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Opportunity cost will always be an issue, but I think it is a positive aspect (for players, not always GMs) that we now have a plethora of ways to do pretty much the same thing. That way you can make pretty much everybody happy.
I'm not commenting on if its a good thing or a bad thing, but it does mean that the vast majority of fighters would be better off as something else these days. Using a generic class to do something specific rarely works as well as using the specific thing for it (a few exceptions come to mind)
I am not arguing, that Fighters are sometimes the perfect tool for the job, but I tend to value the versatility of the Brawler somewhat higher (thus liking the archetype that makes Fighters more ...brawlery).
If its not the perfect tool for the job then why use anything less? A multitool is great for just about anything but a hammer, but if you're making a saw then make a saw. (I suppose in this example sponsored by home depot the brawler would be a kit of portable battery powered flashlight/skillsaw/circularsaw combos..)
However I think that PFS with its varied party compositions and challenges does make versatility a substantially better option.
Versatility in a character yes. (which is what i think what you're saying) But versatility in a class doesn't neccesarily translate into that.
Now Paizo just give me some decent animal companion alternatives - I mean ways for my ac to contribute without annoying David
If you've got a wish that big try world peace first...
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You're erroneously trying to assert that because you would never use Y, on your build, then improving Y does not improve the class.
And what I'll further assert is that if your 8th-level sorcerer would care about a double-damage buff to their Elemental Ray bloodline SLA then your sorcerer is not relevant to class balance discussions.
And still further, I will assert that you're getting so hung up on nitpicking examples that you're missing the relevant discussion of general concepts.
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If you want a croissant and have the option between the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker ... well it isn't a hard choice.
Mmmmm...meat croissants.
- Don't expect others to spend their actions healing/buffing you, especially once you activated your rage and charged into melee.
I got a kick out of this one. My barbarian has the Superstitious Rage Power so buffing after I go into rage...not so much. Good thing he averages 15HP per level.
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Are you suggesting that since your 8th level sorcerer gets no benefit form a double damage SLA, then no other Sorcerer is going to benefit from it? Because if you can't make that assertion, then you've improved the class.
No. It may have improved a horrible character but it did not improve the class.
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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Agreed, quite a number of specific character concepts can these days be better realized as a specific class - of course once archetypes come into play that comparison becomes really hard.
The newest ranged toolbox thingy, has a number of feats I really would not want all the time, but I enjoy having the option to get them on a temporary basis ( I really like martial versatility, but I feel, that it is an excuse to create more niche material.
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There can be value in specialization, in Pathfinder and concerning ranged combat in particular, you really have to invest in 4-5 feats to make the most of it. And fighters have access to some of the better ones.
Brawlers can get teamwork feats (if they are also combat feats) and hunter can change their latest teamwork feat a number of times per day, there is definitely value there.
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Players have to be versatile, but characters tend to benefit too. Changing teamwork or combat feats to adapt to the situation can be very rewarding.
I would strongly advise against taking something like improved disarm in PFS, depending on the scenarios offered in your lodge, it might never be a decent option.
But if you can "just" spend a move action to get it, go for it ^^
Now Paizo just give me some decent animal companion alternatives - I mean ways for my ac to contribute without annoying DavidIf you've got a wish that big try world peace first...
I am 100 percent sure, that it can be done, maybe with some kind of incorporeal ghost AC... my first PFS character was supposed to be a primal companion hunter (a lovely memento to my WOW Hunter, I played that one for ...years) and I am still salty that it is not allowed.
I blame the devs for that one, since it is A: very unclear and B: too strong. What I wouldn't give for a PFS legal, sane option. .... I might one day just recreate the concept as a Summoner, that will be so much more balanced..|
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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If you want a croissant and have the option between the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker ... well it isn't a hard choice.Mmmmm...meat croissants.
- Don't expect others to spend their actions healing/buffing you, especially once you activated your rage and charged into melee.I got a kick out of this one. My barbarian has the Superstitious Rage Power so buffing after I go into rage...not so much. Good thing he averages 15HP per level.
Meat croissant is entirely possible, you just have to prepare some kind of meat paste (the kind they use for meat love, or in Germany Leberkäse) put it in the oven, layer it properly and fold it.
But I tend to make Sushi a lot, so that kinda comes with the territory, once you make Sushi for 20 people, some without fish, some without seeweed, some without wasabi, some made mostly out of wasabi ....
So yeah, challenges are there to be beaten.
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And I sometimes had so say to fellow players "If you go and charge into that room, I am not going to rush to your aid with the wand of CLW...". But some players come to the conclusion, that since their AC won't be great, they can pretty much ignore it.
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I said every build summed and averaged determines the performance of a class i.e. how robust it is.The class performance is a sum of all the builds that are possible under it.No. Harsk is not a reflection of the power level of the ranger class.
You are wrong. You can do terrible things with your build that are not the class's fault, and that there's no good reason for the class to account for. Stupid-proofing a class does not make it more "robust".
I'm not talking about peak power.
Neither am I. Your continued belief that I am supports my assertion that you completely missed my points and misinterpreted my examples.
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I said every build summed and averaged determines the performance of a class i.e. how robust it is.The class performance is a sum of all the builds that are possible under it.No. Harsk is not a reflection of the power level of the ranger class.You are wrong. You can do terrible things with your build that are not the class's fault, and that there's no good reason for the class to account for. Stupid-proofing a class does not make it more "robust".
I'm not talking about peak power.Neither am I. Your continued belief that I am supports my assertion that you completely missed my points and misinterpreted my examples.
Int 9 Wizards would certainly drag down the average.
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Your bringing up Harsk says otherwise. But I'm eager to hear what you think I've misunderstood.
You're using your definition in what he said in order to show that he's wrong. The problem is that your definition isn't the only one, isn't in common parlance in the community, and really doesn't make a lot of sense.
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And 60-110 is still vastly more balanced than 1-100.
But the problem with power creep is NOT only (or even primarily) in the differences between two equally well optimized characters.
1) the power difference between a well optimized and poorly optimized character increases. People are STILL building rogues.
2) as power increases, older products (modules, scenarios, etc etc) become less and less challenging
3) as scenarios evolve to increase their difficulty, weaker characters get even less effective
Within a given class, there's a range of power levels.
Sure. But lots of options DO increase the power level.
As an example, take the spirit talker feat. Even the most slumber hex spamming witch (which I presume you'd agree is a top tier character) gains considerably from that, even if they're only using it to pick up emergency force sphere.
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You haven't boosted a class's true power level until you've upped the cap of the most powerful thing it can do (either make it more powerful, or make it more plentiful).I'm eager to read your explanation on how you aren't talking about peak power here.
Simple: I was speaking much more broadly than you seem to be.
When I said "the most powerful thing it can do", I was talking about (for example) the sorcerer's ability to cast spells in general, as opposed to its various non-spellcasting-related powers.
When I said "the most powerful thing it can do", I was speaking at the class level (which should have been clear from context). So, broad things like "the ability to cast spells". You seem to have taken it to mean something waaaaay more specific and build-dependent than I meant.
That's why I suggested you slow down. Take the whole thing in context. I was talking about classes, so that context shows that "the most powerful thing [the class] can do" is referring to a class feature, not a specific build. If you'd taken the time to digest instead of pouncing on individual sentences without seeing where they fit in the whole post, you might have seen that.
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@NN 959
Summing up ALL builds for a class makes wizards arguably the worst class. There are a lot of builds with INT 8, or picking no spells, or picking the absolute worst spells, etc.
Heck, if you just randomized spell selection wizards would be a quite poor class. And getting worse with every new book.
And there are lots of potential abilities that you can give that are, for all practical purposes, all but useless. You just have to look at some archetypes or feats to see this.
Let's say we gave wizards a +1 per 5 levels to damage done by striking an enemy in combat with a non magical dagger. Obviously, that is a benefit. I can even come up with a bizarre edge case where it might come up. But it does NOT noticeably increase the power of a wizard
Edit: altered for clarity
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I have to say I really don't understand the obsession with class balance. The only way it makes sense is if you're coming at it from a competitive angle rather than a cooperative one. It's treating Pathfinder as a zero sum game where everyone's fighting over kills or skill check totals. "If your Barbarian kills 36 of the NPCs in this AP then that only leaves 24 for my Rogue."
It also trivializes the support roles, which is ironic, since they can actually have the most impact on the game from a pure numbers perspective.
If my Bard can create double the damage of a Fighter and Barbarian, does that make her OP?
I only care about two things with respect to class balance:
Does the class do it well enough?
Does the class do it too well?
'Well enough' is easy to measure. Look at the monster creation table, pick some CR+2 (or whatever, depending on your standards) and see if you can hit your numbers.
'Too well' is far more subjective, but can be quantified if need be. Take all the classes that do your 'thing' (spellcasting, hitting stuff with other stuff, disabling devices, etc.). Stack them up (here are the Save DCs I can reasonably achieve, here's my average DPR, etc.). If one exceeds the rest by an agreed-upon number of standard deviations, it should probably be scaled back.
The problem is now that we're well beyond Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard, there are very few classes that just do one thing. But that really only matters if one player is feeling protective over his perceived role.
If I'm playing a Rogue, I don't care if the Slayer does more damage. I don't care if the Investigator can handle more skill checks. I only care if I can't meet my goals.*
The secret to my happiness? My goal isn't to be the best.
If I'm playing bridge, my goal isn't to take the most tricks. It's to win the game with my partner. Pathfinder's a team game. Revel in your teammates' success. Don't be the guy coveting kill counts.
*I can't. It's why I don't like Rogues.
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Lets just end the arguements with this.
If the player is having fun, is not causing any issues and the character meshes well, there is nothign to be done.
A min maxed character is great and all, but a truly one of a kind, bizare character with a lot of flavorful feats and traits is going to add a lot more than just dice damage.
Its about a story after all, if your character is a cardboard cutout with a death ray strapped to it, then you might want to rethink it a bit and flesh it out.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Lets just end the arguements with this.
If the player is having fun, is not causing any issues and the character meshes well, there is nothign to be done.
A min maxed character is great and all, but a truly one of a kind, bizare character with a lot of flavorful feats and traits is going to add a lot more than just dice damage.
Its about a story after all, if your character is a cardboard cutout with a death ray strapped to it, then you might want to rethink it a bit and flesh it out.
You appear to be contradicting yourself. First you say that everything's fine as long as fun is happening without being disruptive, but then you say that everything's not fine if you're a cookie-cutter killer.
What if the player is having fun and meshing well with their cardboard cutout deathcannon without causing any issues? Is there "nothing to be done" or should they "rethink it a bit"? Which is it?
You've got to abandon one of your two claims, because they're contradictory to each other.
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But it does NOT noticeably increase the power of a wizardDefine "power" for me in the context of an RPG? Or rather, show me the definition of power that all the class developers subscribe to and I may concede the point.
I gave you a concrete example that you carefully snipped. Look at that and then maybe you'll concede the point.
By the way, I don't really care how the developers define power. I care about how the people I play with and I myself define it. It has long been clear that many Paizo developers define power differently than a great many people posting here do.
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I gave you a concrete example that you carefully snipped. Look at that and then maybe you'll concede the point.
No, you described some mechanical change and then made a qualitative assertion that power was not "noticeably" increased, but offered no metric for when things become noticeable. That isn't a definition of power. That's just an unverifiable assertion.
I honestly haven't a clue what point you're trying to make.
If you're saying that I don't have a scientific way to exactly measure power then, uh, yeah. You're right. Clearly power level has a very large subjective side to it. As does the criteria for what is significant.
That said, I'm pretty sure that just about everybody agrees that some power gains ate so trivial as to be almost irrelevant.
My example is, I believe, one such case. Clearly it is a power gain but I doubt that anybody would think it a noticeable one. I'm pretty sure that if you thought it to be significant, you'd have said so.
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My two cents on this conversation are as follows:
First, the book has been a major success in my area. The additional options have promoted many people to create and play new characters. This creates more low level pfs tables in which a new player can join easily enough.
Second, the top tier classes are still top tier but they do have a new member in the arcanist. My personal experience is that wizards and arcanists seem to be pretty close in power. Sorcerers were always a fair distance behind wizards and this really has not changed.
Third, the classes at the bottom (*fighters / rogues*) are still at the bottom. People do play them, but mostly with "fun" builds. Even then, I have seen a human fighter archer do remarkable damage in pfs thou.
So in conclusion, I do think the ACG has been a good book despite the very high number of errors in the book.
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I'm enjoying my two bloodragers (one PFS, one going through Reign of Winter) and my hunter immensely.
The PFS bloodrager is a human abyssal rageshaper 9, who specializes in reach combat. The free enlarge when going into rage enables me to have a huge area of control. I'm also using a very situational feat Bear's Balance which allows me to substitute a fear effect with going into rage when I'm not raging, and it has been fun to ignore the paralysing fear of a mummy and just become large and start tearing into it.
My favorite spell to use is blade lash, which allows me to execute a trip attack with an extra +10 bonus (or even +30 if I cast true strike in the round before as well) at a 20 ft. range, even if I'm medium sized instead of large.
My bloodrager had gone large during the first fight, but due to there being an interlude I had dropped the rage and was fatigued for a few rounds when the next wave started. One of the other players had just progressed into Living Monolith and responded to the attack with, I swift enlarge and ..., upon which the GM looks at us and groans; "Wait, there's two of you who can do that?"
The Reign of Winter bloodrager is a human silver dragon steelblood 1, who has gotten DM fiat to progress my draconic bloodline with dragon disciple. Since we've just started I'm still in the "I'm a barbarian with 2 less hitpoints" state :).
My hunter is a concept I had lying around for a long while, namely a Mammoth Rider. While I had several methods of progressing until the prestige class, when the hunter came out it was almost a dream come true.
A very easy way to create a character who fights alongside or astride his companion and actually has a load of class features that benefit both of them. The teamworkfeats are extremely useful and the ability to switch out one on the fly (standard action) to grab one that's more useful in that time are jummy, while the spells and the animal focus are simply the icing on the cake.
I've gone through the entire thornkeep dungeon with her, while having an armored mammoth companion all the way. At first it was a simple wooden armor, then it was upgraded to a breastplate, and now finally she's wearing a fullplate and is large, with a dire collar allowing her to become huge once/day for a minute.
Another one was attacking a swarm by having the mammoth roll over them (the GM allowed it because there was a certain object attached to her back which shattered and caused damage to both mammoth and swarm)
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I really like my hunter, I don't feel over powered, but I feel versatile and effective. I've built myself as a switch hitter and really finding the teamwork feats shinning, to the point I'm working into the build teamwork feats into standard feat slots.
The Bloodrager in our party does sometimes crush things to a pulp before I can look at them, but that is barbarians in general.
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Lets just end the arguements with this.
If the player is having fun, is not causing any issues and the character meshes well, there is nothign to be done.
A min maxed character is great and all, but a truly one of a kind, bizare character with a lot of flavorful feats and traits is going to add a lot more than just dice damage.
Its about a story after all, if your character is a cardboard cutout with a death ray strapped to it, then you might want to rethink it a bit and flesh it out.
You appear to be contradicting yourself. First you say that everything's fine as long as fun is happening without being disruptive, but then you say that everything's not fine if you're a cookie-cutter killer.
What if the player is having fun and meshing well with their cardboard cutout deathcannon without causing any issues? Is there "nothing to be done" or should they "rethink it a bit"? Which is it?
You've got to abandon one of your two claims, because they're contradictory to each other.
I assumed that it was pretty clear, not EVERYONE enjoys playing with a cookie cutter death ray. The fact remains, if the table is okay with it, then thats fine, but sometimes, you really shouldn't do that. Kinda like not wearing any pants.
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I assumed that it was pretty clear, not EVERYONE enjoys playing with a cookie cutter death ray. The fact remains, if the table is okay with it, then thats fine, but sometimes, you really shouldn't do that. Kinda like not wearing any pants.Lets just end the arguements with this.
If the player is having fun, is not causing any issues and the character meshes well, there is nothign to be done.
A min maxed character is great and all, but a truly one of a kind, bizare character with a lot of flavorful feats and traits is going to add a lot more than just dice damage.
Its about a story after all, if your character is a cardboard cutout with a death ray strapped to it, then you might want to rethink it a bit and flesh it out.
You appear to be contradicting yourself. First you say that everything's fine as long as fun is happening without being disruptive, but then you say that everything's not fine if you're a cookie-cutter killer.
What if the player is having fun and meshing well with their cardboard cutout deathcannon without causing any issues? Is there "nothing to be done" or should they "rethink it a bit"? Which is it?
You've got to abandon one of your two claims, because they're contradictory to each other.
What? You're knocking my hobbies now? ;-)
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Human Shaman
Unique spell list (corrected)
FCB choose cleric 1 level lower than you can cast
You choose 1 base spirit to start (think Oracle Mystery). Eventually, you choose a second rotating spirit as well (a second Mystery), so you can basically pick the spirit with the spells/abilities that best suit your situation that day/scenario.
Then at L6, with Spirit Talker, you can poach a hex (think Oracle Revelation) from ANY spirit:
Lore spirit/Arcane Enlightenment Hex: Shaman can add a number of spells from the sorcerer/wizard spell list = to CHA mod. Must have INT high enough to cast. DCs based on WIS, treated as divine spells.
With your FCB, you're cherry picking the best cleric spells. With the rotating spirit you're super flexible with your situational spell access. With Spirit Talker, you just take Arcane Enlightenment every day (if Lore is not your base spirit) and choose the wizard spells you want.
The Shaman can be the casting-equivalent of a Brawler.
ETA: On top of all the spell access, they also can pick Witch Hexes like Slumber, Misfortune & Fortune.
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Bloodrager has left me cold; it still feels more like a barbarian archetype than a conceptually distinct class. Shaman I simply can't wrap my head around; I don't imagine I will until I actually play one.
The rest, though, I really like. I've played arcanists, warpriests, swashbucklers, hunters and investigators in actual play, and I have built a slayer and a skald as well (haven't gotten to play them yet, though). While I haven't actually played or built a brawler yet either, I really think I'll enjoy it when I do; as I've been playing through Iron Gods, I keep imagining how well the brawler would work in that context.