Are people planning more? Have some been finished, and they just haven't found the time to type it up yet?
There seems to be a lot of discussion, but very little actual data.
I built my 'magical boy' vigilante but the playtest came out at a bad time for me. I have no game to play it in until this Saturday.
I have a question; Would you consider running solo while your fiance GMs a PFS module while you both watch Netflix as adequate for playtest reports? I got bunches to say from that front but without a party, undivided attention, and a micron of seriousness it seems silly to report on.
I believe that solo-solo-play is somewhat helpful, but it'd be much more helpful if it was in a party, even if the party is controlled entirely by 1 person. I believe Mark has said as such too.
I wonder if a Kickstarter-style "reward" system would work to get more playtests. Instead of money, it'd be playtests, so that every few playtests, maybe a generalist vigilante talent could be posted.
I tried that system with the medium, revealing spirits. It didn't appreciably raise medium playtests though.
Yea, I was thinking after the post how that was actually tried previously.
Guess that's just the nature of online playtests.
Lead Designer
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Well, I think folks will be able to easily find an argument to support whatever they are seeing in their sessions due to the sheer volume of posts. That said, we still value actual playtest feedback quite highly. There have been numerous times in the past where the conventional wisdom posters ended up coming out a bit off the mark once playtest feedback came in.
This is part of our due diligence in creating rules material.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
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I'm actually very interested in doing some playtesting, but the concept I wanted to try is simply too weak to be a real challenge. The Zealot is the weakest of all the specializations, and no tricks I can think of would allow it to be an appropriate challenge - and tricks aren't an appropriate playtest at any rate.
I may come up with something else, but I haven't yet.
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For those of us who almost exclusively play PFS, full playtests are tough. You only really would get to test the first couple levels, which isn't a good playtest.
With that said, I've thrown together several mock battles, where I pulled encounters from modules/scenarios and rebuilt some of the NPC's as vigilantes, trying to keep the same feats and tactics, but using the new class features instead. It's made for some interesting results, but haven't posted anything to the playtest forum since we didn't play through any full adventures in this fashion, and the players aren't playing the class long term.
I built a few vigilantes myself (Stalker with Up Close and Personal and Leave an Opening focused on mobility, a Captain America Avenger, and an Archer Warlock who prestiges into Arcane Archer to get Imbue Spell for shenanigans) and after building such characters I can see that they aren't bad - the Stalker deals very consistent Hidden Strike damage and keeps his mobility up, the Avenger has enough bonus feats from talents to be great Unarmed and while TWFing with his Shield, and the Warlock augments his attacks with buffs, Imbue Arrow, and Arcane Striker to reach high attack and damage bonuses while preserving his versatility. My armchair analysis of these three characters is rather optimistic, and when I have the time I'll run a playtest myself. I think the Vigilante has plenty of potential and can't wait to see what others report.
I tried that system with the medium, revealing spirits. It didn't appreciably raise medium playtests though.
Might have got more of a response with kineticists considering how many folks were chomping at the bit for new previews.
I tried that system with the medium, revealing spirits. It didn't appreciably raise medium playtests though.Might have got more of a response with kineticists considering how many folks were chomping at the bit for new previews.
The difference, though, being that I needed playtest data to make the right new kineticist wild talents for the limited space, and I had included all of the currently-extant talents in the playtest, whereas more medium spirits already existed at the time, so it was possible to grab and preview 'em.
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Well, I think folks will be able to easily find an argument to support whatever they are seeing in their sessions due to the sheer volume of posts. That said, we still value actual playtest feedback quite highly. There have been numerous times in the past where the conventional wisdom posters ended up coming out a bit off the mark once playtest feedback came in.
This is part of our due diligence in creating rules material.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
I know you guys tend to value your crowd-sourced playtesting but have you considered hiring professionals? That seems like an easy way to weed out the armchair analysis that seems to be so popular.
The crowd here is pretty professional -- when they aren't screaming at each other. But in general the people I see on the board, whether I disagree with their assessment or not, really do know what they are talking about when it comes to Pathfinder.
Not to mention hiring people takes money and eats into profits. Why do that when people are eager and willing to look over the material and help?
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I know you guys tend to value your crowd-sourced playtesting but have you considered hiring professionals? That seems like an easy way to weed out the armchair analysis that seems to be so popular.Well, I think folks will be able to easily find an argument to support whatever they are seeing in their sessions due to the sheer volume of posts. That said, we still value actual playtest feedback quite highly. There have been numerous times in the past where the conventional wisdom posters ended up coming out a bit off the mark once playtest feedback came in.
This is part of our due diligence in creating rules material.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
We like hearing from you guys and we also like you guys to be able to hear from us too, and see some things in advance. We do realize that people will all have their own ideas about what is weak and what is strong (Shelyn knows, the APG summoner playtest included many people who wanted the class to be buffed and the reaction to it being reined in for the final APG, an incarnation that still proved unbalancing in a plurality of people's games, met with displeasure that it was being "nerfed too much"). It comes with the territory, and it's worth it.
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The crowd here is pretty professional -- when they aren't screaming at each other. But in general the people I see on the board, whether I disagree with their assessment or not, really do know what they are talking about when it comes to Pathfinder.
'Knowing your stuff' is not the only qualifier for being a professional.
Not to mention hiring people takes money and eats into profits. Why do that when people are eager and willing to look over the material and help?
Editors cost money and eat into profits too but Paizo still pays them because they improve the final product.
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The crowd here is pretty professional -- when they aren't screaming at each other. But in general the people I see on the board, whether I disagree with their assessment or not, really do know what they are talking about when it comes to Pathfinder.'Knowing your stuff' is not the only qualifier for being a professional.
Not to mention hiring people takes money and eats into profits. Why do that when people are eager and willing to look over the material and help?Editors cost money and eat into profits too but Paizo still pays them because they improve the final product.
I'm sorry, I seem to have missed what the qualification is, then? Unless you mean someone who gets paid for this, in which case they have a bunch of those people in house, yes?
My point was that paying additional people to do what the people here are already doing may lead to higher prices on our end, the sort of thing that people tend to be unhappy about. Given that many of the people in these boards are third party product creators, freelancers, and otherwise in the industry I would think that they have a few more qualifications than just knowing their stuff -- not that they need more than that, since knowing how the game works and how the classes interact is a large portion of what is needed here.
Have they confirmed a second iteration already? It's true that playtests with a lot of houserules isn't as useful, as that isn't necessarily testing the actual class, but it can still be useful, as long as the house rules aren't huge.
And even though Mark totally pulled out my favorite example of why armchair theorycrafting is less useful than actual playtest data, I'll at least link the thread here where people are complaining about how useless the APG summoner is.
It is quite eye-opening at just how different armchair theorycrafting is from actual playtest data.
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And even though Mark totally pulled out my favorite example of why armchair theorycrafting is less useful than actual playtest data, I'll at least link the thread here where people are complaining about how useless the APG summoner is.
It is quite eye-opening at just how different armchair theorycrafting is from actual playtest data.
That just shows me there are a lot of really bad theorycrafters out there. I make a lot of characters, and I can't ever recall one not working just like I expected it too when transitioning from on paper to in play.
Well, my actual PbP playtest starts tomorrow (hopefully, only 3/5 sheets are finished so far). It is a converted level 1 adventure (added numbers, or levels as appropriate) I made fit a level; 2 party of Vigilantes (requirement is need 1 leve1, they can multi-classed).
Took time to get everyone gathered, make characters, etc. Must be easier in person, but online is slower.
Everyone is making their combat identity basically like a superhero.
Personally, I wasn't able to organize a playtest game until this coming weekend. Nobody wants to drop Free RPG Day. ;-)
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I am playtesting a vigilante for PFS, he is one experience away from level 3, and then has one experience till level 4. I don't want to give a report on a class when I am still in the level range where some classes haven't even come online. For people playtesting in PFS the data is going to come in more slowly because there are only so many sessions you can play per week.
The thing is though.. Many of the aspects of the Vigilante don't need to be playtested since they already exist...
Avenger: This guys is more or less a Poor Man's Slayer or a slightly better fighter, however you want to look at it. Nothing really original here. Sure it works (beyond the issues with the Vigilante as a whole... like the timing of the Guise shifts), but nothing really new or groundbreaking here...
Zealot: This guy is literally just a bad Inquisitor/Pally mix... Lets see, he gets:
Channel Energy at -4 level. Nothing really ground breaking. Same as a the Pally Ability.
Discern Lies: literally a copy and paste from Inquisitor.
Divine Bastion: a minor bonus to CMD. Useful maybe against things that like to bull rush but otherwise kinda situational.
Divine Training II-VI: allows the Zealot to be worse than an Inquisitor at spell casting. This is not subjective at all. They are using the Inquisitor spell list, and they have less spells per day. Flat out worse than inquisitor.
Domain: Again, same as the Inquisitor.
Empower Symbol: A thematic ability but kinda meh all in all.
Life Bond: literal rip from Oracle of Life.
Penance Gaze: cool idea, sadly not very effective all in all due to Will being a common high save.
Revivifying Touch: A cool ability finally
Stalwart: Shameless rip from inquisitor
Stern Gaze: Shameless rip from Inquisitor.
Track: again, shameless rip from Inquisitor/Ranger
Not sure Penance Gaze, Empower Symbol, Life Bond, Revivifying Touch, and Stalwart are worth Bane, Judgments, Monster Lore, Cunning Initiative, Detect Alignment, Solo Tactics, a whole host of bonus Teamwork feats, Solo tactics, Exploit Weakness, and Slayer AND better spell casting... so again, not much playtesting needed here since we know full well what it pretty much is.
Warlock: This one is actually interesting and decent. Playtesting is useful here since it actually has newer abilities (the Bolt being the big one). The only real glaring issue is that it is hard to try the new abilities since spell casting pretty much eats most your talents, and spell casting is kinda useful for the Bolt ability since it also improves you ability to bypass SR (seeing as someone thought it a good idea to make the bolt a Sp ability and not a Su ability...)
Stalker:
Another Day: Nifty... but it kinda requires you to die (or mostly die). If this ability is helpful more than once... you got some problems... Much better for NPCs than PCs...
Case the Joint: again, cool and flavorful, but kinda lacking in application since it kinda requires you to be there well ahead of time. Sometimes it could be useful (like say at a bar or something that standing around for an hour is not suspicious), but other times... not so much (like if you have to storm a place, unless you want to leave your buddies behind and kinda stealth the place for a hour).
Expose Weakness: Cool sounding I guess. Requires hefty use of Dirty Trick.
Foe Collision: pretty cool, so long as you have two enemies adjecent to each other AND you can land your Pseudo-sneak attack damage
HiPS: always good.
Leave an Opening: again cool ability.. if you can get your pseudo-sneak attack to stick.
Mighty Ambush: Awesome ability that has potential... if it wasn't for the Fort save. Much like Stunning Fist, we can tell this ability won't stick often because Fort Saves are just too common a strong save...
Mockingbird: Situationally useful. Not horridly powerful or anything but has RP applications.
Perfect Fall: If the monk is any indication, this ability won't be selected very often...
Perfect Vulnerability: Pretty cool. Pretty much an auto sneak attack 1/day per enemy for a standard action...
Pull into Shadows: would be a nift ability if it wasn't for the fact that there is he Unaware tag... if it was an enemy that does not observe him it would be amazing, but unaware is really hard to pull off...
Rogue Talent: self explanitory. No need to play test due to roue existing since forever...
Rooftop Infiltrator: Nifty in an urban setting... would be much better if not for the stipulation that YOU PERSONALLY have to set the rope... not even if your buddy who is also a stalker vigilante sets it do you get full movement speed... which seems kinda... odd
Shadow's Sight: Decent ability. Pretty straight forward.
Silent Dispatch: pretty cool. pretty much a minor boost to beat he DC... the problem is he is unlikely to completely take out an opponent in a single turn...
Sniper: cool if you could land Sneak Attacks consistently at range...
Strike the Unseen: now a cool ability. I like this and it actually works pretty well.
Suprise Strike: Sounds cool, but in practice it is effectively over kill a lot. The only time it really comes into play is against heavily armored opponents.
Throat Jab: thematically cool, effective against mages, otherwise kinda meh all in all.
Twisting Fear: Without built in ways to inflict fear conditions, it is kinda meh... Now if the Stalker had the Zealot ability then maybe :P
Up Close and Personal: Pretty much Spring Attack.
GIANT CAVIATE: All these abilities are cool and all but they all depend on what amounts to a weakened form of Sneak Attack. And from what we have seen from the Rogue AND slayer, depending on sneak attack is just not consistant enough....
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The thing is though.. Many of the aspects of the Vigilante don't need to be playtested since they already exist...
Avenger: This guys is more or less a Poor Man's Slayer or a slightly better fighter, however you want to look at it. Nothing really original here. Sure it works (beyond the issues with the Vigilante as a whole... like the timing of the Guise shifts), but nothing really new or groundbreaking here...
So, for example, you're not curious whether an AC-oriented avenger might be able to abuse (beyond its intended purpose, anyway) Mad Rush? Because I keep looking at Close the Gap, Mad Rush and Shield of Fury and thinking, "Hmmmmmm..."
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"Doesn't need to be playtested," is the common refrain from those who armchair analyze, "it's obvious how this will work, given X, Y, and Z."
But the thing is that if you want your opinions to be considered more, you should still playtest. And playtest fairly! Because armchair analysis is prone to missing details and people on the forums almost invariably want things stronger during the playtests, so it's hard to separate actual good ideas from the usual "buff buff buff buff buff", and playtesting reports helps with that greatly.
I'm quite glad to see that others are planning on more playtests. Since high level playtests are rare, I will probably aim my own tests there.
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I still find the armchair to be valuable, because without it I have no idea how to build the character I'm expecting to test nor what to expect from it.
A good play test needs both to be successful imo.
Also I like armchairs.
I've been doing my 15th level warlock playtest, but I was going to continue more encounters before I make some comments since I've only combated easy encounters so far.
Question, it's fair to have an bound elemental in battles where the character would reasonably have the elemental follow him beforehand isn't it?
So, for example, you're not curious whether an AC-oriented avenger might be able to abuse (beyond its intended purpose, anyway) Mad Rush? Because I keep looking at Close the Gap, Mad Rush and Shield of Fury and thinking, "Hmmmmmm..."The thing is though.. Many of the aspects of the Vigilante don't need to be playtested since they already exist...
Avenger: This guys is more or less a Poor Man's Slayer or a slightly better fighter, however you want to look at it. Nothing really original here. Sure it works (beyond the issues with the Vigilante as a whole... like the timing of the Guise shifts), but nothing really new or groundbreaking here...
You still take the -4 from Mad Rush.
Also, Barbarian has exsisted with pounce for years, this is effectly pounce with a Two Weapon Fighting Shield. Sword and Board is already a pretty well known style (nothing new here) and its combat effectiveness is already known (worse than 2 handed power attacker, slightly better than normal 2 weapon fighting if you can get all the feats) and the problems with 2 weapon fighting is already known (you need to split your wealth between 2 weapons instead of just one). The other thing to note though is that even though the Avenger has effective full BAB, he has no other accuracy boosters like the fighter (weapon training), Barbarian (rage), or ranger (Favored Enemy+Instant Enemy). This will reduce his effectiveness a bit since 2 weapon fighting takes a hit to accuracy.
Close the gap is nice since it allows you to charge a enemy with reach without worry but not exactly something that does not have obvious application, and more or less a niche case in urban settings (unless your charging guys with spears often). Mad Rush is pretty much Pounce. Again, nothing terribly new here. Barbarian and Alchemist have been enjoying this for years.
So all in all, still nothing new. We already have an idea of how it will end up (pretty much look at the barbarian with beast totem and give him 2 weapon fighting vs 2 handed weapon). The lack of a accuracy boost and the penalty to hit (sadly it comes with the territory of 2 weapon fighting) will ding his effectiveness some what, but the ability to pounce without triggering an AoO on reach does help. So again, not terribly broken or anything. Just able to do the Martial job. Nothing terribly new.
"Doesn't need to be playtested," is the common refrain from those who armchair analyze, "it's obvious how this will work, given X, Y, and Z."
But the thing is that if you want your opinions to be considered more, you should still playtest. And playtest fairly! Because armchair analysis is prone to missing details and people on the forums almost invariably want things stronger during the playtests, so it's hard to separate actual good ideas from the usual "buff buff buff buff buff", and playtesting reports helps with that greatly.
I'm quite glad to see that others are planning on more playtests. Since high level playtests are rare, I will probably aim my own tests there.
But again, if this class offered something ACTUALLY NEW then sure.
But the fact that Zealot pretty much rips off the inquisitor whole cloth but doesn't get its good abilities (Judgments and Bane) means we already know HOW the zealot it. It is a weaker inquisitor. Playtesting the zealot is more or less redundant.
The Avenger is more or less a bunch of bonus feats. I mean, look at his talents, nearly all but like 2 simply state "the avenger gains X as a bonus feat" and one of them IS SPECIFICALLY A BONUS COMBAT FEAT. This puts them in the realm of Fighter and Slayer. We know the effectiveness of the Slayer and the Fighter. He more or less has the same feats as a fighter but more skills but lacks a accuracy booster/damage booster. So this pretty much puts him right between a Slayer and a Fighter. Again, nothing terribly new.
The Stalker does have new looking abilities but many of his abilities require him to pull off a pseudo sneak attack. Again, he lacks any sort of Accuracy Booster so he is looking very much like a rogue right now. You can compare him to the rogue pretty easily and the few play tests popping up with him show, low and behold, many people are pretty much saying he is a rogue with worse sneak attack and a good will save. Again, nothing particularly new here. This is Core Rogue mind you, not the unchained rogue. Unchained rogue may actually be better than the Stalker.
Warlock is, as I had said, the one that does need to get play tested. The ability to have a glove of storing at all times is very nice, and the Bolt ability does have to tested to measure it's effectiveness (the lack of ANY feat other than weapon focus effecting it and being Sp kinda hurts but it being a touch attack that you can use in a normal attack sequence is very useful and has to be measured. On a side note, I am glad it is 1d6+level instead of 1d6/2 levels since that would open up the Bolt to Vital strike shinanigans for sure). The spell casting talent requirement does hurt though... So again, THIS GUY needs to get tested.
So yeah... most of the Vigilante is has been around for a while. He is nothing new. The Warlock is the only exception to this.
Don't forget Warlock is an 6th spell level caster version of arcanist (without spell points). They have a spell book, a prepared list (a number off spell book), and cast spontaneously off that list.
They should have made the Zealot the same way. Unlike Inquisitor, it could know all its possible spells then.
Yes, it would make Warlock and Zealot cut/paste til we get to specializations, but then each would be unique (compared to other classes) still.
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Is it just me, or does anyone else loathe the term "armchair theorycrafting"?
I mean, this really bugs me. Seriously bugs me. Viscerally.
The term "armchair analyzing" comes from people who evaluate and judge high intensity and high stress situations after the fact, as if a person with limited knowledge during that high intensity situation would have made the same decision. And it also typically refers to someone who is not experienced in those high intensity situations. Such situations are typically real life combat - like warfare - or police officer involved shootings or firefighting and rescue. Serious life or death situations.
Analyzing classes for pathfinder Is nowhere nearly the level is high stress and life risking that it justifies using the term "armchair." Applying that term is hugely insulting to me - as if my analysis of something is invalidated simply because I haven't yet played it in a game. Like you can just brush aside my analysis because it hasn't crossed that magical barrier of gameplay. There really isn't that much difference between a theorycraft and gameplay; not like the difference between true armchair analysis after-the-fact of warfare.
Please do not use that term. It's insulting, it's condescending, and it makes it look like you won't even consider the words of people who are giving good analysis, just because it hasn't crossed your threshold. It's like people who try to say that my scientific analysis is inaccurate because I haven't tried the product for myself - which is utter BS of the product is invalidated by basic scientific principles (like homeopathy).
Actually - that's literally what this is. You're claiming that an analysis of a class cannot be done unless someone tries t or for themselves. This is absolutely false, and treating people like it is true is flat out insulting to their intellect and flat out condescending to them by dismissing what they say wth a hand wave of "you haven't tried it yet."
It doesn't matter if your playing or theorycrafting - both are done from armchairs. Don't treat people as lesser simply because they're analyzing your product without trying it for themselves.
The term "armchair analyzing" comes from people who evaluate and judge high intensity and high stress situations after the fact...I'm googling 'armchair analysis' and I'm getting a bunch of random stuff including the NFL. Is "armchair analysis" really a thing?
I thought "armchair theorycrafting" came from "armchair detective".
I tried to generalize the term by using "analysis;" it came from "armchair general" and related to people judging combat from the safety of their office. Then the sports arena picked up on it. Now table top gaming as well.
I don't know if it's any consolation to you, but googling "armchair detective" gets a wikipedia hit right away, whereas googling "armchair general" doesn't. It might mean that the former phrase is more commonly acknowledged.
And "armchair detective" is not really a derogatory phrase.
I guess that if you don't mind your analysis being hand waved away as inadequate and inferior just because, then you wouldn't find it insulting.
Also, I found an actual definition rather quickly:
a person who offers advice or an opinion on something in which they have no expertise or involvement