Goblin Squad Member
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Whiles roles are not write in the stone: What about a Fighter/Rogue Speced to PvP (archer/2h, charges, slows, sneaks, HP and Protection - The best of both for kill casters), using only cloth armor for magic defense, getting a mage in the field?
Don't forget we have the option to customize our choices...
I hope this works out well. I think the deciding factors will be how many abilities are tied to class items, and how quickly we can swap class items. I like the idea of the classless system, or of heavily multi-classed characters. On the other hand, if most abilities require a class item, and it's slow and cumbersome to switch class items, then I predict we'll see a lot of single-classed characters until a few years from now.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If wizard expendables end up being really good compared to fighter expendables then the tables tip back towards wizards. Hard to say at the moment as we've only seen a small number of expendables. I suspect that wizards will end up relying on their expendables a lot.
Rogue sneak attack is still a total wildcard to me. 1v1 rogues are going to be mediocre. I had some old simulations of toe to toe fighting which showed that rogues really stand out in 2v2 against fighters due to sneak attack.
From what I've seen of orisons their dps is low. Cleric healing abilities may be enough to balance that out. Wizards may be popular now due to the way they've steamrolled escalations, but a few weeks ago bow clerics were popular in pvp. A cleric with Evangelist as their armor feat (boosts ranged attacks and movement speed) should be a good small gang pvp build.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That is probably the opposite of how it should be though. It seems PFO will flip flop the table top standard. Magic users are supposed to start off horrid and as they level become gods among men.
The problem with trying to replicate this in a classless system is that no-one will want to start as a magic user. Everyone will start as a fighter, then switch to magic user when they have enough hit points.
Each role must be equally enticing to the new player.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A couple of things that might help folks better understand:
1. Switching Weapon Sets actually takes a bit of time. I can get in a very nice rhythm casting Staff Cantrips. I'd love to be able to swap over to my wand once the mobs are in range, because the Wand is ridicu-fast, but the amount of time between my last Staff attack and my first Wand attack is jarringly long.
2. You can only swap between two Implements during Combat. That means you can swap between, for example, Wizard and Fighter in a single combat, but you wouldn't then be able to swap to Cleric unless you took the time between fights to switch out which Implements you had equipped.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A couple of things that might help folks better understand:
1. Switching Weapon Sets actually takes a bit of time. I can get in a very nice rhythm casting Staff Cantrips. I'd love to be able to swap over to my wand once the mobs are in range, because the Wand is ridicu-fast, but the amount of time between my last Staff attack and my first Wand attack is jarringly long.
2. You can only swap between two Implements during Combat. That means you can swap between, for example, Wizard and Fighter in a single combat, but you wouldn't then be able to swap to Cleric unless you took the time between fights to switch out which Implements you had equipped.
Hmmm, I thought you'd told me the weapon swap was fast. Or am I remembering wrong?
Maybe there's a cooldown induced there? Only gcd I know of is 3s (supposed to be 6s) between expendables.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thanks for the info, Nihimon. That makes it sound like single- and double-classed characters will be easier to play than triple-classed and beyond. (Not counting non-combat classes, which we might also have.)
Do you know whether stealth requires equipping rogue implements? If it does, then a typical stealthy player might swap short sword and short bow. If it doesn't, then you could swap short and long bow, or long sword and short bow.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hmmm, I thought you'd told me the weapon swap was fast. Or am I remembering wrong?
You're remembering just fine, but I was wrong. I think I qualified it by saying I hadn't really tested it. Just switching weapon sets and seeing the bars change is instantaneous. Doing so in combat seems to trigger a weapon-change animation that takes some time, during which you can't activate any of the abilities.
That makes it sound like single- and double-classed characters will be easier to play than triple-classed and beyond.
I should also mention that you can only equip a single Feature Feat and a single Armor Feat. So, even double-classing has some drawbacks.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hmmm, I thought you'd told me the weapon swap was fast. Or am I remembering wrong?You're remembering just fine, but I was wrong. I think I qualified it by saying I hadn't really tested it. Just switching weapon sets and seeing the bars change is instantaneous. Doing so in combat seems to trigger a weapon-change animation that takes some time, during which you can't activate any of the abilities.
Thanks!
Try using an expendable or utility during that swap.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Stealth is usable with no training; there is a rouge armor or role feat that boosts stealth, and stealth can be trained with (I think) only subterfuge achievement and dexterity. Testing PvP and PvE effectiveness of stealth has not been rigorous, but there are PvE effects.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Stealth is usable with no training; there is a rouge armor or role feat that boosts stealth, and stealth can be trained with (I think) only subterfuge achievement and dexterity. Testing PvP and PvE effectiveness of stealth has not been rigorous, but there are PvE effects.
Chameleon is the rogue armor feat.
Wizard's illusionist feature also boosts stealth.
With armor it's not just the weight. It's the way the armor makes you move your body differently that slows you down. I could see some higher tier armor having keywords that allowed for faster movement.A big misconception about armor...It's obvious that wearing armor doesn't completely limit range of motion, nor does it prohibit things like running, doing jumping jacks, etc.
However, until we see a sprint race won by a sprinter in armor against a sprinter not in armor, I think it's reasonable to conclude that wearing armor "slows you down".
Actually no it doesn't. It's tiring, but it's designed to allow for the full range of motion, while protecting you. Because if you cannot move fast enough, or wide enough to block that blow, it can still kill you.
Armour, unlike the D&D construct, is designed to deflect and absorb damage. It's not an all or nothing deal that AC turned in into, it's more akin to DR. What it cannot turn away from you, it's there to lessen it. But hit it hard enough, and the damage will get through it and transfer directly to you.
And even scarier? You don't need to penetrate the armour, shake the body underneath hard enough, and you can break bones, shatter organs and concuss brains into death.
The point of armour is a back up defensive system. It's there in case your skill with your weapon has failed you. It's there to give you a second chance to kill your enemy, nothing more. And if it restricts you in any way, then it gets redesigned until it doesn't. Because that's what humans do. It don't work? Fix it until it does, or discard it if we can't figure out a way to.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The files you sent me on July 10. Not sure how out of date that info is though.Wizard's illusionist feature also boosts stealth.Where are you seeing that?
Sorry, I just realized GMail apparently doesn't put forwarded messages into my Sent Mail folder. Can you reference a file name or spreadsheet tab?
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Goblin Squad Member
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PFO Passives for Wiki
It's a text file.
Ooh! I hadn't really looked that closely. Looking at Scholar, I see a very easy way to test the impact of Knowledge Skills on Gathering :)
Many thanks :)
FYI, that's in the "Passive, Attack, and Expendable Feats" spreadsheet in Pathfinder Online (Public)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Armour, unlike the D&D construct, is designed to deflect and absorb damage. It's not an all or nothing deal that AC turned in into, it's more akin to DR. What it cannot turn away from you, it's there to lessen it. But hit it hard enough, and the damage will get through it and transfer directly to you.
And even scarier? You don't need to penetrate the armour, shake the body underneath hard enough, and you can break bones, shatter organs and concuss brains into death.
This was something I preferred in Rolemaster over D&D. In general, hitting someone in heavy armor required a higher attack roll to do damage, but the critical hit effects got vicious faster than hitting someone in light armor. There were also some attack types (like lightning spells) that required lower attack rolls to damage people in heavy armor than people in light armor.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Armor in PFO does behave like DR/resistance. The only way an attack does 0 damage in PFO is if:
a) the attacker's roll is really low and his attack bonus is vastly outclassed by the defender's defense (reflex, fort, will). Think something like 4E for the 3 defenses with AC being absorbed into reflex. This should be a relatively rare occurrence.
b) or the attacker's base damage is less than the target's relevant resistance. In tabletop this is analogous to doing say 25 damage with a fireball against someone with fire resist 30. This can occur in PFO when the attacker is say using a newbie physical weapon against T3 heavy armor.
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Goblin Squad Member
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PFO Passives for Wiki
It's a text file.
Ooh! I hadn't really looked that closely. Looking at Scholar, I see a very easy way to test the impact of Knowledge Skills on Gathering :)
Many thanks :)
FYI, that's in the "Passive, Attack, and Expendable Feats" spreadsheet in Pathfinder Online (Public)
Hmm, taking a look at this quickly, and it seems odd that the armor line Archer when maxed gives 'Speed +5, Ranged Attack Bonus +20', but the Evangelist line gives 'Speed +5, Ranged Attack Bonus +20, Divine Attack Bonus +20'.
Possibly not completely fleshed out yet though, I guess.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... it seems odd that the armor line Archer when maxed gives 'Speed +5, Ranged Attack Bonus +20', but the Evangelist line gives 'Speed +5, Ranged Attack Bonus +20, Divine Attack Bonus +20'.
Jiminy, doesn't the Fighter have high defense though that offsets the divine attack bonus?
The Archer has no need of Divine Attack Bonus. I expect Jiminy is finding it odd that the Evangelist has the same Speed and Ranged Attack Bonus as the Archer, which does seem a bit weird to me too.
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Goblin Squad Member
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An evangelist focuses her skills and learning on proclamation rather than the fine details of the church's deeper mysteries or martial training.
This entry actually makes it sound like the Evangelist should have some kind of Bardic Performance Feats, rather than looking like an Archer.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A cleric who wants to train Wisdom for role abilities and expendables, Constitution for armor, AND Dex for bows, is welcome to do it as far as I'm concerned.
(Crusader has a melee attack bonus for clerics who want to go into Strength, so the bow bonus isn't completely anomalous.)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hmm, taking a look at this quickly, and it seems odd that the armor line Archer when maxed gives 'Speed +5, Ranged Attack Bonus +20', but the Evangelist line gives 'Speed +5, Ranged Attack Bonus +20, Divine Attack Bonus +20'.
You can't benefit from Ranged Attack Bonus and Divine Attack Bonus at the same time. It's one or the other (or neither) depending on what weapon you have equipped.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sorry, I didn't explain myself very well. Nihimon has the gist of it.
I find it odd that the masters of arms and armor (fighters) get the same benefit from a maxed out armor line as a cleric does. The ranged bonus just seems very odd to me, and my initial thought was that it was in error, and that the cleric bonuses were supposed to be speed and divine attack only.
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Goblin Squad Member
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For me this is a balance of three issues. In order from least to most important:
1. What's realistic?
2. What's true to the table-top?
3. What's fun.
I think Blear has prroven fairly well that having armor restrict mobility to any great degree isn't very realistic.
However it is CLEARLY what happens in the tabletop.
So three is the determining factor for me. What's more fun?
If fighters/heavy armor character really do become extremely unpopular then I feel we should:
A. Up the effectiveness of armor.
B. Lower the speed penalty or change it to something else (like the suggested stamina drain penalty).
I say we wait until EE and see how well the fully built fighters stand up during the War of Towers before we do either.
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Goblin Squad Member
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C. Make certain spells really good against armored targets, like fire attacks to cook that potato in its foil.
And for whoever is thinking electricity, please look up Faraday Suit and realize that most metal armors under the medium and heavy categories function as one.
Table top has rules to mitigate the advantage of high mobility, and we are not currently seeing the attempts to realize that in PFO working too well. For example, in tabletop you cannot generally attack and move away from your target more quickly than they can charge + attack after you. Even if your speed is double theirs, their charge will match your retreat (if it includes an attack in the same round), plus they'll get the opportunity attacks if you attempt to run away and attack in the same round. That is a very different balance than we are seeing in PFO right now.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And for whoever is thinking electricity, please look up Faraday Suit and realize that most metal armors under the medium and heavy categories function as one.
Ooh, what a cool project for our armchair Internet detectives: Are there any historical references to people in heavy armor being "miraculously" unharmed by lightning? It sounds like the kind of stunt that could have gotten you canonized, a few hundred years ago. (Or burned at the stake.)
Are there any modern "No sh*t, there I was" stories of lightning survival from reenactment groups like the SCA?
The Faraday suit idea is neat, but I'm not convinced that the average suit of armor can actually pull off that trick. There's leather between some of those metal pieces, and sometimes there are plain old gaps between the head and torso, torso and legs, or legs and feet.
Edit: Thank you, insomnia. I have proof that something that looks like Pathfinder armor (except the helmet) can work as a Faraday suit. In quite awesome fashion, too. It was deliberately built to be a Faraday suit, though. Still not so sure about your average suit of armor.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Have you tried Googling "how to build a Faraday suit"?
First link in said search turns up a page that says a Faraday suit "essentially consists of complete metal cage surrounding your body. Now whether that cage is made of chainmail of aluminum foil". As long as there is a continuous path of metal from head to foot, as is the case with most of those medium and heavy armors (most of them have chainmail underneath connecting the gaps) then you have it.
And here's a video of a guy wearing chainmail as a Faraday suit: http://youtu.be/QqEesFaboV4 And no, those boots are not insulated, otherwise he'd be dead. The suit must act as a low impedance path to ground.
Gaps in the Faraday suit can lead to some electricity going through the wearer, but unless the gaps are really big, this will be a small portion of the overall shock, so in tabletop terms that means greatly reduced damage, if any.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So if you put on a well enough built Faraday suit and stood on top of an insulator you should survive. Start putting gaps in the suit and you're probably toast.
From a physics standpoint yes certain metal armors should definitely provide a natural protection from electricity. But not all metal armors will work (eg. breastplates won't).
From a balance standpoint that makes heavy armor effectively the best protection against both physical and electrical damage. Not sure I'd consider that a balanced choice. Plus as Caldeathe says I don't think Golarion has gotten to that point in their understanding of science. Who needs to know how to create electricity when you can just mumble a few works and it suddenly appears wherever you want. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm just gonna say that anyone who assumes magical electricity has heard of Michael Faraday and gives two-hoots about his ideas of fashion is probably going to get what they deserve.
;-P
The US army has been conducting fascinating experiments using lasers to guide electric bolts by forming a conductive laser induced plasma channel, much like electricity can be guided by spell casters.
http://www.army.mil/article/82262/Picatinny_engineers_set_phasers_to__fry_/
PS mundane electricity hasn't heard of Michael Faraday either, but still follows the principles he observed.
PPS I get that a lot of people don't want the game to be too realistic. I'm just here to remind those who try to bring reality into the conversation, what reality really is.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm just gonna say that anyone who assumes magical electricity has heard of Michael Faraday and gives two-hoots about his ideas of fashion is probably going to get what they deserve.
;-P
Good point. Besides, when angry gods or wizards send the lightning, they probably aim for weak points. {First strike} "Let's melt this buckle, here." {0.25 seconds later} "Strike two, there goes the chin strap, and the helmet." {0.25 seconds later} "Strike three, brain carbonara!"
I'm still planning to check a list of saints for any lightning-related canonizations, just for fun.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm just gonna say that anyone who assumes magical electricity has heard of Michael Faraday and gives two-hoots about his ideas of fashion is probably going to get what they deserve.
;-P
Good point. Besides, when angry gods or wizards send the lightning, they probably aim for weak points. {First strike} "Let's melt this buckle, here." {0.25 seconds later} "Strike two, there goes the chin strap, and the helmet." {0.25 seconds later} "Strike three, brain carbonara!"
I'm still planning to check a list of saints for any lightning-related canonizations, just for fun.
What you're discussing is called shots: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/called-shots
The wizard who casts shocking grasp has already smacked physics in the face and told it to lie down and shut up. I don't think that having your armor plead with physics is going to work in Pathfinder.
That's fine, but I'll just remind you that this whole string of conversation got started by someone trying to discuss how armor really behaves.
And of course there's also the question of whether your spell is conjuring magical electricity, or just magically conjuring electricity.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And of course there's also the question of whether your spell is conjuring magical electricity, or just magically conjuring electricity.I don't think it matters. Despite everything being about physics, Pathfinder is not about physics.
That's up to the DM how much physics is to be included. But to just throw that out there that Pathfinder, as a general rule, ignores physics is utterly false. Bends, yes, but ignores? nonsense.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Magic in Pathfinder is a deviation from the norm. There is the way the world normally works, and then there is the mechanic to make amazing and supernatural things happen, which is magic. If the mundane were already a deviation from normal physics, then magic is no longer very magical.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Which is exactly why I postulate that one should not be surprised if either magically created electricity or magic electricity might ignore the existence of a Faraday cage. (I never said it would.) I will say that if a player in my game tries to make their armour into a Faraday cage, they're going to deserve what comes next.
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Goblin Squad Member
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No. Only someone who tries to argue that the fae's ball of lightning won't affect them because they are wearing heavy armour that they've specifically designed to protect them from electricity.
(edit: I might, on my own, decide to give them a chance of it protecting them. But I won't let someone use a modern knowledge of physics to bypass a magical effect that I don't think was intended to be bypassed in that way.)