What unchained rogue talents are not worth abandoning for a feat?
The fighter needs an ability that works similar to animal focus in its permanent form. A flexible buff he can change as a swift action that mainly helps out of combat but can give little bonuses in combat, too.Except fighters were designed to have the least number of moving parts possible.What? All those feat chains with complex prerequisites make the Fighter one of the most complex classes in the game. Far from the "fewest moving parts possible".
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glass.
i mentioned this, he didn't seem to care.
What unchained rogue talents are not worth abandoning for a feat?
I'd say a decent number, honestly. Bleed Attack is pretty good, for instance (while obviously situational, it can do ten times as much damage as Weapon Specialization if the combat goes on long). The talents aren't all bad.
I stand by my supposition that too much of the ingrained martial/caster disparity is revenge-fantasy for nerds. And I say that AS a bloody nerd for Zod's sake.And I establish a new supposition that that's completely absurd. I'm not after a revenge fantasy—I really like martials. I like a martial who gets by without "cartoonish" stunts, is all. I really dig characters like Boromir and Boba Fett—"ordinary" warriors thrust into battles with magic-users. The fact that both of those characters died quickly notwithstanding.
That's not to say martials should stay as they are, of course. Most of your suggestions are fine by me. But most people talking about "mundanity" are actually not trying to enforce the disparity. The people trying to "enforce disparity" (and while I call it that, I'm aware that they generally see it as enforcing a current state of equality) don't care about mundanity—when they post in threads like this, it's purely on a meta "This thread is unnecessary" level.
Boba Fett can only be seen as an ordinary warrior given the universe he lived in. I'd guess most don't think flying around shooting lasers and fire as an ordinary warrior type of thing (in the context of a fantasy game).
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My impression based on 3.5 then Pathfinder evolution, is that fighters were intended to be so good at combat from their bonus feats that they could use their regular feats for other options.
The problem is that most feats aren't as good as the class features that other classes (particularly Barbarians, Brawlers, Cavaliers, Gunslingers, Rangers, and Slayers) are getting. In instances like the Ranger and Slayer, who can grab prereq free bonus feats, the Fighter doesn't even have much of a relevant feat advantage. So you have all these classes that are capable of performing at the same level as the Fighter in combat, but are vastly superior everywhere else. The Fighter is left with two potential advantages- the ability to complete feat trees faster and gain access to more powerful abilities earlier, and..... his capstone Weapon Mastery, which is probably one of the best damage increasing abilities in the game but is only relevant for 1/20th of the game, at a level that most people won't even reach.
They could also spread out their ability scores a little to be charismatic, intelligent/skilled, etc. and still kick ass in combat.
Depends on your definition of "kick ass" I suppose. If "kick ass" means "be barely relevant against same CR Bestiary opponents while still not performing as well in or out of combat as its peers" that's fairly accurate.
Unfortunately, to keep up with caster characters, or what people on the internet say, many players felt forced to put all their ability scores and feats and equipment into combat. The "average" fighter stopped looking like Miyamoto Musashi, and ended up like Falchion Fred.
It's not just casters though. It's the other martial classes (as mentioned above) that are capable of consistently out-performing the Fighter, particularly out of combat. A Paladin can pump his CHA and get better on and off the field simultaneously. A Ranger can do the same thing with WIS, and a Slayer can do the same thing with INT. If I want Miyamoto Musashi, I can build him better through almost any class other than the Fighter.
Think of it this way: X is the minimum competency level required to deal with CR appropriate foes via combat. Y is the minimum competency level required to deal with CR appropriate non-combat challenges. A Fighter who focuses his total resources toward combat is X+2 (as long as the opponent isn't capable of targeting his two weak saves) but this leaves him at Y-2. To get to par Y, he has to give up his +2 to X, leaving him at par X and par Y (at best).
A Ranger is natively X+1 and Y+1, situationally capable of being X+3 and Y+2. If he chooses to invest more in a mental stat like Wisdom, he makes himself more effective out of combat, and simultaneously increases his spell casting potential, allowing him to perform at the same or even higher level in combat. A Slayer who invests in INT over STR not only widens his already substantial gap over the Fighter out of combat, he also boosts the DCs of potent Talents like Slowing Strike and Assassinate.
I can build a 10th level fighter with the ability to do decent archery, 2 handed combat, grapple, keep a good AC, AND still have feats and skills left over for diplomacy, will saves, etc. So I don't really see why people complain about the fighter being so bad, especially when they compare it to rogues, barbarians, rangers without animal companions, or other classes that seem to have the exact same claimed issues.
The Rogue has the opposite issue to the Fighter; he's got lots of out of combat potential, but he suffers in combat (something openly acknowledged by the Paizo staff, and which they attempted to address in Unchained). They both do have the shared issues of spells doing what they do better, I suppose. Barbarians and Rangers have actually been pointed to as examples of the goal Fighters can aim for, with more skills, better saves (the barbarian's boost to Will from Rage is substantially better than Bravery, and can be supplemented with options like Superstition), and options to interact meaningfully with a magical world.
I don't think you need to go full wuxia to make Fighters more meaningful either- let them hang relevant abilities on their non-feat class features, doing things like adding twice their Bravery bonus to their Diplomacy and Intimidate checks due to their reputation for fearlessness, or perform Combat Maneuvers in entirely different ways then other warriors. What if instead of taking an Improved X feat to not provoke an attack of opportunity, he relied on his armor to defend him and risked the AoO, but didn't suffer penalties to the maneuver if he gets hit? Then scale the bonus up alongside his Bravery bonus, allowing him to achieve a similar result with one feat, without overlapping the feats that most others use. (That's basically what I did here.)
Boba Fett can only be seen as an ordinary warrior given the universe he lived in. I'd guess most don't think flying around shooting lasers and fire as an ordinary warrior type of thing (in the context of a fantasy game).
I stand by my supposition that too much of the ingrained martial/caster disparity is revenge-fantasy for nerds. And I say that AS a bloody nerd for Zod's sake.And I establish a new supposition that that's completely absurd. I'm not after a revenge fantasy—I really like martials. I like a martial who gets by without "cartoonish" stunts, is all. I really dig characters like Boromir and Boba Fett—"ordinary" warriors thrust into battles with magic-users. The fact that both of those characters died quickly notwithstanding.
That's not to say martials should stay as they are, of course. Most of your suggestions are fine by me. But most people talking about "mundanity" are actually not trying to enforce the disparity. The people trying to "enforce disparity" (and while I call it that, I'm aware that they generally see it as enforcing a current state of equality) don't care about mundanity—when they post in threads like this, it's purely on a meta "This thread is unnecessary" level.
I wasn't using those two as proper examples (I've done that before). I was just naming them as two characters who inspire the vibe I like. But yeah, you should be viewing him within the context of the setting. Why in the name of Zagyg wouldn't you?
a fighter makes me think of some mook that isn't getting paid enough to try and stop these adventurers...
You know what wpuld help a lot and be cool? If you could actually use Vital Strike with other single attack things... like Iajitsu Strike + Vital Strike... or spring ATTACK + vital strike... or anything like that.. Now THAT wuld be cool and allow combat to be a bit more interesting..
What unchained rogue talents are not worth abandoning for a feat?I'd say a decent number, honestly. Bleed Attack is pretty good, for instance (while obviously situational, it can do ten times as much damage as Weapon Specialization if the combat goes on long). The talents aren't all bad.
Bleed is bad. Once you've injured something you're inviting the party to focus fire on it, which tends to kill them in a round or two. If you go up to one opponent and hit them the system encourages if not requires you to stand put and try to full attack them.
Thats a big part of the problem: the talents don't seem to realize how situational they are and have their power scaled back as if they were going to be working all the time.
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I wasn't using those two as proper examples (I've done that before). I was just naming them as two characters who inspire the vibe I like. But yeah, you should be viewing him within the context of the setting. Why in the name of Zagyg wouldn't you?Boba Fett can only be seen as an ordinary warrior given the universe he lived in. I'd guess most don't think flying around shooting lasers and fire as an ordinary warrior type of thing (in the context of a fantasy game).
I stand by my supposition that too much of the ingrained martial/caster disparity is revenge-fantasy for nerds. And I say that AS a bloody nerd for Zod's sake.And I establish a new supposition that that's completely absurd. I'm not after a revenge fantasy—I really like martials. I like a martial who gets by without "cartoonish" stunts, is all. I really dig characters like Boromir and Boba Fett—"ordinary" warriors thrust into battles with magic-users. The fact that both of those characters died quickly notwithstanding.
That's not to say martials should stay as they are, of course. Most of your suggestions are fine by me. But most people talking about "mundanity" are actually not trying to enforce the disparity. The people trying to "enforce disparity" (and while I call it that, I'm aware that they generally see it as enforcing a current state of equality) don't care about mundanity—when they post in threads like this, it's purely on a meta "This thread is unnecessary" level.
I think the other issue is that Boba Fett exists in a world where the "casters" generally don't have access to the same toys. He does stuff that is right on par with the casters, but in a "martial" way. Mandalorian armor can resist lightsaber attacks, he can fly more reliably than most "casters", and he's effectively got like five times the WBL of a "caster", unlike in Pathfinder where the casters are generally able to increase their effective WBL well beyond what a martial can.
Hmmm.... There's been a lot of suggestions in the thread KC indexed suggesting that Fighters should be able to summon up an army or gain a castle, which I agree may have some issues with forced narrative, but a holding would also allow you to graft an income onto the Fighter, a class feature that essentially increases WBL the same way (or better than) a caster's ability to craft. That would help mitigate his gear reliance by baking in a way to mitigate some of the costs of scaling his gear and still allowing plentiful room for situational and utility items. Maybe combo that with an "Item Affinity" amendment to Armor Training that allows him to bypass or gain bonuses to certain UMD checks...
And yet even when focus fire is a viable option (often, it isn't) it's still an automatic +1-+10 to damage. And don't forget that at low levels fights tend to go on longer. Bleed is also a versatile ability—you can use it to wear enemies down, or to motivate them to fall back and find a healer.
And yet even when focus fire is a viable option (often, it isn't) it's still an automatic +1-+10 to damage. And don't forget that at low levels fights tend to go on longer. Bleed is also a versatile ability—you can use it to wear enemies down, or to motivate them to fall back and find a healer.
it's a really weak damage type that is entirely mitigated by any healing and only works against stuff that bleeds and is cured by a DC 15 heal check.
there just aren't a whole lot of reasons why you shouldn't keep swinging at him and bleed damage doesn't stack, if you let his go then he can stop the bleeding in any number of ways.
now, in the vigor and health system, then when bleed hits actual HP and not vigor, does it become very useful.
And yet even when focus fire is a viable option (often, it isn't) it's still an automatic +1-+10 to damage. And don't forget that at low levels fights tend to go on longer. Bleed is also a versatile ability—you can use it to wear enemies down, or to motivate them to fall back and find a healer.it's a really weak damage type that is entirely mitigated by any healing and only works against stuff that bleeds and is cured by a DC 15 heal check.
The latter and former are irrelevant—nobody stops to heal themselves during combat. If they do, they've just sacrificed a whole round of attacks, making your bleed insanely effective.
The second is true, of course. It's limited in its applications.
And yet even when focus fire is a viable option (often, it isn't) it's still an automatic +1-+10 to damage.
Thats being more than a little overly optimistic. Its only a +X to damage to the monster once. If the fight is going 10 rounds you have to compare that to all of your hits over those ten rounds. Its use vs +damage or +hit drops severely the more attacks you can make.
[quote[And don't forget that at low levels fights tend to go on longer.
I don't find this to be the case for individual opponents, who tend to die as soon as they're whacked with a two handed weapon or two.
Bleed is also a versatile ability—you can use it to wear enemies down, or to motivate them to fall back and find a healer.
Not seeing any versatility there.
And yet even when focus fire is a viable option (often, it isn't) it's still an automatic +1-+10 to damage. And don't forget that at low levels fights tend to go on longer. Bleed is also a versatile ability—you can use it to wear enemies down, or to motivate them to fall back and find a healer.it's a really weak damage type that is entirely mitigated by any healing and only works against stuff that bleeds and is cured by a DC 15 heal check.The latter and former are irrelevant—nobody stops to heal themselves during combat. If they do, they've just sacrificed a whole round of attacks, making your bleed insanely effective.
The second is true, of course. It's limited in its applications.
to be clear usually this is done by the healer anyway, instead of casting cure light derp, they just smack the wound with a heal check and he keeps on chugging.
onto chugging, a lot of my bleedy mooks do carry a potion of cure light wounds.
There's a reason BW2 highlighted Focus Fire.
holy f@&$ someone used my nickname correctly...
And yet even when focus fire is a viable option (often, it isn't) it's still an automatic +1-+10 to damage.Thats being more than a little overly optimistic. Its only a +X to damage to the monster once. If the fight is going 10 rounds you have to compare that to all of your hits over those ten rounds. Its use vs +damage or +hit drops severely the more attacks you can make.
[quote[And don't forget that at low levels fights tend to go on longer.
I don't find this to be the case for individual opponents, who tend to die as soon as they're whacked with a two handed weapon or two.
Bleed is also a versatile ability—you can use it to wear enemies down, or to motivate them to fall back and find a healer.Not seeing any versatility there.
The versatility is in having two options other than "kill kill kill".
@Bandw2: Like I said, healing is essentially never done mid-fight.
And yet even when focus fire is a viable option (often, it isn't) it's still an automatic +1-+10 to damage. And don't forget that at low levels fights tend to go on longer. Bleed is also a versatile ability—you can use it to wear enemies down, or to motivate them to fall back and find a healer.it's a really weak damage type that is entirely mitigated by any healing and only works against stuff that bleeds and is cured by a DC 15 heal check.The latter and former are irrelevant—nobody stops to heal themselves during combat. If they do, they've just sacrificed a whole round of attacks, making your bleed insanely effective.
The second is true, of course. It's limited in its applications.
to be clear usually this is done by the healer anyway, instead of casting cure light derp, they just smack the wound with a heal check and he keeps on chugging.
onto chugging, a lot of my bleedy mooks do carry a potion of cure light wounds.
Personally, I'd consider the enemy spending a turn downing a potion (and possibly getting AoOed as well) a pretty good deal.
You're just noticing that now? I've done it several times over the past few days.There's a reason BW2 highlighted Focus Fire.holy f$!$ someone used my nickname correctly...
yes
Personally, I'd consider the enemy spending a turn downing a potion (and possibly getting AoOed as well) a pretty good deal.And yet even when focus fire is a viable option (often, it isn't) it's still an automatic +1-+10 to damage. And don't forget that at low levels fights tend to go on longer. Bleed is also a versatile ability—you can use it to wear enemies down, or to motivate them to fall back and find a healer.it's a really weak damage type that is entirely mitigated by any healing and only works against stuff that bleeds and is cured by a DC 15 heal check.The latter and former are irrelevant—nobody stops to heal themselves during combat. If they do, they've just sacrificed a whole round of attacks, making your bleed insanely effective.
The second is true, of course. It's limited in its applications.
to be clear usually this is done by the healer anyway, instead of casting cure light derp, they just smack the wound with a heal check and he keeps on chugging.
onto chugging, a lot of my bleedy mooks do carry a potion of cure light wounds.
if he stayed with him he's going to continue the fight obviously. which in that situation bleed doesn't stack.
Secrets of the Masquerade Reveler by Rite Publishing is a very cool Barbarian archetype who "rages" by entering a trance which grants them the abilities of certain archetypes, including but not limited to monsters and ideals such as "sage" or "Quickling."
The Masquerade Reveler can wear Masks which grant them a limited pool of evolution points in line with said Masks' theme. It is totally feasible for this class to put on a Pixie Mask and be able to fly and turn invisible, get a +8 bonus on a lot of Knowledge skills with Sage's Mask, or gain a quadrupedal form with Dweomercat Mask and Pounce and Rake.
There is also the War Dancer by Drop Dead Studios, who uses a rounds-per-day mechanic known as a Dance. They can learn unique Dances which grant them abilities for as long as they maintain it. Dance of Earth-Breaking can allow you to form tremors in the ground to trip opponents as a ranged attack and mold earth, while Unhindered Movement increases the class' base speed and the ability to continue moving through AoO squares even if they get hit.
War Dancers also get limited 4th-level divine spellcasting, a per-day True Strike ability, replace their AC with Sense Motive result for one attack, among other things.
Both products are good examples of martials getting nice things.
And of course, there's always the Path of War, which is one of my favorite Pathfinder books.
@atarlost
against CR appropriate enemies, fighters hands down give the highest non-nova damage output consistently downing enemies of their CR in 2 rounds or less.(it's all thanks to weapon training and weapon focus esque feats, so huge to-hit bonus and damage bonus)(i mean in the DPR PV fighter vs wizard thing that went down, the best fighter 1 shot any wizard first round with a longbow, he just had to win initiative which i forget how but he actually got it up to wizard levels, it was a lot of magic item shenanigans)
they just suck everywhere else, or if something happens that makes it impossible to bring their might to bare.
I stand by my supposition that too much of the ingrained martial/caster disparity is revenge-fantasy for nerds. And I say that AS a bloody nerd for Zod's sake.And I establish a new supposition that that's completely absurd. I'm not after a revenge fantasy—I really like martials. I like a martial who gets by without "cartoonish" stunts, is all. I really dig characters like Boromir and Boba Fett—"ordinary" warriors thrust into battles with magic-users. The fact that both of those characters died quickly notwithstanding.
That's not to say martials should stay as they are, of course. Most of your suggestions are fine by me. But most people talking about "mundanity" are actually not trying to enforce the disparity. The people trying to "enforce disparity" (and while I call it that, I'm aware that they generally see it as enforcing a current state of equality) don't care about mundanity—when they post in threads like this, it's purely on a meta "This thread is unnecessary" level.
Contrary to my moniker, I'm not going to say 'YER WRONG YOU SCALY THREADLOCK-SUMMONING BASTICH', in part because I, much as you did with my post, agree and disagree on yours.
I too like martials, rather much so in fact! However, the dismissive attitude of most people who come in to kibitz about the disparity threads are not after balance or parity. They are specifically of the mindset that magic is justified as an explanation for Batwizards and Shazamorcerers and the mandate that without magic, martials are nothing. Never mind that with RAW dice rolls, rather than being condemned to the limitations of non-heroic beings, martials should be well and truly capable of pulling off every martial hero of myth and lore's multitudes of abilities, from Cú Chulainn to any of the more fantastic exploits of any of the Authorian knights through even Herakles. And yes, that's even before the approach of Eastern Philosophy and the extrapolations that lead to wuxia.
But people call that cartoony while at the same defending caster shenanigans, which is why I am so very much my name about the matter.
It's not a case of thinking all the threads are necessary either out of an attempt to persuade - it's because there is a literal mental block that people have, a blind spot to the hypocrisy that makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills at their inability to see the juxtaposition of those two ideas and the non-cromulence that accompanies!
I had more to say, but I'll save it for when I get home from the commute.
Here's what I see at tables with fighters.
Skills:
They just give up, new players will roll skills at first, but will soon tune out. Giving fighters extra skill points would help(and everyone should just get perception gratis, and maybe UMD too), but part of the problem is their skill set becomes largely irrelevant by level 5, and they are never the best at anything. Getting a resource management bonus, something like add level to any str,con,dex skill/ability check 3 times/day would at least get players to roll skill checks again.
Asking questions:
Veteran players manage in this area with a little creativity, but new players especially quickly tune out because there isn't any rule mechanism for them to learn relevant information. Some clear information gathering mechanic would be a tremendous boon to fighters, and intimidate is tiresome, limiting and insufficient.
Downtime (crafting etx):
Fighters need a meaningful way to contribute to the group and also need an area of interest they can pursue individually. Without fail a spell caster has a thousand things they want to accomplish on downtime, getting anything more than a peep from fighters is a struggle. Fighters should just get leadership for free and be better at it than everyone, including paladins.
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The world as presented by pathfinder ruleset is full of magic, mundanes even if they can't use it should be able to $@#% with it, disrupt it, break it, make it go haywire and do incomprehensible things, etc.
What I would love to see is a book of extraordinary abilities (Ex), from a min max perspective they are the best, unfortunately designers seem reluctant to hand them out. A 100 strange, exotic, powerful, unsettlingly Ex abilities that qualify as combat feats and rogue talents could nearly solve the martial-caster disparity alone, I'm thinking stuff like this:
Force of will(Ex):
Pre req: 12hd
Once per day create a antimagic field which emanates from you for 1 round a level, lose 10 hp at the beginning of each turn until the effect is dismissed (move action to dismiss). At the end effect you gain the exhausted condition.
to bring their might to bare.
I believe you meant "Bring their might to bear."
To bare means to make naked. 'To bear' as a verb means to focus or point with. 'Bear your might' vs 'bare your teeth' is a nice contrast, for example. 'Bear left, then right, then straight ahead' is valid direction-making. 'Steady as she bears' is the same as 'steady as she goes on the current course'.
==Aelryinth
I don't think that Paizos' fighter class design philosophy is what you say it is. To be totally honest, I'm not really sure what you mean by playing like it was 1989, so I could be wrong. I would want to see something from the developers that backs up your statement.
Jason Buhlman says here: "I want to avoid making the class too complicated. It is important to have a few classes that are simple to play, either for beginners or casual gamers. The fighter should fill this role."
The fighter needs an ability that works similar to animal focus in its permanent form. A flexible buff he can change as a swift action that mainly helps out of combat but can give little bonuses in combat, too.Except fighters were designed to have the least number of moving parts possible.What? All those feat chains with complex prerequisites make the Fighter one of the most complex classes in the game. Far from the "fewest moving parts possible".
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glass.
Every character gets feats. By this logic every character is complex.
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Given the sheer quantity of combat feats a fighter can pick from, vs, say, rage powers or Talents, it is clear Buhlman failed miserably at his task.
:P
And that's in addition to all the OTHER stuff that is wrong.
==Aelrynth
to bring their might to bare.I believe you meant "Bring their might to bear."
To bare means to make naked. 'To bear' as a verb means to focus or point with. 'Bear your might' vs 'bare your teeth' is a nice contrast, for example. 'Bear left, then right, then straight ahead' is valid direction-making. 'Steady as she bears' is the same as 'steady as she goes on the current course'.
==Aelryinth
weird i thought the phrase was to make their might apparent, so my wording works. '3'
Interesting perspective. Given how complex fighters are then, I guess every single person who has ever complained about the simple fighter being boring or praising the fighter for being simple for the last 15 years have also been wrong. Strange that an entire community for a game, plus the developers who make the game, could all be so fundamentally wrong. I look forward to seeing you guys correct people who complain about the simple fighter being boring.
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Interesting perspective. Given how complex fighters are then, I guess every single person who has ever complained about the simple fighter being boring or praising the fighter for being simple for the last 15 years have also been wrong. Strange that an entire community for a game, plus the developers who make the game, could all be so fundamentally wrong. I look forward to seeing you guys correct people who complain about the simple fighter being boring.
Complex does not equal entertaining. If it did the Tax Code would be absolutely enthralling.
Interesting perspective. Given how complex fighters are then, I guess every single person who has ever complained about the simple fighter being boring or praising the fighter for being simple for the last 15 years have also been wrong. Strange that an entire community for a game, plus the developers who make the game, could all be so fundamentally wrong. I look forward to seeing you guys correct people who complain about the simple fighter being boring.
hey you said it was the simplest class, i simply said that was wrong, when i first started playing pathfinder i steered clear of it because they had so many feats. Paladin was easy, my spells were largely cure light wounds or what ever, though it didn't go for very long.
Aah, so your not actually committing yourself to saying the fighter is simple. Simply offering anecdotes that heavily implies that.
Anzyr: I never said complex was interesting. I said, according to you, everyone in the community complaining about the fighter being too boring did so using an invalid reason (it's simplicity). Thank god casters aren't so complicated with their daily resource managent beyond HP and their large list of spells to choose from and potentially change (for prepared casters) every single day.
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Aah, so your not actually committing yourself to saying the fighter is simple. Simply offering anecdotes that heavily implies that.
Anzyr: I never said complex was interesting. I said, according to you, everyone in the community complaining about the fighter being too boring did so using an invalid reason (it's simplicity). Thank god casters aren't so complicated with their daily resource managent beyond HP and their large list of spells to choose from and potentially change (for prepared casters) every single day.
Why on earth would you believe that the Fighter can't be both incredibly complicated to build well and boring to play because of his limited options? You're kind of being a smug jerk acting like one invalidates the other, when the truth is that both can be true simultaneously.
Having to map out feats to make sure you can meet prereqs, decide which feats you can/will take with your bonus feats so they can be retrained and which to use your regular feats for, making sure you've assigned a point buy that will support your build, sifting through all the feats available to figure out which will let me do the things I want... Planning a Fighter is incredibly hard, and then if I pick a trick that doesn't apply to the challenges I end up facing (for example, if the primary occupants of the dungeon we're exploring are stirges and oozes but my Fighter took the trip line of feats), then all that work I put in goes right down the toilet and I'm stuck with no option but to swing away, and my ridiculously complex Fighter is incredibly boring to play.
Aah, so your not actually committing yourself to saying the fighter is simple. Simply offering anecdotes that heavily implies that.
Anzyr: I never said complex was interesting. I said, according to you, everyone in the community complaining about the fighter being too boring did so using an invalid reason (it's simplicity). Thank god casters aren't so complicated with their daily resource managent beyond HP and their large list of spells to choose from and potentially change (for prepared casters) every single day.
i'm actually arguing that it isn't the simplest class with the "least moving parts" a ton of feats count as a ton of moving parts to me.
i found it fairly complex as a beginner who didn't know much about feats.
my table top career is a strange one where i went ADnD ->other stuff for a long time, not even most of it being d20 -> pathfinder.
Aah, so your not actually committing yourself to saying the fighter is simple. Simply offering anecdotes that heavily implies that.
Anzyr: I never said complex was interesting. I said, according to you, everyone in the community complaining about the fighter being too boring did so using an invalid reason (it's simplicity). Thank god casters aren't so complicated with their daily resource managent beyond HP and their large list of spells to choose from and potentially change (for prepared casters) every single day.
Lack of options is not the same as simplicity. Please use caution to avoid conflating things people are saying with things that would better serve your argument.
Why on earth would you believe that the Fighter can't be both incredibly complicated to build well and boring to play because of his limited options? You're kind of being a smug jerk acting like one invalidates the other, when the truth is that both can be true simultaneously.
Inhave conceded that the fighter can be complex and boring. Of course, I've always seen people complain it's simple and boring and it seems awfully convenient that people are now arguing it's complex and boring. But I struggle to understand how spells aren't just as complex as feats because you have to choose those spells as well and then manage their use. But you could argue feats are complicated than that, it's just an argument that contradicts every other argument I've seen about fighters (outside of AD&D players at least).
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Why on earth would you believe that the Fighter can't be both incredibly complicated to build well and boring to play because of his limited options? You're kind of being a smug jerk acting like one invalidates the other, when the truth is that both can be true simultaneously.Inhave conceded that the fighter can be complex and boring. Of course, I've always seen people complain it's simple and boring and it seems awfully convenient that people are now arguing it's complex and boring. But I struggle to understand how spells aren't just as complex as feats because you have to choose those spells as well and then manage their use. But you could argue feats are complicated than that, it's just an argument that contradicts every other argument I've seen about fighters (outside of AD&D players at least).
I disagree. Fighters are difficult to build, and then the reward for building one is a small number of options that either work, or don't. Complicated to build, simple and boring to play. No contradictions there. They're also horrifically unforgiving. Mistakes I make at level 1 can continue to be detrimental to my character for the rest of his career. With the Wizard, as long as the mistake wasn't dumping INT, I can fix pretty much any mistake or bad choice I make almost immediately. If I pick a bad spell, I've got other spells to rely on and I just won't prepare that one again. If I spend all my feats on learning a combat maneuver and that combat maneuver doesn't apply to the situation, I'm living with that choice for a few levels, at least. If I want to cast fireball, I choose it as one of my new spells when I hit 5th level. If I want to be good at tripping, I first have to make sure I have at least a 13 INT but still keep enough DEX and STR to successfully use and resist maneuvers (not to mention get the full benefit of my Armor Training), then I have to pick up a feat I'll probably never use, and then I can finally take the first feat that allows me to trip with some chance of success. At which point I can finally sit down at the table, walk up to an enemy, and say "I attempt to trip him".
The ideas aren't at odds with any arguments I've seen, and the idea that the Fighter is incredibly complicated isn't at odds with the fact that he's also simple and boring to play.
The UC rogue got its combat levels where it needs to be. It just didn't get its skills where they needed to be. Skill unlocks are very meh, and the skill talents are bad. This means that they either need to take another whack at the skill unlocks (unlikely) or make some good rogue talents without so many caveats that it becomes useless.
we did that in like 10 topics in the past 2 weeks, look through my threads and look up badass talents for my home brew, if you want good 3pp, the warlord was already listed.
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Hey, so after the argument about whether or whether fighters are or aren't fine the way they are, and if the Rogue bleeding talent is OK, can we hop back to suggesting how to make the fighters/rogues/monks on par with Paladins and Barbarians skillwise and combatwise?
Monks- Use the Unchained Monk. Flying Kick helps all its options synergize, and it generally kicks ass. Sure it has weak Will now for some reason, but it's incentivized to pump it's Wisdom, and if that isn't enough for your taste, switching it to strong Will is a simple tweak. Alternatively, do some serious archetype mashing and pick a good style tree; Qinggong/Sensei with Mantis Style is my favorite.
Rogues- Start with the Unchained Rogue. Change his Finesse Training so that it also applies DEX to damage on ranged attacks, then add the full repertoire of Ninja Tricks and the Poison Use ability to his Rogue talents. Throw in a Grit or Ki pool for the limited use ninja tricks depending on your thematic preference. Basically good to go.
Fighter- Better and more efficient feats. If feats are his class features, they should be as good as class features. Hang them on his unique class abilities (preferably Armor Training and/or Bravery), and make them relevant to game narrative. A scaling bonus to social skills based on twice his Bravery, shortcut combat feats that let him use maneuvers in a unique way without invalidating the traditional Improved/Greater trees so he can afford more non-combat feats. Ways to apply his Bravery bonus to more saves, especially Reflex and Will (beyond just fear effects). Apply Bravery to the DC to Intimidate a Fighter, maybe even give him unique uses for his other skills and maneuvers, let him wrestle a wyvern into submission and make it his permanent mount (I guess Leadership kind of does that, but it comes with a lot of other baggage that GMS tend not to want to deal with, so it seems to be almost universally banned, including in Pathfinder Society). Give him ways to interact with the magical world he lives in, like carving a safe swath out of an AoE spell as an immediate action, or following an enemy through their own teleport effect to stop them from escaping. Most of those are options I put in The Genius Guide to Bravery Feats, and they've been pretty well received, and made for some really fun and thematic Fighter builds that really felt like fantasy heroes without seeming "too wuxia".
Complicated to build, simple and boring to play. No contradictions there.
This comment is specific enough that yes, that is correct.
Hey, so after the argument about whether or whether fighters are or aren't fine the way they are, and if the Rogue bleeding talent is OK, can we hop back to suggesting how to make the fighters/rogues/monks on par with Paladins and Barbarians skillwise and combatwise?
I tried and got belittled and insulted for it.
Going to throw this out as a point of consideration.
Anyone here experimented with FantasyCraft?
They kinda get martials right, IMNSHO.
I'd like to crib from their methodology.