I don't think fighers need to be unchained as the primary problem with them is the quality of combat feat trees which is an all martial problem. I would complain about the quality of weapon training 2-4 but Weapon Masters Guide solved that well enough.Weapon Master Handbook, while interesting and well written did very little to adress the actual problems of the fighter class because as a companion line product it could NOT do that. Something was tweaked, but all things considered the problems with the fighter class remain unchanged. The fact is what the fighter needs first and foremost is a different focus on what a fighter should be: currently it's treated as the class for "bob the man at arms" while other classes give you Conan, Lancelot, Aragorn or Dartagnan. Instead the fighter needs to be a class of weapon and armor masters, with those even other martial classes should be considered mere dabblers if confronted with the fighter because they have other advantages over the fighter in other areas (rage, divine patronage, skill at tracking and killing certain creatures), intead the fighter feels like some sort of half hearted upgrade of the warrior NPC class.
To this day it's a great mystery to me why the devs decided the barbarian (arguably the strongest martial class) needed unchaining while the fighter was left alone and the only mechanic that could somewhat benefit the class was made optional (and as PFS shows it's not implemented unlike what happened with the new unchained classes).
Barbarian got an unchain not because of balance but mechanical complexity. Getting fluctuating ability scores affected too much and made it a book keeping mess from first level. Fighter got some 'side buffs' in that it's suggested to give fighters Combat Stamina or make it exclusive to fighter feats depending on how you want to implement it.
As for the Weapon Master Handbook; I'm not exactly concerned with what it does but the fact that it opens design space. Having feats that favor good Fort saves that interact with magic items helps martials in general to do something wondrous, and Advanced Weapon Training gifts fighters with design space that's exclusive to them opening up a lot of things. But the key point was that I think combat feats getting unchained would benefit all martials and vicariously the Fighter while unchaining the Fighter just deals with the Fighter.
What in the world do want to unchain about the unchained monk?
I want a tanky battlefield controller that's goods at maneuvers not a ki flavored beat stick.
What in the world do want to unchain about the unchained monk?I want a tanky battlefield controller that's goods at maneuvers not a ki flavored beat stick.
Play a Fighter or Brawler.
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Play a Fighter or Brawler.What in the world do want to unchain about the unchained monk?I want a tanky battlefield controller that's goods at maneuvers not a ki flavored beat stick.
so vanilla beat stick?
That's awful advice. You shouldn't just maliciously lie to people like that.
What's wrong with vanilla
Second most expensive spice on earth
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I'd like a full caster Bard
I didn't realize I wanted this until I gave 5e a read and the idea is actually really cool.
^Full caster Bard is what Enchanter Wizard (or at least a variant thereof) SHOULD have been. As it is, with Enchanter Wizard, as far as I can tell, you have almost as much incentive to dump Charisma as with any other Wizard. Mechanics-to-Flavor interaction does not compute.
Likewise, full caster Summoner is what Conjurer Wizard (or preferably a variant thereof -- you can do quite useful non-Summoning things with Conjuration) should have been -- no weird and broken compressed spell list until the balance issues could be figured out on the full-caster version, and then we could see about making a 6/9 caster semi-martial version to go with Bard (Enchantment), Magus (Evocation), Arcane Trickster Base Class (Illusion), and other hybrid classes that still aren't available.
What in the world do want to unchain about the unchained monk?I want a tanky battlefield controller that's goods at maneuvers not a ki flavored beat stick.
So a Unchained monk that grants bonuses to doing maneuvers as good Lore Warden Fighter?
Could even just make it an archetype.
Feats includes Combat Expertise as a choice.
Instead of 1st Ki pool power, he gains Maneuver Mastery (+2 CMB/CMD, at 7th it increases to +4, etc)
Instead of Still Mind, he gets Know Thy Enemy
Instead of Timeless Body gets Know Weakness.
I think there should be a re-chained book for classes needing bringing down a peg or 2!!!
COUGHCOUGH.... Shaman....SPLUTERSPLUTTER
Non-classes:
Unchained Favored Class Bonus: This mechanic is terrible. It really is what holds back Fighters, since they can only up their CMD (which is already good), whereas Warpriests can get feats, Barbarians a bonus to their strongest rage power, etc. It also creates a lot more racial imbalance. This needs to be scrapped.
Core Classes:
Unchained Cleric: This class suffers a bit from a lack of focus and resonant abilities. Perhaps Channel Energy should be an option among other talents you can gain at every odd level. Domains are usually a bit bland. Having tools to make a better combat Cleric or a better healing-focused Cleric or a better blaster Cleric baseline should help players feel more satisfied with their builds. Oracle is only more popular because it does this.
Unchained Druid: Same math problems as a Barbarian. A simplified Wild Shape wouldn't hurt. Rest of the class works well, if missing some scaling features. I'd probably replace bland stuff like Nature's Sense and Resist Nature's Lure and reorganize features to offer a steady set of choices for customization - like "learning" Wild Shapes or perhaps getting access to a selection of natural talents.
Unchained Fighter: Fighters are fine now that WMH is out. Thing is, no one should NEED a splat book (no matter how good that splat book is) to make a competent Fighter. Adding Advanced Weapon Training baseline, 4 skills + INT and making Bravery better from the get go would go a long way.
Unchained Paladin: Cut it with the alignment restriction. Let's settle with non-evil and non-evil deity, and you can totally make this work as a much more adaptable class. I think that this is one of the better designed classes otherwise so no much is missing here.
Unchained Ranger: Gotta fix the mess that is Ranger spellcasting. Grant CL = level and make Favored Enemy only a skill bonus, a non-situational damage bonus like the Guide archetype's Ranger Focus.
What in the world do want to unchain about the unchained monk?I want a tanky battlefield controller that's goods at maneuvers not a ki flavored beat stick.So a Unchained monk that grants bonuses to doing maneuvers as good Lore Warden Fighter?
Could even just make it an archetype.
Feats includes Combat Expertise as a choice.
Instead of 1st Ki pool power, he gains Maneuver Mastery (+2 CMB/CMD, at 7th it increases to +4, etc)
Instead of Still Mind, he gets Know Thy EnemyInstead of Timeless Body gets Know Weakness.
Still has poor will save and is still bad at battlefield control.
Just being able to reliably perform maneuvers is not nearly good enough.
I don't want all this gross damage either. Let me have a viable character that doesn't promote rocket tag (aka initiative race) at higher levels. (That means decent damage and tankyness that is not the same thing as being invincible)
What in the world do want to unchain about the unchained monk?I want a tanky battlefield controller that's goods at maneuvers not a ki flavored beat stick.So a Unchained monk that grants bonuses to doing maneuvers as good Lore Warden Fighter?
Could even just make it an archetype.
Feats includes Combat Expertise as a choice.
Instead of 1st Ki pool power, he gains Maneuver Mastery (+2 CMB/CMD, at 7th it increases to +4, etc)
Instead of Still Mind, he gets Know Thy EnemyInstead of Timeless Body gets Know Weakness.
Still has poor will save and is still bad at battlefield control.
Just being able to reliably perform maneuvers is not nearly good enough.
I don't want all this gross damage either. Let me have a viable character that doesn't promote rocket tag (aka initiative race) at higher levels. (That means decent damage and tankyness that is not the same thing as being invincible)
I want to answer this with a build but I know 100% that you are being factitious anyway.
I want to answer this with a build but I know 100% that you are being factitious anyway.
My standard would be something that works from levels 1-20.
But judging from your builds, I have a much higher standard of "working" than you do.
Probably?
Anyway, you should look into Brawlering.
The reason higher CR equals bigger for non-humanoid monsters is actually a specific decision to make it so in 3.0/3.5. It was seen as necessary to let players be able to guess how dangerous monsters were. You can see this in the size modifiers table for monsters. There were monster design guides where this was specifically spelled out. The one monster they had no choice but to break this rule for was the demilich.
Probably?
Anyway, you should look into Brawlering.
Yeah stuff like that. The brawler is awful at combat maneuvers. CMDs scale like crazy.
Lore warden gets barely enough of a bonus to be competent and they will still run into appropriate CR monsters where combat maneuvers are impossible.
Even then, the effect of combat maneuvers is not nearly strong enough. You need big numbers to inflict a minor inconvenience. You end up better off just fullattacking.
Use Dirty Tricks. Dirty Trick Master outright shut downs an enemy. Brawler is as good as it needs to be with combat maneuvers. You can get your CMB to a pretty respectable place. Not auto-lock high, but high enough.
Use Dirty Tricks. Dirty Trick Master outright shut downs an enemy. Brawler is as good as it needs to be with combat maneuvers. You can get your CMB to a pretty respectable place. Not auto-lock high, but high enough.
CR 25
CMDs: 66CR 23
CMDs: 47
CR 20
CMDs: 54, 53, 53, 64
CR 19
CMDs: 52, 51, 50
CR 18
CMDs: 49, 49, 44
Skip a bit
CR 10
CMDs: 34, 40, 30, 32, 31, 32, 31, 29, 30, 28, 32
Monsters by CR PRD
Forget even being reliable, you have to bend over backwards for combat maneuvers to even be possible for a brawler.
I think you are asking for a build.
LV20 Brawler
Human
S16+2 D15 C14 I10 W12 CH7
Indomitable Faith, something else
Progression:
1. Weapon Focus, Dirty Fighting
2. Improved Dirty Trick
3. Kitsune Style, CMTraining: Dirty Trick (rest don't matter)
4. +1 DEX
5. Kitsune Tricks, Iron Will
7. Greater Dirty Trick
8. Combat Reflexes, +1 STR
9. Kitsune Vengeance
11. Quick Dirty Trick, Dirty Trick Master
12. +1 STR
13. Improved Critical
14. Critical Focus
15. Dirty Critical Hit
16. +1 STR
17. Critical Mastery, Staggering Critical
19. Stunning Critical
20. +1 STR
Note this build has full Martial Flexibility to expedite feats you may need and to add versatility to the repertoire.
Assuming this gear at level 20:
+4 STR manual
+6 belt of physical perfection
+5 brawling cestus
Gauntlet of the Skilled Maneuver
So in terms of CMB on Dirty Tricks, you have
20+10 STR+5 Brawling Cestus+2 Gauntlet+5 maneuver training+4 feats
That's 46 CMB.
It's pretty respectable as a starting base.
Consider also that:
- Dirty Fighting will give you +4 to CMB when flanking.
- You can incur automatically-successful dirty tricks if you critical hit. These dirty tricks (which apply two different conditions) can be used to lower enemy CMD.
- If you land two dirty tricks on an enemy, it's gg. You apply two conditions with each (sickened and entangled, for example), and then on the second one you worsen them both (to nauseated and pinned, which is helpless) and totally remove them from the game.
If you are still not hot on the CMB, you can give up Martial Flexibility for the Mutagenic Mauler archetype and add a +6 alchemical bonus to STR on top of it, for a total of 49 CMB. Sure, you don't auto-lock a Balor Lord, but doing so might be a little bit too much to ask maybe. Flanking gives you a total of 53 CMB which gets you to dirty trick him to death on a 13, which ain't bad. Toss in a couple of buffs from the party (looking at that Skald!) and you got a stew going.
So with a bunch of specific magical items and your entire build built around the idea, you are sort of OK at combat maneuvers against things your cr or lower.
Meanwhile a barbar gets a +59 without even trying that hard. 3 magic items, one race power. Throw in the feats and you get ±63 and add a couple more rage powers and you can sunder spells.
Let me see the build.
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Still has poor will save and is still bad at battlefield control.
I grow weary of seeing this phrase. Not all classes can have good Will saves. And this coming from a Monk is like a Wizard/Magus fretting about not enough skill points.
Still has poor will save and is still bad at battlefield control.I grow weary of seeing this phrase. Not all classes can have good Will saves. And this coming from a Monk is like a Wizard/Magus fretting about not enough skill points.
let's date.
seriously, Monks have: free feats to take Iron Will, Wisdom-focus, Still Mind and Flawless Mind for high level play. Will saves are a non-issue.
Ki is an issue. Reliance on a handful of Style feats is an issue. Will saves are not.
You know, as much as people claim it's the most important save, I see fortitude and reflex as far more important than it. Why? Because I see them far more often than will, and I've seen PCs die from a failed reflex save from nearly full health and my own character almost died to another. The most harm I've seen from a failed will save from a PC was taking them out for a round or two. Only one time was worse and that was a case of charm person on a paladin causing him to grapple the rest of the party (and get grappled by one of the party members.)
Non-classes:
Unchained Favored Class Bonus: This mechanic is terrible. It really is what holds back Fighters, since they can only up their CMD (which is already good), whereas Warpriests can get feats, Barbarians a bonus to their strongest rage power, etc. It also creates a lot more racial imbalance. This needs to be scrapped.
I wouldn't want to scrap it, but make the quality more even -- as with VMC but tending more towards the low side, you can find a few gems, a bunch of real stinkers, and then a lot of blah stuff.
Core Classes:
Unchained Cleric: This class suffers a bit from a lack of focus and resonant abilities. Perhaps Channel Energy should be an option among other talents you can gain at every odd level. Domains are usually a bit bland. Having tools to make a better combat Cleric or a better healing-focused Cleric or a better blaster Cleric baseline should help players feel more satisfied with their builds. Oracle is only more popular because it does this.
Make Domains work more like mini-Mysteries. For Channeling, make this be the 1st level active power of new Curing and Infliction Domains instead of a core class feature of the Cleric; make the 1st level passive power (Domain Arcana?) be the spontaneous casting of the Cure-series or Inflict-series (as appropriate) spells; finally, in exchange for losing Channel Energy as a core class feature, Clerics get 3 Domains (unless an archetype reduces the number).
Unchained Druid: Same math problems as a Barbarian. A simplified Wild Shape wouldn't hurt. Rest of the class works well, if missing some scaling features. I'd probably replace bland stuff like Nature's Sense and Resist Nature's Lure and reorganize features to offer a steady set of choices for customization - like "learning" Wild Shapes or perhaps getting access to a selection of natural talents.
One other thing needs to be done with Wild Shape -- right now, the Totem Druids are rather uneven in power because Wild Shape works like Beast Shape {some_number}, which means that it doesn't give you certain powers that the animal you Wild Shape to actually has, and sometimes these are actually important. This needs to be fixed -- come on, a Druid who is really in tune with nature should be able to go over to the Animal side with more finesse than the average Sorcerer or Wizard of the same level.
Unchained Fighter: Fighters are fine now that WMH is out. Thing is, no one should NEED a splat book (no matter how good that splat book is) to make a competent Fighter. Adding Advanced Weapon Training baseline, 4 skills + INT and making Bravery better from the get go would go a long way.
+1 on that. I might even say that d12 HD would be in order. But first let's see what AMH has to offer.
One thing I would like to see (for all classes, but especially baly needed for Fighter and Bard) is to see abilities made more a-la-carte, so that a much smaller number of archetypes is needed. Just wading through all the Fighter (and Bard) archetypes is an exercise in endurance, especially when the archetype tables are not up to date or just plain wrong (and it's easy to see how they get that way in the first place).
Unchained Paladin: Cut it with the alignment restriction. Let's settle with non-evil and non-evil deity, and you can totally make this work as a much more adaptable class. I think that this is one of the better designed classes otherwise so no much is missing here.
Paladin needs to be a prestige class, and Holy Warrior prestige classes should be available for different alignments (including ones that are not Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil) and religions. Use Hellknight as inspiration.
Unchained Ranger: Gotta fix the mess that is Ranger spellcasting. Grant CL = level and make Favored Enemy only a skill bonus, a non-situational damage bonus like the Guide archetype's Ranger Focus.
Or maybe something related to Slayer's Studied Target?
I like the Ilsurian Ranger solution - half Favored Enemy damage to all enemies.
I'll second the motion for Unchained prestige classes. Prestige classes that are generic branches and hybrids of training paths that anyone with the right skills and natural talents can take should in many cases become archetypes or VMC options (actually VPC = Variant Prestige Class), while archetypes and even whole base classes that are strongly tied to a particular subset of religions (like Paladin/Antipaladin) should become prestige classes (like Hellknight).
* * * * * * * *
More thoughts on Unchained VMC (or maybe this should be called VMC Reloaded?): In addition to what has been said before about making the quality more even, it should be possible to choose VMC the same as your primary class to strengthen your specialization or open new options. For instance, Fighter (some archetype that trades out Bravery, Armor Training, and Weapon Training) VMC Fighter to get back a bit of Bravery, Armor Training, and Weapon Training, or White-Haired Witch VMC Witch (Reloaded version that actually works) to get a few Hexes after all.
Also need VMC options for quite a large number of classes that don't have them now (and that's not even counting prestige classes that could be made into VPC options, although that certainly does not apply to all prestige classes).
I wish that when a class is designed and published in the future, a VMC option for it would be designed and published at the same time.
Let me see the build.
barbar 20
18 strength base
+5 levels
+6 enhancement
+1 tome
+8 rage
= 38 str (+14 mod)
Rage power: Strength Surge, superstitious, witch hunter, spell sunder
+5 weapon
Feats:
Improved sunder
Greater sunder
Power attack
CMB: 20 bab + 14 str + 20 strength surge + 4 feat + 5 weapon = +63
Funny thing about the barbar. They don't have just one build that does combat maneuvers well. They don't have to devote all their resources to an auxiliary ability to do it with anysort of reliability.
Keep your nasty rage-cycling Grandpa Barbs out of my shiny new delicious Unchained thread.
Still has poor will save and is still bad at battlefield control.I grow weary of seeing this phrase. Not all classes can have good Will saves. And this coming from a Monk is like a Wizard/Magus fretting about not enough skill points.
That's cool and all, I just know I prefer chained monk to unchained because of things like a poor save and really adding very little but damage. Monk archetypes are also pretty cool.
It would be like if they made an unchained fighter that was still weaker than a martial master mutagen warrior eldtrich guardian (mauler familiar) VMC bard.
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Barbarian really need a rule where you can only turn rage on or off once per round. Would help with the rage cycle issue.
Keep your nasty rage-cycling Grandpa Barbs out of my shiny new delicious Unchained thread.
I like the unchained barbarian, but I wouldn't even attempt combat maneuvers with it. The strength stance is kind of nice for smashing things.
CMD scales stupidly. 10 + BAB + size + strength + dex + deflection + dodge + ect
vs
d20 + BAB + size + strength or dex + enhancement of weapon (on some) + to-hit modifiers + ect
I think CMD scaling is because with enough feats, you can do stupid things with a combat maneuver.
Also, the Unchained Monk is a straight design upgrade from the Vanilla Monk. The fact that is missing archetypes is not a design flaw. It also didn't add damage - it added a ton of flavor and options with style strikes and customizability with ki powers. Do I want more ki powers, archetypes and style strikes? You bet your ass. Would I have done it differently? Yeah. But it's a ridiculously better chassis than the regular Monk and anyone who says it's a sidegrade really needs to do a full comparsion of how much lifestyle improved with UnMonk.
I'm personally still waiting on my UnMonk martial artist archetype, though Everyman Gaming really aced that one on their release.
Umonk is simpler
I wouldn't even say this base monk is well optimized
But I'd rather have less damage than a lower will save and my poison immunity costing ki points.
Umonk is simpler
I wouldn't even say this base monk is well optimized
But I'd rather have less damage than a lower will save and my poison immunity costing ki points.
I'd rather have more mobility, damage, HP and sweet Style Strike options plus Dimension Door at 8th level than a couple of extra points on Will which I can just fix with Iron Will.
I'd rather have more mobility, damage, HP and sweet Style Strike options plus Dimension Door at 8th level than a couple of extra points on Will which I can just fix with Iron Will.Umonk is simpler
I wouldn't even say this base monk is well optimized
But I'd rather have less damage than a lower will save and my poison immunity costing ki points.
Hence why it is called a side grade.
Even if you do fail a will save a cleric/oracle can usually get rid of whatever is the problem with remove X/break enchantment/heal. Meanwhile death can only be stopped with Breath of Life if they get it to you on the first turn after it happens so if your cleric/oracle is unable to get to you...you're out until they can find a safe place to cast raise dead or the like.
Also hence and why mean the same thing. Don't be redundant by saying hence why. [/pet peeve]
Even if you do fail a will save a cleric/oracle can usually get rid of whatever is the problem with remove X/break enchantment/heal. Meanwhile death can only be stopped with Breath of Life if they get it to you on the first turn after it happens so if your cleric/oracle is unable to get to you...you're out until they can find a safe place to cast raise dead or the like.
Also hence and why mean the same thing. Don't be redundant by saying hence why. [/pet peeve]
1. At the cost of the cleric/oracle not doing something else
2. Requires actually having a cleric/oracle in the party which about 5% of my groups actually have one of those classes.
Hence why good will saves are important on tanky characters :P
1) One round of a cleric fixing a status is worth it, even if they are more combat focused. 1 cleric + 1 full BAB frontliner + 2 other party members > 1 cleric + 2 other party members, assuming the 2 other party members are the same of course. It's basic action economy and it's why summoning monsters is so powerful. Hell a warpreist or inquisitor is better off giving up their turn to get their ally back in the game most of the time. The major exception is if you're around the end of a fight, and you're usually facing statuses at the start.
2) Grab a cleric cohort or aggressively befriend the oracles in town then. Otherwise have everyone with a half-decent charisma score max their UMD ranks and grab a ton of scrolls of the spells you need. Seriously, a party that can't remove statuses has only themselves to blame...unless they're playing a campaign with really low loot availability, and if they're doing that then they really should have a dedicated status healer for crying out loud.
TL:DR Every party should have the cure to charmed/dominated/whatever rager on hand, no matter how high his will save is.
On a related note, unchained needs to redo the status healing spells on 6th level casters. Those guys need 3rd level healing spells on the 2nd level, 4th level on 3rd, 5th on 6th, and 7th on 6th. Pair up with dedicated healing archetypes and these classes can make do in the even that you have no clerics or oracles in your party.
1) Best answer is to just resist the effect.
2) Doesn't help that much for in combat
I've also been in parties where a player was kicked for intentionally building low will save characters that would attack the party. One time we had to kill him to remove the dominate effect and our cleric used breadth of life to bring him back. He then killed the cleric because my character killed him (I wasn't the cleric). (Also one of the 5% of groups with a cleric or oracle)
Since then, having a low will save is seen as basically trying to troll the group. (poor will save, low wis, no items or feats or traits to boost will save)
1) Dice happen, can't always resist everything. You need a backup plan for everything. Hero points count as backup plans.
2) It's like having a scroll of daylight. Doesn't seem that helpful at first, but you'll regret not taking it when the situation you need it for (in daylight's case, deeper darkness) pops up.
Also sounds like you don't play with very good people, what with having a troll problem and having a very low amount of clerics/oracles. Please tell me you at least have people that give out buffs to other people.
Please tell me you at least have people that give out buffs to other people.
We debate between calling the game mathfinder or buffinder
My more heavily optimized group views playing non-buffing classes as trolling (Well they at least sigh profusely).
Even with a bad status remover handy, a failed Will Save could still do massive damage to the party, depending upon timing (failed Will Save after bad status remover has acted but before the victim has acted = Very Bad) and success of the bad status remover (failed Caster Level Check on the Dispel/Break Enchantment = Very Bad).
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I think there should be a re-chained book for classes needing bringing down a peg or 2!!!
COUGHCOUGH.... Shaman....SPLUTERSPLUTTER
That's what they attempted with the Summoner. If they did a rechained Summoner which didn't have a bunch of required built it flavor, I might buy the book.
The current unchained only has the Rogue that interests me and I hate the new Summoner with a passion, not because I didn't think it needed rebalancing. They just needed to do a good job rebalancing and also needed to not include built-in flaver. That's why they invented archetypes.
But "New for 2017! Pathfinder more Unchained! We fixed the Summoner....again!" Sounds sick and twisted, but right.
Maybe not unchaining, but if they take another look at Core I'd like to see the wizard get adjusted a bit. I'd really like to see specialist wizards feel more like specialists. My enchanter specialist feels less like a master of enchantment and more like... a regular wizard who happens to have a few extra mildly to moderately useful special abilities and the only people I'm particularly better at with my chosen discipline are those who picked Enchantment as an opposed school... and even that goes away with Opposition Research.
That's what they attempted with the Summoner. If they did a rechained Summoner which didn't have a bunch of required built it flavor, I might buy the book.
Have to agree. Playing a summoner is hard to manage in a party because they're so strong and while the U-summoner fixes some of those problems, the way it kills the creativity and openness of the class really sours any positive balance changes for me.