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To me as a DM, Slayer has the potential to be the most annoying class ever.
Any class that knows how many hit points my BBEG has at any given time is going to give me a sad face.
"What, you wanted him to be a recurring villain? Well, I know he started the round with 58 hit points and the barbarian just raged his face with a 62 point crit. Too bad, bud. Maybe he has a twin."
This can actually go bad for the GM two ways.
1. "OK, guys, he's got like 30 HP left. Fry him."
2. "Sorry, guys, he's got like 400 HP. Brace for TPK."
Can't bump up the HP to keep a fight long enough not to be an anticlimax, can't let the boss be surprisingly close to death when you miscalculate and he devastated the party and is still going strong.
On the other hand, for PCs it's a terribly useful talent to have some idea if you're doing at all well in the fight and if you are at the point you can grind the enemy down or if you've gotta bust some serious power to drop this guy anytime soon. Since enemies don't give any indication how much health they've got left until they're dead, it can be handy to know that the thing the wizard's about to throw his last fireball at can be dropped with an Acid Splash instead.
I'm with most of this. I almost never fool with HP, but it's nice to have the option - the two times I have done so in Carrion Crown, the players considered them some of the best fights in the campaign. And I started rolling save-or-die saves in front of the players a while back, and that's gone great. :)
As for slayers and enemy HP, I always wanted to team one up with a Power Word-loving wizard, ever since the Player's Handbook II and Races of the Dragon.
I find the class in general to be a bit bland... but as they say, it's not a bug, it's a feature. :)
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Any class that knows how many hit points my BBEG has at any given time is going to give me a sad face.
"What, you wanted him to be a recurring villain? Well, I know he started the round with 58 hit points and the barbarian just raged his face with a 62 point crit. Too bad, bud. Maybe he has a twin."
Gygax forbid players actually achieve a flawless victory, right? It’s a GM’s right to keep a fight going until you judge they’ve suffered enough.
But seriously, if Paizo ever publishes a class or archetype that forces GMs to roll their dice in the open, I will play that and nothing else forevermore.
They already did, it was Dual Cursed Oracle with Misfortune. (Need to be able to see the d20 roll to know if you want to force the reroll or not.)
To me as a DM, Slayer has the potential to be the most annoying class ever.
Any class that knows how many hit points my BBEG has at any given time is going to give me a sad face.
"What, you wanted him to be a recurring villain? Well, I know he started the round with 58 hit points and the barbarian just raged his face with a 62 point crit. Too bad, bud. Maybe he has a twin."
This can actually go bad for the GM two ways.
1. "OK, guys, he's got like 30 HP left. Fry him."
2. "Sorry, guys, he's got like 400 HP. Brace for TPK."
Can't bump up the HP to keep a fight long enough not to be an anticlimax, can't let the boss be surprisingly close to death when you miscalculate and he devastated the party and is still going strong.
On the other hand, for PCs it's a terribly useful talent to have some idea if you're doing at all well in the fight and if you are at the point you can grind the enemy down or if you've gotta bust some serious power to drop this guy anytime soon. Since enemies don't give any indication how much health they've got left until they're dead, it can be handy to know that the thing the wizard's about to throw his last fireball at can be dropped with an Acid Splash instead.
I'm with most of this. I almost never fool with HP, but it's nice to have the option - the two times I have done so in Carrion Crown, the players considered them some of the best fights in the campaign. And I started rolling save-or-die saves in front of the players a while back, and that's gone great. :)
As for slayers and enemy HP, I always wanted to team one up with a Power Word-loving wizard, ever since the Player's Handbook II and Races of the Dragon.
That ability as written is definitely a non-starter for me. If a player ever wanted to take that I'd modify it so that the player could learn a general percentage of an enemy's remaining health, "Yeah he looks really beat up, he's probably only at 25% of his normal peak ability" but not actual hit point count. Hit points are just too much of a game mechanic abstraction to try to convey with any logic within an in character context.
I'm a big fan of the Slayer because I'm a fan of skillful, scout-y, combat-capable skirmishing hitters with the mechanical flexibility to build them in any tactical variation I choose.
Slayer does this FANTASTICALLY.
And the fact that we have a non-barbarian, non-spellcaster who can excel across a number of roles and encounter types is completely awesome.
... if Paizo ever publishes a class or archetype that forces GMs to roll their dice in the open, I will play that and nothing else forevermore.They already did, it was Dual Cursed Oracle with Misfortune. (Need to be able to see the d20 roll to know if you want to force the reroll or not.)
Is...is it Christmas?
I really would like to see a damage comparison of the fighter and the slayer. I suspect the fighter would come out ahead. One sneak attack die per every 3 levels isn't the greatest thing ever. Sneak attack is already pretty limited and the slayer's doesn't hit that hard when it does hit.
Meanwhile the fighter has his two-handed falcata critz-plosion build.
I really would like to see a damage comparison of the fighter and the slayer. I suspect the fighter would come out ahead. One sneak attack die per every 3 levels isn't the greatest thing ever. Sneak attack is already pretty limited and the slayer's doesn't hit that hard when it does hit.
Meanwhile the fighter has his two-handed falcata critz-plosion build.
assuming the Fighter and the Slayer both spec for damage as hard as possible...
At level 20 with all their goodies and no archetypes, they both can carry a two-handed weapon with 1.5 Strength Bonus, Magic Weapon Enhancement, the same sorts of weapons (for these purposes we'll say a Falchion toting Improved Critical), with the same BAB meaning the same Power Attack bonuses.
in damage the fighter has +4 from qualifying for Weapon Specialization and Greater Weapon Specialization, +4 from Weapon Training, and a potential +2 from Gloves of Dueling boosting their Weapon Training. And at level 20, Weapon Mastery significantly boosts damage output with their 15-20 crit range, taking their average damage from 28 hits worth of damage per 20 actual hits to 32 hits worth of damage per 20 actual hits. For accuracy they get +1 from Greater Weapon Focus, +4 from Weapon Training, and a potential +2 from the Gloves. Totaling +10 damage that the slayer can't access, +7 to hit that the Slayer cant access, and a difficult to quantify boost to critical hit damage (and of course qualification for the mighty Critical Mastery)
the Slayer, for damage, has an average of +21 from 6d6 Sneak Attack that isnt multiplied on a critical hit and cant harm anything immune to precision damage, and +5 from Studied Target. For accuracy, they have the +5 from Studied Target and +4 from Greater Quarry. So assuming the Slayer procs everything they need to, +26 damage and +9 to hit, though most of that damage is less effectual than true weapon damage due to being impossible to multiply.
So, whipping up a pair of very similar quick builds in my head, the level 20 fighter has +42 to hit and deals 2d4+46 damage, with a 15-20 crit rate (auto-confirming threats), and a x3 crit multiplier, while the Slayer has +44 to hit a studied Quarry, dealing 2d4+41 damage, with a 15-20 crit rate (auto-confirming threats), a x2 crit multiplier, and an extra 6d6 (21) damage that doesnt get multiplied on a critical.
So assuming, oh, lets say a Great Wyrm Red Dragon, if both of them attacked twenty times (attacking at the same rate, due to equal access to Boots of Speed/Speed Weapons and the same BAB), then the Fighter deals 1581 damage while the Slayer deals 1549 damage, all told. And then they each dole out their respective on-hit/on-crit/on-sneak attack effects.
Mind, this is done largely off the top of my head and doesnt factor archetypes. For instance two-handed Fighter would skyrocket that fighter's damage, and Im not intimately familiar with the Slayer's archetypes. Might do the same calculations for dual-wielding kukri builds for each, as well.