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If riding dogs and Gnome/halfling Cavaliers weren't a thing, I would agree with you.
Experience already shows that, even in dungeons, mounted charges will happen very often.
I was thinking more along the lines of making mounted charges like Vital Strike, they don't work together.
Well boosts would, but I can live with that.
Or just taking away any damge from strikes.
Say a maneuver does xd6 and save or be staggered, it would just do the save vs stagger, no xd6s
I'm really want to give up on this now the way I see it's going.
I don't see the same complaints as ToB here. Most of us love ToB and love the first Path of War book.
In regards to the 9th of Tempest Gale - "Casters are tier 1" doesn't mean that you can add anything to martials and call it balanced. Take, for instance, a barbarian with +10000 to hit and damage that is still only tier 4; placed side-by-side with a wizard, I would say no to the uber-barbarian long before I would say the same to a wizard. For me, a maneuver that significantly outclasses the ones from the first Path of War book is a cause for concern, and right now, I feel that Tempest Volley is pretty close to that line - and, as such, a lot of the complaints are justified.
The first book also had a lot of concerns over its power level, and the final product was only after all the concerns are addressed. I trust you don't think that the first PoW book is too weak?
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@Felyndiira It's more than just damage it's the narrative power casters have also. I want the 9th lvl abilities to be something only few have obtain, something only a true master knows and more fluff like that.
But getting your initiation modifier as your number of attacks is a little too much I would say change it to a full round attack which makes if feel like you been training doing all those special single attack maneuvers and now you have finally succeeded in being able to unleash multiple combat maneuvers at once.
Then, I think we both are in agreement about Tempest Gale :).
As for casters, I am perfectly aware of what a caster's true power is. The reason I brought up the +10000 barbarian is because it's a good (if exaggerated) example of how a melee buff that doesn't give them anywhere near the versatility of a caster would, nonetheless, be more broken than summoning angels and crushing kingdoms under your heel.
My concern is when new maneuvers start outclassing comparable ones from the old Path of War book, which I feel like many of the PoW: Expanded maneuvers are starting to do. I'm going to guess that many of the others who are trying to argue in this thread are concerned about similar things - a power creep that would give the book a bad reputation of being overpowered, whether it's deserved or not.
If the new maneuvers are roughly on the level of the older ones, I'm perfectly fine with this. Things like this and the super-warder in strike form (Eternal Guardian's 9th) are what makes me - and a lot of other people - concerned.
I'm fine with abilities that have a high rate of success and are powerful and useful. That's not the complaint happening here. The issue is tying things to skill checks, which was a noted mechanical flaw in the original Tome of Battle and with Truenaming.
Like I said, I've got no problem with a counter that's just something like "You succeed on a Reflex save". I think that's mechanically clearer and better designed than "You make an acrobatics check in place of a Reflex save".
I'm honestly a bit confused by this statement. As far as I'm aware, the skill checks to maneuvers in the original Tome of Battle were one of the things that was almost-universally celebrated. It allowed you to use your skill points in a tangible way, allow amazing fluff-mechanics tie-togethers that would not otherwise be there, and overall, are immensely satisfying in actual play.
I have seen the same sorts of thoughts about Truenaming, although in that case, it was more "I wish the system wasn't mechanically broken, since skill-check casting is really cool." (tangentally related: my playgroup thought that the ability to tie your casting to a skill check in the 3pp Spheres of Power magic system was also awesome. I've got a bluff-based illusionist/healer who does magic by telling lies so convincingly that reality changes to accommodate).
You do have it right that using a skill check against something is used as shorthand for "you have a great chance of succeeding on this, and if you work at it, will always succeed on this", but overall, I (personally, at least) consider the skill checks to be better design than just flat-negating something, to look at that example. And the vast majority of them are pretty balanced, even at "you always succeed at this" levels.
Skills are pretty bad in most cases. Very few skills have particularly relevant combat uses, and the few that do are very specific cases. At least in my experience (which is admittedly a small sample size; I've only been playing regularly for about 11ish years, which isn't a lot compared to a lot of old hands at the game), it feels better to be able to roll a skill check and Acrobatically dodge a fireball than it does to say "I use this maneuver and dodge the fireball."
This is especially great for the more supernatural disciplines, since it allows you to really tie the fluff into something. Spellcraft rolls in Elemental Flux to dodge attacks, or Craft checks in Shattered Mirror showing that your unparalleled skill in your art lets you apply the same principles to combat as well. I guess I could say I see a bit of a "warrior-poet" sort of fluff going on for a lot of things, where your skill in one trade is directly proportional to your skill in combat. It feels much cooler (again, in my experience) than someone who is okay at combat and terrible at everything else (fighter) or good at combat and okay at some skills that don't do anything in combat (barbarian).
It also looks nicer in a discipline to see the discipline skill tied into the mechanics well, instead of having it be "this is a thing people sometimes do but honestly we don't care about it", which is something that I have seen called out as a flaw in Tome of Battle - that its disciplines would have some things as a focus, then... Forget them.
To each their own, but I wanted to throw my voice out there and say that I love the skill check maneuvers, and think that they should stay. They're awesome.
I don't think the problem is that they exist, just that they are SUPER simple and cheap (both character resources and gold/item) to buff significantly past what a combat focused character who invested feats could do. Basically it is a "drop in the bucket" for the manuever based character with barely an investment in comparison to a fighter who had limited options besides a few feats and maybe an item to help do the same thing.
Look at it this way, that fighter who invested half their "resources" to be good at an combat maneuver, gets trumped by a character who uses one maneuver out of their repitoire and spent some gold on an item that adds to skill checks, possibly a skill that they get more mileage or benefit from due to class/discipline/organization choices on top of it.
When a single ability can compete with a class who builds towards the same thing, it is a bad sign. We aren't talking a "main" ability, but one random option in a sea of options which can be swapped out as needed. Two feats generally costs you 2-3 levels depending on the class, and would net you a +4 to a combat check. A skill item could add up to +15 and cost some gold... Which is the better option for a character? DSP psionics have skill crystal items, that grant a bonus for one use (or that can be made effectively permanent with other items) as well.
I'm fine with having the skill checks play a role in combat, but they certainly should be shifted to the point where they aren't auto success just by being used. If they can swing it so the maneuver is roughly to the point where it is as effective as a combatant who didn't take the feats, I'd be fine with that. The fact that it takes so little investment on the maneuver using characters end to be effective is where my "sticking point" is.
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I think that's part of the problem right there. Your words exactly:
Look at it this way, that fighter who invested half their "resources" to be good at a combat maneuver, gets trumped by a character who uses one maneuver out of their repertoire and spent some gold on an item that adds to skill checks, possibly a skill that they get more mileage or benefit from due to class/discipline/organization choices on top of it.
That's half the problem. I'm not beating around the bush here nor is anyone else in this project when we say that Path of War classes do the job of fighter much better than fighter does. The question becomes is it fighter's fault that's bad at its job or is it all the other classes that do it better who are at fault? If fighter can be outclassed by a single maneuver by a maneuver-user, then maybe that's bad design on the fighter's behalf because it's only trick isn't very useful and its bad at everything else. We balance to classes like magus and psychic warrior, because they do the fighter's job and do it well.
Skill check maneuvers were tested out over the last week or two and the results we got lie within the realm of our acceptable use of them. If you want to take the time to spend and invest in skill check maneuvers and items that boost them, great. Not everyone will. Those that do will get the most bang for their buck and pay premiums for combination items or lose out on other valuable items or actions switching stuff.
I appreciate all the apprehension on the issue because we don't want to make a product that gets tossed in the OP pile but I feel that that these maneuvers aren't so unbalanced.
-X
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It's really not a premium. Skill boosting items are trivially cheap in the long run.
I am... extremely disappointed by this announcement.
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They are cheap in the long run but they take up item slots and doubling up on effects on limited slots or making slot-less items gets expensive when you could be better buying or making items for more practical use.
The prevalence of Skill maneuvers is low in all disciplines, and done so intentionally in that rewards people for focus in the skill. Those that don't focus still are able to use the discipline and use it quite well to boot. If someone wants to spend their cash, feats, and skill points to be good at a handful of maneuvers, well, so be it. That's their right.
In the end, I think a simple fix would be to replace the skill roll with IL + IM as that would greatly limit the effectiveness of it as a house rule. I don't think it's the right choice, but it puts it more in line for what I think you're aiming for as far as balance and its hard to inflate your IL artificially.
-X
How is "boost the number I use to kill people with" not a practical use of funds? Tempest Gale, for example, has a boost that lets you use Sleight of Hand to hit (while retaining attack bonuses from things like class features and enhancement bonuses). Which means no missing on 1s, and likely not missing on anything else either. Especially if you use Discipline Mastery to take 10 on these types of checks.
@ IL+ IM: Not really. That has its own problems, since it doesn't scale with all systems (a unified bonus for different maneuvers being applied against different systems with their own scaling is the same folly as skills, just more prone to sucking than being too good). It would work okay for save replacers, but would be unfeasible for attacks, CMB, or opposed rolls.
@Prices/Slots: The most a +10 skill item ever costs is 15,000 gp to stack it on top of something else that costs 10,000 gp or more, if for some reason you're running low on slots for things (which seems fairly unlikely- it's anecdotal but I've built and seen built plenty of 20th level characters that only needed about half of their slots for items, including boosters for skills like Perception and Stealth). That's pricy when you're a mid level character, but by 16th level it's less than 5% of your expected WBL (which doesn't account for how easy it is to get as many sub-16,000 GP items as you want- high level characters generally deal in looted equipment and crafting time more than spending dosh on things). Not to mention how cheap masterwork items are.
It's worth noting that maneuvers are, by default, a 1/encounter thing, and if you want constant, reliable access to them, you have to spend actions that you could be using on other combat options (including other maneuvers) to refresh them; and that's IF you have a maneuver recovery method at all (see classes like Mystic who have their maneuvers granted to them at random).
Sort've. It depends on the class and the length of fights. A Stalker or Warder is burning a round of offensive actions to recover their maneuvers, which is painful if you're in a short fight that's only going to last 3 or 4 rounds (though Warders are impacted less with the benefits of being able to run around slapping people with Super Combat Patrol). A Warlord, Harbinger, or Awakened Blade only needs a swift action. Lightning Recovery can let you nova on an important maneuver on consecutive rounds if necessary.
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Not only that, but the majority of them (maybe all of them, I would need to go through and look) are balanced around the fact that they are extremely reliable.
The skill check is not the important part of the maneuver's mechanics. It's meant to be reliable. The skill check is there because it feels good to be able to use the ranks, bonuses, and the like you invested in in a tangible way in combat. Regardless of whether or not it's an autosuccess, rolling with a high bonus is fun, and the skill check use ties the discipline together thematically in a way that a maneuver that merely does a thing does not.
And, as Iron Heart said, maneuvers are 1/encounter generally (since most fights in PF do not last long enough for a recovered maneuver to matter a huge amount, unless you're pulling something neat off with swift action recoveries, probably, and even then, you're not using boosts or counters then, and are still spending actions on something weaker than just full attacking).
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It only feels good for players that are especially unaware of the math going on around them. When you're rolling a d20+30 versus a DC of 25, it feels like a waste of time more than anything else.
A Warlord, Harbinger, or Awakened Blade only needs a swift action.
Sure, but that's a swift action they're not using to boost, change stances, or use a feat or class feature, or a swift action they can't use because they just used a counter (remember the swift/immediate action bottleneck!).
Lightning Recovery can let you nova on an important maneuver on consecutive rounds if necessary.
Sure, but then you spent one or more feats that you could have spent on something actually fun and interesting.
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That's not been my experience. I realize it's my anecdotal evidence against yours, but for me, and the majority of people I've played with, it's the opposite. Rolling a d20+30 vs a DC of 25 means your character is so good at what they do that the roll is, at that point, there to decide how ridiculously successful your ability is fluffed as. That's not a waste, that's something that informs you of how awesome the character is.
As someone who considers himself very aware of the math going on around me in a game (years and years of practice and theorycrafting on top of playing and GMing), I have to say that I disagree that your assertion that it only matters to people who don't look at the math.
Whether 'You roll a Skill check that you have spent time and money improving to counter something 95% of the time' or 'You counter something 95% of the time' is better design, I won't get into that, seems to be just taste.
Let's just make those 95s 100s instead. It doesn't particularly matter.
I think you're confusing reliability with "works all of the time, don't bother checking for failure". An 11th level archer with Trick of the Wind and a +10 skill item can hit any average AC at CR 20 or lower on a 1 (and the /highest/ AC up to 4 CRs above them on a 1). Six levels later they can mulch any target in the entire game by combining it with Vicious Tempest Volley.
I personally do not see an issue with someone being able to mulch a target with a 9th-level spell equivalent. That's something that's done anyway.
It's also 1/encounter, and the things that are worth fighting at level 17+ should have ways to shut it down. What happens when the enemy uses their wand of Emergency Force Sphere, for example? If they don't have one, why not? It's just a useful tool to have, and anyone with an intelligence score worth anything that made it to CR 17 is going to realize that.
On the other hand, I can see how Trick of the Wind is a bit strong, and that's actually really good feedback for them, I feel. A 6th-level boost that's basically "you hit all your attacks this round" is really, really good, and might be too good, depending on other factors.
This doesn't mean that skill check maneuvers should be removed, though; it means that the specific too-strong thing should be looked at. This is how playtesting works, after all (although I realize that with Pathfinder, it's easy to forget that some companies actually listen to their playtesters).
9th level spells can be resisted, aside from problem children like using gate to get a Solar buddy to fight on your behalf. There is no 9th level spell that says "Pick a target you can see. It dies, no save."
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Power Word Kill does that against many possible threats. A mage who optimized for save DCs to the level a hypothetical initiator optimized for Sleight of Hand checks can do that as well, probably. However, the issue isn't with Vicious Tempest Volley. That maneuver is a volley of attacks that still need to deal with AC, wind wall, and the like. The problem maneuver is the boost that lets you automatically hit with all of them regardless. I agree with you on that point, and have just been informed that it's already being looked at by the devs.
If the topic is skill checks, though:
Eternal Guardian
Feat the Reaper is an Intimidate check vs attack roll to make them miss. "Make an attack miss you" is balanced at 2nd-level, was balanced (and not even the end-all and be-all) in 3.5, and will likely still be balanced here.
Grim Guard's Laughter is an AoE demoralize (not broken) and then a whirlwind attack. Whirlwind attacks are pretty weak unless the GM exclusively throws mooks at you. Not broken.
Unbearable Gaze is a weird Intimidate check vs 10 + their hit dice (likely higher than CR) + their wis mod (might be high, might not), and if you succeed, it either blinds them or does a fairly high amount of damage to them. I think that the damage on this one should be toned down a bit, since twice a skill check is a large chunk and very swingy.
Crushing Rebuke is an 8th-level counter that is Intimidate vs attack roll (read: autosucceed) to make them miss their attacks for a round. It's an awesome counter, and strong, but balanced. Casters were doing effectively the same thing since level 7 with Emergency Force Sphere.
Sleeping Goddess
Body of the Goddess' skill success is "halve damage on a single attack." That's fine at a 1st, since all rider effects still happen, and it's good design because it scales nicely and doesn't become useless the moment you get later maneuvers, I guess.
Twofold Assault is "succeed at a bull rush, drag, overrun, reposition, or trip". Not broken, kinda good in some cases, but you can optimize CMB to do that with full attacks and more than once per encounter.
Reverberations of Defeat is an AoE knockdown/shove/disarm, basically, assuming you succeed on a normal one. It's got good synergy with Twofold Assault, but it's a 5th-level maneuver, and you're not going to be standing next to the enemies to keep them down with AoOs, probably.
Covert Intrusion is "negate an attack or spell's effect on you, and give allies a temporary buff". The strong part of the maneuver is the buff to saves, and the negation is still fine.
Death of the Self removes you from the game for a round, and is a great negation effect, but also causes possible issues from the fact that you got shunted away from reality for a round. What if you were needed to AoO something, or block a square, or etc? Good maneuver, situationally dangerous.
Cursed Razor
Word of Retribution is a neat counter that hits them for however much they hit you for. It's balanced by the fact that if it's doing a huge amount of damage, you just took that much, and are likely in great danger.
Warlock's Mirror is an awesome high-level ability to redirect spells away from you and at enemies. Pretty great, definitely strong, but only as strong as the enemies attacking you, and overall, not really reliably broken.
Shattered Mirror
Left-Hand Strike is a craft check to deny them their shield bonus and do +1d6 damage. Passable for a level 1 strike.
Obsidian Razor Style is an amazing boost, but it's only amazing because it scales. At most levels, it's not particularly huge compared to other boost options.
Obsidian Sidestep is "you succeed at a save." This is fine. It's strong, but fine, overall.
Double-Team is really good and great damage, but it's also gated by being a single attack, needing to actually hit, and also being a 7th-level maneuver. Single attacks need the love compared to the option of full attacking, so this one's pretty fine as well.
Obsidian Negation is an 8th, opposed by a d20 roll that's a pretty decent bonus itself (CL + stat, often their casting stat), that negates a spell and makes them unable to use that thing. Great, but not overpowered.
Mithral Current
Flowing Creek I feel should be at 2nd instead of 1st. It's really really strong and probably a bit too strong there, but fits into the established way of doing things at 2nd.
Flowing Wake is really good, but it's not because of the skill check; it's because it's an attack + free trip attempt before the attack, which would already be really good on a 1st-level strike. Making the trip almost autosucceed probably makes it too good.
Flowing Stream is amazing; negate an attack and hit back. Probably fine at 5th, though.
Flowing River is the same, and I think it's probably two good. Basically an off-turn 4th-5th-level strike on top of the negate. Should be tweaked or higher level.
Riven Hourglass
Stopwatch is situationally amazing; great against things you can get away from, less good against big things and ranged attacks. It's a negate an attack at 2nd that doesn't always work, but sometimes works especially well. Balanced.
Wrath of Time is an 8th-level double-your-result damage blast. Blasting needs the love, the debuff is neat, and, again, it's an 8th-level strike. It's also not breaking anything with opposed checks.
Elemental Flux
Arcane Shield is a level 2 negate. Fine. Neat that it can be augmented to buff AC for a round.
Eldritch Consumption is a counterspell at 4th. Comparable to someone readying dispel magic, and heals you. The go-to negate a thing spell is also at 4th, and hits more than spells.
Redirecting Flux hijacks a spell or effect, which is cool, but only as good as the effect you're targeting. Pretty great, situationally amazing, but not broken.
Tempest Gale
The only real problem maneuever is Trick of the Wind. I'd go through the rest, but I need to go get dinner.
Overall, there are a few that need to be looked at, but most are fairly balanced, and pretty neat abilities that would be significantly less neat without the skill check. Using actual skill modifiers to go "your spell-identifying abilities let you twist a spell to target someone else" is cooler, at least to me, than a maneuver that just says that.
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Great post Forrestfire. I think you nailed it. Basically, only Trick of the Wind goes above and beyond what any of these skill based maneuvers should do.
And Aratrok, I am not saying that you shouldn't continue with your arguement, but you should keep in mind that ErrantX actually playtested these maneuvers with actual characters fighting monsters. He is not making assertions, he is giving you his opinion as designer after examining his results.
You are making assertions with no playtest data to back it. If you wish your arguments to hold water, I suggest you playtest the maneuvers you think are a problem and determine if they really do cause a problem.
As for my opinion on this issue: Yes, writing "you automatically succeed at X," is easy, but I want the reason for my success to be the fact that I invested in my discipline's skill. I very much like being rewarded for actually being acrobatic while using Thrashing Dragon.
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I've just read the April's Fools article on DSP and I'm still laughing. Well played, Andreas. ^^
They are cheap in the long run but they take up item slots and doubling up on effects on limited slots or making slot-less items gets expensive when you could be better buying or making items for more practical use.
The prevalence of Skill maneuvers is low in all disciplines, and done so intentionally in that rewards people for focus in the skill. Those that don't focus still are able to use the discipline and use it quite well to boot. If someone wants to spend their cash, feats, and skill points to be good at a handful of maneuvers, well, so be it. That's their right.
In the end, I think a simple fix would be to replace the skill roll with IL + IM as that would greatly limit the effectiveness of it as a house rule. I don't think it's the right choice, but it puts it more in line for what I think you're aiming for as far as balance and its hard to inflate your IL artificially.
-X
I'm well aware that the fighter is bad at their job, no one is an thing that. Nor is anyone arguing that the mage tossing around 9th level spells puts everything else to shame.
The point is, you as a designer are putting out a product in which one single reusable manuever completely outclasses a cannon class which invested several levels of resources and entire cannon feat lines. Why should I as a GM spend money on your product if I'm just going to have to house rule it down in power and get it back in line with? Maybe it works fine in your game the way you play, but your game isn't the important one, MINE is no?
As a designer, who wants my money, my game should be the concern. And as every game is indeed different, as a designer you should be basing power not only around what is good or bad, but what is published and constantly used in a PFRPG game as well, the core classes. I get that the project is a your baby, and no one wants their baby messed with. But you are attempting to sell this publication, so what you want, how you see things, may not be the best for it. As a rule of thumb, if I'm going to have to house rule anything as a consumer, it should be up in power, not down from what is published in the book.
For every group that knows the game inside out and can run numbers, there are infinitely more who haven't got a clue, who might only have had a core rulebook and a few others and hear good things about your product from word of mouth. Those are the people who will be hopefully buying your book as well. You should be catering to them to increase YOUR customer base. Not those of us who run numbers, and are going to buy the book regardless.
Though I do not share Skylancer's concerns overall, I could not agree more with his last paragraph.
It's the kind of comment I made constantly on the GitP forums about this project - you can't just say 'theses classes are bad, screw them', because then you're alienating your customers. DSP as a whole works well with canon material, integrating into it instead of just dismissing it.
After a lot of feedback, that is more or less how PoW ended up being - I remember how the initian version of Warlord basically had all of the Fighter's class abilities, more skill points and maneuvers, for example.
I'm confident that the same kind of changes will happen with PoW Expanded as well. This team has proved repeatedly that they listen to feedback and take it to heart.
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I'm confident that the same kind of changes will happen with PoW Expanded as well. This team has proved repeatedly that they listen to feedback and take it to heart.
Well...yeah. That's what public playtesting is for. It'd be a bit silly to dismiss everyone out of hand. Debate vigorously? Sure. Run numbers until our eyes bleed and we mumble uncontrollably in Latin? Definitely. Sacrifice goats on lonely altars marked with dried blood and ancient pain? You know it.
But ignore people? That'd be a bit dumb. At the very least it'd be a total waste of our time, considering the number of threads and communities we track and respond to.
I appreciate the kind words, my friend ^_^
Skylancer, I'm a bit confused by your point here. It seems to be "the Fighter and co. are poorly-designed and weak, so the developers of 3pp and further Pathfinder products must also design things equally poorly and weak to fit their power scale, otherwise the new players who have nothing to compare to won't buy the books."
However... I'm not sure I follow the logic. The guys at DSP have worked very hard to create a pile of worry-free options, where a new player can pick things on account of them looking cool and still come out balanced. That's the biggest goal of the Path of War system, as far as I'm aware: the ability to build a character using any of the options and still be competent. The books have classes and systems that scream "awesome and thematic" at the reader, and, from my experience with new players and Path of War, this is a good thing for them.
If they don't have a clue and don't care about running the numbers, then that means the developers need to try all the harder to make classes that are balanced around the Tier 3 area, where you get options that are pretty good, but not broken in either direction, and hopefully a lack of trap options (like the Fighter is filled with) to mislead new players thinking that they're picking something cool and then getting crushed.
I'm just not seeing where the logic goes from "Path of War is full of flavorful and thematic options that a bit stronger than the Fighter, which is currently in the basement as far as competency levels are concerned" (my words, here), to "and so, players who don't care about numbers won't buy the book." (yours)
There's a disconnect between the facts and your supposition, and I'm unable to find where the bridge between them is. If you could clarify your point a bit, that'd be great, since I'm just... not getting it, I guess.
This is where my question lies - why would people not want to buy that book if they don't know much about the game? I don't really understand your point here, especially as someone who did just that. Path of War isn't only for experienced players to create more balanced martial options in comparison to spellcasters, it is very much also for newbie players to look over and say 'Hey, I love customising my characters and this...
Now that I'm gaming again, I can answer this question with some of my own experiences with real life gaming groups.
I've joined a Pathfinder group a while ago, at the tail end of the original PoW's development. Our first session was an introduction for the two new players to the group, and Tome of Battle came up in conversation before the game started. The other new player - who I should mention has considerable experience with PFS and running Pathfinder games - immediately ranted about how overpowered ToB is, and used Ruby Knight Vindicator as the primary example of this. Not the maneuvers in general or the Warblade class, but Ruby Knight "Win"dicators.
Most of my groups do not allow 3pp, but the ones who do - even ones with skilled GMs - still very often have reactions of "you can do 20 damage at level 4 with a standard action with a min damage roll?!" or "you can do things out of turn?" sometimes just as a human reaction to big numbers and unfamiliar concepts, rather than comparing that against things like haste and natural attack sequences. When you have a product that a new player will perceive as being unbalanced, then what will happen is this: someone decides to bring this new celebrated book to a game and plays a harbringer. The DM goes through a predesigned campaign and the harbringer runs rough-shed through it, while the wizard doesn't have enough system mastery to know that Sleet Storm > Fireball. The GM gets surprised and goes "YOU CAN DO WHAT??!!!" and bans the book for being overpowered.
Then, that DM goes on the internet with a newfound hatred for PoW and spreads the word, and you end up with a reputation more scathing than Endgerzeist's reviews of the first PoW book. People like us who run numbers and have experience with wizards going full batman sees the book as "eh, that's just that", but even something as innocent as Warning Roar from the first books can raise eyebrows from newer GMs that aren't used to the idea that "a fighter can get immediate actions."
It does matter, because most Pathfinder GMs are going to be the inexperienced ones that are prone to making snap judgements. Why are magus so often decried on the forums, after all? It's because a shocking grasp magus pretty much builds itself, while a bog-standard fighter requires considerable system mastery to compete on an effective level. On most gaming tables this translates to "hey look, that magic man is somehow out-fighting the fighter! Clearly overpowered!" Coupled with the fact that newer players often won't deliberately build to match the optimization level of the party, and you end up with these snap judgments that taint the product as a whole.
There's also the phenomenon that a splatbook, one it becomes popular enough, is usually defined by its worst examples rather than its best ones. ToB was well-known in the online gaming forums for attempting to balance Martials against casters, and the book had plenty of impressive and balanced maneuvers like Insightful Strike, the Nightmare blades, White Raven Hammer, and such. You don't hear people talk about those, however - instead, the maneuvers that achieved meme status are Iron Heart Surge and White Raven Tactics (and to a lesser extent, the DS stance that spawned the 1d2 crusader). These became famous because "you can IHS the sun" and WRT can, thanks to a silly ruling, be used on yourself. Are any of these things relevant? Not really - no DM is going to let you IHS reality away, but it doesn't prevent those two maneuvers, along with stuff like Windicator, from dominating the public presence of Tome of Battle above and beyond the other parts of the book.
(Though on second thought, skill check vs. CMD is probably okay as long as the attack itself isn't too powerful. I'm still VERY iffy about Tempest Gale's ninth, though, as well as Trick of the Wind; those start outclassing PoW1 by a wide margin.)
EDIT: I should also add as a disclaimer that this isn't an argument for or against skill checks. I'm simply answering one question that shory posted, about why newer players would be concerned about (perceived) balance.
I agree with you on that. I'll go on record saying that I believe that PoW should not catered towards inexperienced GMs, and that it's 100% okay for the Warder and Warlord to completely obsolete the fighter like the inquisitor and magus already do.
I agree with you on that. I'll go on record saying that I believe that PoW should not catered towards inexperienced GMs, and that it's 100% okay for the Warder and Warlord to completely obsolete the fighter like the inquisitor and magus already do.
I wouldn't say "completely OK," but I would say that there isn't really another option. Dumbing the classes down to that level makes the product pointless, in my mind.
That said, like Tome of Battle before it, Path of War does do a decent job of also helping out existing martial classes. They're still shafted seven ways to Sunday, but if you have to be one, you'd rather Path of War be available than not.
I am going to be truthful. I am very disappointed as well. I would have preferred auto succeed to this. Then you balance around auto succeeding.
Well, they will (and, for the most part, have been) balanced around "basically auto succeed" – so really the question becomes, what's wrong with adding a tie-in to the associated skill and letting people enjoy the fruits of that dedication?
Groups with little experience is the worst argument against the skill using maneuvers. Because they would say "A skill check? Well you can fail that, I guess this maneuver is okay". And they would be right, because it takes a lot of min-maxing to go around making items that give +10 bonus to a skill just because of a couple maneuvers. If it was auto succeed they would take one look and say "No, nope, screw that, banned, ban forever"
Groups with little experience is the worst argument against the skill using maneuvers. Because they would say "A skill check? Well you can fail that, I guess this maneuver is okay". And they would be right, because it takes a lot of min-maxing to go around making items that give +10 bonus to a skill just because of a couple maneuvers. If it was auto succeed they would take one look and say "No, nope, screw that, banned, ban forever"
Little experience doesn't mean completely incompetent or oblivious. Skill checks can be boosted numerous ways, many more ways than combat maneuvers. Ways that require much less investment for the return given once put into combat scenarios, no matter what PFRPG class you are playing.
The fighter is a badly designed class for what it is supposed to be, we all understand that. Bad design is an excuse for an exploitable design, just because it is "new and exciting"? One that obliterates the need for entire core combat feat lines?
I can't get behind that idea, sorry.
You can make "new and exciting" not completely destroy the need for core rules and classes. Make it so it is different and maybe more powerful, but not so overwhelmingly better than those options that they aren't even really options anymore. A late single level dip gets you a maneuver that can be made to never fail and reusable with recovery.
Why would you ever take those combat feats again? There is no reason to now. Or are combat manuever feat lines just more "poor design"?
I want to stress, I am not against the mechanic itself. My issue with it lies solely on how easy it is to make auto success happen. Normally something like that takes investment or comes from a limited pool of resources, not this. They are already removing anything resembling "trap options" which is good, they have made the system mastery ceiling ridiculously low with the classes and abilities (to the point you could probably throw available maneuvers in a hat and pull them at random and still get a workable character creation), which isn't problem either. How much further do you need to push the already very good options past the normal core? Why does it need to completely out class and out play core feats to do what it is designed to? Because that is exactly what it does.
Or are combat manuever feat lines just more "poor design"?
Yes they are. Not to mention they became lines when they were single feats in 3.5, two to three feats gets you maybe 50% chance of success versus non-humanoid opponents. If that's not poor design, what is?
to the point you could probably throw available maneuvers in a hat and pull them at random and still get a workable character creation
And that's a bad thing?
Try that with core wizard, you'd be surprised. Or better, cleric or druid. Don't like your pull? Duh, change it next morning.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The fighter is a badly designed class for what it is supposed to be, we all understand that. Bad design is an excuse for an exploitable design, just because it is "new and exciting"? One that obliterates the need for entire core combat feat lines?
I can't get behind that idea, sorry.
In what way does it obliterate the need for core feat lines? These are ranged combat maneuvers. You can't even make a ranged combat maneuver attempt in core pathfinder, and these maneuvers can't be used with melee attacks anyway, meaning that melee characters still need those feats to perform combat maneuvers.
You can make "new and exciting" not completely destroy the need for core rules and classes. Make it so it is different and maybe more powerful, but not so overwhelmingly better than those options that they aren't even really options anymore. A late single level dip gets you a maneuver that can be made to never fail and reusable with recovery.
And? That's the point of Path of War, to make good, solid, consistently successful options available to martial characters, because those options don't exist in Pathfinder.
Why would you ever take those combat feats again? There is no reason to now. Or are combat manuever feat lines just more "poor design"?
They are poor design, very poor design. You can see the calculations for their success chance here. Even the Lorewarden fighter, with their insane +8 bonus to all CMB checks barely achieves an 80% success chance with their favored maneuvers against the average CMD of CR equivalent enemies. That means that the majority of their combat maneuver checks are going to fail. And Lorewardens are arguably the best case scenario for a CMB focused character. If you cut out any of those bonuses you can kiss your success chance goodbye.
So of course we don't think that's an appropriate way to handle Combat Maneuvers. Because we want our players who invested time and money in our product, and character resources into their abilities, to be good at what they do. Their choices should pay off.
I want to stress, I am not against the mechanic itself. My issue with it lies solely on how easy it is to make auto success happen. Normally something like that takes investment or comes from a limited pool of resources, not this. They are already removing anything resembling "trap options" which is good, they have made the system mastery ceiling ridiculously low with the classes and abilities (to the point you could probably throw available maneuvers in a hat and pull them at random and still get a workable character creation), which isn't problem either. How much further do you need to push the already very good options past the normal core? Why does it need to completely out class and out play core feats to do what it is designed to? Because that is exactly what it does.
The more of your argument I read, the less I believe this statement. It really is starting to sound like your complaint is "its easy to build a strong character that's effective in multiple situations and that's wrong!"
Let's really put this in perspective, though. You're complaining that Tempest Gale gives someone a 100% chance to do weapon damage + some d6s and knock an enemy on their butt. The skill check isn't killing anyone, it isn't opening rifts in reality or summoning a choir of angels, or even creating a hail of fireballs. It is tripping them, knocking their weapon out of their hand, or pushing them backwards. If they died as a result of the maneuver, it wasn't from the skill check vs. CMD, it was from the damage your character invested in doing since level 1.
Skill check maneuvers are not auto successes unless you invest character resources into them. Are these resources less than you would need in order to be equally successful going the normal route? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not, because the normal route is terrible.
Groups with little experience is the worst argument against the skill using maneuvers. Because they would say "A skill check? Well you can fail that, I guess this maneuver is okay". And they would be right, because it takes a lot of min-maxing to go around making items that give +10 bonus to a skill just because of a couple maneuvers. If it was auto succeed they would take one look and say "No, nope, screw that, banned, ban forever"
I included a disclaimer that my post is entirely to answer a question about why new DMs would care about perceived balance. It is not meant to argue for or against skill checks, or anything else that people have raised in this thread. I even stated that I believe PoW shouldn't cater to the perceptions of newer groups.
Having said that, though, this line of argument is a bit insulting to newer players. People are going to react to what's happening during gameplay, not just run through a game with just their initial judgments like a post-training decision tree. That's why we still have newer people calling stuff like Zen Archer, Thug + Enforcer, or Magus overpowered - because big numbers and success rates in actual gameplay in comparison to their friends' actual, under-optimized fighters.
And you can't really argue that a +10 bonus to skill item is high optimization - no more than how a cloak of resistance or a +3 sword is.
Skill check maneuvers are not auto successes unless you invest character resources into them. Are these resources less than you would need in order to be equally successful going the normal route? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not, because the normal route is terrible.
Elric, I have a question - what is the damage differential between a moderately optimized archer using Tempest Gale's 9th vs. a moderately optimized 2H warlord using, say, Primal Fury's 9th (highest damage general-purpose maneuver I can find in base) fron your playtests? From my perspective, it seems that TG's 9th is significantly stronger than even the damage-oriented maneuvers in the base Path of War book, and I would like to have that fear assuaged if possible.
My other concern with the 9th is with its lockdown potential. Trip is good but not game-breaking, but Dirty Trick can be piled on the same target multiple times with different effects - enough to effectively render the target completely helpless and force him/her to take a standard to undo it all (and a move to stand up). From what I remember, concerns over lockdown was why riders like the "no save, just lose (1d4 round stun on successful save)" was removed from Scarlet Throne's 9th during playtesting in the original, and I feel a bit weird about reintroducing it in lesser form.
I'm just wondering if it would be better to limit it to one maneuver per target; thus, the maneuver would still be able to trip or disarm a foe, but it won't be able to stack dirty tricks until the target is basically too crippled to do anything and deal very high damage with the same turn.
Skill check maneuvers are not auto successes unless you invest character resources into them. Are these resources less than you would need in order to be equally successful going the normal route? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not, because the normal route is terrible.Elric, I have a question - what is the damage differential between a moderately optimized archer using Tempest Gale's 9th vs. a moderately optimized 2H warlord using, say, Primal Fury's 9th (highest damage general-purpose maneuver I can find in base)? From my perspective, it seems that TG's 9th is significantly stronger than even the damage-oriented maneuvers in the base Path of War book, and I would like to have that fear assuaged if possible.
My other concern with the 9th is with its lockdown potential. Trip is good but not game-breaking, but Dirty Trick can be piled on the same target multiple times with different effects - enough to effectively render the target completely helpless and force him/her to take a standard to undo it all (and a move to stand up). From what I remember, concerns over lockdown was why riders like the "no save, just lose (1d4 round stun on successful save)" was removed from Scarlet Throne's 9th during playtesting in the original, and I feel a bit weird about reintroducing it in lesser form.
I'm just wondering if it would be better to limit it to one maneuver per target; thus, the maneuver would still be able to trip or disarm a foe, but it won't be able to stack dirty tricks until the target is basically too crippled to do anything and deal very high damage with the same turn.
The damage differential isn't significant, we're rolling back the number of attacks, it's just a full attack now instead of initiation modifier attacks. A Dual Wielding Primal Fury master using the 9th could get off 8 attacks (4 iteratives, 1 haste, 3 TWF) plus any natural weapons they have, all with +4d6 to each attack. The TG 9th will be giving about the same number of attacks, (4 iteratives, Rapid Shot, Haste, Manyshot, Solar Wind 8th level stance), but one of those won't be getting a damage bonus (manyshot) and they can't stack natural attacks on to the full attacks.
Lockdown potential is the point of Tempest Gale. If you can pile on a full attack's worth of archery onto a single target and they can survive that, then you probably want them locked down pretty harshly. I'd consider that a poor strategy generally speaking, but that's more due to my DMing experiences and knowing that single creature encounters are kind of a joke.
The damage differential isn't significant, we're rolling back the number of attacks, it's just a full attack now instead of initiation modifier attacks. A Dual Wielding Primal Fury master using the 9th could get off 8 attacks (4 iteratives, 1 haste, 3 TWF) plus any natural weapons they have, all with +4d6 to each attack. The TG 9th will be giving about the same...
I see, that's very reassuring. I don't think I have any more concerns with the Tempest Gale 9th after that change.
Trick of the Wind does double-apply bonuses (to both skill checks and attack rolls), but I think that's something I'll get used to with enough time. Overall, I really like the Tempest Gale discipline, especially now that I don't have to be stuck with just Solar Wind and Silver Crane for archery.
Thanks :).
Meh, whatever, I've stated my problem with the mechanic you are putting into place. If you truly believe that the melee and feat system is so horrible that you need to redesign and replace it, the more power to you. I personally think, as a new to the "game" publisher (as in publishing works for purchase instead of homebrew forum material) you would be much better off being more "cautious" and getting acceptance for quality work that plays well with the existing rule set instead of implementing sweeping changes that nullify portions of the rule set. Gaining acceptance can be hard for 3pp for numerous reasons, not the least of which is "balance" issues. Typically the more you push the envelope the smaller your potential customer base is.
You already have my money so I'll just wish you the best.
PS. It is a game, sometimes failing at something is a good thing, I never understood the whole "the PCs must be good at all things and succeed at everything" mentality. I personally feel, rolling the dice should have some substantial possibility of failure, otherwise what is the point? When the unexpected happens it just increases the opportunities for roleplaying and to make things more interesting. I realize I may be in the minority on that though.
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The Wizard does not fail at rending reality. Why should the Zealot fail at knocking an attack away or tripping somebody? They've both invested the same amount of time, effort and funds into being good at what they do. And, to me, "being good at what you do" means you don't fail 20+% of the time.
Anyway, that's all I have to add to that argument.
@DSP folks: Just wanted to let you guys know I adore what you do. Do you have any intentions on adding further Initiating archetypes for Paizo classes (such as the Bloodrager or maybe even the Bard)?
@DSP folks: Just wanted to let you guys know I adore what you do. Do you have any intentions on adding further Initiating archetypes for Paizo classes (such as the Bloodrager or maybe even the Bard)?
The bloodrager and most of the ACG classes are going to have to wait until another PoW book, as we feel that they aren't quite... done enough to write archetypes for. The Warpriest and Investigator are exceptions to this because of the nature of the PoW content we have planned for them. The Bard will have an archetype, but its still very much under construction.