that the feat was far to good for what it did so clearly it was not just a problem with PFS.Was it through Master of Many Styles or through the feat Prerequisites?
I would say MoMS. I only say this because I have a player who at level 3 could ignore the first attack from everyone attacked him. If they took it via Feat Preq its reasonable, but at lower levels its horribly broken if taken with MoMS.
Oh I understand that. The problem is that the "problem" was unique to PFS do to the nature of PFS not pathfinder.How can I? It's been pointed out. MagnusJanus said it pretty well.The reason was not imbalances caused in PFS. It was imbalances uncovered in PFS. Do you understand that distinction?
This is not true. While PFS first alerted us to the issue, our decision to change the feat was not entirely due to the data we received from PFS.
We understand that you disagree. Thank you for the feedback.
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It should be noted that the majority of PFS gameplay takes place at low to mid levels and caps out at level 12. This is relevant because Crane Wing (herafter referred to as CW) is a feat with a "best before"-date. It shines when its user is fighting single or a low number of foes, and especially when those foes have few attacks. Both are symptomatic of low levels. Then, when enemies become more numerous and get multiple attacks, CW becomes less and less attractive.
CW is intended to come into play at level 5 at the earliest, at a level where the opposition starts fielding full attacks and one level before full BAB users get two attacks per round.
Master of Many Styles Monks (MoMS) jump the queue and skip the prerequisites, allowing you to pick up the feat as early as level 1, where it is at its strongest.
I'd be very interested in how many of the PFS GMs that complained about Crane Wing were actually complaining about characters with a MoMS dip that picked up the feat early.
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I'd be very interested in how many of the PFS GMs that complained about Crane Wing were actually complaining about characters with a MoMS dip that picked up the feat early.
Bingo. It is important to consider that Crane Wing and Master of Many Styles are two different things, a difference which often gets lost in the PFS environment where a character's foundations tend to be overlooked and the end results are what get all the attention.
In the PFS environment, it's easy to say "Whoa, he's deflecting attacks!" and ignore "He dipped Master of Many Styles and picked it up before he could have normally."
Are we going to be back here doing this again due to Masters of Many Styles who pick up Snake Fang early?
By the way, is the errata set in stone, or subject to change?
-Matt
It should be noted that the majority of PFS gameplay takes place at low to mid levels and caps out at level 12. This is relevant because Crane Wing (herafter referred to as CW) is a feat with a "best before"-date. It shines when its user is fighting single or a low number of foes, and especially when those foes have few attacks. Both are symptomatic of low levels. Then, when enemies become more numerous and get multiple attacks, CW becomes less and less attractive.
CW is intended to come into play at level 5, at a level where the opposition starts fielding full attacks and one level before full BAB users get two attacks per round.
Master of Many Styles Monks (MoMS) jump the queue and skip the prerequisites, allowing you to pick up the feat as early as level 1, where it is at its strongest.
I'd be very interested in how many of the PFS GMs that complained about Crane Wing were actually complaining about characters with a MoMS dip that picked up the feat early.
Indeed.
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The crux of disappointment many players have with this errata is how it changes the many ways the feat can be used.
* many other 3 feat chains with certain builds can give a better flat AC bonus then -1 to hit, +7 versus one announced attack (-2, +3 otherwise). we may see a resurgence of combat expertise centered builds. (or a re-focus on snake style)
* Most characters interested in crane style had no interest in using total defense as it essentially prevents them from contributing to combat unless attacked and leaves them unable to counter or defend from combat maneuvers.
* if the "deflect" was the issue, why leave deflect arrow?
I do agree "craft-theory" has many flaws, such as assuming circumstances or other party members - and over optimization can bite you in the @#$ when you cant be friendly, cant climb, cant swim, or cant see anything but can kill things real good.
Also this isn't about "one feat" this was a 2-5 feat chain giving abilities people built concepts around that now will not work for the majority of those concepts. - and it affected more then monks.
the first 2 feats I can see some possible builds, but as it stands unless someone can clarify how a non threatening character can make a AoO Combat Expertise will replace Crane riposte every-time.
This is a great example of why I will never post a full build I play or plan to play in PFS. Easiest way for it to be nerfed to oblivion before I'm lvl 5
-PS. I do appreciate Jason Bulmahn's and Chris Lambertz's participation in this forum as that does alleviate some concerns about the developers "not giving a damn" when players gripe about changes affecting the creations they have spent both time and money on.
Alas, its obvious to me at this point some time will need to pass before any changes to the errata are considered and unless someone brings up a really good point I don't have anything more to say.
hope this looks better in a few days.
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It should be noted that the AC bonus provided by Crane Wing needs to be take into account the requirement to have a free hand available - a shield, for instance, provides a similar AC bonus to the new Crane Wing (only on all attacks) and doesn't require two feats worth of investment.
I'm not entirely unopposed to a fine-tuning of Crane Wing (though I still think the original power level was fine), but they really, really should reconsider the form it is in now. CW was one of the fairly few feats that specifically supported a combat style that didn't push two handed, two weapon, or sword and board shield. Sad to see it go.
Rewriting my bard as I type this, hope the GM will let me do a respec :(
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This is not true. While PFS first alerted us to the issue, our decision to change the feat was not entirely due to the data we received from PFS.Oh I understand that. The problem is that the "problem" was unique to PFS do to the nature of PFS not pathfinder.How can I? It's been pointed out. MagnusJanus said it pretty well.The reason was not imbalances caused in PFS. It was imbalances uncovered in PFS. Do you understand that distinction?
Can we get examples of that?
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I play lots of PFS and I think that this was pretty stupid and ill-considered if in fact it was targeted at the complaints of PFS people. I am not quite convinced of that fact though since I spend quite a bit of time on the PFS boards and I seem to have missed much of the furor over Crane Wing.
I think that people have adequately been over how complaints from PFS are a bad control group due to level range, encounter design practices and a whole other pile of house rules and bans. I think that the solutions to problems whihc may or may not arise from the specific situation of PFS should be solved in the most parsimonious way which creates the fewest ripples in the full game. When an errata comes down and basically starts a riot across multiple forum sections that is the opposite of a parsimonious change.
To those saying that it does not matter because it can just be house ruled in a real game, you are completely correct but with the huge caveat that you need a good DM for that to happen. Far to many DMs that I have played with and seen on these boards are not very good or just lazy and go with RAW eve in the many situations when RAW is stupid and needs to be adjusted. I think that this kind of thinking is a result of PFS making people complacent. This is not a knock on the PF system. Paizo is generally great, but anything built on the d20 foundation will have an enormous number of fiddly bits and things that don't work quite right that need to be adjusted for each game.
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It should be noted that the AC bonus provided by Crane Wing needs to be take into account the requirement to have a free hand available - a shield, for instance, provides a similar AC bonus to the new Crane Wing (only on all attacks) and doesn't require two feats worth of investment.
I'm not entirely unopposed to a fine-tuning of Crane Wing (though I still think the original power level was fine), but they really, really should reconsider the form it is in now. CW was one of the fairly few feats that specifically supported a combat style that didn't push two handed, two weapon, or sword and board shield. Sad to see it go.
Rewriting my bard as I type this, hope the GM will let me do a respec :(
I think this is something that needs to be looked at, that we have a +4 for 2(4) feats when holding a shield isn't doing us a lot worse with a LOT less investment. +4 AC to one attack is severely lacking in value for the cost of having a hand free, a hand that could be
Natural Weapon
Shield
Two Handing
Which leaves most people wondering "Why would I want to do this?" It's not even worth it for the people who were already one handing (Duelst, D. Dancers, etc) since it's most likely a 2 level dip for barely any reward.
If you have a weapon you can one hand AND 2 Hand, Crane Wing works marvelously with 2HW fighting. All you have to do is take your hand off it at the end of your turn. Boom, awesome AC bonus, neutralize a big hit, get an AoO, and on your turn, put your hand back on your weapon and smack them.
I agree Riposte should have had at least a modification to Complete Defense allowing you to take a normal move. Sitting in one spot trying to soak an attack spree is worse then useless.
neutralizing all damage from one attack on a reactive basis, instead of a proactive basis, with no chance of failure, is much too strong. It's like saying "the first hostile magic spell this round that would affect me has no effect on me."
Ugh, that would get spellcasters crying and everyone else jumping for joy. Much better then spell resistance, since you don't have to worry about friendly spells, can spend it only on stuff that you don't save against, and it completely takes care of a problem.
Likewise, Crane Wing could completely neutralize the best of hits; you don't have to guess and spend it on an attack that missed; and it was 100% effective.
I think the reason people loved it is because you couldn't waste a Crane Wing. If the attack missed, you didn't use it. SO it was always there, waiting. And then the rest of the feat chain just made it more potent. Then the Riposte was an AoO, so automatically at your BEST attack chance. Uber. Combine with being able to 2H and get an AC equal to wearing a shield, there was no down side to the feat at all.
==Aelryinth
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You'd think they would have posted the Errata to the FAQs or something first before changing it that much.Maybe they'll look at the blowback, decide it's not worth it, and go back to the drawing board for another couple of years.Sorry for not having enough time to read through the entire thread, but did they ever mention a fix to the fact that one of the crane style feats is now unusable?Not yet no. Hopefully they will. Seems hard to miss.
Ummm, this ^^^^^^
How did this even become an errata without hitting the FAQ board or being mentioned in the Rules forum by a dev first?
For a company that is so good at playtesting material and getting community feedback on things before they move on them making such an obviously ill-thought out change is just... unexpected. I'm not saying there wasn't feedback given that indicated there should be a change, or even that a change wasn't necessary, I'm saying that making a change that invalidates 1/3 of the feat chain and gives you the approximate value of a shield that only works once a round is just.... Not what I expect from Paizo.
Some feedback for any Paizo guys still reading (if so, bravo).
The Crane chain was held up to be what feats should aspire to. Feats should have synergy with one another and validate builds. Especially chains that require many prerequisites.
Urgh. I find myself torn, because I did feel that the feat series could have used a mild toning down, yet on the other hand, what you say is really compelling to me. For better or worse, it also had a spark that is missing from so many [combat] feats and feat chains.
I didn't participate very much in any of the threads about Crane Wing because I've never played a monk and only encountered the feat in game a few times (on NPC enemies, on which encounters the aforementioned impression was based), but I spent this morning reading what I could find on the boards and generally trying to bone up on what previous feedback has said about the feats. I'm coming away basically feeling three things:
a) as far as I can tell, the debates within the regular game were largely between the "this is a little too good" and "this is just fine" positions, whereas those within PFS were mainly between the "this is just fine," "this is a little too good" and a large faction of "omg nerfbanslay this feat!." Just my impression of reading the feedback on both boards. I'm going to add my voice to those saying that I prefer PFS-specific feedback to be dealt with by PFS, not by the rest of us. I know you guys at Paizo have probably already heard this a hundred times today, so take it for whatever the one hundred and first "me too" is worth. :)
b) My own feelings about the actual mechanics of the errata itself are best summed up by what The Black Bard wrote in the other thread:
I'm sure a few can attest that I've been a vocal supporter of a nerf (although I prefer "tone down") to Crane Wing. I mostly had issues with the lack of a consideration to size of the attacker.
Still, count me now among the horrified. Even I feel that what has happened is not a nerf, it is an evisceration. Why couldn't it have been some sort of opposed roll, modified by size differences, useable in any defensive state.
Ryujin and those I've clashed with before, I hereby buy you a round of internet drinks for us to drown our errata sorrows in. I never wanted this.
Albeit from the perspective of the peanut gallery rather than the players of this debate, I'd like to join that toast (although I wish any middle ground solution wouldn't include opposed rolls, conditional modifiers that change AC from one attack to the next, or other fiddly stuff to track/implement/use/whatever).
c) My life isn't ruined forever one way or another and I don't now implacably hate everyone at Paizo. I wish you the best in figuring this topic out.
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I'll chime in on the "if the problem is characters dipping Master of Many Styles to get Crane Wing at level one, then maybe it's MoMS that's the problem, not Crane Wing" bandwagon.
Crane Wing, as written, was powerful. Which a feat with that many prerequisites ought to be. Making an effective high-dex fencing character that fights with a one-handed weapon is really freaking difficult in Pathfinder (and especially in PFS where combat effectiveness is almost the only thing that matters to the rest of the party). The Crane Style chain was one of the ways to improve the effectiveness of such a concept.
But it was a huge feat investment - one which very very few characters will ever make again. Or, instead of feats, a character could dip into another class, which is an investment of resources as well - dipping into another class has significant opportunity costs, even for purely martial characters - even the level one MoMS dip that was apparently breaking PFS encounters has costs - taking your first level in a d8 hd non-favoured class is a tradeoff in and of itself.
If something really had to be changed to fix the problem of level one characters having Crane Wing and rendering enemies in low-level scenarios ineffective as written, perhaps reevaluating the MoMS might have served better? The main reason the MoMS is such a draw for dipping is that many of the style chains are only attractive if some of the feat tax and/or the weak second feats can be avoided; weakening one of the best chains is perhaps not the ideal way to address that problem.
Speaking more generally though, I'm surprised that the Crane Style chain was one of the biggest "problems" addressed by the errata. Meanwhile the Myrmidarch is still left unable to use Spell Combat with anything except handaxes or daggers. The Boar style chain still doesn't make any damn sense. And Gunslingers are still more problematic for PFS than Crane Wing using fighters ever were.
So, this may seem weird, but where can the errata PDFs be found?
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So, this may seem weird, but where can the errata PDFs be found?
You can find them on their respective product pages and here.
So, this may seem weird, but where can the errata PDFs be found?You can find them on their respective product pages and here.
Thank you for the fast response.
Part of our process of updating a book involves talking to various departments to see if there is anything that is causing them problems or needs a second look. In this particular case, Crane Wing was the #1 problem child on the list from the PFS folks. Without much work you could build a character with an incredibly high AC that could still make attacks, and if a foe would happen to get lucky and score a hit, deflect it. This build, which was not really all that difficult to setup, was all made possible by Crane Wing.Jason, I'm going to buy you a drink at Paizocon for looking at Crane and coming up with a solution because it can't be an easy thing to do, especially when you probably expected all this blowback.
But it's definitely the #2 PFS problem child from Ultimate Combat, by a longshot, based on postcount, number of threads, and amount of evidence. If you also do something about double-barreled no-misfire (because of archetypes) pistoleros and musket masters (particularly pistoleros since they can do Up Close and Deadly as a Signature Deed on every attack), which is the #1 PFS problem child from UC, I will buy you a whole bottle of whatever you want.
I may like to get you another one at Gen Con, or Piazo Con if I am there. I really appreciate your looking into Crane.
While I do think the original feat was too much and I wanted a slight nerf, the new version just make crane wings into a feat that I probably woudl not ever see again in a PC, certainly not one I will make in the near future.
And although I Know it have been covered by a dev I have to say that it does rise question about the way martial things are handled in contrast of the caster ones.
Paragon surge is way more exploitative than crane wings. Right from the CRB we have maze, planar binding, simulacrum etc that are crazy (to use the lest strong word) that never get nerfed no matter how umbalancing they are. Fast study just destroy one of the (few) thing that might balance a wizard. And they are still there, untouched.
I have seen a dev said that He consider the lorewarden have too much (I suppose a fighter only have to fight and be denied for the other 50% of the game) but when a saurian shaman outdamage a fighter and still is a 9th level spellcaster nobody seems to care, nobody care.
Maybe it's because martials can be buffed via spells, but spells are not buffed via martial.
Actually I'm WAY against the idea of spellcasting nerfs (although a simulacrum template would be nice). Making spell casting less fun will not make martial-ing more fun.