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As far as errata in general, if you go back and compare the VAST amount of new content that has been released over the years vs. what has been changed/clarified/nerf'ed/whatever, I think you'll find that this issue in minor as best and more likely insignificant. Their are always a few players that are affected by rules changes, but it really is a small number. The designers and PFS leadership have to do things from the "greater good" perspective. Personally, I don't agree with complete rebuilds being granted just because of a single change, but I understand why some would want it. It would be nice if leadership granted the free change to extend down to the crane style feat in addition to the others, but with how cheap it is to dump it, I don't really see this as being an issue.
EDIT--
Okay, so obviously I'm not as up on the retraining rules as I need to be. My apologizes. However, even with that added cost, I don't see this as THAT big a problem.
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Shelving the character is fine for PFS Number dash 11 of 20 but not really an option for your highest, especially if the others are a long way off.
This! Getting hit with something like this would affect me (it did but it's really more of an afterthought on my zen archer than his schtick) much less than some people.
I am affected. I have a PC that is largely unplayable at the moment because of the changes to the crane style feat tree. However, I just don't understand all hub-bub about it. With a few minor changes and some retaining, he'll be fine. I seriously doubt this new errata makes a character both unplayable AND uncorrectable.
Everyone seems to be stuck on the prestige cost of retraining. Spend some money people! Its only 5 days to retrain a feat. That's only 50GP X PC level. So even if you're level 11, its only 550gp to dump crane style. Is anyone really trying to say that is unreasonable? By mid-levels, most players are dumping much more than that in expandable resources in most combat encounters, and retaining is a one-time cost. Let's not continue to try and make this sound like a meaningful impact on wealth-by-level.
It depends. Like I have said, there is a player at FLGS whose entire character is shot(and appears to have quit PFS). He'd have to rebuild way more than one feat, probably most if not all, and thats if his stats can even allow that. For me its not a big deal, In fact I'll probably just keep it, but it affects different characters differently.
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Could someone give an example of a build that would be completely useless without Crane Wing/Riposte? I'm trying and failing to imagine how such a build is possible.
Take a look at the Style requirements if you decide to change to another style. The skills, additional feats AND stat requirements for a different style tree can be quite diverse.
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I'm trying and failing to imagine how such a build is possible.
I agree. My monk was heavily dependent on it and it was the thing that made his personality work, but by no means is it a character that cannot be "fixed" and continue to be a playable character. From a mechanical aspect, there is very little chance someone can convince me a crane-focused PC is neither playable, nor fixable. Now, if its more of a role-play, meaning something that cannot be fixed with retraining, etc., I can buy it, but even then the player has complete control over that aspect of the character and just need sot formulate a way to adapt.
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Could someone give an example of a build that would be completely useless without Crane Wing/Riposte? I'm trying and failing to imagine how such a build is possible.
Perhaps some strange Inquisitor build whose ability to deal damage is incredibly reliant on AOs or something like that.
Crane Style on its own is pretty solid, as I am learning. When fighting defensively, it's essentially +2 to hit and +1 AC, which is very strong for a feat. I ended up keeping Wing and Riposte myself, because two feats for another +1 to hit, +4 AC 1/round, and an extra attack sometimes is pretty nice.
I'm not exactly running a low-AC Barbarian with Crane Wing for a perfect defense, so the new Wing/Riposte is pretty nice. I have a feeling that Riposte will actually trigger more often than it used to, in fact.
-Matt
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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Getting hit with something like this would affect me (it did but it's really more of an afterthought on my zen archer than his schtick) much less than some people.
I'd wager that in every case of errata, you have one of these three at play:
- The rule was debated with two sides in threads (Twin Earthbreakers with Thunder and Fang.)
- A developer commented how it should work (Gun Training/Pistol Training.)
- The rule wasn't in debate but was insanely awesome (Crane.)
These things should be red flags, and we (as players) should be aware that if we venture into these builds despite the red flags we may find ourselves errataed.
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The rule wasn't in debate but was insanely awesome (Crane.)
These things should be red flags, and we (as players) should be aware that if we venture into these builds despite the red flags we may find ourselves errataed.
I guess folks playing Wizards should be worried all the time then.
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A few responses to the replies before I respond to the OP.
Finlanderboy hasn't said he's dropping out of PFS. It sounds like he has more than enough material to play existing classes for quite a while. What he's said is that he's not going to continue the strong financial support that he's given the company in the past. He's even provided the related reasons and real life examples of when these reasons have affected his decisions. As a strong believer both in the principles of voting with your money and providing just this sort of feedback to companies who I want to succeed, I commend this sort of action. This is one of the most vital forms of feedback that a company can have. Companies can choose to heed it or not, but knowing why parts of your customer base are making their decisions can be a very helpful thing.
On the professionalism issue, lot of people have mentioned Mike Brock in particular. I just wanted to point out that Finlanderboy spoke about Paizo staff in general, rather than PFS leadership in particular. It's possible he was talking about Mike, but he might also have had posts by the development team/website team/other employees in mind as well.
Regarding crane wing, it's more than just the need to retrain a single feat. Players either need to choose the prerequisite feats (Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike, Crane Style) or two levels of Master of Many Styles Monk. For those who have MoMS and want to retrain to a different style chain, they only have to worry about retraining the Crane Style feat. Those who chose not to take the two level dip or who don't view the dip worth it anymore have to pay a higher cost.
Personally, I'm ambivelant about the issue. Finlanderboy makes a really strong point. Paizo is a company, and it would make a great deal of sense in terms of customer service for them to fall on the side of leniency in their rebuild rules. At the same time, I have to wonder if too lenient of a ruling would provoke some animosity from players who have been bitten by errata or FAQs in the past and see the lenient ruling on this issue as unfair. That this ruling will only affect the more honorable (and more likely to pay for materials) parts of the society is an interesting point.
On the season 5 faction missions, there are a number of things that are being done well. I think if John and Mike can tweak them a bit more, they'll have the best of both worlds.
-The outcome boxes for GM's to check based on player decisions are pretty awesome. In my home game, I strive to make my players feel that their choices really matter. It adds something special to play when I know that my character's choices could very well decide if an NPC lives or dies. I played Weapon in the Rift yesterday, and having an NPC involved in the final battle of that scenario was pretty cool. The character I was playing for that scenario leans slightly towards the scumbag side of the line, so there was this delicious roleplay element to the fight as he watched the NPC out of the side of his vision and considered whether or not to deliberately throw someone under the bus for the first time in his career. As a player, this choice felt much more impactful (and the roleplay more fulfilling) when I knew that there could possibly be a checkbox for the GM to check based on whether the NPC lives or dies.
-I like that the faction missions make players think. Players have to pay attention and roleplay a lot more to accomplish the goals. Even if the mission ends up being something simple ("Fetch Me My Goblet!"), the fact that the player isn't being told "go here do this" makes the victory much more rewarding. Additionally, the removal of the pre-mission handouts opens up faction missions based on roleplay. That's huge. One of the early Osirion missions basically boils down to "get to know this NPC." A mission like that wouldn't have worked under the season 4 faction system. It would have been trivially easy for the player, while also disrupting the flow of the table. Under the new system, players have a mechanical incentive to roleplay. Instead of interrupting the flow of the table, the experience is deepened for everyone. That's a pretty cool thing.
-I like that the faction missions are relevant. If you're going into the Osirion desert, it makes sense for the Osirion faction characters to be involved. If you're going to be fighting demons or performing a mission of mercy, it makes sense that Silver Crusade characters would be unusually interested. I like that Andoran and Taldor characters actually care about the political movements in their home countries. Melding a bit with my last point, I like that characters have to keep their faction's overal attitude and goals in mind when performing a mission. I think this makes the faction choice of a character matter a great deal more than it used to, and I think it deepens the play experience.
-I like that there are only one to three faction missions at any one time. This is what really makes the above two points possible. The quantity of the missions is reduced, but the quality is raised significantly. At the same time, this particular point raises a problem. Which leads me to...
My personal reaction has been to play the character who is the best fit for the group rather than worry about matching factions to missions. This decision keeps the group alive and allows me to play my characters in the correct tier, but also negates some of the fun of the faction missions. Either a key event fails to get triggered (NPC's don't step up to address the Sczarni guy because the Szcarni guy isn't there) or discussions that would be particularly meaningful lose their impact (the big important choice for the Taldor guy becomes a non-issue for the group of non-Taldor characters).
I have no idea how to fix this problem. It seems like an integral downside to reducing the number of faction missions in a scenario. I can only say the impact of the super-cool faction missions gets significantly reduced when the chance of a relevant character being along with the party is semi-random.
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If you have an AC build, why did you need the old Crane Wing anyway? There would have been no hits to deflect.Why don't people want to keep Crane Wing?Because if you have built your character to already have huge AC, the feat by itself has extremely little to no value. It does lead into Crane Riposte, which is all well and good, but for me at least, I chose Crane Style on my now retired 19.1 character because it was the best defensive style. If I cared about generating attacks of opportunity, I would have gone with Snake instead.
The old Crane Wing could deflect natural 20's. IMO I thought that was overpowered, so I'm personally fine with getting a dodge bonus to AC to deflect instead.
With that being said, in a high AC build Crane Wing is no longer a viable option by itself. If your AC is so high that only natural 20's hit, then there's no value in taking it because it no longer deflects natural 20's. The only benefit you would get from Crane Wing on a natural 20 is that it would be harder to confirm a crit, but in many cases with a high AC build they couldn't confirm except on another natural 20 anyway.
If you don't have a high AC build, Crane Wing is still a poor option because the +4 dodge bonus is not really a great bonus. It probably needs to scale with level (or something).
The most damaging part of the Crane Wing change is that you can no longer retroactively deflect a hit. It's very difficult to predict when you're going to get hit by an attack that is within AC-AC+3 and could therefore be deflectable. It's also a big time sink unless you say something like "I always spend Crane Wing on the last/first attack" because the GM has to ask if you're going to Crane Wing before declaring the result of the roll. It's quite unpleasant in that regard.
Crane Wing is now best used to get easy Crane Riposte AoOs by spending Crane Wing on attacks that are practically guaranteed to miss normally. But if you're going to use Crane Wing that way, you might as well go into Snake Style instead because that's actually what Snake Style was designed to do. The full Crane Style with respect to Crane Riposte is basically a watered down Snake Style that triggers far less often.
I still think Crane Style fits well into a high AC build if the goal is to just have a ridiculously high AC.
It makes sense to me to allow a Crane Style retrain for those who wanted Crane Wing on low AC builds. Although, I'm not really worried about the people who took the dip into MoMS to get Crane Wing early having to do an expensive retrain. Honestly, I think just having the ability to get Crane Wing so easily through MoMS was the real problem.
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So I am going to be an uber dick and say the honest truth here. Cry if you wish.
If you are going to give up a game you love, and not financially support it's growth because people went back and edited something, which in essence made your character (in your opinion mind you, not necessarily the opinions of all) ineffective; that's completely fine and your choice. I respect it not matter what.
But boy is that childish, and quite frankly dumb.
Your character, is still a powerful being that can do epic things even if they edit a part of your character. So you are going to throw all that time, work and investment away because of a minor edit? Whatever happened to character development bro? You can easily redesign and reflavor your edits into a "the gods saw him to be too powerful" mindset and work within the rules. It's all on your creativity and how much FUN you want to have.
Cause at the end of the day this is just a freaking game yo. So if your definition of fun is being as broken as possible, then may I suggest some other perfectly legal builds that do the same things. (All Gunslingers EVER.) But how much FUN are you having sitting here whining and crying on the boards? That's time wasted on developing a backstory, developing a new (or existing) character, or even developing a relationship with your fellow party members. (in and out of character) Which makes me even sadder for you.
At the end of the day, as all things, it's your choice. Best of luck to you.
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But how much FUN are you having sitting here whining and crying on the boards?
If that's what makes you happy bro, I don't judge.
But my thing is this: Stuff like this, justifies why we PFS players catch so much hell in the general gaming scene. Because peeps think we're nothing but a bunch of self-entitled, arrogant, drama kings/queens.
This is NOT us. We are BETTER than this.
This past weekend, I spent it playing with some of my favorite people in the whole freaking world at Bookwyrm Con in Fresno, CA. Yeah, there were players there who got edited with the Crane Wing edit, and they were not happy about it. But they still played their characters, and had a great time. They still were a part of the campaign, and still support PFS even though they did not like it. Why? Cause it was still fun!!!
So when, I come online after a great weekend of PFS to see this, it just flat out annoys me. And the inner "retired" PFS organizer in me, wants to be quiet and let it die. But sometimes, tough love, has to be said.
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which in essence made your character (in your opinion mind you, not necessarily the opinions of all) ineffective
For the purposes of his fun and his financial investment who's opinion is more important that his?
But boy is that childish, and quite frankly dumb.
I read his post, it was neither childish nor dumb.
Your character, is still a powerful being that can do epic things even if they edit a part of your character. So you are going to throw all that time, work and investment away because of a minor edit? Whatever happened to character development bro? You can easily redesign and reflavor your edits into a "the gods saw him to be too powerful" mindset and work within the rules. It's all on your creativity and how much FUN you want to have.
So, pay money for game materials required to play; make a character and play it toward a goal; achieve that goal; have a rule changed that invalidates your time investment and part of your monetary investment. (particuarlly true of the OP because he states that he buys materials JUST TO PLAY SINGLE OPTIONS IN PFS).
Cause at the end of the day this is just a freaking game yo.
The OP doesn't lose sight of this, ever. He is simply stating that the game is no longer enjoyable enough to warrant continued financial output.
So if your definition of fun is being as broken as possible, then may I suggest some other perfectly legal builds that do the same things. (All Gunslingers EVER.) But how much FUN are you having sitting here whining and crying on the boards?Wow, thats rude.
That's time wasted on developing a backstory, developing a new (or existing) character, or even developing a relationship with your fellow party members. (in and out of character) Which makes me even sadder for you.
Gaming elitist AND rude.
I find it interesting how so many people have taken a calm, well measured complaint and turned it into an affront upon that which they hold most dear.
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Because peeps think we're nothing but a bunch of self-entitled, arrogant, drama kings/queens.
This is NOT us. We are BETTER than this.
I know you wrote it, but did you READ your previous post?
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I find it interesting how so many people have taken a calm, well measured complaint and turned it into an affront upon that...
Friend, I have no intentions on being rude. But you know what? If that's what it looks like, then sure. That's what it looks like.
We spend money, on a game that we love and enjoy. Posts like this, make me feel like I should sell my books and be done with this game. Because all people care about is how high their "to hit" is. Sure, if that's what gets players off, then that's their choice.
But I joined PFS and continue to support the organization, because I believe in the development of games, players and people as a whole. When people whine and groan in a public space, instead of taking his issue to a private email with the developers or other private means, it just makes you look like one of "those" gamers.
As a veteran of PFS, I am so SICK of these gamers, and our campaign is riddled with them. I want nothing more than great stories, great games and enjoy them with great people. Whining and complaining and issuing threats to not spend money don't do that. They do the opposite. They turn people away from our campaign and make them go "eww, I don't want to play with people who cry about every little thing."
So call it elitist, rude, overzealous, whatever. I call it, "This is just a game bros. Don't get your panties in a twist over every little thing. Play the game. Have fun. That's all that really matters in the end."
This all being said, I am now going to prepare to GM a PFS game. In which my players are all going to have a great time. Cause that's all that matters to me at the end of the day.
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The best way to respond to an awkwardly hostile post is to awkwardly ignore it!
I agree that changing Crane Wing to having a retroactive bonus would make it viable again. However, that's probably not going to happen for some time. There was a very lengthy discussion on how Crane Wing could be fixed because a lot of people were unhappy about the errata (as you are of course aware). Jason suggested that the devs would reconsider their errata to see if they had gone too far, but that was prior to the Crane Riposte errata. Maybe next time they are in the area they'll consider changing it.
I understand that the PFS retraining rules aren't allowing a lot of flexibility for this specific case, but I think overall the retraining rules are reasonable. I also don't think PFS is to blame for this issue, or that this problem is indicative of a flaw or problem in PFS. This to me seems like an edge case to an otherwise solid policy. From the design team's perspective, this errata had a lot of unintended consequences; they didn't expect it to get the backlash that it did or have such a far reaching effect. I don't think anyone is really at fault here, but if a finger did need to be pointed, it's at the design team making such a huge change, not at PFS.
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When people whine and groan in a public space, instead of taking his issue to a private email with the developers or other private means, it just makes you look like one of "those" gamers.
Strange. You wrote that on a public forum, rather than in a private message to Finlanderboy.
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I find it interesting how so many people have taken a calm, well measured complaint and turned it into an affront upon that...Friend, I have no intentions on being rude. But you know what? If that's what it looks like, then sure. That's what it looks like.
We spend money, on a game that we love and enjoy. Posts like this, make me feel like I should sell my books and be done with this game. Because all people care about is how high their "to hit" is. Sure, if that's what gets players off, then that's their choice.
But I joined PFS and continue to support the organization, because I believe in the development of games, players and people as a whole. When people whine and groan in a public space, instead of taking his issue to a private email with the developers or other private means, it just makes you look like one of "those" gamers.
As a veteran of PFS, I am so SICK of these gamers, and our campaign is riddled with them. I want nothing more than great stories, great games and enjoy them with great people. Whining and complaining and issuing threats to not spend money don't do that. They do the opposite. They turn people away from our campaign and make them go "eww, I don't want to play with people who cry about every little thing."
So call it elitist, rude, overzealous, whatever. I call it, "This is just a game bros. Don't get your panties in a twist over every little thing. Play the game. Have fun. That's all that really matters in the end."
This all being said, I am now going to prepare to GM a PFS game. In which my players are all going to have a great time. Cause that's all that matters to me at the end of the day.
You understand that hypocrisy is a real thing? right?
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When people whine and groan in a public space, instead of taking his issue to a private email with the developers or other private means, it just makes you look like one of "those" gamers.Strange. You wrote that on a public forum, rather than in a private message to Finlanderboy.
You are right Vivianne. I did. Showing a very important point. That people venting on a public forum is a bad place to do things. Should I have just set fire to Findlanderboy's PM box? Sure. I should do that. But is he in the right to sit here in public and throw threats around to cause dissention and start fights amongst PFS players either?
Food for thought.
This being said, I am now leaving all of you to return to my happy gaming life. There is only so much toxicity one can take from others and I am out of Antitoxin.
I love it when possibly controversial threads bring all of the non-PFS players to the PFS boards to defend one side over the other.
I love it when people assume I don't play PFS because I don't use my registered account on the messageboards.
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I love it when possibly controversial threads bring all of the non-PFS players to the PFS boards to defend one side over the other.I love it when people assume I don't play PFS because I don't use my registered account on the messageboards.
I love it when people openly admit to having two accounts on Paizo's site and then complain when people making assumptions about their lack of PFS play.
Thirdly with the exception of the congenial Mr. Compton when I read the majority of staff posts I find them extremely abrasive.
I think I can now understand where this is coming from.
None of the posts in this thread are by Paizo employees, though.Thirdly with the exception of the congenial Mr. Compton when I read the majority of staff posts I find them extremely abrasive.I think I can now understand where this is coming from.
I confess some ignorance as to how PFS is organized, but I thought the Venture-Foos were representing Paizo, even if they aren't employees per se.
Venture Officers are representatives of Paizo as official coordinators.
Thanks for the clarification!
Venture Officers are representatives of Paizo as official coordinators.Official Coordinator =/= Staff
Staff or not, Brand Ambassadors you certainly are.
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Oh BTW: I am not any Brand Ambassador or Coordinator. I am retired area organizer of PFS, (which by the rules of Paizo, makes me NOT affiliated with any Venture-Officer's or official Paizo Staff member) and am now just a regular PFS Player/GM.
So sorry. You don't get to link my name to any staffers. In fact, a few of them will even deny my existence. :)
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Jason suggested that the devs would reconsider their errata to see if they had gone too far, but that was prior to the Crane Riposte errata.What is the Crane Riposte Errata? Link?
It's here.
Basically, it turns Crane Riposte into a crappy Snake Fang.
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Guys. Seriously let's stop the negativity before this gets unpleasant.
I'm sure the Paizo staffers have better things to do with their time than patrol the messageboards to keep order. It's a thankless task I'm sure.
I'm sure that they have also taken note of the OP's concerns and the responses to it.
Can we all just move on? Or is that too much to ask?
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Thank you. I guess at least it works with Crane Wing now at least.
I'd like it to be a flat bonus of +1 or something. You know how hard it is to say "I want to activate crane Wing." Before the GM rolls the dice when playing virtually. Its really hard, I tried to do that twice today (with a different ability) and both times the GM rolled faster than I could say it. The GM was super cool about it but I've played with many who aren't, which makes those abilities really worthless.
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There are moments however that make me want to quit judging PFS. One player got extremely angry with me because he had maxed out his diplomacy abd I had told him that if he wanted to win over an NPC that he had to do something other than say. "I make a diplomacy check".
Lol, that sucks! Sometimes it can be hard to know exactly what to say but I always say something (in character thats helpful hopefully) before rolling.