Way to knock those martials down a peg or two, Paizo... they really had it coming.One thing broken doesn't justify another.
Debatedly broken. In PFS Scenarios that feature many humanoid enemies who make single or iterative attacks it's quite powerful. Broken? Please.
Crane Chain was one of the few ways to scale your defense at a rate fairly equal to the offense.
Way to knock those martials down a peg or two, Paizo... they really had it coming.One thing broken doesn't justify another.
Clearly it was crane wing that was broken? That thing that took five feats to reach and only affected certain builds and was only overpowered in highly situational things you want to avoid and usually have alternatives in?
Never mind all the underpowered stuff that just gets skimmed over. Or worse, rumormonger...
Without Crane, those crappy swarms of monsters who traditionally need a 20 to hit either have enough attacks that they can fish the 20 (while Power Attacking, since why not if you need a 20 anyway?) or if not could make worthwhile Aid Another actions and get a good chance to hit. Crane negates all of these. Also, since Crane is responsible for +4 AC, it's possible those enemies would have hit on a 16 before Crane."This feat makes you really good against enemies that only hit you on a natural 20" doesn't seem to be a good argument for nerfing it. Especially since multiple enemies are exactly the kind of thing that easily counters CW.No, in fact multiple enemies are the weakest against Crane Wing if built well (AKA, also buying typical AC boosts as possible) because they rely on large numbers of rolls to get in the occasional blow at low odds, so getting a +4 AC from Crane further lowers those odds and Wing nearly negates them.
Aren't you getting that AC bonus from Fighting Defensively? Which wasn't nerfed?
So your AC is still the same, its just the difference between getting butchered by a bunch of mooks and not is gone.
You're still only getting hit on a 20.
Crane Wing just had it's deflect removed essentially. Is that what you wanted?
Yep, the +4 AC for a -1 to hit is still in there, and it continues to make the chain worthwhile if you have lots of feats to spare (and hey, MoMs can just skip Wing now, Riposte is still worth it for +1 to hit, even though I do think it should be fixed to actually work).
Anyway, if we go with my ghoul example above, removing the deflection changes it from 1/5th of a hit per round to 1 and 1/5th of a hit per round (12 attacks that need a 19 to hit). And that's a big difference (especially with scary paralysis kicker on hit that could kill me instantly if I fail a Fort save, unlikely as that may be). It means that if I take eight rounds to kill the four ghouls without a free deflection (2 rounds per ghoul), I will take 6 hits total on average (counting the reduced number of hits on later rounds from killing the ghouls) instead of taking 2/5ths of a hit on average. And I didn't have 6*average ghoul damage worth of hit points at the time, even if I made all six Fort saves (I was expected to fail at least one of them).
So actually no, those mooks who need a 19 to hit are still a credible threat without deflection.
Without Crane, those crappy swarms of monsters who traditionally need a 20 to hit either have enough attacks that they can fish the 20 (while Power Attacking, since why not if you need a 20 anyway?) or if not could make worthwhile Aid Another actions and get a good chance to hit. Crane negates all of these. Also, since Crane is responsible for +4 AC, it's possible those enemies would have hit on a 16 before Crane."This feat makes you really good against enemies that only hit you on a natural 20" doesn't seem to be a good argument for nerfing it. Especially since multiple enemies are exactly the kind of thing that easily counters CW.No, in fact multiple enemies are the weakest against Crane Wing if built well (AKA, also buying typical AC boosts as possible) because they rely on large numbers of rolls to get in the occasional blow at low odds, so getting a +4 AC from Crane further lowers those odds and Wing nearly negates them.
Aren't you getting that AC bonus from Fighting Defensively? Which wasn't nerfed?
So your AC is still the same, its just the difference between getting butchered by a bunch of mooks and not is gone.
You're still only getting hit on a 20.
Crane Wing just had it's deflect removed essentially. Is that what you wanted?
Yep, the +4 AC for a -1 to hit is still in there, and it continues to make the chain worthwhile if you have lots of feats to spare (and hey, MoMs can just skip Wing now, Riposte is still worth it for +1 to hit, even though I do think it should be fixed to actually work).
Anyway, if we go with my ghoul example above, removing the deflection changes it from 1/5th of a hit per round to 1 and 1/5th of a hit per round (12 attacks that need a 19 to hit). And that's a big difference (especially with scary paralysis kicker on hit that could kill me instantly if I fail a Fort save, unlikely as that may be). It means that if I take eight...
Well since Crane Wing is worthless, might as well pick up Combat Expertise and that trait to put you back at needing a 20 to hit.
...Without Crane, those crappy swarms of monsters who traditionally need a 20 to hit either have enough attacks that they can fish the 20 (while Power Attacking, since why not if you need a 20 anyway?) or if not could make worthwhile Aid Another actions and get a good chance to hit. Crane negates all of these. Also, since Crane is responsible for +4 AC, it's possible those enemies would have hit on a 16 before Crane."This feat makes you really good against enemies that only hit you on a natural 20" doesn't seem to be a good argument for nerfing it. Especially since multiple enemies are exactly the kind of thing that easily counters CW.No, in fact multiple enemies are the weakest against Crane Wing if built well (AKA, also buying typical AC boosts as possible) because they rely on large numbers of rolls to get in the occasional blow at low odds, so getting a +4 AC from Crane further lowers those odds and Wing nearly negates them.
Aren't you getting that AC bonus from Fighting Defensively? Which wasn't nerfed?
So your AC is still the same, its just the difference between getting butchered by a bunch of mooks and not is gone.
You're still only getting hit on a 20.
Crane Wing just had it's deflect removed essentially. Is that what you wanted?
Yep, the +4 AC for a -1 to hit is still in there, and it continues to make the chain worthwhile if you have lots of feats to spare (and hey, MoMs can just skip Wing now, Riposte is still worth it for +1 to hit, even though I do think it should be fixed to actually work).
Anyway, if we go with my ghoul example above, removing the deflection changes it from 1/5th of a hit per round to 1 and 1/5th of a hit per round (12 attacks that need a 19 to hit). And that's a big difference (especially with scary paralysis kicker on hit that could kill me instantly if I fail a Fort save, unlikely as that may be). It
True, although CE is still not something I would want to use after level 4 even with the trait. With Armor Expert as a must-have trait already, I did not have the ability to take that trait on my guy. For someone who hypothetically had gotten the +1 AC, That's still 3 ghoul hits on average compared to 2/5ths of a hit. It's a reasonable chance to be paralyzed and die, but I could survive three ghoul hits from damage alone. The trouble comes when you fight 6 ghouls (man that one could have gone badly, even with Crane). They're just going to get a lot of 20s before they die.
Very weird. I thought it needed to get toned down a bit (rather than powered up as it was in a recent FAQ), but this just strikes me as bizarre.
Very weird. I thought it needed to get toned down a bit (rather than powered up as it was in a recent FAQ), but this just strikes me as bizarre.
What's so bizarre about it? Not the first time its happened.
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Was there any justification given for the change?
We're talking about people who thought Conjuration Wizards weren't strong enough out of the CRB.
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Was there any justification given for the change?We're talking about people who thought Conjuration Wizards weren't strong enough out of the CRB.
Too true.
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Too true.Was there any justification given for the change?We're talking about people who thought Conjuration Wizards weren't strong enough out of the CRB.
You kids and your agendas. Clearly your just jealous of martials.
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Way to knock those martials down a peg or two, Paizo... they really had it coming.One thing broken doesn't justify another.Clearly it was crane wing that was broken? That thing that took five feats to reach and only affected certain builds and was only overpowered in highly situational things you want to avoid and usually have alternatives in?
Never mind all the underpowered stuff that just gets skimmed over. Or worse, rumormonger...
I thought before that Crane Wing was slightly excessive in comparison to most other [combat] feats. Whether you think that is a condemnation of most other [combat] feats or of Crane Wing is up to your own judgment, I suppose. I felt it definitely didn't need the earlier FAQ buff applying it to those combat maneuvers. Having it help against damage alone, I think, would have been less excessive.
This nerf goes way too far even if you adhere to the latter view, though, and seems to actually render the later feat in the chain nonfunctional.
However, I cannot imagine that anyone at Paizo read the later feat in the style while designing the nerf to the earlier one (since otherwise we wouldn't end up with a literally nonfunctional feat), so that actually gives me hope that this errata won't be the last word.
(PS: I too think it is weird that Paizo buffs the style in one FAQ and then guts it far below the prebuff level in another...)
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Also, not only is the new feat now pretty lame power wise, it's a pain to apply too.
I really want to go find the guy at Paizo who thinks that tons of fiddly little conditional modifiers that apply to one attack but not another, or one AC but not another, or one type of saving throw against one [tag] while the moon is rising in the sign of the monkey, are awesome, and... and...
...and calmly try to explain to him my point of view, which is that such abilities can be a surprisingly large burden to track, especially when more than one apply to a character, and I feel they should be minimized rather than spread about with gleeful abandon.
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I blame the swashbuckler. During the playtest its signature parry caught a LOT of heat for not being as good as Crane Wing. So instead of making the parry better they made Crane Wing worse. There's no way this was properly play tested given that it basically negates riposte. Its simply another knee jerk reaction like nerfing investigator because the rogue sucks that seem to be happening more and more.
Paizo does have a history of nerfing everything else so the underpowered option doesn't seem as horrible... Like when they nerfed animal companions so Cavaliers wouldn't feel bad.
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Paizo does have a history of nerfing everything else so the underpowered option doesn't seem as horrible... Like when they nerfed animal companions so Cavaliers wouldn't feel bad.
Its okay, cavaliers can't choose most of the animal companions anyway. Clearly only horses are the proper way for my kitsune raised in the dinosaur lands which have no horses to travel.
I blame the swashbuckler. During the playtest its signature parry caught a LOT of heat for not being as good as Crane Wing. So instead of making the parry better they made Crane Wing worse. There's no way this was properly play tested given that it basically negates riposte. Its simply another knee jerk reaction like nerfing investigator because the rogue sucks that seem to be happening more and more.
Play tested? It's clear just from reading it, or it ought to be.
Also, not only is the new feat now pretty lame power wise, it's a pain to apply too.
I really want to go find the guy at Paizo who thinks that tons of fiddly little conditional modifiers that apply to one attack but not another, or one AC but not another, or one type of saving throw against one [tag] while the moon is rising in the sign of the monkey, are awesome, and... and...
...and calmly try to explain to him my point of view, which is that such abilities can be a surprisingly large burden to track, especially when more than one apply to a character, and I feel they should be minimized rather than spread about with gleeful abandon.
agreed, especially when the same developers passionately argued against making calculations more complex. (the brawler playtest thread was a great example of this).
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UHm, Link? I did not know that story.I blame the swashbuckler. During the playtest its signature parry caught a LOT of heat for not being as good as Crane Wing. So instead of making the parry better they made Crane Wing worse. There's no way this was properly play tested given that it basically negates riposte. Its simply another knee jerk reaction like nerfing investigator because the rogue sucks that seem to be happening more and more.Paizo does have a history of nerfing everything else so the underpowered option doesn't seem as horrible... Like when they nerfed animal companions so Cavaliers wouldn't feel bad.
You ever notice how animals with the combat training no longer get armor proficiency? Guess why...
Rumoormonget and charlatan are pretty awesome in kingmaker if you need a new character and say he is from the black market you builtdoes anyone forsee crane wing being used at all anymore, or is it now just another one of the many styles that almost never see any use?Well, it lost what I thought was its biggest attraction, but it still has the bonus of making fighting defensively go from crap to viable. Unfortunately its a 3 feat long chain, and that's if you skip prereqs, and the main guy who skips prereqs is the monk, who can't really afford to lose much attack usually.
Then again, I see people use rumormonger and charlatan rogue and claim they're awesome, but I don't think that's really a fair way to measure things.
Or... you can just spread a rumor without ever being a rogue or picking up rumormonger.
Jeepers! That was easy. Reminds me of high school.
I'm not sure this nerf is too much on the weaker side now.
You still get the AC bonuses from crane style. Crane Riposte still lowers the penalty to only a -1. Honestly in my playtest with my Crane Style Dervish Dancer I found that most rounds I didn't even get to use the deflection because the enemy simply didn't hit.
I like this change because it means that I have to choose between being virtually untouchable or being able to attack.
I can fight defensively for a net +4 to my AC (assuming all feats and 3 ranks in acrobatics) and pick one attack (the bosses primary) to get +8 AC against. Or I can take a total defense action and guarantee that the primary attack will miss.
I can fight defensively for a net +4 to my AC (assuming all feats and 3 ranks in acrobatics) and pick one attack (the bosses primary) to get +8 AC against. Or I can take a total defense action and guarantee that the primary attack will miss.
You Total Defense and the enemy walks past you to hit your party since you can't make attacks of opportunity.
So essentially the deflection is a no go.
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Now if someone would just do something about that game-breaking Sneak Attack...Let's us nerf them down to d3's and make the ability to get it even more situational. That outta balance out the rogue.
...if they did this to crane wing, just imagine what might happen in the near future to sap adept/master.
Heh - yeah, forget about those guys who can bend time and space on a whim... let's get that guy who ducks really good!
......we needed more feats like crane style, not less.
Crane style is okayish. Lots of prereqs attached though, and they don't exactly go well with crane style.
Crane wing is the one we're complaining about today though.
I blame the swashbuckler. During the playtest its signature parry caught a LOT of heat for not being as good as Crane Wing. So instead of making the parry better they made Crane Wing worse. There's no way this was properly play tested given that it basically negates riposte. Its simply another knee jerk reaction like nerfing investigator because the rogue sucks that seem to be happening more and more.
If that's true I'm really going to be pissed - I wasn't a very big fan of these so-called 'hybrid classes' to begin with...
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So, you are hard to hit, but you can't hit anybody, so you get ignored.
It is great if you want to stand there, during combat, doing nothing, but trying not to get hit.
Now, any player using this feat line, is just a pain for the rest of party.
Argh, this blows, they clearly didn't think this through.
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So, you are hard to hit, but you can't hit anybody, so you get ignored.
Hey now, in the situation your playing alone and swamped by enemies who have no alternative but to hit you and only hit you on a 20, this is pretty overpowered! Not the AC, but the deflection. All those Poor T-rexes don't have a chance!
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T-Rex can't grapple?
Have you seen those little arms?
So, you are hard to hit, but you can't hit anybody, so you get ignored.Hey now, in the situation your playing alone and swamped by enemies who have no alternative but to hit you and only hit you on a 20, this is pretty overpowered! Not the AC, but the deflection.
Of course, it's both together. Also, if you hold a chokepoint or are the last one standing (or in some cases both--preventing them from getting to the bodies), then they do have to attack you.
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Still a hell of a narrow circumstance to be spending a feat on, let alone three.
In whose universe was the old Crane Wing overpowered? Seriously, I would love to know. I'm not being sarcastic here: Was this feat nerfed because a subpar version of Swashbuckler Parry/Riposte is going live, and Crane Wing was making it look bad?
You could also be a halfling and take the feat which does let you threaten while fighting on the defensive.
Also sometimes you need a little help getting past one attack.
Ex: I am prone and there is a big nasty standing next to me. With the +4 bonus he will hit me even with my very impressive 30+ AC. So I fight defensibly and when he takes his AoO I declare that attack for the additional +4
If I thought that he stood a good chance even hitting with the +4 I could take a total defense action and then stand up.
My point is that this feat could be really useful for eating AoO's
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You could also be a halfling and take the feat which does let you threaten while fighting on the defensive.
Also sometimes you need a little help getting past one attack.
Ex: I am prone and there is a big nasty standing next to me. With the +4 bonus he will hit me even with my very impressive 30+ AC. So I fight defensibly and when he takes his AoO I declare that attack for the additional +4
If I thought that he stood a good chance even hitting with the +4 I could take a total defense action and then stand up.
My point is that this feat could be really useful for eating AoO's
Unless you know what the enemy's attack bonus is, you don't know if that attack would have missed you anyways. And again, this is far too narrow a situation to spend this many feats on.
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Still a hell of a narrow circumstance to be spending a feat on, let alone three.
In whose universe was the old Crane Wing overpowered? Seriously, I would love to know. I'm not being sarcastic here: Was this feat nerfed because a subpar version of Swashbuckler Parry/Riposte is going live, and Crane Wing was making it look bad?
Yes that is exactly why it happened.
It is much easier and faster for people to gut 1 feat and make another useless than to rework a class mechanic.
It is simple laziness.
I dunno.
It seems from the other thread that it might partly be that a PFS problem is getting dealt with over here in the main game instead of in PFS where it ought. Either explanation seems plausible (I dunno much about PFS), or it may also be something else entirely. Monks now have a very long history of attracting major FAQ/errata nerfs, for whatever reason, accompanied by eruptions of protest on the boards; this is nothing too new.
That said... I still think there was room to back off the "applies to combat maneuvers too" aspect of the deflection with the previous feat, at least. This nerf still a) goes much too far IMO, b) makes the feat more of a burden to track in game, which is undesirable to me, and c) renders the later feat in the chain nonfunctional.
So it's hard to view it as anything other than that time Paizo tossed a natural 1 on their craft (errata) check, failed by more than 4 points and thus made no progress and ruined half the raw materials of the original feat chain.
Hopefully they will go over it at some point with a masterwork eraser for +2 and try again.
(It actually seems fairly likely; they cannot have intended to break Crane Riposte like this)
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Add 1 more vote for disappointed crowd. As it stood Crane style feats were an option that was worth investing in for several build types across several classes without being so good it was mandatory across the board. In other words it was pretty damn good feat design.
However I do try to give constructive criticisms so here's my suggestions to Paizo on how to lower the power level of the feat chain while not breaking it.
A: Keep the old feat text but instead of " deflect one attack that would normally hit you" change it to "deflect one attack. This deflection may be used after the attack roll is made, but must be applied before the results of the roll are determined."
B. Keep the old text but add that you may not deflect a critical hit or natural 20.
Both of those ideas would diminish the power level a bit while still keeping the spirit of the current feat the same.
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Does anyone forsee crane wing being used at all anymore,
I was going to use it to try and make the unarmed DEX-monk I've always wanted work, but I'm not so sure now. I hate feeling forced into the STR>DEX monk paradigm, but the change to Crane Wing does kick one of the strongest supporting options out from under the DEX-monk.
Mostly just frustrated.
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Mostly just frustrated.
Making a monk can work that way unfortunately.
Aye. It does seem that Paizo is pushing the Str-based monk pretty heavily as the only (working) option.
MA
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Aye. It does seem that Paizo is pushing the Str-based monk pretty heavily as the only (working) option.
I suppose that depends on how you define working.
Does anyone forsee crane wing being used at all anymore,I was going to use it to try and make the unarmed DEX-monk I've always wanted work, but I'm not so sure now. I hate feeling forced into the STR>DEX monk paradigm, but the change to Crane Wing does kick one of the strongest supporting options out from under the DEX-monk.
Mostly just frustrated.
Hmm, I've seen Snake Style work pretty well for a Dex Monk, particularly if your GM allows Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists. Might be a worthwhile alternative to Crane, at least to look into.
Hmm, I've seen Snake Style work pretty well for a Dex Monk, particularly if your GM allows Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists. Might be a worthwhile alternative to Crane, at least to look into.Does anyone forsee crane wing being used at all anymore,I was going to use it to try and make the unarmed DEX-monk I've always wanted work, but I'm not so sure now. I hate feeling forced into the STR>DEX monk paradigm, but the change to Crane Wing does kick one of the strongest supporting options out from under the DEX-monk.
Mostly just frustrated.
Agile cost you a +1 enhancement(monks need all the attack they can get) and unfortunately take a while to kick on.
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Hmm, I've seen Snake Style work pretty well for a Dex Monk, particularly if your GM allows Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists. Might be a worthwhile alternative to Crane, at least to look into.Does anyone forsee crane wing being used at all anymore,I was going to use it to try and make the unarmed DEX-monk I've always wanted work, but I'm not so sure now. I hate feeling forced into the STR>DEX monk paradigm, but the change to Crane Wing does kick one of the strongest supporting options out from under the DEX-monk.
Mostly just frustrated.
Unfortunately Agile has a local perception as being overpowered. I disagree, but that's the stream I'm swimming against.